im a newcomer to both this website, tabletop game design, as well as tabletop gaming in general.

first of all, i have never played an official game, only ever homebrew designs conjured up by my friends and myself, as such i appreciate that my designs will have many flaws.

ok then, the current system being played is the only one that has survived more than the initial alpha test, as such i have high hopes for it.

for lack of a better title we call it The Game.

the core principle of the game is the difficulty settings.
easy
normal
medium
heroic
legendary
these difficulties are assigned to any action you wish to perform within the game. an action is performed by rolling two D6 and adding these values to that of your stat. the harder the difficulty the higher you must roll on your 2D6 to acheive it.

to enable ease of play however, characters have a luck attribute. this is a depletable resource which can be added on top of any action you wish to perform to aid you in achieving more difficult (and often more entertaning) actions. luck is only lost if the action is successful.

for health, we use a realistic wound tracking system which is mostly up to GM discretion (myself). however to determine the damage dealt we use damage charts.
when attempting to shoot an enemy, a difficulty is given to you based upon accuracy. the higher your roll is compared to the target means that you are more accurate and thus you receive a bonus to damage and lethality. [i would like to note that i created this system within 2 minutes when i realised that one of my players wished to shoot an enemy, and i had no system to detail such an action].

the stats used are dependent upon the genre of the game and they are created at the start of each session of play using a point buy system for each character.

other than that, everything else is created on the spot by me during in play, often using the players design of character to influence the outcome (i.e. a medic can attempt a surgery roll twice).

magical abilities and other paranormal devices tend to operate upon the same difficulty system. though to compensate i use a wound system should you fail a spell (i.e. fail to cast fireball and your arm breaks).

to date, i have GM'ed more than ten sessions, and played in two. with average times lasting anything from 1 to 8 hours (we are currently playing a campeign in between our irregular sessions).
i believe that this system has many advantages due to its lack of rules (though this does place stress upon th GM) as well of its flexibility.

so yeah, i would appreciate any feedback out there as well as any questions you may have, and as a point of pride this whole game was created on the spot within five minutes. thanks all

I was glancing at d6 systems today and this one happened to catch my eye. Some similarities to what you've laid out here in the resolution mechanic. Luck is an interesting addition. You mention it being used up for successes, yet I am curious as to how you recharge it. I've been in games where such a stat (called, well, luck) came back over time slowly and more quickly if the character did something "cinematic" during play.

Translating homebrew into something more formal usually has the difficulties of remembering how the rules are actually being used in play, and finding the vocabulary to translate it into something that is instructional, thus allowing others to play.

A long ways back I was working with some friends on a homebrew and I think the most difficult part was setting down the specifics of how we did things without sacrificing the flexibility that we had worked into our gameplay. The first draft of the rules we tried to put together read like a Betty Crocker cookbook instead of coming off like the instructions of a gourmet chef. We managed a second and third draft which made more sense, but it took a fair bit of work and a lot more words than we needed to just explain things to each other in order to come up with something that might have given others an idea of what we were thinking.

As an example, you say that stats are made up depending on the genre. In order to translate that into a system that anyone can use, you need to be able to give examples, guidelines, and even restrictions. So maybe there are no less than four attributes, and there are never more than eight. Maybe they have to be split between physical attributes and mental ones evenly. You get my drift? Some kind of guidelines to make sure the system plays "right" and doesn't end up being something completely different because instead of you playing, it's a different group.

nah sweet as.

luck is used up during play when characters find themselves in situations that they are unsuited for, and as such must "wing it".
in play i recharge luck whenever the characters sleep. this is useful as you can make the game easier or harder depending upon how often as the GM you allow the players to sleep.

as for stats.
i tend to have anything between 4 to 8 stats to facilitate as much actions and diversabilty in game play as possible.
the must haves are

accuracy
some magic stat (depending upon genre)
a strength/endurance stat
a movement stat

other than this, any stat that fits the genre can be used (i.e. hacking within a cyberpunk setting).

the actual value of the stat is irrelevant providing that you predetermine the average stat and set the difficulty settings accordingly.

