In 4th Edition it is not hard to build a Drow ranger that fights like Drizzt. And this is intentional. Heck in DDI they even gave you the items Drizzt uses! just look up an optimized 2 weapon ranger build, make it a drow and give it the items Drizzt is known to use, presto you got Drizzt...

In 4th edition it is quite easy to build a character that makes people think, oh this guy fights like Ed or Al from Fullmetal Alchemist, or someone who fights like 'the man in black' from The Princess Bride. (Especially now that a Rapier is now a melee military weapon)

In addition to everything that has been listed so far in this thread, in an ideal game system, creating player characters and equally fleshed out NPCs should be kept streamlined and quick. If it takes 10 hours to make a character something is wrong. (And I am excluding time spent deciding what the character will be. I mean actual time spent assigning initial powers and gear and stats, etc...)

There is no perfect system, there are always trade-offs that must be weighed. A simple character is faster to make, but has fewer options, and having fewer options makes everyone cookie cutter which is not fun. Too many options and then you can fall into the 'I can't decide' or 'I am feat/slot starved' dilemmas.

Ro-Pi-Gamma (Found here: http://rhopigamma.wordpress.com/ ) covers such things. I would actually like to go through their episodes and summarize, pick catch-phrases, and otherwise squeeze every drop of wisdom from those shows to have a "How to Game" chapter written. I wholeheartedly agree that simplifying and giving common sense lessons is win.

Also, Drizzt can be found in the sample characters in character builder. You don't even HAVE to make him. He's already been made for you.

Totally agree.  One of the reasons I love d6 system is it's simplicity and chargen ease.  You have TONNS of options, but it's super simple to raise skills.  And Tim's suggestion crossed my mind too.

Now on to actual basic combat mechanic I was pondering.

LVL 1 NPC vs LVL 5 PC!  Both attack each other.  NPC has a combat value of 1 because he's a wussy compared to awesome PC!  LVL 5 PC has a combat value of 5!  The difference between the two is 4.  Each roll the number of dice they're allowed, whatever that is.  The number of dice that the NPC rolls that is a 4 or better = the number of successes.  The number of dice that the PC rolls that is -4 or better, I.E. all of them, = the number of successes.  Success are then tallied and levied against fighting spirit / hp / whatever.

The mechanic for determining HP, combat value, etc. has yet to be determined, but I'm seriously thinking it's entirely level based.  In other words, you cannot Min/Max the primary combat stats.

"But I want my character to be super accurate compared to my allies!"

Ok fine.  Spend the char advancement points, and you get no ranged penalties up to 300 yards.

There's more than one way to skin the RP game mechanic cat.  I like methods that involve as little math as possible.  And by precluding primary combat stats from tinkering, you avoid Min/Max and "this one stat is GOD" situations.

Also, following the above example's logic, if the dice everyone is rolling are d6's...

Level 8 PC vs lvl 1 NPC (or vice-versa) difference is greater than the maximum value of the dice, so the fight is rightly impossible to win for the lower level.  In D&D 4e, a fight with monsters that are +3 your level is considered a very difficult boss fight, but winnable.  +4 or more and you're in "probably going to TPK" land.  Implied in this guideline, as Joe pointed out, if a sadistic DM were to throw a level 10 encounter at a level 6 party, the players would likely ragequit.  Technically, if the players always rolled crits, and the monsters always 1, the level gap for potential success is much wider...  But the threat of ragequit is the only safety net preventing silliness like lvl 10's vs lvl 6's.  (The opposite is encouraged.  "Occasionally throw easy -3 encounters at the PCs so they can have a feel for how powerful they've become.")

Also, the D&D mirror exists in the "just take the difference of their level" mechanic.  After all is said and told, a level 30 character has just as much chance of hitting the AC of a lvl 30 minion as a level 1 character attacking a level 1 minion.

"Attack mod progression of PCs vs defense mod progression of monsters don't match in 4e!" you might say.

Don't confuse the facts with the argument.  The point is, in my ideal dice system, they WOULD match.  So any complaint about WotC being evil only proves my point that when you boil it down, an even match should be just that - an even match.  And vastly mismatched fights should be just that - a one sided curb stomp.  And this should remain essentially the same regardless of level.

