Quote from: MGuy;566887The set up should be 2 rolls a to hit roll and a damage roll. The target/defender rolls a saok damage" roll and that's about it. We decide on lethality from their to get how many hits a character can take before doubling over and we'd be about done. If you want status effects then we'd make special rolls and defenses for that as well but we still don't make it too complicated.

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I am not in favor of a soak damage roll. It is an extra roll (which adds up) but it also could be better handled by some form of static dr for things like armor.  

For lethality I say keep it pretty lethal, especially since the setting allows swapping out bodies. I think a bullet should always have a chance of killing you. In fact most violent attacks should always at least have a shot at that.

With damage rolls i think it is always good to have the most range possible. It would be tempting to simply have the damage roll mirror the attack roll but in my experience this can seriously handicap your ability to customize damage.

Quote from: MGuy;566887complicated.

We also have to keep in mind that we're working with a very small range so a skilled and talented character who specializes in something is going to quickly accrue bonuses necessary to pretty much do whatever that thing is well every time. not a bad thing but we have to always bear with the fact that we can't do a lot with the numbers.

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This is a consideration but it isn't as narrow as it may seem. I have some experience with this in my own games and can probably offer some insight as Ive run some lengthy campaigns with them. Our system has a small number of ranks in each skill using a dice pool (which is different but the concept here is scope and progression). Everything is rated zero to three. So just four increments. An expertise can effectively give a four rank for special actions so in some cases this range expands to five increments. Our game has about forty skills, but they are siloed a bit so it is harder to put all of your points into clusters of combat skills or knowledge. In general characters start out pretty competent with this range, because off the bat you can make a guy who has three ranks, a good expertise in a number of skills. Also we have no attributes.

We focus on keeping advancement very slow but allowing characters to begin the game pretty good. It works well for a more down to earth and gritty setting. People can grow, but it is mostly about expanding into new areas of development rather than jacking up your sword skill over and over again. We keep cost of skill increases quite high post character creation and xp per adventure is pretty lean (1-3 points).

BSJ: ultimatley these are all your call. On board whatever choice you make here. Just stating my preferences.

Another thought to throw into the mix for skills.

For task resolution Roll 1D10+Stat

If you are trained in a skill, roll 2D10+stat and pick the highest die to use (and discard the other die)

If you are expert in a skill, roll 3D10+stat and pick the highest die to use  (and discard the other dice)

If you are master in a skill, roll 4D10+stat and pick the highest die to use (and discard the other dice)

You could also have Basic training. This gives no extra dice to use but nullifies any non skill penalty you'd get for trying an action that requires a certain skill.

Example:

Sergeant Bloogflub shook one of his heads in disgust, purple skin oozing in frustration. "By all the moons of Filgro!" he muttered, grasping the rifle and turning it round, pointing it towards the target before handing it to the cadet. "At least point it in the right bloody direction! Now! Fire!"

Cadet Bloggleflub narrowed the eyes on his left hand head and ignored the other head muttering in his ear as best he could, then squeezed the trigger.

Mechanics

The target is 30m away. The Target number is 8. Bloogleflub has 2 Agility and Basic Training with the Laser rifle. If he had no training, the target number would increase (double? +50%? Depends on the task.)

The roll is 4. Add Agility 2, total 6. Miss.

The sergeant threw three of his arms up in disgust. Snatching the rifle away with his other two arms, he pressed a button that sped the target out to a distance of 60m. The gathered cadets squinted at the distant flurgboard cutout of the Xeno and it's horrific pink skin, two arms and two legs and - shock, horror! Only one head!!!! The sergeant calmly fired a round off, then another.

Sergeant has Agility 3 and He's expert with laser rifle (+2D10). Roll 3D10, pick best die, add 3. Target number is 9 (he's showing off). Roll is 4, 7, and 5. Pick the 7, plus 3 from agility, total 10.

He fires again, rolls 3, 1, 8, hits again.

