Pokemon card game:  All the level up junk was on the card.  Compared to Maple Story where it took all sorts of cards to represent a higher level PC.

BUT

Some players LIKE super complicated.  So if you aim for moon, might hit atmosphere.  Aim for simple as a pokemon card, and you might wind up with something as simple as a 5e monster entry.  Keep focusing on the roots of things.  Build a skeleton.  Start with what makes a game fun.  Then add the meat from there.

Why not have an alternate character sheet?  One that shows the math and the one that doesn't.  Or hybrid sheet like in pathfinder monster entries.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:45, Mon 25 July 2016.

waaaale

Art: Highly important. Different art sells to different target audiences. Tim-style art might appeal to anime fans. Pathfinder's art sold Chris and Tim both on Pathfinder before any of the mechanics did.

Visuals: Downside is robbing people of the chance to imagine. However, for gaming, visuals are more useful than detrimental because it brings everyone on the same page. Such as maps. Or "here is what the bartender looks like". Also saves the GM time when he can just go "you see this guy" and show a pic.

Visuals part II: Even a visual like the goblin boss stat block is important. Helped Tim visualize the benefits of card games like Maple Story and Pokemon, where the "character" cards were super simple.

Art style for 6-knuckle book: Decided on Sci-Fantasy!
A) It comes naturally for Tim and his GMing style anyway.
B) It illustrates the versatility of the game system without coming off as another GURPS

NO ATTRIBUTES!
The uncharismatic orc who is ugly and unlikable went to etiquette school and learned how to be a diplomat.
Meanwhile, Mary-Sue has high charisma and is totally likable, but is horribly misunderstood, so she doesn't have a diplomacy skill.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:09, Mon 25 July 2016.

Need to figure out the sliding scale of probability for success in skill checks.

Let's suppose Player A is the absolute best in the galaxy at SkillX, and rolls the best possible result on the dice.  Let's call this result 100.  Meaning 100% chance to succeed at the most difficult SkillX task in history.  Now suppose Player B is Extremely good at SkillX.  Player C very good.  Player D good.  Player E is average, and so on.

What's the gap between them?  How much does the characters skill play a part in success and how much does luck?

If we look at d20 systems, the most one can hope for in Pathfinder is something like d20+8 without racial bonuses and stuff.  Which means that the d20 roll accounts for more than half the result.  This means that luck has more influence on succeeding at SkillX than actual skill.  In real life, skill plays a much larger role than luck (most of the time).  Player C would only lose to Player D at SkillX on a very bad day.  And Player B would never lose to D unless serious penalties are in play such as being doped up.  But that's real life and this is a game.

Compare Ghost Busters and Leverage Team vs. law enforcement in their settings to Mission Impossible team.

Alternatively, you can have attributes, but no one skill is linked to any one attribute. The only problem would be that the generalist who has all 14 across his attributes will never be as skilled at SkillX as the next guy who minmaxes to have a single 20 in an attribute, and then links all his skills to that attribute.

Fate system tied things to who you are more than your actual mechanics. I like this and this is why I keep emphasizing on no attributes. But Fate linked certain skills with certain defenses, which isn't necessary in 6-Knuckle. 6-Knuckle, like City of Heroes, will let you be a nerd tank who used their brains to cause themselves to be harder to take down. Or a pacifist strongman who just wanted to help people, so he became a holy healer.

So my favorite PnP design trivia today.

BESM 3rd edition's (while I don't know how well it runs) combat rules.

The creator of BESM wouldn't let them change how combat rolls worked.  So they forced him to play using the rules he wanted, and he immediately agreed to let them change things.

Random Quote From Thread - "...Hearing that the original creator mostly used the rules as vague guidelines and winged everything explains a lot about BESM 2e..."

It also helps validate my joke/threat opinion that Devs should be forced to play their games like normal people.  Perhaps on camera. (Which would probably have made Starbound's development go a lot better).