Survival mechanisms... concepts?

[Pussycat669]

Hi y'all,

I hope it's ok to post ideas about cRPGs in here as well. Apologies if that's not the case.
What I'm specifically looking for are conceptual errors in the rpg system of a small project of mine where the survival theme takes a central role in character development in form of degeneration. I'm also searching for inspiration from other rpg systems (p&p or otherwise) where (permanent) PC degeneration takes part in his development and would be really grateful for any examples where it was done (only example I could come up with was Cthulhu with its Mythos skill).   

The main gist is this:
Your PC is defined by a set of attributes and a set of skills. Attributes range from 10 to a timeframe times 100 (in my case (imc) 300 for 3 in-game months). PC skills are percentage values ranging from 1 to 99 which are in direct relation to attributes. For example melee would be a combination of Strength/Dexterity or as a formula: ((Str/2 + Dex/2 )/300 * 100) (variable factor) plus eventual bonuses from the PC background (constant factor).
For not-human creatures or handicapped humans whose maximum attribute values may drift away from the timeframe and which therefore may vary among each other, skills orient themselves at the attribute with the highest maximum value. So if for example we've got a creature with 410/500 Str and 250/300 Dex, Melee would be calculated with ((Str/2 + Dex/2 )/500 * 100) + Bonus. 
After a certain hunger period passes (imc a day) each attribute value would drop by a degeneration factor (imc 2/3/5 depending on difficulty level) if it's not 'satisfied'. An attribute is satisfied if a certain type of food was consumed before the hunger period ends. In that case the PC only looses half of the degeneration factor rounded down (imc that would be 1/1/2). For balance reason the PC can only consume a limited supply of food during a hunger period.
The idea behind it is that the PC starts as a 'strong' character with relatively high attribute values but slowly has to reduce his capabilities and specialize as the game progresses.     
What I dislike about the system as it stands is that I have to reevaluate the degeneration factor every time I change the timeframe if I don't want it either be too high or too low.

Thoughts, criticism? Please let me know.

[chance.thirteen]

Many cyberpunk games had adding machinery to your body reducing some element, humanity, empathy, stability.

Vampire and Nightlife both had similar moral degeneration for acting inhuman.

Unknown Armies had several Madness Meters, where you not only lost various evocative features of your personality, while at the same time becoming hardened to the source of the trauma. This is my favorite version of a degeneration from any game, by splitting up various traits into their own meters, you really got a choice of types of loss, with more specific triggers and results for your characters. At one point I refitted it for the cyberpunk elements.

If you'd like to know more about any of these systems, let me know.

One thing that Call of Cthulhu did was exchanged some "benefit" for the loss. I like the idea of degeneration to a degree, it fit with some theories around the pulp era that came from the Victorian era, but also like transformation, replacing one thing with another.

[AJ_Flowers]

In the standard cRPG the character gets stronger the more I play. In your game it seems like no matter what, I get weaker the more I play.  It's bold, it's daring, but, as a gamer, what's my motivation to continue playing?  Do stats go up as well, on a different axis?

The mechanic as you describe reminds me of the hunger mechanic in NetHack or other Roguelike games.  I enjoy Mystery Dungeon Shiren. In this game, you get hungrier as you take action turns, and certain equipment can also make you more or less hungry as you equip it.  If you eat food, you keep your hunger meter up, but if it drops to zero, you can lose 'strength' or HP, and will eventually die.

[flossy]

Just remembered that in Exalted, the more Essence you had, the more chance of you hitting your limit and breaking you had.

Basically you have an Essence score, the higher it was the more in tune with creation you are. In game play you would get points of limit which would cause you to 'break' if the limit points you had plus your essence points equaled ten.

[Pussycat669]

@chance
Vampire (and most of White Wolf p&p games that I know actually) don't really are the type of game I'm looking for since losing humanity, gaining rage etc. wasn't considered permanent and could be brought back to a healthy level if you could soften up your GM a bit. Hunter was a little bit more unforgiving I guess since, unavoidably,  becoming more powerful also meant that your PC would become more and more inhuman and later on suffer burnout or even lose her mind (this effect was considered optional though as far as I know).

Never played Unknown Armies but the madness meters sound intriguing. How exactly do you fill them up? Is it more in the vein of Cthulhu that you gain madness as further as you play or is it more of a conscious player decision?

As for the replace one thing with another, I usually agree but I had to consider that the type of degeneration should preferably be negative since the PC doesn't have to actively invest anything into it unlike Cthulhu where the PC must actually try to confront the Mythos to gain anything for the loss (that is if your GM is not a sadist and throws supernatural events at you on a regular basis). It should rather feel something at least partly out of player control. She's losing and she should be well aware of it.       

@AJ
About player motivation, hard to tell from the system alone. You could throw in story, additional systems (I would like to include a point buy perk system for example) and the like but I would rather see it standing on its own. I actually think that, in mindset, the system main motivation doesn't really differ from more power oriented games like d&d. That is if we stop talking about character growth but rather about character effectiveness. In this regard the goal of both systems are actually the same, it only applies from different directions so to speak. In d&d, I want my PC stop to suck, in mine I want the PC not to start to suck. Those motivations aren't that different from one another I believe and they work. Another thing I like is the 'losing battle' approach that it implies similar to systems like Cthulhu. I can't speak for everyone of course but I'm a lot more proud of a desperate half-crazed scholar escaping or temporarily banishing an evil entity than I will ever be of an epic level paladin slaying epic foes and some such.  That depends on players though.