Lastly, this concept allows for infinite progression and easy high level monster / PC generation.  In DBZ, "Over 9,000!" was a big deal at first.  Then they just tacked on a zero at a certain point.  Then another zero.  And another.  And so on.  Essentially, if you wanted, your characters could just keep getting more and more powerful, but still be evenly matched by the armies of majin bu they face off against.  The mechanic remains the same, just sounds more impressive the more mythical "zeros" you tack on.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:19, Wed 24 Nov 2010.

And then there's earning powers and diversity. Maverick at level 1 in Star Wars didn't have any powers. Just his sneak skill. Now, he can bend all four elements like Ang and even hover around while juggling a rock, a fireball and a ball of water. I think it should be the same in our system. Higher level should FEEL higher beyond simply flavor text. If being higher level is only about tacking on another zero, the love won't be felt.

I agree that neat new powers are neat, and it's what keeps me interested in leveling up, but...

Level 1 Rampage in d6 Star Wars rolled 6d6 to hit, and 5d6 damage with a blaster.

Level 10 Rampage in d6 Star Wars, after much dumping of character points rolls a 11d6 to hit, and 10d6+2 damage.  With a lightsaber.

If the game were more like CoX, and weren't broken unfair in favor of Jedi, it wouldn't matter if he was using a lightsaber or a fist, the game mechanic would essentially be the same at level 10.  Roll lots of dice.  Enemy defeated.

For me, what really makes a lightsaber fun is the flavor text.  The fact that the game system is broken in favor of Jedi actually takes away some of the fun.  (Evidenced by Nivera's complaints about 'I suck in combat because I had to spend points in piloting' making game less fun for me and her both.)

So yeah.  When it comes to basic game mechanic, I would like for everyone to be dumping about the same number of dice when at the same level.  There should be slightly more combat dice for the character who obsesses over combat and slightly more piloting dice for the one who obsesses over piloting, but not so much that if one is KO the combat guy will crash the ship trying to turn it on or the pilot will punch themselves in combat.

Decided to make a whole forum for discussing the best practices chapter of the game system.

link to another game

    Important Backwards angle from the 'Don't need fancy gear to survive'.  Unless there's some discount mechanic you have employed to buy something as an 'item', Don't make people suffer for having their straight up abilities flavored as Items.  Right about here, would be text spam ranting about Champions Mush experirnce outlining this issue.  But I'll skip that and short version.
  If somebody purchases an ability that could legally function as being just 'duuur, I have powers!' as it's Flavor, Don't force them to deal with the hassles of 'Item' powers if they want to flavor their Abilities as a Power Armor or something, and they are NOT buying it with 'item' discounts or whatever.

  The 'no initiative' thing. We 'almost' have that with our DnD rig in that the turns of allies are interchangeable (so long as there are more allies 'next' to them in the initiative).  However it could likely get very hard to post stuff properly if everything happens at the exact same time, even if everyone posted in a timely manner.  The 'more than one person gets a kill shot' can get kind of out of hand with even just DnD powers alone (not even touching the DnD powers that trigger of defeated targets).  Sorry Wizard, but that Swordmage banished your target from existence temporarily so the target out of your Acid Arrow range.  You also have *rolls* 17 arrows sticking out of you, but the cleric has already declared hitting a minion with a melee basic so maybe next turn they can heal you AFTER you have to make a death save roll.
  SOME kind of order is needed, especially on Play By Post when you can't just work out everything the Team has planned in a span of five minutes or so.

