I wrote a small rpg: here

It's main feature is that I have seperated the exploration component and winning component, instead of trying to blend them together somehow with having rolls to hit and such. I think alot of my own writers block came from adding exploration to winning mechanics pretty much watered down the winning mechanics (or made them such an ordeal to write them all out it sucked), or trying to get winning mechanics into exploration pretty much ahnihilated exploration, turning it into a complex boardgame at best (which lead to that 'make it complex/an ordeal' to write out one). There was this arms race of trying to make it sooo complex there was exploration and at the same time hard mechanical manouvering. I'm probably not describing very well why they didn't go together. However, as you can see, in kinda of seperating them, I got something written up. So I think the seperation was significant.

They aren't perfectly seperated, of course, but they aren't joined at the hip either - they have a shared currency, currently given the imaginative name of 'resources'. As you wander around the map, you might come across and collect resources. And you can choose to roll on the avancement grid (at any time - not when fiction dictates you may). The more resources you have, the more reduced your absolute lose chance on the advancement grid is.

What kind of seperates them is that technically you don't need to play either. You could just turn to lady luck and on each of your turns, roll on the advancement grid. You might very well make it, and bravo to your guts and luck if you do, sir!

Or you could pootle around on the exploration map, collecting resources perhaps, or perhaps asking the GM questions about stuff there or talking to NPC's. But jeez - how can you do that forever, eh? Well, how could I do that forever?...nuh uh is the answer. But the notion you can (even if you choose not, you could possibly do so) and so a sort of principle of exploration is preserved. There is no mechanical seal that finally makes all the numbers fall into place and thus only the numbers are significant.

Perhaps I've actually build in a drift point, where you choose when you drift off from exploring and onto who wins and who loses (well, who wins and who comes second/third/etc and who gets really unlucky on their rolls and is eaten by a raptor)

Originally I was kind of interested in the wilderness part of the Rifts setting, and instead of starting out as some guy who just gets big guns and armour *poof* out of character creation, what it's like to start with dirt instead. That was the setting.

Now I look at the exploration part though - it's so elegant. Why stick rules into all that (any more than the map grid movement and resource rules there right now)? It makes me think all those game, rifts, D&D, cyberpunk, they just clutter rules all over with stats, skill rolls, attacks, hitpoints, etc in the hope that they can pretend to be a game just by sprinkling rules through fluff/imagination text. Like trying to blend oil and water. It's like this terrible clutch grinding; are we exploring/talking imaginative shit now? Or are we facing the crunch point of win or lose where it's not up to someones opinion whether we do or not? The problem is the books neither TOLD you to do one or the other at any given moment, nor did they tell you to CHOOSE which one you were doing at any given moment. So there's all these knee jerk and unco-ordinated reactions around the table of 'we just use our imagine/no roll, dammit!' Oh, and occasional, by chance, instances where everyones knee jerk reaction actually goes towards the same thing. Then the game is praised.

It just seems you get something clear, and then all the flotsom and jetsom suddenly becomes incredibly apparent. None of which worked by it's own merit - either you've got these stat rolls just floating amongst your exploration - so how does that integrate with imagination? Or equally you have these swaths of imagination between your mechanics for winning - why must we wade through the molasses of imagination to get to winning/losing, if it's time for freakin winning/losing now? (not to mention imagination controls which mechanics you go to, apparently, which more often than not, makes it decide the win/lose outcome, NOT the mechanics).

So appart from making up optional to use map content, I feel I'm done...much sooner than I expected. Which makes me suspect I've overlooked something?

Callan.
  This idea seems pretty cool. I wonder if you have read Remember tomorrow? I think some of the techniques used there might serve you well for this design (specifically, scene resolution).
  If you gather no Resources, you will only win 15% of the time. Is your character dead if you lose? Can you make a new character?

Hi Dave,

I haven't actually done hard math on the step progress. It's probably weighted more to atleast taking one or two resources near the start rather than a pure luck run. I did a test series of rolls just then and the third one got through. Amongst a few players, all taking that approach, one would probably win.

In terms of scene resolution - well, this doesn't really need scene resolution? If you as a player are done with a place, just use the movement rules. I mean, this design goes where alot of RPG's can't, for fear of sinking right into murk and molasses. There doesn't need to be any climax to a particular situation described, for play to advance. Just move away, and/or roll on the advancement grid. But alot of trad (and not so trad) games can't handle that - "Someone just walks off?? But we have to build up to a climax for this to pay off!! You can't just have a PC walk away without some climax resolved!". Not that I was aiming for that result - but you kind of get that by default when you have a complete procedure. Instead of the traditional method where the only way to get forward is through the sense the fiction is proceeding toward something.

If you lose, your character isn't dead. He has been eaten! It's a much more violent form of death!!! Can you make a new character? When the next game starts, sure. There's this funny thing in RPG's, where people have decided they make them multi hour affairs, but then they kind of forget they made that decision and then just think that 'sitting out sucks!'. But it only really sucks because of the first decision. I don't imagine this a long game (not as long as monopoly turns out, that's for sure). Further, the winners also sit out, too. That's not something you see in traditional RPG's either.

Actually I put in some thing about the winning players still being able to move around, but can't pick up resources, didn't I? Kind of thought it wouldn't be taken up as an option very much and so wouldn't matter. I guess I really need to have both winners and those who have lost be able to continue or both sit out.