Hi :)
I need comments, ideas and constructive critics on a project of mine.

________________________________________________________General Guidelines
The aim of this design is to "save" some of the settings I love, like SLA Industries and Shadowrun and (why not) some D&D-classics like Dark Sun.

What I liked (and what I want to save from those games) was the chance to play as a "tactical team" of characters that co-operate to solve missions.
Think about a squad of SLOps, a team of Shadowrunners, or even a group of fantasy adventurers ... I'm also thinking a crew of specialist, like the con-men in Leverage.

Another thing I want, is for players to be able to build their characters considering lots of options.
I'm thinking of the good old lists of 30-40 skills, 6 to 10 attributes, pages and pages of equipment with different stats and details...

BUT I also want some things to be different.

I don't want the endless lists of skills, attributes and equipment ... I want a modular system to somehow "emulate" them.
So that players feel they have options, and can toy around with them, and can build their characters with specialties and masteries and diversified gimmiks and stuff.

And character development!
I personally like the "human" aspect of development, like changing your beliefs or something ... but for this one project I'm gonna opt for the "increased combat performance" kind of development :P

...

What I'm aiming for right now could be summed up to this points:
- gm-less
- low-prep
- co-op
- PvE
- geared towards continuative/campaign gaming
- there are going to be videogame-like Achievements

...

Here's what I've got cooked so far.

________________________________________________________Basic Structure
There is no GM, only Players.
Each player builds a character for himself (details later) to play with.
The game alternates between two main phases: Mission and Personal Life.

Mission Phase is divided into 3 sub-phases:
- Intel ... in which characters get the job (and Players establish it's initial details)
- Action ... in which the mission is tackled
- Debrief ... in which characters have to tie all up, get paid , get home safe (actually I don't know if this Phase should exist or not, leaving everything to Personal Life)

It all starts with free narration.
As a basic rule Players can only say what their PC do/think/feel/say.

A Player can, in any moment, take a "Influence Coin" from a common (endless) pool, rise it clearly above his head and narrate SCENERY details.
Details about the place, the people, the weather, etc ... something that will enrich the scene.
(this is also used for Scene Framing at the start of the game... first Player to have a good idea starts things off)

A Player can, in any moment, take a "Threat Coin" from a common (endless) pool, rise it clearly above his head and narrate ADVERSITY details.
From active threats like guards, security systems and killer robots ... to passive obstacles like closed doors, electrified fences and licked safes ... something that will constitute a problem and prompt the PCs to action or reaction.

A Player can, in any moment, take an "Adrenaline Coin" from a common (endless) pool, rise it clearly above his head and GIVE IT to another player, to reward something cool he made his character say or do in the game.

One VERY important rule here is that no one can, under normal circumstances, ever narrate any kind of "backstory".
No backstory means that Players can only narrate what the characters SEE or HEAR.
One simple example: Players can't describe what awaits behind a door unless a Character actually opens it and looks.

Narration thus follows the PCs as they plan the mission and try to get to the end of it, hoarding various kinds of coins as they do it.
But the mission itself can't actually move forward unless players overcome Obstacles rolling dice ... this is the one reason to inject Threats into the fiction.

So at some point a Character will try to do something interesting, overcoming whatever obstacles and problems he may encounter in the fiction.
AT THAT MOMENT another player can say "Wait, let's see if you DO succede!".
The character facing such a challenge is said to be the "Leader" and he must roll a pool of various dice: d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 d20 ... and also d14 d16 and d18, obtained rolling 1d20 and re-rolling in case of a score higher than the die-size (so rolling a d14 means rolling 1d20 and re-rolling it if it comes up 15+)

A result of 1, 2 or 3 is a failure ... a FAIL.
Any other result is a WIN ... and you actually get one WIN for every 4 points of value:
4 = 1 WIN
8 = 2 WINs
12 = 3 WINs
16 = 4 WINs
20 = 5 WINs

Rolling dice you get some FAILs and some WINs.
Each die must be "spent" on something ...
WINs can award you Victory Points (a communal pool that makes the mission move forward up to its end), Experience Points, Loot Points, they can allow you to overcome negative conditions and statuses etc.
FAILs can produce all sorts of negative consequences, from physical/mental/social "Hurt" to all kinds of fictional problems and disadvantages (that translate in extra d4s you must roll when you do a test), to unexpected plot twists, unsurmountable pitfalls, and even the rise of a recurring Nemesis npc.

Each die must be separately narrated into the fiction in an additive way.
So you don't re-edit what has already been established, but you move forward the action establishing new events and facts and injecting your WINs and FAILs into it.

...

This is the basic layout of the Mission Phase.
Personal Life needs still to be covered, but mostly it will allow Players to spend their accumulated points and recharge their character's batteries.

...

