An idea for a diceless system (Kinda Long)

[oversoul01]

I have been wanting to do a "diceless" system for sometime now.  But I wanted to definately finish version 2 of Dice Chucker befroe I began a new project.  What can I say I just like designing systems...  Once I got v2 off to the editor I began playing around with the diceless rules.  I looked at a few diceless games for inspiration.  Active Expoits, etc.  Most seem to work of of vary basic comparing method.  Usually along the lines of the player deciding how much of a particular Attribute to devote towards an action. And then this is compared to a secret target number. this works great but I wanted something a little more randomnized.  I am also thinking I wanted to have heavy gamist overtones.  I figured I would get some input from the think tank. So here is the idea in a nutshell:

Characters
Character are made up of Elements and Skills.  Your Elements are your natural abilities and skills are learned ones.  You have 4 Elements: Agility (speed, reflexes), Insight (Knowledge, Common Sense), Strength (Physique, Stamina), and Will (Magical Ability, Mental Stamina).  Each Element has 4 Skills linked to it.   I will leave the list of skills out for now in the interest of saving space.  Each Element is rated numerically from 1 to 5, 1 being poor, and 5 being excellent.  Each Skill is similarly rated 1 to 3.

Resolution
The player decided on what task to attempt.  Then decides what Element and Skill are required for that task.  The GM and player both pick a number between 1 and 16.  The GM keeps his or her chosen number a secret till the player announces his or her choosen number.  The player combines the Element and Skill rating, this sum is called the Reach.  If the player's chosen number + or - (+/1) the Reach, equals or exceeds the GM's, then the task was successful.  The closer the player's original number the better the success. For Example: A player has an Element: +/-3 and a Skill +/-1 (Total: +/-4)  The GM secretly picks 7 and the player announces they have chosen 11.  11 +/-4 would reach from 7 to 15.  Since it reaches 7 it would be a successful task.

The more difficult the task the greater the range of numbers to choose from.  DIF:0 =16 (The base level).  For every increase of 1 to the DIF you add +2 to 16.  So a DIF: 4 would mean you pick a number from 1 to 24.  The DIF goes from DIF:0 to DIF:7.

How successful is a task, depends on how close are the chosen numbers of the GM and the player.  If the player guess the exact number the GM chose then this is called a "Bull's Eye"  The difference between the GM and player's number is oddly enough, called the Difference.  The closer the numbers the better the success.

Combat
The same system is applied in the "to hit" portion of combat.  DIF is increased by any circumstantial modifiers such as range, cover, and armor.  Every weapon has a Damage rating, that looks like DMG:X/Y  The X is the maximum damage that weapon is able to inflicit with a hit.  Y is an increment of the Difference of the hit task.  For every increment of Y there is in the Difference, X is reduced by 1.

I am still working out the other aspects of the system.  Next on the list is magic and advancement.  I intend this system to be "portable" and can be played on a car or where ever.  I discovered a few days ago the EABAnywhere system is striving to the same goal.  I was just curious as to what any thought?  Can anyone see any blatent problems I am overlooking?

[Shreyas Sampat]

http://memento-mori.com/games/clockworx.html

Clockworx has essentially the same mechanic, with a fixed guessing range.

Why not just define "DIF" as a number from 16 to 30, this being the largest number that can be chosen? It seems needlessly opaque to have it defined through a (relatively) complex function.