  The 'Advanced calculus to play' to 'Imaginaaatioooon!' style.  At least figured HP and hit/defenses.  No matter how much they end up the cause of Arg, they are kinda needed in most cases.  As for skills, simplify.  A) follow the logic that PC's are conveniently baseline skilled (sorta like they are in DnD, even if official DC's are too hard even for skill monkeys to manage regularly).  B) Don't make a pile of a zillion skills, nor make a few flagrantly better than the vast majority of them.
  18 different kinds of melee and ranged attack skills is not fun if they all boil down to 'you might actually hit something'. (let's see, Blaster rifles, blaster pistols, slungthrowers, Melee weapons, vibro weapons, ranged dodge, melee block, unarmed block, etc)  conversely, don't make one skill a super package deal that others can never compete with even if they get multiple skills, especially if it also has extra abilities and/or damage sources. (Lightsabre.)
  In fact, considering we likely wont be 'gear heavy' as that means stating up gear/making item tables/etc it's probably best to just assume you're competent with whatever method of carnage you employ, while any combat skills (if we even have them) should be for making your method of choice more trick shotty or something.

  The Tri-Stat deal and combat stat thing.  I would suggest 'let your primary stat be your combat stat', but then you have people punished for well roundedness instead of min/maxing even more than usual.  Why have 5/5/5 when 3/3/9 works just as well or better at keeping you alive/ass kicking?  However, it would also be one of the best ways to prevent 'this one stat is king' so, yeah.  Wish I had better insight there.
  But in general, the Tri-Stat intention (only need to think about 3 stats instead of 6 or more) is good idea.

  On the 'how complex, how many stats, skills, items' in a lump comment.  Simpler is better.  Not only because it would to the previously mentioned streamlining of creation gig, but there is also the fact that anything for this intended system is something we need to create in the first place (movement rules alone can be brain meltingly complicated).  By we I mean mostly you guys.  I just ramble and attack perceived flaws with a pickaxe.

  Minor twitch at the 'no range penalties up to' skill from past experience... But, Champs system DID have a good idea there.  Yes, Melee attacks were 'cheaper' than ranged.  However, there was no penalty (nor bonus) for shooting at things while in melee combat.
  Mildly related, One of the 'good' house rules of Champs Mush was no power could exceed 50 build points (or 10d10 DMG, which incidentally was what a 50 point basic Energy Blast did), at both chargen or EVER.  Pricetag was a separate matter.  If something only 'cost' you 15 from some combination of power disadvantages and other price discounts, you still couldn't exceed 50 points in what it was 'built' from.  This worked nicely, except around the players with so much EXP they were allowed to break the various 'at chargen' caps.


  But yes, some kind of upper limit on how much can be dumped into something would be good.  If say, 25 points or whatever (if we do point based) ends up max value, then it would be harder for people to tweak past the general range.  Harder, not impossible but still something.  It would also enable more points to be put into other things if you can't dump literraly half your pool into a single combat power.  (Again, noting both Pricetag and Buildy value separately would be a helpful bit if we go that path).  I know my Champions Mush guy's raygun was 50 'build' value, but the end price-tag was like 15-20 or so from the combinations of Item, shots limit, and other bits (may have had one rank of range nerf, but as range was tied to damage dice and it was a no frills, max damage dice attack that would basically turn it into a hand held sniper weapon as opposed to 'shoot the other side of the country).
  short bit.  Reasonable range caps on skills and 'abilities' at chargen.  Said cap can be met with decent points to spare on one, maybe to abilities (I'd say... A third of your CP for a capped power at lv 1 chargen?).  Said caps can not be widely exceeded later down the line to prevent 'well this is a higher class villain so of course their attack power has a third more points than normal' or similar.  And a damage cap alongside it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:18, Fri 26 Nov 2010.

Equality without equality is going to be insanely hard. Even though that seems to be one of the aims of this system. So just a thought; Imagine this roster of characters:

Antoinette
Tom
Angel
Alexis
Pan
Matt Darkthorne
Joe Darkthorne (the... POKEMON TRAINER with a pidgey)
Mittens (FFXI)
Mittens (CoX lvl 50 fire controller)
Optimus Prime
Bumblebee
Tinkerbell
Minni Mouse

Now. Match any two characters against each other like some kind of fighting game. Who wins every time? Normally, some of those match-ups wouldn't even be a challenge. But with the concept of all being equal, Minni Mouse could beat up Optimus Prime somehow. Or Tinkerbell could defeat Alexis. Or Tom could out-punch Pan or Angel. So my proposed thought was having differing TIERS of play that allow for different amounts of points, but no player can have more or less points than the other players currently in that campaign.