________________________________________________________Character Creation & Development
One of the things that is giving me the most headaches is exactly how a PC is supposed to be created and developed.
On one hand I want lots of very specific skills.
The point should be that if you are good with knives and you happen to run out of knives, then you are forced to come up with alternative solutions to your problems.
But it is also satisfying to be good with knives and SEE how much you actually rock with a knife in your hand ... you spent points to get better, it is good to put such characteristic to the test and see it shine.

On the other hand I like the idea of player-generated content, to avoid endless lists of pre-generated stuff.

So at the moment I came up with this...
A PC is made uo of different kinds of TRAITS.
There are Persona Traits, that describe how your character is, as in "he is strong / tall / quick / etc"
There are Skill Traits, that describe what your character is able to do, as in "he is skilled in diplomacy / melee / climbing / etc"
There are Equipment Traits, that describe your character's most valuable tools of the trade.

All Traits can (or must?) be part of a 3 tier chain that goes goes General to Focused to Specific.
Tier1 -> Tier2 -> Tier3 ... Melee -> Blades -> Knives ... Body -> Strong -> Arms of Iron

All Traits are expressed as a die-size ranging from d6 to d20 ... d4 are used as a sort of penalty-die.
When you roll dice for a test you pick ONE trait of each kind.
What traits you pick is up to the situation and the fiction, and you will have to color your subsequent actions with the traits you pick ... and other players can assign you up to +2d4 if they think your choices are inappropriate for the fiction of the specific scene ... a unanimous vote can even completely veto a really improper and unjustified trait selection.
So you get to roll 1 Persona, 1 Skill and maybe 1 Equipment ... other dice may appear in your pool if the other characters help you, if special effects are in place, etc.

In my mind a character should have a good and varied selection of Tier3 traits ... but it is obvious that Tier1 are more convenient as they are more broadly usable and leave the character with less "holes" and weak points.
So I played with the costs to make Tier3 traits more attractive and convenient.

To buy a better die-size you must spend a number of experience points (or Resource Points, for Equipment) equal to the size you desire ... so a d8 will cost 8xp.
Tier1 traits cost *3
Tier2 traits cost *2
Tier3 traits cost *1

Also, more generic a trait is, less improvement it can receive.
Tier1 traits are capped at d10
Tier2 traits are capped at d16
Tier3 traits are capped at d20

Truth be told, there is also another special Tier of traits, called Support Traits.
Such traits are stand alone, floating, not linked to other traits.
They can't be picked "alone" to build a test pool ... instead they are added to an existing pool, bringing more resources (and dice) to the roll.
They may represent special powers, equipment, etc, and to be used they need an activation cost ... I was thinking about Adrenaline Coins and/or Trait Impairment (as in, after you roll the dice, one of your Traits goes down 1 size, until somehow healed)

...

All of this, paired with the extra die-sized such as d14 d16 and d18, should grant LOTS of room for expandability, improvement, specialization and diversification.
At least that's what I hope :P

Hi Alessandro,

I like the ideas you've presented. Particularly, I can see how lots of gamers would dig the opportunity to play PvE team based roleplaying.

First of all, you should probably trust your instinct on the Debrief phase.

I'd like to hear more about the various coins you mentioned. How can they be spent?

Your three tier system seems fairly solid. I'm not sure about the 1WIN per 4 points. It seems like a lot of bookeeping. Like, if I roll a d8, d14 and a d16, and I roll 7, 15, 14, I've got to re-roll one of those dice. Say I get an 11. How many WINS is that? I think it's 7. A bit clumsy, or me being bad with numbers?

Also, and I'm just poking, would you consider getting rid of the d14, d16, d18 bit? Having d12, d12+2, d12+4, d12+6, etc increases the odds more predictably and you'd never have that awkward re-roll.

<ignore>
Have you thought about having a die to represent difficulty? E.g.any die that beats the difficulty die result is a WIN, any that does not is a FAIL? The difficulty die could change size based on the conditions imposed by the game (considering some of the options you've mentioned to me by email, the charts and tables bit would be a good place to add difficulty to subsequent rolls).

A side effect of the idea of a difficulty die (assuming difficulty is sometimes raised as a consequence of a previous FAIL) would be the increased odds of more FAIL results. These, from what we've talked about before, and what you mention briefly above, are the parts of the game when the interesting/important stuff happens. They're the injection point for interesting shifts in the story. How often do you want them to happen?

I had an idea for Threat Coins. What if, during the Personal Life bit, your Personal Life gets attacked? There's a roll, you check a table, and if you get a certain score, something terrible/interesting happens to something you love. Perhaps you could spend a Threat Coin to adjust the result on that table. Therefore, adding a threat during a mission protects your Personal Life afterwards?

If that was the case, character creation could include a "I am protecting XXXX from YYYY." There could also be a damage track for the Personal Life, and when it's all used up, YYYY happens to XXXX.
</ignore>

you can purchase custom dice, and i would advise this is done to avoid having to reroll a d20 three of four times when you are suppose to be using a d14

A couple of games you might have a look at to see how they differ from what you want: there is an actual Leverage RPG about to come out, and the quickstart (actually "The Quickstart Job") is out now. Also Wilderness of Mirrors is available in PDF - it's a heist game that demonstrates just how far you can strip such things down.