Tossing the gun to the cadet he splutters "Now get it right! Those things out there.." he says, pointing to the now headless, and missing most of its midsection, target "want to invade our worlds and infect us with their Murk Doh Nalds and Starb Ukks outposts! We must stop them, at all costs!"

I'll have to read back over all the probability discussion I think before commenting on that.
 
On hit location, I don't really like a separate random roll for it, but you could maybe have called shots like 2E (take a penalty to shoot at an arm or leg or head, and list the additional effects) without too many extra complications?
 

Quote from: jibbajibba;566827I will write a setting tonight when I get home. Its goign to be rough and feel free to tear it apart

Great!

Will come up with a rough draft of a possible setting/genre too, not to compete, but hopefully to throw more ideas into the pot and give things to pluck and pop into the final write up. It'll be a day or two before I come up with it though - work is strangling my free time at the moment

Sorry this was rushed only got 30 mins to do it

Just some ideas

Meryck IV, Noah’s World, was a nowhere place. It had been important thirty years ago. A tactical nexus between systems, both sides had seen it as a staging post. They had plundered it’s raw materials, built factories, command complexes and fought ceaselessly over control.  

The world was toxic, the atmosphere, flora poisonous to both sides. The cost of protecting troops was too high, shipping in troops was wasted resource so they plundered the local fauna using genetic splicing and biotech to create their armies from the world itself.

The first attempts spliced the predators of the world with DNA to create the Hybrids, creatures with the physical attributes of animals but the intelligence of their masters. Obedient, able to follow orders they were prefect soldiers. The Opposition mimicked the techniques but disregarded the limits of nature and created creatures more powerful and more extreme. The Abominations were as varied in form as they were alike in cruelty. Developed for maximum aggression they were raw killing machines.

 Hybrid technologists realised that the meat of their army was just that, meat, it was the training and skills that gave them the edge. They developed the PRISM (Personal Replicant Interactive Storage Module) a device that recorded all of a Hybrid’s experiences, their training, skills, personality onto a crystal. Now they could harvest PRISMs from fallen Hybrids and redeploy them into new meat. With this technology they started, slowly to win the war. The Opposition countered with even more numerous and extreme Abominations.

The War raged for 20 years, tides of devastation moving back and forth across the planet. Then it stopped. New drive technology meant Noah’s world was no longer tactically relevant. The War moved on to new worlds, new systems. But neither side told the troops on the ground. So the War was done with them but the Battles continued.  The Abominations struck at the Hybrid deployment centres and destroyed the vats. The Hybrids retreated into secret lab and development centres. Stripped of the ability to produce troops in enough numbers they looked to other options and focused on their advantage training and inteligence and developed the IMP (Invasive Meta PRISM) which enabled Hybrids to take control of Abominations through transferring their PRISMs into Abomination Meat.

The sides have fractured, mixed groups of renegades make bases in abandoned facilities and mountains fastnesses. The jungles, deserts and forests are littered with materiel and unheralded dangers.

The Battle rages, each side looking for tactical gains but each side having no overall criteria for success. Instead they look simply to control Noah’s world until their creators return from the Stars.

Thanks jibba jibba, looks pretty good (not to discourage anyone else from writing up ideas - perhaps even multiple settings are possible?)


Also, thanks again everyone for your help so far! Good work and the discussions have been interesting.

I think my fairly light management here has slowed things down a bit, but I think at least we've been able to build a fair degree of agreement on the basic ideas, and the decisions we've made thus far all have some solid reasons behind them.

BTW, no one should feel too discouraged if their ideas haven't always been used; I think its the nature of the project that with five-plus people participating we generate five times as many ideas as we actually can use...

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;566804I think we are in the same area but Inconsider fif percent rate of failure hard, so I would probably lean on  100% routine, 80 (maybe even 85%) easy, 65% moderate, 50% difficult, 25% very difficult, 15% overwhelming, 5% darn near impossible, 0% impossible.