First of all, we're assuming there'll be point buy or skills or stats at all.  So far I had in mind a system so simple it was "You get this many dice to roll at X level" and that's it.  All your skills, powers, stats, weapons, etc. were so far just cosmetic.  I wanted to start from the absolute simplest concept and work up to more complications, and decided if we even wanted the added complication.

Case in point: Optimus Prime.

He has silly high stats and rightly so.  One of those stats is a high courage.  And rightly so.  But do we even want to stat courage at all?  Because if we do, that means somewhere along the line, the dice will determine whether Optimus Prime runs in fear or not.

Also... all those examples given... they'd be even matches if they were the same level.  Obviously, Optimus Prime would be way too powerful to start as a level 1... Unless you wanted to play him as a protoform.  So first we need to determine how we want to go about making characters unique.  By statting out every last detail?  Or going with something super simple such as "level X= you roll X dice" or somewhere in between.  My vote of course is super simple.

I'm going to say this now and get it out of the way: Do not stat or dice roll personality traits. If someone wants to flip a coin to decide what they wanna do in a given situation, that's on them.

But yes. We will need more than "level X = X number of dice" because then, to put it in CoX terms, the Tanker has the same HP as the controller. So why be a tanker. What makes you feel tough? Yes, I'm all for flavor text deciding a lot. But if this is an honest-to-goodness system we intend to try on others, they will, garunteed, want something more than rolling the same amount of dice to resist damage as the next shmuck.

I like simple, but if all we're going for is SO simple all we do is roll one die to determine everything and only if you're trained in it, then may as well just freeform RP. Because I've freeformed on SMT and we occasionally roll dice just to let fate decide if one of us hits something or not. Which, at that point, is still just freeform RP. Not an actual tabletop system.

I think World of Darkness came close to having it right. But that aside, I understand we're only STARTING at square one. Just making sure we don't end there.

OK so we do want statted skills and such, but nothing that'll determine a personality choice.  So any PC who wants to go toe-to-toe with and Elder Dragon will not be forced to shake in their boots by magic.  If the player chooses to say "my guy is just that brave" they can do so.

So what DO we want statted and how do we want it statted?  You mentioned WoD, but they had "presence" as a stat.  Vs. Willpower if I recall.  Here's another question.  How severe of an increase in power is it from 1 level to the next.  In Marvel, 10 levels was the difference between Aunt May and the beyonder.  DnD follows a much more linear progression.

But a lvl 30 gnome wizard can out arm-wrestle a lvl 1 goliath fighter.

We don't want character points being min/max spent into combat stats / skills for survival / nominal competence, but we do want character points spent in one specific focus to make a noticeable difference from one character to the next.  Smart character is smart.  Will have a better chance at figuring out brainy puzzle thing than strong character.  Strong character is strong, and will have a better chance of lifting heavy thing.  But how much stronger?

So... level alone will count for at least (half?) of the equation for lifing heavy thing.  Strength mod will count for (one quarter?), and lifting heavy things skill will count for another quarter?

  Different Tiers could work (both in how much you get to work with, and what my crazy and vague 'cap' idea goes up to), but I think we'll go insane if we try to focus on building Faction Cannon Angel Bard or Optimus prime, Semi-Phenomenal Nearly Cosmic Dark Power Edition Darkthorne, etc, let alone trying to figure out the mechanics balance.  Seriously we'd end up with a tier where we're beating planets to death with other planets and stealing Jesus's wallet at the same time.  As a take-five.

  Definitely agree to no stat based personality (duh).