I knew them both but never read the files... I'll go check on them.
Also I may mention as a major inspiration for the basic structure: [yrl=http://cobwebgames.com/index.php/news/]Hell For Leather, by Sebastian Hickey

I definitely have to double check before posting here ... I'm not used to not being able to edit a post ... Sorry everyone for typos and errors.

@ Sebastian ... I missed your post! >_<
I'll try to answer to you now :)

@ everyone ... re-reading the post I think it would be good to understand that my test system is not meant as a quick way to roll some dice and discover if an action succeeded or failed ... instead it has much more in common with rolling dice in games like Dogs in the Vineyard or Blood Red Sands or Bacchanal ... it's a way to obtain elements you have to work with to produce more fiction, pushing the game and the story forward, and impacting the characters while this all happens.
So expect to roll dice, and then KEEP those dice in front of you until enough stuff happens and they are all used-up.

1) Die Size
The non-standard sizes are not of major importance ... maybe ... I still don't know.
They give me 3 more levels of character progression, giving players more development breath.
They are also filling the uneven gap between d12 and d20 ... and they allow me to set up a nice progression rhythm alternating a die that ALLOWS you to reach a new success-level, followed by a die that improves your % chances of scoring such success-level.

People can purchase custom dice on their own, or use a simple dice roller if they have a computer or smartphone, but re-rolling a d20 a couple of times shouldn't be too much of a bother.
Although I for one recognize it's not the most elegant of solutions ;)

Rolling a d12+2 isn't just the same ... it changes all the % values and probabilities AND for every die-roll that I get rid of, I add more mathematical operations to each roll ... it's not a fair trade if you ask me ;)
The "1 win for every 4 points" instead can be dealth with with a simple reminder-chart or with a positional memento, counting the die-size: d4 d6 d8 d10 d12 d14 d16 d18 d20.

I don't know, I'm open to suggestions here :)

2) WIN Table and Rolling Dice
When you roll dice you don't add the results up together, instead you "spend" them on a one die for one die basis.
In your example a player rolled 7 11 14 ... now he has to allocate each single die, separately, to a different purpose.
07 = 1 WIN
11 = 2 WINs
14 = 2 WINs

The possible positive effects are 6:
) +1 Victory Point
) +1 Experience Point
) +1 Loot Point
) remove one previously suffered Status or Mess (no multiply)
) convert Hurt into Impairment
) score Achievement points

By the rules, you HAVE to assign at least 1 WINning die towards progressing the Mission (aka: scoring Victory Points).
You may spend the 7 on VPs, and earn 1vp.
Or you may spend either the 11 or 14 on VPs, and earn 2vp.
Or you can spenn 2 or even all 3 dice on VPs, and earno from 1 to 5vp.
Regardless, you HAVE to get some VPs, and then you are free to allocate other dice towards other ends of your choosing ... the better a die result is, the more WINs it puts into a reward, the more rewards you get ... only exception is the Status/Mess option, that removes 1 Status or 1 Mess no matter what WIN level you spend on it.

3) Difficulty Die
It's already there ;)
It's the d4.
All character's ratings start at least at d6, allowing for a 50-50 chance of success/failure.
Whenever you have to inject "difficulty" into a roll, one of the ways to do it is to add one or more d4 to it ... as they have 75% of being a FAIL.
This multiplies the chance to have one or more FAILs in a roll, thus adding negative consequences to your story.

The test system has never been about success or failure in a specific action ... most of the times characters WILL succede as at least one WIN is fairly easy to score.
But at what price?
More dice and better dice mean more power and more WINs ... but also multiply the chance of scoring at least one FAIL.
Even rolling a huge d20 you still always retain at least 15% FAIL rate ... that's much!

Altering the "target number" to be rolled, instead, blows this whole economy to the sky.
I have stuff that modifies the result of the die roll, but only in so far as to make a WIN turn into a better WIN ... if you roll a FAIL it stays that way, if you roll a WIN you can improve it to earn more WINs.
You never ever ever screw with the actual % failure/success rate.

4) Tha Pointz!
At the moment I have the following points in the game:

- Experience Points
you get them rolling dice.
you spend them to improve your Persona and Skill traits.
possibly you can also spend them to obtain special effects in the game ... like healing Hurt and Impairment during the Mission Phase (usually you would be able to do that at much less cost in the Personal Life Phase).