Can't do the 5%s easily with d10 but then that's TN 3 for easy, 6 for difficult, about 9 for very difficult, and 11 for 'extreme' if there's no modifier for attribute.
A PC with a +5 has a 50/50 chance to accomplish an extreme task which is probably OK for a hero...if skill was capped out at +5 though that leaves no room to have an attribute modifier?

Possible options here, maybe:
*reduce the skill modifiers a bit, say to +3 max. rather than +5?  Attributes might have a different bonus on 'attribute checks' (the full rating) and 'skill checks' (half, or use a modifier?). However that might get a bit complex for rules-light.

*Rolling up on a '10' would let us set TNs much higher than 10 before they became impossible, and so we can have bonuses range higher.

*set extremely difficult tasks as >10 anyway. Some tasks are just impossible for starting characters, and highly trained characters still struggle with them. Basically the D&D approach.

*limit the bonus by making it not +skill+attribute, but having one of them do something else. Twilight 2000 for instance was a d10 roll under system, and stat never added to checks, it was just the cap for buying up skills - over that they cost double to raise.  (Or APNs idea does this as well...it would mean stat is much more important than skill though, I think).

*have higher target numbers, and also add metagame fudge points (luck points or something) to let characters potentially do impossible tasks sometimes.

I guess I lean towards having characters roll up on a 10.

What are the design goals?

Quote from: chaosvoyager;567084What are the design goals?

More or less what APN put back on page 1 looks like a reasonable set of objectives. They're in sync with rules-light which is I think the preference.  
Other than that, for myself I find your question hard to answer since I just have preferences that are sort of hardwired in to any designing I do.

Quote from: APN;565962I've toyed with home brewed systems for over 30 years (though back then they were all more or less a clone of D&D and whatever game I could read about in magazines because I couldn't afford to buy them). Happy to pitch in - I've always got 3 or 4 home brew games in writing at any one time, but a joint effort could be fun, if the work load isn't too high and a common consensus can be reached on what is wanted/required.

For me (any/all of these are what I aim for, others may have differing opinions):

• Ultra fast character creation
• Probably stat as bonus
• I don't mind either realistic/gritty or cube o hit points thing, but my own home brew efforts are leaning towards static hit points at 1st level on, and the character just gets better at avoiding blows through skill or luck
• Any genre, cross genre, anything interesting, different, based off a book or film with serials filed off?
• cards, dice, resource management, coin flipping and count heads or tails, any other mechanics out there?
• Easy to read and play, even for a novice (so it might need an optional 'this is what roleplaying is' bit, and that could be fun to invite people on the forum to write the clearest, easiest to understand section to put in as a bit of a no-prize competition)
• Art - stick men style as in order of the stick, or best effort elmore/otus knockoff. Anything to spice the pages up from dry dull reading.
• Keep the page count low
• sample adventure or campaign

If anyone needs an example of low page count multi genre rpg take a look at this (mini six)

Excellent, free, multi genre, works. Job done.

Could we (as a group) match or dare I say, better that?

I've only skimmed the thread. So sorry if I missed anything important.

For core resolution, has rolling over and under simultaneously been considered? As in roll over difficulty and under skill? Something I've been thinking on for a percent system, but could work for D20 as well. In combat, it could be roll under with (roll+mods) for damage. So one roll for attack and damage, then we could tack things (wounds? dodging?) onto that slimmer base if need be.

For setting, what's the reason consciousness can't be dubbed onto abominations? I'm assuming short range? Might attempts have been made at this?

I think the goals, as APN laid them out, are too vague. From how the discussion going we want things to be simple, freeform, and easy to understand. The task resolution system should be kept simple and freeform, in that the results are vague. Perhaps hadd a "Degrees of success/failure" thing on top that ticks off how far over/under you roll. People like that for ome reason. However it should stick to 4 degrees as in 2 degrees of failure (failure and catastrophic failure) and 2 degrees of success (success and critical success).

Again, hit locations add more comlexity then is necessary and the returns are not worth it. Have "called shots" just come in the form of status effects, give'em a special roll to see if they go through, and let that be it.

