O.K. Here's an idea I came up with in a flash of inspiration...in the most unusual of places (but we wont get into that) I was thinking that the whole system would be run off of D12, because the D12 seems to be the only die type that doesn't see much use in other systems. If you honestly think that these ideas are dumb, please tell me. I'm trying to come up with a mechanics system that works.

Character Creation:

Stats: Numbered between 1 and 6. (1 being the lowest). Stats are used to negate penalties for various actions on skills. Note that they don't actually grant a bonus to skills, just reduce penalties. I'm not yet sure how many stats there are going to be (or thier nature), or how many points the player will have to spend. Stats will be upgradeable through the character advancement mechanic.

Skills: Numbered between 1 and 12. Skills are used as the main task resolution method for both combat and other tasks. In order to make a skill check, a player must roll a D12, and achieve a result LESS THAN the skill. (if the skill is a 6, a roll of 5 would succeed, but 7 would fail.) I was thinking that a natural roll of 12 would be an automatic failure.

Another flash of inspiration I just had: a merit/flaw system:

The player may take any number of merits, and they cost nothing. However, each merit also comes with some sort of flaw attached.

Example Merit: Woodsman

Benefit: Grants a -2 bonus to all skill rolls involving survival type skills

Flaw: Grants a -2 penalty to social interactions with "city folk".

kevin671 wrote: O.K. Here's an idea I came up with in a flash of inspiration...in the most unusual of places (but we wont get into that) I was thinking that the whole system would be run off of D12, because the D12 seems to be the only die type that doesn't see much use in other systems.

Hmm...I haven't though that far ahead yet. I'm thinking something along the lines of "the lower the roll, the better the effect", with a 1 being a critical success (works better than the person doing the action hoped) and a barely successful roll being worth a minor complication. Although...I did see an interesting mechanic (i can't remember where) that had the degree of success improve the closer the roll got to the target number (ie: the closer the roll is to 12, without actually hitting 12 the better). But that mechanic involves a little more "bookkeeping" than just a straigh "lower is better".

What do you suggest?

kevin671 wrote: Hmm...I haven't though that far ahead yet. I'm thinking something along the lines of "the lower the roll, the better the effect", with a 1 being a critical success (works better than the person doing the action hoped) and a barely successful roll being worth a minor complication. Although...I did see an interesting mechanic (i can't remember where) that had the degree of success improve the closer the roll got to the target number

Oh, Yeah!!! I'd forgotton Fading Suns.....I'm gonna get me a copy of that game. I had tons o' fun with that one......


At any rate, I think it's time I flesh this little SOB out some more:


Stats: are group according to the following

Mental
Intelligence
Perception

Social
Charisma
Appearance (not certain about this one)

Athletic
Reaction
Dexterity

Physical
Strength
Vitality

Spiritual
Psyche
Wierd


Skills: Rather than each skill being "based" on a specific stat, I think that the GM should decide which stat is most appropriate for the given task (an idea that originated with White Wolf). This would have the dual effect of making task resolution more "realistic" and discouraging people from "min-maxing" thier characters.

A character with a skill of 1 cannot succeed at anything; a character with a skill of 2 has an 8.33% chance of success.

I suspect you may wish to rethink these odds.

--M. J. Young

Hmm...a good point. I will need to put a little more thought into the skill system....perhaps the first skill rank will be a freebie when the skill is bought. (ie: a one time bonus of +1 skill rank when the skill is first aquired) I don't want to abandon the mechanic, though.

Man, this place is a GREAT sounding board. This is the most inspiration I've had in a single day.....and here comes some more



Combat Basics: Combat is resolved using the normal task resolution system, with some slight modifications. I'm still not sure how to handle the opposed nature of combat, but I'm looking at ways to incorporate some sort of "Defensive" stat or possibly skill (one example I was thinking of was a Margin of Success thing. Each player rolls a D12 against combat skill, the one who succeeds the roll by a higher margin [including modifiers] is the winner). I've changed my mind slightly about the straight D12's, instead I will use D6's to represent weapon damage.

The system uses a "Wound Rank" mechanic, as follows: Each character has a certain number of wound ranks (exact number to be determined later). Each wound rank has a certain number of points (constitution + [strength devided by two, round up] was the formula I had in mind, with wound points per level being an ability that can be improved through character advancement). This is true to the lethality level that I had in mind, with characters typically being able to withstand some punisment, but also preserving the "risk" element.

O.K. Class. Here we go with some more mechanics.....

Actions: I was thinking of using a mechanic similar to the Action Points from the Fallout series of game to represent the number of character actions per round. Something like 2 + Reaction Stat = the number of AP you begin with. You can increase this number to as high as double your Reaction Stat through character advancement. If this does not make much sense, bear with me.....I worked an insane shift today.....

So, I thought a little more about the skills issue, and here's what I came up with: Some skills may be used untrained. To use a skill untrained, roll the approprate stat, with all situational modifiers applied. The character does not get to use stat modifiers. The character may suffer a critical failure, but not a critical success, and the skill is not as effective (ie: an unskilled climber may only climb half as many units of distance as a skilled climber. Ranged weapons have thier ranges reduced, etc.)

kevin671 wrote: Some skills may be used untrained. To use a skill untrained, roll the approprate stat, with all situational modifiers applied. The character does not get to use stat modifiers. The character may suffer a critical failure, but not a critical success, and the skill is not as effective.

Hmm...I had another idea. Why not do away with the skill ranks entirely?

Skills would still exist, and each would have a set cost during character creation and advancement. But once you have a skill, there is no need to put anymore points into it. Skill rolls would be accomplished by rolling under the relevant statistic. Certain skills would be usable untrained, in which case the skill is rolled as stated, but the skill is half as effective. This, I think, would reduce or eliminate the problem. (yes, I realize that someone with a higher statistic might have a greater chance of success. However, the one with the skill would use it more effectively, representing the fact that he "knows how to do it.")

Although balancing Merits & Flaws by making a merit also contain a flaw is appealing, it might rule out certain merits. I suggest you run a quick list of the most important merits and check so that those work nicely with this scheme before deciding to go with it.

Yeah...I need to do some more work on the merit/flaw system. Now that I think of it, I might give a player a choice of flaws to go along with it. My main idea for a system like this was to prevent abuses. I can remeber White Wolf Games where guys showed up who had characters with 7 points of flaws, and 22 points of merits.

Or maybe a points based system is the way to go....something like....you must have an equal number of points in flaws that you do in merits....

Trivia: Another well-known system that uses roll-as-high-as-you-can-but-not-over is Unknown Armies.

Unkown Armies...I'll check that out. But I'm thinking of dropping that whole concept and going with the pure low roll. It's a much simpler system, which is the effect that I'm trying for.

Here's an idea I just had:

Skill Tiers: Skills have various levels of training required. Some (like driving a car) are easy to learn and master, while others (like flying a fighter jet) require some form of advanced training, as well as prior knowledge of other skills. In my system, skills are grouped according to this theory. Tier 2 skills are those skills which require little training to use, and tier 1 skills are those which require advanced training.

Example Tier 2 skills: Driving a car, Basic (high school) mathematics, swimming, climbing.

Example Tier 1 skills: Linguistics, Engineering, Flying a fighter jet, Martial Arts.

Tier 2 skills may be used untrained, but tier 1 skills may not.

Hi Kevin,

I may be a little over-stern in moving this thread to RPG Theory, but it seems to me as if it exists at the "pure fun idea" stage rather than at the "in development for publication" stage. Therefore I've moved it. Let me know if you think that's out of line; I'm not totally inflexible, after all.

Best,
Ron