- Loot Points / Resource Points
you get Loot rolling dice
you can spend it during the Mission Phase to "find" useful items and equipments
you can also convert every point of Loot into 1d4 points of Resources, but only during the Personal Life Phase
you can spend Resources to "buy" new equipment or improve what you already have (it's basically xp for items)

- Adrenaline Points
You can store a maximum of 3 Adrenaline Points (this cap may be improved with xp, up to a maximum of 10)
you get +1 Adrenaline when someone else awards it to you for cool narration
you also get +1 Adrenaline for every box of Hurt you suffer ... this also rises the cap of +1, even past the 10 points limit (of course the cap gets back to normal if you heal the Hurt, and any exceeding points go wasted)
you can spend Adrenaline to get more dice to roll (1 point = +1d6 and +1d4) and to get better dice to roll (1 point = the base +1d6 goes up 1 level)
you can spend Adrenaline to activate Support traits (1 point = 1 trait) ... this means more AND better dice, at less cost, with no extra d4 attached ... but you have to have the proper traits ;)
Some "powers" may require Adrenaline to work :P

- Influence Points
You can store a maximum of 3 Influence Points (this cap may be improved with xp, up to a maximum of 10)
you get Influence by enriching a scene with extra scenery details
you can spend Influence to re-roll one result on the FAIL Table (costs 1 point)
you can spend Influence to ignore a roll on the FAIL Table and pick one of your choice (costs 2 points)
you can spend Influence to add one or more d4 to the rating of a WIN (1 point = +1d4)
possibly they can be spent to add "weight" to fictional speculations ... like in an investigation, if a Player narrates he finds a proof against the blond girl, another player may say "yes but, maybe it's a frame-up" and spend a point ... when it comes the time to actually KNOW what is what, the option with the most points becomes The Truth (tm).

- Threat Points
Actually I don't know what to do with these XD
As it stands now, you simply convert them to Adrenaline or Influence ... but it looks to me like a very poor solution.
Any suggestions?
@ Sebastian ... I like the idea of using Threat Points to inject problems in Personal Life, but first I need to make them desirable ... why would you inject problems and menaces into your missions, and then also in your private life, if not to get some fat benefit RIGHT NOW? :D

- INTEL Token
As discussed before, you get token for extra informations retrieved during the Intel section of the Mission Phase, and you can either keep them for personal gain at the cost of group disadvantage, or gift them to the team at the "cost" of instant extra details about the current mission.

5) FAILing
So you rolled some FAILs, what now?
You have to spend them all using the FAIL Table.

As with WINs, there are 6 possible options, but there are randomly rolled, and are a bit more complex (or at least have more strings attached than just "add 1 point to this or that")
The table has 6 options, but you actually roll 1d8, because some options may happen with more than one result ... THIS is something you may plan for during the Intel segment, or it can be twisted due to some unexpected FAIL consequences.

The options are:

- Hurt
the character suffers 1 box of Hurt (as either physical, mental, emotional, social or whatever kind of personal damage and trauma)
It's the most "permanent" of all the consequences, and if it piles up it could put a lot of weight on every roll ... I was considering forcing at least one FAIL from every roll to go into Hurt, after that all other FAILs are normally rolled ... comments on that?

- Status
The situation gets tough and your character suffers a "status condition" of some sort... at the moment I thought about:
Isolated (no help dice from team-members)
Impaired (one Persona or Skill trait becomes unavailable)
Unprepared (one Equipment becomes unusable) -> (consumable items are permanently lost)

- Mess
You made a "mess" of some sort ... maybe you are injured, maybe you are lost, maybe to set off an alarm ... whatever the reason you life gets harder from this point on, because you get to roll +1d4 on every test.

- Pitfall
The obstacle you are now facing becomes unsurmountable or overwhelming (for the whole team!)
You can not solve it, in the game fiction.
The door it too heavily fortified, the guards are too many, the sniper is too damn good, the sand worm is too frikking huge, etc.
You either have to avoid this obstacle, or be better and specially prepared to face it ... either way you add +3 to the Mission Target (the number of VP you need to earn to complete the mission)

- Plot Twist
You uncover new facts!
Something has changed!
Things have gone south!
This may mean different things:
- modify the distribution of numbers on the FAIL Table and add +2 to the Mission Target (only once per Mission)
- change the Mission Objective and add +2 to the Mission Target (only once per Mission)
- generic twists and unexpected problems,  add +5 to the Mission Target

- Nemesis
A rather powerful NPC appears to oppose the characters ... it is a recurring nemesis, one than can't be eliminated just by succeeding at a single test.
Each FAIL that goes here makes it more dangerous and tough.
Still don't know how exactly to implement this :P

...the idea here is that each FAIL is randomly rolled on the FAIL Table to establish which consequence happens, then Players can freely devise an appropriate explanation to fit it into the fiction.
As usual: no backstory.
You don't just establish that someone somewhere has done something that will one day affect the team ... you only work with what a Character experiences NOW ... he sees/hears/finds something, or something happens to him right now, etc.