I don't mind having soak be static, works out well either way.

jibba, I'm not going to be producing any setting stuff for right now so I'd ask you to flesh out the setting a bit more. I don't quite understand what you have so far.

Quote from: beejazz;567104I've only skimmed the thread. So sorry if I missed anything important.

For core resolution, has rolling over and under simultaneously been considered? As in roll over difficulty and under skill? Something I've been thinking on for a percent system, but could work for D20 as well. In combat, it could be roll under with (roll+mods) for damage. So one roll for attack and damage, then we could tack things (wounds? dodging?) onto that slimmer base if need be.

For setting, what's the reason consciousness can't be dubbed onto abominations? I'm assuming short range? Might attempts have been made at this?

I think that mechanic seems more complex than the consensus is after. We are looking for a mechanic that fades into the background as opposed to a mechanic that defines the game. This I think is line with the general view that the game avoid getting to gamist .

Setting -
So the theory is that in order to IMP an Abomination, or indeed any creature you need to capture it alive than then insert the IMP into its central nerous system. So the IMP will be a small box with an extendable needle the needle is inserted into the neck between the vertebrea. Once inserted a PRISM which is about the size of a standard d6 can be placed in the IMP the personality matrix on the PRISM then takes over the host body.

So that is the 'science'. The game effect of this is that you can't just impose a personality and range. So you can't create blank personalities then deploy them enmasse. You will have weapons that deliberately scramble the opponents nervous system so you can take them alive and it gives a reason for PCs to get involved in hand to hand combat thus widening the viable skill pool. You could use the computer skill (skills? ) to allow PCs to generate drone personalities or even to copy their own PRISM and create other thems...
So in game terms trying to encourage different types of play, encourage a wider skill base, and create a unique setting feature that itself generates other tactics and options. This is in addition to creating a resurection mechanic for the game.

Quote from: beejazz;567104I've only skimmed the thread. So sorry if I missed anything important.

For core resolution, has rolling over and under simultaneously been considered? As in roll over difficulty and under skill? Something I've been thinking on for a percent system, but could work for D20 as well. In combat, it could be roll under with (roll+mods) for damage. So one roll for attack and damage, then we could tack things (wounds? dodging?) onto that slimmer base if need be.

For setting, what's the reason consciousness can't be dubbed onto abominations? I'm assuming short range? Might attempts have been made at this?

I don't quite get what you mean by 'simultaneous rolling over and under' sorry? Example maybe?
IIRC the plan was that its possible to capture abomination bodies, and that would be a sort of 'treasure' you can get during play.
(EDIT: scooped by jibba)

Quote from: MGuy;567110I think the goals, as APN laid them out, are too vague. From how the discussion going we want things to be simple, freeform, and easy to understand. The task resolution system should be kept simple and freeform, in that the results are vague. Perhaps hadd a "Degrees of success/failure" thing on top that ticks off how far over/under you roll. People like that for some reason. However it should stick to 4 degrees as in 2 degrees of failure (failure and catastrophic failure) and 2 degrees of success (success and critical success).

Again, hit locations add more complexity then is necessary and the returns are not worth it. Have "called shots" just come in the form of status effects, give'em a special roll to see if they go through, and let that be it.

I don't mind having soak be static, works out well either way.

jibba, I'm not going to be producing any setting stuff for right now so I'd ask you to flesh out the setting a bit more. I don't quite understand what you have so far.

Simple/fairly freeform sounds good to me as well and I think jives with other suggestions in the thread.

On combat stuff:
*I'm not sure yet as to soak - perhaps a bit early to say without more concept of how a damage/HP system would work?

*On called shots, I think after more pondering I agree - a problem with having them in the 2E fashion is that the system assumes normal hits would just go for the main body, but the GM might want to describe a hit as being for a specific location i.e. a massive blow decapitating an opponent. Having some abstract effects to choose from would interfere less with description. Maybe Trip, Disarm, and Stun instead of leg-arm-head shots  (it might be too detailed for this system - if so ah well, will just steal it for my own games).