Hi all, I'm a brand new poster here at the Forge.  I've been reading for a few months now, and only recently worked up the nerve to actually throw some words up on the screen with the help of a silly little screen name to hide me.  I've really enjoyed reading hundreds of different independent RPGs, and I've been continually fascinated by all the interesting ideas and mechanics across the board.  Eventually (probably because I stuffed my head with RPGs until the point of overflow), I started thinking about some of my own ideas for how to set up an RPG, and I'm curious about whether or not they make any sense...or even whether or not they're actually original in any significant way.  I would really hate to unwittingly rip someone off.

So, now that my life story's out of the way...

I was envisioning a task resolution mechanic in which there are certain distinct steps, which I'll outline:

1) Every party involved in the conflict sets stakes for itself.  (Just to be clear, what I mean by Party, here, is "character" or "group."  So, for instance, if you had "a mob of angry villagers", they might be a single party, and whoever's in control of them would set a stake for the group as a whole.  If you had "Stallone-esque rippling muscled steroid freak", then he'd probably be a single party with a stake of his own, despite the fact that his enormous deltoids might actually qualify him for his own area code.  So basically, when I say Party, I mean character, but I also mean large group of people who can basically be mashed together into a single "character".  I'm also assuming that every party has one player in charge of it; be it a character, controlled by a single player, or those crazed, frothing villagers, controlled by the GM.  Either way, every party has a player in control of it.)  The stakes set by each party should be self-centered stakes, focusing on an action which that party is taking, and not on the result of that action; for instance, the stakes for Baldur should be "Baldur shoots Tezcatlipoca," as opposed to "Tezcatlipoca dies."  The stakes should describe the action taken by the party in question, and nothing else.  They don't need to be decisively "Either/or" stakes, either...they should just be definitive actions.  If so desired, two players can entangle stakes, or connect stakes.  Entangling stakes will mean that if one entangled party succeeds, the other fails, and vice versa.  Basically, it ensures that only one party of the entangled set will succeed.  Connecting stakes means that if one connected party succeeds, the other connected party succeeds as well.  This should be done now, when stakes are declared.

2) Every player, even if that player does not control a party involved in the conflict, rolls a d20. 

3) Starting with the highest number rolled and counting down, the players grant success or failure.  If the player's rolled number is even, then he or she can grant a success to any one party's stakes.  If the player's rolled number is odd, then he or she can grant failure to any one party's stakes.  Once a party has been granted success or failure, it's success or failure is locked in, and that party cannot be granted any different results. 

4) After every player has granted one success or failure, each player lowers the value on his d20 by one, and the round starts over in the same order.  (If a player has to lower from a value of 1, then he restarts at 20...once again, this does not change the order in which assignments of success or failure take place.)  As everybody will now have the opposite of what they had before between evens and odds, then each player will now assign the opposite of what they assigned before, either success or failure. 

5) Once all parties' success or failure has been determined, then the player who rolled the lowest number originally narrates exactly what happened, being sure to incorporate all the success or failure.

For example: There are three parties in the conflict, Moe, Curly, and Larry.  Larry's stake is to hit Moe with a hammer.  Curly's stake is to give Moe a wedgie.  Moe's stake is to poke Larry's eyes.  Larry's player rolls the highest with a 19.  This means that he goes first, and that he gets to assign a failure.  He could assign a failure to Larry, if he wanted to for some reason, but instead, he'll assign a failure to Curly.  Curly fails to give Moe a wedgie.  Curly's player goes next, with a 16.  He gets to assign a success.  Since Curly has already been granted a failure, he cannot be granted a success.  So instead, Curly's player assigns success to Moe, meaning that Moe successfully pokes Larry's eyes.  Finally, Moe's player goes with a 9.  That means he gets to assign a failure, and he assigns a failure to Larry; Larry fails to hit Moe with a hammer.  All parties now have success or failure.  Since Moe's player rolled the lowest number originally, he narrates exactly what happened. 