Some people tell me to make players also roll the specifics of the FAIL (like on a Plot Twist, which of the 3 options do you use?), others tell me to let players freely choose.
I'm thinking... if I manage to keep all FAIL options into groups of 3 elements, I can have players use the actual die roll to determine which is which ... just like WINs.
So you roll a 2 a 2 and a 3 ... you have to allocate 3 FAILs.
You roll on the Table and it comes up as "Status" ... depending on which die you use here you can suffer the option number 2 or 3, but not the number 1 because you have no dice that turned up like that.

6) How does HURT work?
I'm working on it.
I was considering giving to each character 3 or 6 free boxes, expandable with xp points up to 9 or 10 boxes.
For every 3 hurted boxes, you suffer +1d4 to all your rolls
When all boxes are hurted you are "out" ... possibly dead.
By the WIN Table ... you have the option of patching up your character a bit, converting Hurt into Trait Impairment.

True healing of Hurt or Impairment can only happen during the Personal Life Phase ... to heal one-self in the middle of the Mission Phase one needs to spend xp points, or something ... and possibly the more hurted you are, the most xp you need to spend.

Wow, that's a lot of options for the different kinds of points!

You're going to have to be clever with your layout to communicate them to new new players. My head is spinning with all of the variants. When I break down what I can do with each type of "point," I can imagine being able to make a fun decision, but I'm also a bit intimidated by the options and the quasi-bookkeeping that I understand will be necessary.

I imagine you will streamline this cleverly as you develop the game.

As for the die system, I'm really not convinced that you need the non-standard die variants. Maybe I'm missing something here.

How do the tiers affect each other? Like, say I have Melee d6 and I want the Focus to be Blades and the Specialisation to be Knives. Does that mean Blades always starts at d8, and Knives at d10? If I gain xp in Melee, do I just increase my Melee, or are the other tiers affected? I mean, if I raise my Melee to d10, will my Blades stay at d8 and my Knives at d10? Or do the Focus and Specialisation always have to match or exceed the tier above? If the Focus and Specialisation always have to match or exceed the tier above, then they are always going to be better options to use in game. If they do not have to match the tiers above, then it is likely that some players will have 1st tiers that are higher than their Focus or Specialiastion, which means that the 1st Tier will get used more commonly than the others.

Either way, I think this system is problematic. If I write up character as a Knife Thrower, and I put all my shit into throwing knives, I am incentivised to use my knives to deal with any challenge (because they probably give me the best dice). To stop me using my knives either a) the game takes my knives away and usurps my decision to create a knife throwing character, or b) I get bored with using knives and try something else, only to realise that using my knives would have given me better dice. I think the system might type-cast characters.

Okay, so this happens in every game. But still, when there is a GM there to tell you that you can't draw your knife in time before the bear charges at you, it's much easier to force yourself to think outside the box. If you're playing a game without a GM and someone presents a challenge, you may find it easy to argue your case (that you can use a knife and therefore get the big bonus).

Also, could you explain to me why you need three tiers? Why wouldn't two do? When am I going to use Blades instead of Knives? I mean, if you see a knife guy in fiction (including RPGs), he always uses his knives. If I've got a character who's a raconteur, I always get him to tell cool stories. If I have a girl who can disguise herself as anything, I'll always get her to disguise. I don't get the knife guy to fight with a sword, I don't get the raconteur to sing, and I don't get the disguiser to use etiquette at the gate (unless it's for a disguise).

If anything, I get the knife guy to fight with an ungainly club, the raconteur to try charming with machismo and the disguiser to act as bait for a trap. I like pushing characters toward or against their talents. See what I mean? If not, no problem. I'm rambling.

@ Sebastian ... I like the idea of using Threat Points to inject problems in Personal Life, but first I need to make them desirable ... why would you inject problems and menaces into your missions, and then also in your private life, if not to get some fat benefit RIGHT NOW? :D

Thanks!
You are actually helping me A LOT :D
This helps me put my ideas in order, and on "paper" ... it is a huge boon to me.
So answering to you I think I'll basically end up ranting and talking to myself ... just check if any of it makes sense ^_^

______ Skill System ______

You make very good points.
Spot on ... the skill system is giving me a headache because, I think, I'm trying to both produce something that works well for me AND that actually looks like something else :P
First, some clarifications about what I have on the table right now...

Tiers are linked in a logical chain, but mechanically they are independent traits.
Any trait can be raised and used by itself.
I can have Melee d10 and Blades d6 and Knives d20, there is no connection.

I think it's ok if a player tries to use his "best trait" as often as he can.
And it's a sound strategy to dump all points in the more general and all encompassing Tiers.
I actually expect players to exploit the rules in any way they can.

That's why I put limits to some options.
More general and broad traits cost more experience AND have a nerfed development.
Remember?
T1 costs *3 and only gets up to d10.
So having "Melee d10" is fine and dandy, but this way you limit yourself to a low performance level ... to go higher you have to use Tier2 or Tier3 skills.
The idea is that should all balance out... I need testing :P

Now on to Player choice.
I think that it all comes down to the actual fiction and how I choose to face it.
So your character is a Knife Thrower ...
First... what does that even mean?
It means, in game-terms, that he has one very good "Knife" trait, let's even say a d20.