  Also agree on Tim's end that there needs to be something to separate each character, but that in itself can be a headache even if a desired intention.   Also remember kids!  While the lv 30 Wizard dropkicks the lv 1 Fighter into the atmosphere is true, Race isn't that huge a factor considering there are no racial penalties in 4th ed.  Only bonuses ;D (It only feels like a penalty because your not perfect efficiency min/maxed.  Which the designers base lowest estimates on a lot).
  This is part of why I feel, if building goes into enough detail there, that some form of 'cap' on areas is a good thing.  Makes it a goal obtainable out the gate if you so desire, but also hopefully doesn't put that sort of thing so far beyond everything else that there is no contest.
  It would also hopefully encourage a lack of challenge DC's wildly escalating to match PC skill.  What's that GM?  Every lock we're running into is just slightly more complex than my lockpicking skill can handle?  We may as well turn around then because lockpicking can't go any higher right now.  The enemies have 13d6 fire DoT causing Greatswords when only up to 10d6 if it has no frills attacks exist? Hire someone else to save the princess.  Etc.

  As for Level=Results in the pure sense in DnD... I've never really got that in DnD.  Shortish version, oh wow you're a lv 30 unkillable semi-god warrior... You still cant walk across a freaking balance beam according to the DC of the area you are in.  Those gigantic burning lava golems are harder for you to notice with a passive perc than a goblin skulk for... some, reason.  While there IS a sense of advancement with your powers (and gear granting powers), there sure as hell isn't skill wise.
  It makes it tricky to show improvement by level outside of 'I have new abilities' IF your the kind that uses em.  DnD wise if you stripped out ENH bonus and Level+, then the To-Hit in DnD would be a very slowly advancing thing.  You WOULD be a good chunk better at it than a lower level person (considering your primary stat would +1 eight times from levels alone, which would double your mod+ if you started with an 18).  It would be a notable difference, with a clear reason as opposed to 'well, this goblin fireball shooting mage is a lower level than this here cave bear'.
  Even Shorter version. 'higher level' being the only reason something is better than a lower lv whatever annoys me.  It's not necessarily a bad mechanic, it's just one that bugs me.  Especially when combined with all things that require skill use being jacked up to make your gains inconsequential.

Meaningless skill gains are annoying, yes.  Climbing a 10' dungeon ledge should always be a DC 10 whether you're a level 1 character or a level 30.  This is why I facepalm over the Dark Sun escalating sun sickness attack.  The sun hates you more the higher your level.  >.<

So if level were entirely arbitrary and made no difference, then yes, I would hate level too.  I'm coming more from the perspective of video game level.  Where leveling up makes a huge difference.  Even in Legend of Zelda where numerical "levels" don't exist, you're way more powerful at the end of the game than at the start.  The beginning monsters didn't get any stronger, but they'll still kill you if you sit around doing nothing.

As for rules limiting the GM's access to higher level stuff... in video games, if your level 1 character walks into a level 10 dungeon, the character is going to be slaughtered.  At which point, the player sends a flame mail to the developers saying that their game is unfair?  No.  Sane players would know that they blundered, will load their game from the last save point, and be determined to level up and get revenge on that level 10 dungeon.  Which will still be a level 10 dungeon by the time they do.  And two months later it will still be a level 10 dungeon.

Then CoH came up with the brilliant idea of player selectable difficulty.  They can choose if they want to enter a dungeon that's several levels above them or a level below.  On top of that they can basically pull a dungeon out of their butts using /newspaper.  But this is a situation where there's no GM.  Ooooh!  No GM needed PnP game system!  Now there's an idea.

Aaaanyway.  Back to original topic.  If a GM throws a +5 level encounter at the players, it's obviously because "this is the part of the story where you RUN AWAY!"  If the players choose to stand and fight, the GM can let them know, "these guys con purple.  Are you sure?"  If they insist on staying they'll likely get creamed.  This is player stupidity.

On the other hand, if the players have to take a boat to an island in order to save the day, and the lake has an abolith in it, this is the GM being a nimrod and the players quitted.  Game over.  Never played another game with that person as GM again.

So what am I saying?  I'm saying that DnD adventure writers are nimrods.  A 10' wall should always be a DC 10 regardless of what the level of the players is.  Just because the DC table says "very difficult" DC for a level 10 lock is 20something doesn't mean that the storage closet's lock is going to be a level 10 very difficult DC just because this is a level 10 adventure.  Or even a level 10 VERY EASY.  It's a friggin storage closet!  The lock would be a level 1 difficult at most.  DnD's DC chart would be fine, in all it's incarnations, if the people who made the adventures were sane and had some perspective.