Hopefully, this system should be relatively clear.  A few other short explanations of other ideas, to be attached to the system:

1) This is clearly something of a competitive system which works best if players are at odds with each other.  The system would have to be used in a setting in which the players are not all on the same team, per se.

2) The use of Points makes sense.  Spending a point would allow a player to adjust the value he rolled by one, either up or down, as he desires, before any assignments of success or failure are made.  This way, he can try to get the high number, or he can try to make sure he has an even or an odd. 

3) I am envisioning this in a system with no GM, but hypothetically, it could still work with a GM.

I'm curious about general comments on this system, and I'm also curious about comments on two specific questions I have (because I absolutely love listing things, apparently):

1) This system may result in certain players not actually getting to assign success or failure in the conflict.  If there are too few parties and too many players, then even though everybody's rolling, not everybody will get to assign success or failure, and only one of those players will get to narrate.  Obviously, anyone can comment and suggest, but these players will still not have a definitive ability to do something within the rules for the conflict.  Does this seem okay, or is this a major problem?

2) In a very specific question, would it make sense that, if a player so desired he could assign Success to a party that has already Failed, or Failure to a party that has already Succeeded, in order to remove that party's current success or failure and make that party's stake unresolved again?  That way, you would pave the way for a later player to give a different value to the party.  Would this be too fiddly?

Any comments on this system would be great.  Thanks guys!  And gals!  Gals too!

SE,
  1) I think that this mechanic is pretty good as it stands. It gets players involved in the current conflict. Even if their characters aren't. It may leave some players feeling flat. Like they had a good idea, but no one will ever hear it because they rolled a 7, too low to assign success or failure too high to be lowest roll. I am not sure if there is a way to fix that without seriously breaking something else. One suggestion might be some sort of limited pool of luck. Like, they can spend a token to re-roll and if they roll well enough, they give the token to the player they just popped off the list.
  2) The trick is, if you do apply failure to previously established successes, then two things happen:
a) You will always have to do at least two rounds of assigning successes and failures
b) Going first may not be of any advantage.

I think the resolution system is interesting, for much the same reasons that Dave stated above.

But I'd consider the following modifications (especially if you were going GM-less).

I'd give every player a nomination to be the spokesperson for a party. This could be done through some kind of bidding mechanic. In most cases if a party consists of a single character, then the player of that character would default to the party's spokesperson, in multi-character parties it would default to the player whose character has the highest relevant skill or the most at stake in the current situation. If this is still unclear, the spokesperson becomes the player who rolls highest during the allocation roll. 

I like the notion of applying a round of successes and failures, followed by a second round of applying the inverse. But I think that there will definitely be the issue that when there are multi-character parties, a number of the players will miss out on the chance to help with the outcome (whether through allocation or narration).

How would I resolve this?

I'd ensure everyone gets the chance to allocate successes/failures. The first few succeses/failures must be allocated to different parties, but once there are players left over with successes and failures left to allocate, they may start distributing second degrees of success/failure to the parties concerned. This means that even before the second round of allocation begins, some parties could easily have their successes and failures cancelled out, while others might end up with double successes or failures. Note that I'd make it a bit more concrete for the players concerned by having them distribute physical counters[poker chips/coloured beads/coins/cards] to indicate how many successes or failures had been distributed to which parties.

Then the inverse is distributed.

Of course I'll be the first to admit that there is a problem here, 7 players distributing their allocations between 5 parties. Players 6 and 7 get to see where the successes and failures have already been placed, and they get free reign to change the outcome...it almost seems better to roll low in this scenario.

That's where we get to the next bit.

Once the allocations have been made, the spokespeople for the parties get the chance to describe what happens to another party in descending order of die rolls.

Spokespeople DO NOT get to describe what happens to their own party, because people are notorious for downplaying the consequences of failure when it is applied to their own side. Spokespeople must also ensure that allocated success and failures are taken into account when describing the events that unfold. Successes and failures may be cancelled out, or players may get creative andnarrate bothe positive and negative effects on the party they are resolving.

Hopefully this resolves your issue of players missing out on the action, while also addressing the issue of allocations successes and failures to counter previous allocations.

Just an idea.

V