My reasoning is that he may be faced with a fictional situation where knives are not useful, or supposedly can't be used ... it's not rules, it's a fictional situation.
You as a player may find cool to tackle this situation with your knives none the less, or you may consider that using a d20 trait is best for your chances of success ... either way you pick "Knife d20" as the Skill Trait you are going to use.

First of all, this is all backwards :P
Remember, first you try to do something in the fiction ... and it simply succeeds unless someone else challenges you to overcome an unexpectedly difficult obstacle.
So you may find yourself in a situation very specifically set and detailed in which "knives" have no place at all, by YOUR choice in the moment you went down a particular course of action!

But yeah, maybe you think-up some solution that will involve knives; nothing stops you from whipping them out at some point, right?
Ok.
So you get to roll your fat d20.
But wait ... maybe your idea isn't that great in the eyes of others, maybe some of them (even just one) think it's bull or really too far fetched.
This means the rules will kick in and add 1d4 or even 2d4 to your pool.
1d4 is added as soon as even one player is not happy with your narration, 2d4 kicks in if the majority of other players is displeased ... arguing beyond a veeery limited point doesn't work because it's not about people grudgingly saying "ok" ... they can't say "no" in the first place! ... it's about people being not really pleased with your narration.
(there IS a veto rule, but it applies to much more radical situations)

NOW let's re-evaluate your options: is rolling a lower dice (like a d10 or d8 or even a d6) truly worse than rolling 1d20+1d4 or even 1d20+2d4?
Is it worth to get 1 very successful die in exchange for two almost sure failures?

I'm not saying this should push you to reconsider.
I'm saying there is a price-tag attached to everything, and that the actual fiction we produce has a lot of weight, and that in light of these elements you can make whatever choice you like the most.

And this is ONE way things (should) work.
Then yes, maybe it could happen that you don't have your knives at hand, but then what's stopping you from crushing a bottle and using it as a knife?
The point is not to block player's options ... the point is to produce variety and smart thinking IN THE FICTION.
If the player only uses the one d20 trait he has, who cares? ...as long as he is compelled (by how things work) to come up with good stuff in the fiction :)

Besides, I don't see a bit of typecasting as a bad thing in this kind of game.
It's cool to have "the hacker" along with "the mastermind" (to use Leverage jargon) ... or to have "the healer, the tank and the striker" ... its a tactical team of characters, if anything it's expected of them to somehow cover each one some kind of niche.

About being bored of always using "Knives" ... this is only an issue if the rules are somehow turning "Knives" into a forced choice, one that you have to make always because it is plainly better than other choices, so you end up having to choose between fun and performance,
That would be bad :(
But are things like that?
Maybe not ... 1d20 means you have higher chances to score ONE successful die ... with possibly fatter rewards ... but overall success doesn't depend strictly on it.
So yeah it's better to roll fatter dice, but not deal-breaking better, I think.

Anyway I see how that could be an issue, and I was cooking up some solutions.
First, remember dice Impairment?
I was thinking: you always have to Impair your highest rated Traits ... fatigue takes the edge away from people, after all :)
You get hurt -> you move hurt to impairment to avoid penalty dice or even death -> your "best options" become just "options"

Three tiers come from my desire to have details in this game.
I like the idea that using a sword instead of a knife instead of a bladed-wolverinelike-gauntlet instead of a hummer actually makes a difference.
So if you have your handy knife you use "Knives" ... if you have a sword and no T3 trait you can default to "Blades" ... and if you find yourself fighting with a broken chair you default further up to "Melee".

If you don't manage to find a suitable Skill Trait at all and you really don't want to do something else in the fiction (but I see it as a very rare predicament) then you get to roll 1d4.
But then again, you always have your good old Persona Traits to add some decent die to the pool ;)

I thought of using just one tier of traits, very specific from the start.
But I don't know...
Since players should come up with traits, not having a clear "General - Focused - Specific" structure may lead to problems, where a trait that is actually quite broad is used, and suddenly THAT unbalances the game, because it has both the number advantage AND the fictional advantage.

I also like to be able to default to broader options.
And I like the idea of starting broad and knit-picking my character's specializations.

Actual Play:
my last attempt at playing Shadowrun 4th Edition happened a few years ago.
A bunch of people offered me to join a chat-game, and I said yes.
I spent basically a whole week building my character.
He was a Rigger, and I had a lot of fun carefully picking up stats, skills, designing his custom vehicle and specific software set-up.
I enjoyed exploiting the many options I had to try something new (for me at least) ... I built him a humanoid vehicle (think of a sealed shell with cybernetic legs and arms) and loaded it up with state of the art driving-software, skill-software, etc.
In the end I was like a cyborg without the problem or actually being one ... I WAS moving my metal body ... I just wasn't a human-sized cyborg, I was instead a human pilot driving a troll sized "shell".
It was all rule-book kosher ... I had a lot of fun building it ... and I was eager to use that character in actual play.
Too bad the play-by-chat aborted for some reason (the GM wasn't available anymore) so it all amounted to nothing.

