Cut and pasted from Word (yay), here are the base mechanics for a Heroes-inspired (ie people that aren't superheroes - nosiree - with superpowers in the real world) rpg I'm working on. All critiques are welcomed; I need an objective opinion here.

These rules don't delve into the superpower stuff, however powers are grouped according to type and work from a power pool (spend points/roll dice) and a base attribute). What is presented here then are rules that work for ordinary people on their scale, the way the WoD corebook intends. Thus they are supposed to be more realistic and less rules light than is perhaps the norm - for me at least. Here is presented the basic action reosolution mechanic and the health/damage mechanic, which references effects I haven't designed yet (such as unconsciousness). The goal with the latter in particular was to come up with something different rather than tracking hit points or whatever, thugh Ifear I have ended up doing that. Thanks for reading.

Traits:
Characters are initially defined by a set of attributes as follows:
Agility, Strength, Endurance, Willpower, Intelligence (all of which are tied to powers), and Charisma. A character's attributes are rated as modifiers, which is how they function in play. Across the board a characters attribute values will total 0, which is the norm. In general characters don't start with anything greater than -2 or +2 and may not have more than one attribute at -2.
Characters also have skills, rated 1-5. This scale is part of the backbone of the system. Skill scores form a dice pool used when resolving actions.

Actions:
Players roll a dice pool equal to the skill in question against a number of Difficulty dice; all dice rolled are d10's. Score 1 success for every dice that rolls at least equal to the highest result among the dD – Difficulty dice (that number is known as the target number). Roll Difficulty dice according to the needs of the situation:
Level playing field          1dD
Gremlins in the engine      2dD
Dancing on stilts         3dD
Tugging on Superman's cape      4dD
When rolling, the player modifies his dice by the current related attribute modifier. This modified value is then compared to the target number.
Any roll of an unmodified 10 is considered to open-end meaning that the player counts that as a success (since the difficulty dice can only roll 10 as the highest, a roll of natural 10 is always +1 success) and may roll it again. Subsequent 10's again open-end and there is no limit to the number of times this may happen.

Health:
Characters' health status is tracked via the Endurance modifier. Regardless of starting values, it can change during play (though it cannot exceed the character's start level without superhuman intervention). As the character is injured, it will likely decrease. Alone it will not determine if the character lives or dies.
When a character suffers a successful attack, he makes a roll to determine the effects thereof. The dice pool is resolved as normal; the pool is equal to the number of successful hits the attacker scored (the number of successes), and is modified by the character's current Endurance. However there are a few differences in resolution:
There are no difficulty dice (dD), instead the character has a fixed difficulty equal to the highest individual roll (including modifiers) among all hits scored against him; this defaults to a maximum of 10.
If the character scores no successes he becomes unconscious and likely needs urgent attention.
If the character scores all successes (see below) he is hit with no damage or trauma and carries on.
If the character scores anything between he carries on as normal but subtracts one from his Endurance (-1).
Scoring 'all successes' is defined as a result at least equal to the number of hits (after modifications) the attacker scored. Dice are open ended here as normal.
During play, a character's Endurance can keep lowering without per se limit. However, aside from impacting the health rolls made above, having a low Endurance impinges on the ability of the character of function regardless.

Exhaustion:
Aside from health checks, players monitor the continuous state of their character's ability of function by the Exhaustion track, which is rated on the same scale as most traits. Characters begin with a resting (their base and starting value) Exhaustion equal to 5 + their empowered related attribute value. During play it will decrease, one point at a time, whenever any of the following happens:
Each time a player runs out of power.
If a character has to make at 3 health checks in a turn (and after that each instance that subsequently happens that turn).
Each time a player is rendered unconscious (see below).
Each time a player loses Endurance – however this only applies if Endurance is already less than 0 (including starting values).
Exhaustion doesn't exceed the starting maximum and is regained naturally by rest. Each night of rest and proper sleep alone will return Exhaustion to maximum, unless it was at 1 at the time in which case it increases by a single point.
If a player loses all points of exhaustion he collapses, spent. The character is rendered unconscious, but won't incur further penalties for being unconscious as regards Exhaustion rules. Though unconscious technically, the character is in no further medical danger other than in desperate need of rest.
In game terms Exhaustion serves to cap all skill and active trait values while performing actions. Any dice pool thus made cannot exceed the characters overriding Exhaustion level. At anything above 1 Exhaustion, characters are only impeded in this way during physical activities. However while their Exhaustion is that low all activity is thus affected.
If an effect would cause a character to lose more than one point of exhaustion and reduce his level to 1, he must make a health check using 1 die against a target number equal to that loss.