On the other hand, SHOULD we have a level 30 barbarian easily able to pick a level 5 lock with no training or experience ever?  The reason we might say "yes" is so that players won't feel useless in a dungeon full of locks.  Or maybe the barbarian can't pick locks and just smashes the door.  The more I think about it, the more I don't want to keep level 30 whatever being able to easily do level 1 whatever just because.
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:03, Fri 26 Nov 2010.

  Yeah, no.  I'm not talking about 'oh boo hoo my lv 2 character cant handle a lv 30 dungeon'.  I'm talking about 'Oh hey, this enemy has a +8, 1d20 Greatsword... wait what.' When we all know that's fooking impossible with what the 'cap' for Greatswords and Enchant bonus are.  And skill challenges higher than you can EVER match decently because you are already at 'cap' in the area you're supposed to be in.  Come back later when your rogue's lockpicking skill gets higher? It CANT get higher.

  The usual 'GM scales Difficulty to meet Party' is the best case scenario (even the DnD Mags suggest jacking up your skill challenges if somebody went to the effort to raise their skills, basically punishing the party for trying to improve their skill challenge odds) in intent, with poor results.  Usual scenario is the difficulty is that high by default because people expect you to super min/max.  We're not that crazy, but also need a way to point out to others 'hey, you.  Don't be that crazy'.

  There's 'you're not high enough level for this you crybaby' and then there's 'Oh Hai, your enemies have stuff better than your the possible gear and abilities of the specialists.  You may all now beat up Lucky for having the nerve to raise his Dodge skill so much, if I want to shoot him of COURSE I'm gonna need to murder the rest of you easily as well'

  My vague 'cap' gig is to try and prevent that sort of thing that frequently cited as awesome Star Wars GM makes party death threats over (as well as one of the common facepalms of Champions Mush).  If a PC hits it then nice they're awesome at that, but it won't completly overshadow the party, nor outright screw the party if the GM also uses 'capped' things (in a few places)...  Not so much if the GM breaks Limitations over their knee again (*cough*Enemy = Darkthorne translating to Extra powers and exceeding MAX cap value in all ability categories*cough* High/med/med/med? High/low/high/med? Try Higher x4).  The reminder of the 'uh, your supposed to run away from my out of nowhere difficult encounter guys' compared to 'lol Abolith' thing fills in the ramble bit that'd go here nicely.  Granted, unlike Non MMO RPG's running away is a touch harder than 'select run'.

  Well party, in your travels you have come across a pack of Dragons.  you know, enemies that can fly and have ranged attacks.  Maybe you should try running.  From the things that fly faster than your double move that want you dead.  Out on the open road/cliff sides/etc.  I think a lot of party wipes from 'you were supposed to run you morons' encounters is because PC's expect that you can't, or you REALLY can't realistically escape them.  Oh*sensored* Drow.  Maybe they'll get bored if we run for a few rounds?

  Of course, the whole 'cap' thing cause a failure in Solo enemies being a threat if the whole party are combat monsters.  But I figure if PC's can't exceed certain points, then it'd lessen the giant gaps between PC's (if any even DO opt to reach caps).  As well as lessen the odds of 'oh, I have to jack up the enemies and challenges to a ridiculous point that will murder the entire party just to Hit Lucky's Dodge skill'.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:11, Fri 26 Nov 2010.

Yes.  Player caps make sense, especially when taking into account the potential for a GM feeling like he has to escalate in order to keep things challenging for all the players.  Will also have to have minimums or the player who insists on keeping 1d in Dodge "because dodging isn't his thing" will wind up dead when all the other players have 4-6D.

More discussion over topic of stats, skills, and combat during thanksgiving trip.  Tim and I agreed that IF base stats were allowed to matter in combat, they shouldn't matter more than skill.  And the more we talked about it, the more we agreed that level shouldn't matter more than skill either.  Let's look at a generic level 30 character in DnD:

To-hit.  STR mod: +8.  1/2 level mod: +15.  Magic weapon mod: +6.  Feat mod: +3.  Skill mod from training with the darned weapon for months and months to become a fighter in the first place?  +2.