Somehow this 3 Tier structure makes me feel like I have some degree of what I had in Shadowrun, without the need to write down 5 rulebooks choke-full of lists of skills, guns, cyberware, etc :P
Mission accomplished?
I don't really know ... I need to test it all as soon as I have a workable rule-set :)

. . .

______ Loot System ______

It works like this.
If someone describes a stash of guns and you want to pick one up ... you just do it.
That gun is only a fictional implement ... it allows you to shoot people, but it gives you no dice or other benefits.
Or maybe a fitting instrument could earn you a standard free 1d6.

On the other hand if you had some spare Loot Points you could instead give the gun its own statistics, buying them with Loot Points, and say "Oh Joy! Look at what awesome thing I just found!"

Loot is not about having the right to narrate content in the fiction.
Loot is about earning "item experience points" ... you can burn them right there and then, or you can get them home and then make them become more (but unavailable in the middle of a mission).
I hope now it's meaning is clearer ;)

Much clearer. I'm starting to understand your choices.

It's nice to see that you are clear of purpose. You really know what you want to achieve. From here, I'd like to see a fully exposed character creation system (with all the charts and descriptions and so on), so that I could create a character.

I'd also like to see more detail on Personal Life. I'm interested to see how characters are going to be motivated. At the moment, all the decisions are about building a competent mission operative (which is fun). Are you thinking of creating personal motivations, hooks, flaws, aspects, etc. to tie the characters into the fiction? If not, do you think your target audience will be okay with that? If they're old school, maybe they won't care. If there are hooks to tie the characters to each other, to the overriding plot and game world, to their Personal Life, etc. what sort of mechanics could drive that? Is there any way you could challenge a character's motivation (putting hte thing he cares about in danger), incorporate his flaw, tempt him with his desire, or whatever, to add some bite to the tale? Perhaps certain FAILS offer a "Personal Plot Twist?"

I like the idea (from Luke Crane) where characters who drive toward their ambition are given a better chance of success during a challenge. It tends to build stories. Maybe you could think about that.

sorry for taking so long to answer, but I found out that I myself had problems building a character, and only today I figured out a way to do it (thanks to a friend that chatted a bit with me about my game ^_^)

so... Character Creation...

All characters start the game with some pre-set Basic Traits (meaning the more generic stuff, Tier 1).
These are very generic and universal.
They are:

--- Persona
- Body
- Mind
- Quid (should be used for any "special" thing, but I see it as being specifically adapted to each setting)

--- Skill
- Fight
- Athletics
- Speak
- Knowledge

You can add more, these are just very basic things that anyone is supposed to have access to.

Now you can "focus" whatever interests you, adding a trait that covers just one area of the Basic Trait you are interested in.
Es.. Fight --> Shoot

Now you can further focus the things you had an interest in, getting to a very specific level.
Es.. Fight --> Shoot --> Guns

The thing is, the first 2 steps don't cost anything and have no values attached to them.
Only the 3rd tier, the more specific one, costs Building Points:
1 BP = d6
2 BP = d8
3 BP = d10

These prices are not cumulative, meaning that if I want to set my "Guns" trait at d10 I have to spend a total of 3BP.
You have 10 Building Points for Persona Traits, 10 for Skill Traits, and 10 for Equipment Traits.
At character creations Traits are limited to d10.

You can also buy Support Traits at the same price, also up to d10.
As explained in previous posts, these traits ADD their die to a specific T3 trait.
Es.. Fight --> Shoot --> Guns(d6) + Revolvers(d6) ... this means that if you use a revolver you get to roll 2d6

Usually characters can link just one Support Trait to any one T3 trait.
Or, maybe, you can have more, but can use only one at a time.
Es.. Fight --> Shoot --> Guns(d6) + Revolvers(d6) / Quick Draw(d8) / Art of the Ghost Shot(d6) ... when you roll, if the circumstance allow it, you can activate up to ONE of your Support Traits.

If during a test you find a way to use a trait with a die linked to it, you roll that die.
If for some reason you don't have a useful trait or can't use the ones you have, you are forced to default to the upper tiers ... default by one step and you roll 1d4 ... default by two steps and you roll 2d4.

Es..
I have the Fight--Shoot--Guns(d8) trait-chain.
I have to take down a guard and I'm approaching the situation in a combat-oriented way... a fellow player calls a Challenge... and I have to roll dice.
If I have a gun and want to use it to accomplish my task I add 1d8 to the pool.
If for some reason I don't have a gun, but I get my hands on a rifle, I have to default to "Shoot" so I add 1d4 to the pool.
If I can't get a hold of any "shooting thing" and still want to solve this with combat, I have to default to "Fight" so I add 2d4 to the pool.

