[SIc] Fantasy Fight Arena

The example card looks nice

I'm not sure if you will manage to fit it all into four pages, however. It sounds like there's quite a lot of it.

As for attack, maybe you roll a pool of dice equal to your stat (or add a die to the level of the stat, whatever works for you). You could roll Strength or Magic, depending on the type of attack used, versus the Speed of the opponent to hit and deal damage. Stamina could simply determine how many hits can being eliminated. This solves the problem of adding attack/defend stats

Now, maybe instead of those prerequisites, there's a number of classes and each of them has, say, 5-10 levels? On every level, the character could gain a bonus to one of his stats and/or special ability. As he advances, he could improve his level in one class, or add levels in different classes, combining the abilities and stats together.

So, you could have classes like:

Black Mage (Lvl 1: can attack using Mag instead of Str once per fight for each BM lvl, deals 2 dmg if hits; Lvl 2: gains +1 Mag; Lvl 3: can attack using Mag x3 once per fight; lvl 4: gains +1 Mag, Lvl 4: can dodge with Mag x2 once per fight; Lvl 5: gains +1 Mag; Lvl6: can use Lvl 3 spell twice per fight; Lvl 6: can use Lvl 5 spell twice per fight, Lvl 8: can attack using Mag x2 for 2 dmg once per fight; Lvl 9: gains +1 Mag; Lvl 10: can use lvl 3 and lvl 5 spells three times per fight)

Assasin (Lvl 1: can dodge using Spd x2 once per fight for each AS lvl; Lvl 2: gains +1 Spd; Lvl 3: can attack using Str + Spd for 2 dmg once per fight; Lvl 4: gains +1 Spd; Lvl 5: can move two distances instead of one three times per fight; Lvl 6: gains +1 Sta etc.)

Then, you simply add all skills from levels gained. If stats start at 3, Assasin 4/Black Mage 3 has Str 3, Mag 4, Sp 5, Sta 3, and all those skills usable that and that many times per fight.

Obviously, I'm making up all the numbers, and the skills would have to be created so that they were roughly balanced and allowed for some tactics, but that's pure basically console playability served on your nearest gaming table

Dunno how exactly the distances could work here, though.

As for the bonuses for introducing details of the arena, I think Kamil tried to use something like this in his postnuclear Sumo game - but I don't remember if we playtested these rules, it was quite some time ago. If you want competitive duels, I'd be careful with adopting Wushu detail bonuses - they basically boil down to talking until dice cap is reached.

Hmm, maybe the player can gain some kind of resource that is usable in the non-virtual part of the game for adding narration to his actions? A style point could be awarded by the opponent every time the player adds cool details to his attack, and then these points could have some completely non-competitive use. Maybe they could be spent for adding some complications to the background story, fleshing out character's backstory and real-world relationships (possibly through flashbacks), exploring the question of which world is real, or something in these lines.