Athletics.  STR mod: +8.  1/2 level mod: +15.  Skill mod from training for months and months to become a fighter in the first place?  +5.

Even in D6, you have to spend gobs of character points in blaster rifle skill before your actual skill matters more than your starting stat of 4D DEX.  Trump system same problem.  Much better to buy ranks in the base stat than raise skill except for maybe strength.  >.>

So yeah.  In our system, the gnome wizard will only beat the NPC goliath fighter because his dice are big.  Not because his default athletics is +15.  The PC fighter will get slightly stronger over time, but his skill will improve far more and matter far more.

On stats:
Since we're still in brainstorm mode, I'll just list up a bunch of base stats from various systems.  I will say this:  I like the concept in BESM where a certain skill was a combination of the three stats.  I say "a certain skill" to avoid confusion.  The basic concept of "when you do a kung-fu PUNCH, it's more than just strength.  It's more than just using your wits to ferret an opening.  It's more than just putting your heart into it.  It's all three combined."  Turning that into a game mechanic is another story.



Out of time, but you can see how base stats can be very >.>
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:04, Sun 28 Nov 2010.

  Yeah, skill mattering is good (of course, needing a giant stack of them for redundant purposes, or to merely survive bad).  Admittedly, I don't want to make direct combat skill involved because how widely different that can end up.  There are SIX different offense skills alone in BESM, 3 different defense skills (melee defense being of questionable use when there is unarmed defense, depending on how neurotic your GM is).
  even as Meh skill challenges can be in 4th ed, at least in 4th ed some competence in swimming and survival are packaged in automatically. (mechanics wise, that child that fell into the water was in no risk of drowning for at least several hours)

  I'm... not a fan of multi stats needed for a skill.  I can see what you intend, but we saw how that worked on that Star wars Muck rick pointed out.  Combined with the fact you needed high skill, AND high stats in multiple, often conflicting areas to be good enough at something for good chances of success (in fact, unless stats got to a certain point you couldn't raise skills past a certain amount due to the adjusted down value being a good chunk lower, even if you had 100 cap in a skill).
  Even if you are average, or above average in most stats with one or two strong areas, you will still end up likely sucking with a skill you WANT to focus on.  Average+good=meh.  Worst of all, it would mean more MATH.  Direct stat to skill relation is one thing.  having to average multiple stats off a skill? meep.

  Incidentally, NO 'you can take more turns than others with this' stuff.  Unless its something universally built in and finite like AP.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:25, Mon 29 Nov 2010.

Thoughts Chris and I had on a phone conversation.

-Keep it simple. So stick with one type of die.
-Have a primary and secondary "stat". These are generic and are renamed according to character / setting.

More to come.

The example I gave Tim for the primary/secondary stat concept was Naruto.  There's two main things in that system.  Martial arts and ninjutsu.  Saske would be high in the ninjutsu where Rock Lee would be high on the Martial Arts end.  Sakura would be low-ish on both fighting stats, but highly skilled in healing.  Shikamaru too is low on the two primary combat stats, but he's super high in tactics.  And so on.

The idea is that many settings revolve around a few simple concepts that's critical to the story where most everything else is a given, and a character is unique for their one special skill.  The main character tends to be really good at the main concept of the setting.

Shaman King: "He's go so much Furioku!"
Naruto: "Wow!  He's got so much chakra you can see it!"
DBZ: "It's over 9,000!"
Star Wars: "Strong in the force, he is."
Etc.

So examples abound that point to: "A game system's stats may as well be: Primary story focus stat, secondary story focus stat, maaaybe a third stat, and Everything else."

All that changes from story to story is what you name those first two stats.  What if you were to make a game based off The Matrix where you spend 99% of your character's time sitting in a chair plugged into the network?  The STR score wouldn't amount to squat in the Matrix.  Nor your DEX.  So having a concrete set of stats like D&D doesn't translate well into a flexible game system intended to be useful for all RP situations.