The only problem I can see is with the main mechanic. You're going to run into a lot of easy things being very difficult and a lot of very difficult things being easy because of the wide (and random) range of outcomes.

I'm not so sure. I've rolled a few dice myself to see and it didn't come out that way, though of course it could.

Don't forget that dice you roll are all increased (or decreased) by the attribute involved and that 10's can open end. I should point out that doesn't happen for difficulty dice either (dunno if I made that clear).

You are potentially correct, but that isn't how it's come out; an average task will have 1 die worth of difficulty. Now this potentially can do what you suggest, but factor in the player usign a skill he will likely have a high rating in and a bonus to all the results on that die and the reality becomes something different.

Really would like some feedback.

Anew approach (i put this on the forge as well, to maximise feedback).

When making a test, the player rolls (Attribute)d6, generating 1 success for each roll that at least equals the difficulty number:
4                      (average)
5                      (complex)
6                      (tough)
7                      (almost impossible)
Attributes are rated 1-5. Characters have skill values which are modifiers allowing the player to reduce his dice pool size to increase the size of the dice being rolled by one shift on the following chart:
Skill +0                   (armchair student)
Skill +1 d8                   (basic training)
Skill +2 d10                   (extra curricular study)
Skill +3 d12                   (studied with the best)
Dice that roll their maximum value open end (without limit).
Possession of any rank in a skill allows the player first and foremost to forego the untrained penalties. This is the reason for the rank zero.
Characters without skill ranks are penalised when attempting such activity. Depending on the degree by which a lack of knowledge is a hindrance, the results of the basic d6 attribute roll are penalised. The difficulty is measured as normal, but each die is reduced by a value thus:
Task requires some knowledge          -2
Task demands specialist training          -3
Task is best left to the few professionals going   -4
Players are free to make the roll, but if the penalty makes the action impossible they are out of luck; some things are just too hard to even try without proper training.
Action example: I have Intelligence 4 and Computers +1 attempts an average task of net surfing (difficulty 4). I can take my chances and roll 4d6 and take what I roll – or I can use my skill in computing to shift the die type +1 to d8. If I do, I take a commensurate dice pool penalty and thus roll 3d8.

My main impression is that it seems like a serviceable mechanic, but I'm not sure how it actually works out in play (my specific questions about this are listed below).

It sounds like most tasks are resolved by two rolls (one by the character who's acting and one by the "difficulty" dice). This, in practice, might be slower than a fixed difficulty (e.g. D20), so you might want to provide optional rules for that.

A quick reaction in no particular order:

1) If I'm hit for 1 success, does that mean I'm either unconsicous (I roll "no successes") or I'm fine (I score at least one success)? This seems a bit black-and-white for the most-minor hit in the game.

2) What are the odds, man? My issue with all funky dice mechanics is that it's hard to figure out how hard something is. I'd recommend that you have a solid understanding of the actual odds of success, by statistic, under various levels of difficulty.

My observation: Basic college statistics is FAR more valuable to game design than all the RPG theory on all the boards on all the Internet.

3) A set of subquestion from the above:

     *)How much better is someone with an extra level of stat / skill in terms of "likely to succeed"
     *)How do weapons work? What's the average lethality of a punch / karate chop / knife / gun / bazooka?

Cheers,
-E.

thanls, but you are commenting on the first set of ideas, did you not read the newest?

Quote from: signoftheserpentthanls, but you are commenting on the first set of ideas, did you not read the newest?

Just read through them -- less funky, and no counter-roll required for most of these things... so I think it's probably easier to understand.

That said, I'd still recommend a statistic break down.

Cheers,
-E.

Each die generates an average success (4+) 50% of the time.

Average stats are 2/3 (proably 3 in real terms).

Out of ten rolls 3d6 produced no successes 4 times.
4 rolls generated 1 success and the other 2 generated 2.

That's ten rolls, but that seems about right to me.

From there you factor in the skill mechanics which are not 100% precise since 1 less dice may not exactly equal the rise in dice type, but cest la vie.