Hi,

i believe that this system has many advantages due to its lack of rules (though this does place stress upon th GM) as well of its flexibility.

fair enough.
by lack of rules, i guess im referring to the fact that there is little for each player to remember (case in point we had a newcomer join our campaign midway and flourish). and also that the entire rules list can be written on a single piece of paper.

as for the advantage over free forming?
essentially there isn't one. the game is played in a completely free style manner. however, through the use of the difficulty settings players have a firm grasp of what their character is capable of and what would be considered risky for them.

for example, if a certain jump of medium difficulty requires a 12, then a player with 5 speed may be able to make the jump with a 50/50 survivability rate (rough odds of rolling a 7). however a more ninjaesque player with a speed of 8 would find that same jump to be easily attainable.

in short, by using the stats and the difficulty settings i allow players to choose any action they can perceive, whilst giving them an understanding of what is realistically achievable for their player.

i hope this helps, and thanks for the feedback

It seems to me that you could generate the same effect and be diceless by using traits which describe what a character is able to do.

A character with "research scientist" and "champion volleyball player" would find isolating a strain of bacteria and leaping over obstacles equally attainable, while they would perhaps suffer in playing the stock market.

Not to say your way doesn't work,obviously, just wondering why use attributes with numbers instead of declaring specialties. What's the benefit?

i use numbers because it works better for us.

for example, having a player with "research scientist" may enable him to research cures. but then how do you determine the difficulty of such a cure? whilst if i use a difficulty of legendary, all players can see the difficulty of such a cure.

i realise that that is a poor example.

we do use skills, but these mostly give you a bonus in different areas, i.e. medicine, stealth.

i feel that the reason i use numbers is that the characters are meant to be as realistic as possible. any body can achieve anything, though it will obviously be more difficult for some to do certain things. by using numbers a character has certain attributes that will help them (i.e. strength, wisdom, creativity) which a player can use to achieve their goals. whereas if i declare specialties, players are too restricted to only perform those actions.

to note yours, the researching volley ball enthusiast may have trouble with the stock market, but what happens if everybody starts playing the stock market? that player is effectively screwed. whereas if these actions require rolls baced upon say creativity, interpretation and the like, then any player can attempt any action with a clear understanding of how much risk they are taking.

furthermore, this is a very homebrew game. as the only person o ever GM it, it is highly derrogitive of my style. i prefer to let my players figure things out, rather than their characters. which is why i mostly use physical attributes for stats and leave the mental ones for the player to use themselves.

i realise that i may of misinterpreted what you said, and that this isnt the clearest response, but that is why i use numbers.

No, it makes sense. I was curious, and you've given a detailed explanation.

For some people gaming means throwing dice and I was wondering if that was going to be your answer. I personally don't like freeform, and I love dice. I wouldn't generally design a game that didn't involve using them, but I might use traits instead of attributes (which are really the same things just named differently anyway) to determine how those dice are influenced. :)

You mentioned you'd played two sessions, and that you're the only GM. Did you play a GM-PC in a couple of sessions? If so, how did you find the system supported that? If not, how did the player who ran the game handle the system in comparison to when you run things?

cheers.

i am generally the GM due to my love of fantasy and science fiction. i tend to be the only one who can create detailed and enjoyable situations ad lib.

i have played GMPC a few times, this works in small sessions of one or two hours which are just used to muck around in. i find that gameplay wise the mechanics hold up well and there was no discrepancies between the success of my actions and those of the other players.

however, this only works in ad lib games where there is no secrets or mystery as a long term game isn't enjoyable without it.

as a PC it works for me, the only downside being that my friends all suck at it.

what i find works best for this system is joint GMing, where the GMPC runs the game, but the other players assign the difficulties for the GMPC's actions. this creates a greater sense of balance and prevents the GM from abusing power

however, through the use of the difficulty settings players have a firm grasp of what their character is capable of and what would be considered risky for them.

This is a good question. There are cases for doing it both ways.

State Action -> Determine Difficulty -> Roll Dice (Forced)
OR
State Action -> Determine Difficulty -> Roll Dice (Or Choose To Pass)

If you take the first option, you end up with a situation in which the players can sort of guess how hard their characters might find something, but when it comes down to it, they're taking a gamble.

The second option takes that gamble away, but allows for simulation of characters who are very aware of their abilities.

You can, however, combine the two. Imagine that you make the rule forced rolling for any untrained ability, and a choice for any trained ability. This simulates the fact that experts have more of a grasp of how hard things really are, while amateurs don't.

good question, and good response.

in general, i reveal to the player the difficulty and they can choose their action accordingly. i take the view that we all have a decent grasp of what actions and tasks we are physically capable of performing.

however, when it comes to leap of faith gameplay, the difficulty is hidden so as to enhance the risk taken on the part of the player.

to prevent a player from spending too much time to select the easiest option, i tend to move the game ahead at real time. this is simply a GMing technique and has nothing to do with game mechanics, but it provides frantic gameplay and prevents abuse of the system.