Philip.  He is 2 things.  Tough, and stubborn.  What he isn't?  Intelligent.  Put him into the D6 Star Wars system, and he breaks the system because Willpower is under the Knowledge stat.  Put him in D&D and he breaks the system because willpower is a result of how charming Philip is (NOT!) and/or how wise he is (NOT!).  And who's idea was it that being wise makes you perceptive?  And that because Timothius is diplomatic he's also more intimidating than a goliath fighter?

Aaanyway.  Here's the generic character sheet thing I'm aiming at:
Primary Combat Stat:
Secondary Combat Stat:
Skill List:

This makes things open ended.  There would be a minimum and a maximum you can put into each of those 3 major categories.  The name of the primary and secondary stats would be determined by the setting.  I'm also considering ignoring this 2-stat system entirely and just put everything under skills.  "Skill: Strength.  4D.  Through rigorous training, Snake can bench 300 lbs.
Skill: Gardening.  4D.  Most of his free time is spent weeding.
Skill: Willpower.  Wait... this isn't World of Darkness, so don't need this skill statted.  I'll just mention in his char description that he's strong willed."

Keep forgetting to mention: linear level progression vs. exponential.  The HP granted to a char in 4e is linear, but the gold granted is exponential.  XP granted and required to level are both exponential, so may as well be linear.  So for the sake of comparison, let's take a DBZ approach: starting at power level 100 at level 1, each level gains either +10 power level or 10%

power level at Level 2.  linear +10: 110.  exponential +10%: 110.
power level at Level 3.  linear +10: 120.  exponential +10%: 121.
power level at Level 11.  linear +10: 200.  exponential +10%: 259.
power level at Level 21.  linear +10: 300.  exponential +10%: 672.
power level at Level 31.  linear +10: 400.  exponential +10%: 1745.

As we can see, even with only a 10% exponent, level progression out paces linear faster the higher the level.  I vote for a set % increase in power / level so higher levels don't feel sluggish in progression.  (At level 31, a +10 in power is only a 2.5% increase in power.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 16:59, Thu 02 Dec 2010.

Sure beats rolling dice to see how powerful you get each time you level.

Fer realz.  Hate 3.5's HP system with a passion.  More than anything else about that system.

Next point.  Was hit with a little inspiration.  Namely the elements of CoX and how they overlap with other games.

HP, MP, and Time are the three main resources.  In CoX the element of Time is covered by recharge and animation time.  Snipes take a long time to fire off.  As do a lot of big alpha strikes.  They also drain lots of endurance(MP).  And they tend to take a long time to recharge..

Chars with lot of defense to losing HP (Tankers and such) tend to have less aptitude for taking away enemy HP and enemy time.  In other words, Tankers have high HP.  Blasters have high aptitude for removing enemy HP.  Controllers are great for dealing with the time resource, mainly by stealing enemy time.  And Defenders have high aptitude for protecting allie's resources such as HP, Endurance, and Time.

Most powers are defined by how they affect these 3 resources: Damage/Healing, Time to use/time to reuse, Endurance cost.

Interestingly, HP aspects shift as levels go up, but time and Endurance do not.  A level 1 power costs just as much time and endurance at level 50.  Unless you use enhancements.  But that lowbie power does way more damage at level 50.  That, and access to lots of other powers, is all it takes for a char to feel wildly more powerful at level 50 than they did at level 1.

So...  I'm thinking of making the system grant chargen points that can then be spent on being adept on differing levels of the 3 different resources.  Spend chargen points on HP and you'll be tank-like.  Spend chargen points on messing up enemy speed and such and you're more like a troller.  And so on.  Balance comes by giving the same amount of dice to all players.

Joe mentioned "Char 1 punches. does damage.  Char 2 shoots web, takes enemy out of fight."  The trick is that in CoX, web shooter doesn't take enemy out forever.  Enemy will break free.  So another tricky balance issue is making sure powers aren't over powered.

So.  In short.  Thinking of trying to make a dice system that emulates CoX as simply as possible.