News:

Forum changes: Editing of posts has been turned off until further notice.

Main Menu

Tell me about... your undeveloped system

Started by Daniel Solis, April 06, 2004, 08:09:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Daniel Solis

Sometimes weird system ideas just pop into your head without anything to for them to which to attach themselves. It's a shame, it is. Well, let's not let these systems go to waste. Have a system you don't know what to do with? Post it here and maybe it'll be just the right mechanic for someone else's project.

Here's something that I thought of just recently, that is probably not at all original:

Middle-d6 System
A 3d6 system where the middle die determines success. The standard resolution would be contested rolls in which the players compare the middle dice to see who is higher. This creates a very steep, small-number bell curve which might be suitable for gritty realism. Advantageous conditions allow you to use the high die instead of the middle die. Disadvantageous conditions force you to use the low die. Combat is determined by a single die roll. The high die is the amount of ammo used in an attack. The middle die is the hit location. The low die is the base damage inflicted in the attack. Spending a resource allows you to flip-flop dice positions. (So you could swap hit location for ammo usage, hit location for base damage, and so on.)

I'll probably find some use for it eventually, but maybe it can help out another designer looking for system-inspiration.
¡El Luchacabra Vive!
-----------------------
Meatbot Massacre
Giant robot combat. No carbs.

Jeph

An adaptation of Legends of Middle Earth to be a generic epic fantasy game. This will include ditching Story Tokens, and replacing them with Lot and Level. Level determines how many bonus points your character starts out with--say, (Level -1)x5. Each session, characters receive (3d6/Level)+(Race and Role bonuses) points of Lot, but they don't know exactly how much. Lot can be spent for Good Stuff. Passions will tie into it somehow, probably in the area of character advancement.

--Jeff
Jeffrey S. Schecter: Pagoda / Other

Lance D. Allen

I suppose, for the now, Tidal fits in here.

Credit to.. Lxndr for the name, I think.

I don't have any numbers, or any sub-mechanics yet, so it's just an undeveloped system idea.

Basically, each character has a pool of points. How many points, I don't know yet. That pool of points is used somewhat to design the character, but mostly it stays the same size during character creation. The reason is that those points *never* go away. Any points spent go elsewhere.. to one of the other players. The total number of points among all players stays absolutely static, unless a new player joins the game. During play, different actions taken by each player depletes that pool, and those points go to the GM, or one of the other players, depending on the focus of the action. Whoever has the most points at the beginning of a new scene or series of scenes becomes the Main Character. Whoever has the least becomes the GM. Right now there are a lot of holes which need to be filled in, such as how to keep any sense of continuity with the GM changing frequently, but that's the cool system idea at it's core.
~Lance Allen
Wolves Den Publishing
Eternally Incipient Publisher of Mage Blade, ReCoil and Rats in the Walls