Of course characters should have a decent variety of options, so that if one trait can't be used, they hopefully have good alternatives.
But just in case, if need be, they can default to very general and universal resources.

Truth be told, I see the whole thing working out the other way around.
The previous example makes things look like I gent into trouble then I pick a trait to use.
This is mechanically accurate, but what really happens works more like this:
- I face a situation in the fiction (must get past a guard)
- I look at my traits and evaluate my tools (I'm strong with guns, but I lack a gun right now!)
- I decide the best course of action (let's try kung-fu ... sneaking ... fast-talk ... etc)

At this point I act on my intention, and if someone calls for a Challenge then my options are substantially already set for me because the fiction has already established what I am doing and how, more or less.

...

Let it be noted one thing: the whole point of the 3 tier structure, with pre-set T1 traits, is to help players produce the RIGHT KIND of T3 traits.
It's basically a way to make people "do things right" even if they are inventing their own traits.

...

So you get your 30 Building Points to spend on Traits:
max 10 for Persona Traits, with a trait-cap at d10
max 10 for Skill Traits, with a trait-cap at d10
max 10 for 10 Equipment Traits, with a trait-cap at d10

What else?

In game you can "store" up to 3 points of Adrenaline.
You can spend Building Points to improve your storage capability, up to a value of 10 points total: 1BP = +1 to the storage limit
Same goes for Influence points and Threat points.

Hurt.
You get a Hurt-meter composed of 3 boxes ... whenever you get Hurt, you fill one box ... etc etc etc.
These boxes too can be improved, up to a total of 10 boxes.
Questions:
) 1BP = +1box? ...or maybe 2BP = +1box?
) should characters start with 3 free boxes, or 6?

...

So, this is basic char-gen.
I still have to figure out the details on Equipment Traits, but let's leave it out for now.
Another hot topic concerns the possibility of adding some kind of "human element" at this stage ...personal goals? ...things your character cares about? ...problems, weaknesses, personal-life stuff?

The POINT of the game is the Mission related stuff.
"Personal Life" is supposed to play out more or less like "Character Scenes" in Anima Prime ... or "Rest Scenes" in AGON and Solar System ... brief moments that show the characters doing something more human than heroic, but that are basically just an excuse to activate mechanical rules that allow you to heal, spend xp, get equipment, accrue bonuses, etc.
And in the end it's just a brief filler between one mission/quest and the next one.

Maybe there could be a way to award the authority to pick the new mission, like, if a player spends his Personal Life scenes to win this right and comes up with a "social" mission instead of yet another round of "wet-work"?

If there are hooks to tie the characters to each other, to the overriding plot and game world, to their Personal Life, etc. what sort of mechanics could drive that? Is there any way you could challenge a character's motivation (putting hte thing he cares about in danger), incorporate his flaw, tempt him with his desire, or whatever, to add some bite to the tale? Perhaps certain FAILS offer a "Personal Plot Twist?"

Hi Alessandro,

I tried to make a character and ran into some difficulty.  I wanted to make a knife throwing trapeze artist. I’ll go through the process to highlight my difficulties.

Persona
What focus would you expect here? Can you give examples? For Body, I wanted to pick Balance or Speed. But wouldn’t they be more suited to Athletics (the Skill)? I’m confused about how to focus the Persona traits without turning them into things like skills. Here’s what I ended up with:

- Body --> Balance --> Tightrope Walk d10
- Mind --> Alertness --> Danger Sense d10
- Quid --> ????

How do I spend the rest of my Persona BP? Do I add in some more stuff? Like...

- Body --> Balance --> Tightrope Walk d10
- Body --> Wiry --> Squeeze into small place d10
- Body --> Light --> Silent walker d6
- Mind --> Alertness --> Danger Sense d10
- Quid --> ????

Skill
Skills were easier to pick, but I felt like the Persona parts really crossed over, or had the potential to cross over. If you don’t want that mix-up, you’ll probably want to think about how to present the Persona traits differently. If you don’t mind the mix-up, then you should get rid of Persona traits completely. As you said yourself, if it doesn’t add anything, get rid of it. Here’s what I ended up with:

- Fight --> Throwing --> Knives d10
- Athletics --> Climbing --> Wall running d10
- Speak --> Charm --> Seduce d10
- Knowledge --> Security --> Lockpicking d6

I didn’t see the value in adding Support skills. They are dependant on another skill, and I’d rather spend the points maxing out in several key areas than in maxing out on fewer so I can add Support. That is, I considered adding “Ricochet” to the Knife focus, but that would have cost another 3 BP. Instead, I opted for adding in Wall Running at d10. Maxing a new trait or adding a Support die to an existing trait? Seemed like a no-brainer.