Ok. So, say that you had no stats. Skills are broken down into catagories - physical, medical, knowledge - some others. Depending on the type of character you wanted to play, your rating in those catagories will be different. Individual skills in those catagories would be modified by your actual profession. So you could play a physical librarian, a medical soldier, a knowledgeable plumber etc. (Lots more options than that, but just as an example).

Ok. Say your Dodge skill ended up being 8 (under physical). The dice mechanic is a roll under system. Standard tests are 2d6, hard tests are 3d6 and herculean tests are 4d6. The difficulty of the test is hard wired into the mechanic rather than modifiers being applied to your skill level.

Sound ok? Any potential problems you can foresee? Skills can be improved, probably becoming harder to do so as it gets higher.

One of the issues that might come up is how to deal with physical and mental tests that are normally encompassed by attributes.  

As far as improving skills, you could use something like the next level in a skill costs that many experience points (i.e. to raise your skill from 8 to 9 would cost 9 experience points).

Hmm, good point. I think there are 2 possible ways to address this. Either make general tests a skill under each catagory or to generate some derived value for these kinds of tests - perhaps based on a couple of considerations.

The approach you take depends on your design choice.  If  you're looking for a relatively small set of skills that are broad, then you could have one or a few all-encompassing skill like Athletics.  Any physical test would made against this skill.  Likewise, you could have one skill like Perception or Idea for mental tests.

However, if you're going to define a character by skills in this system, then you're probably going to want a more detailed skill list to give characters some individual definition.  In this case, you'll probably want several skills to cover physical tests, such as Run, Jump, Swim, Lift, etc.  The same would apply to mental tests and skills, such as Math, Science, Politics, etc.

I'm aiming for the latter.

I guess the skill headings can actually be viewed as stats and the basic value can be used for general tests. Physical skill group of 6? (individual skills adjusted by your choice in profession). Then general tests not covered under specific skills use that value for the test.

Yes, I was thinking along those lines myself.  At character creation the player has a choice in assigning a value to a skill heading, and then the base values for skills under that heading can be improved upon.

For example, if you have three skill headings, then at creation the players assigns the values 3, 4, and 5 to a heading.  Then the player would have some pool of creation points to assign to individual skills under a heading to improve their value above the base of the heading.

Since people prefer rolling high, I wonder if a "roll over" system would be fun where you had a Dodge 8 and an easy task was 4D6, a hard task 3D6 and rough task was 2D6.  

RISUS and HeroQuest do the No Stat thing and both work fine.   In both systems, if you do not have a logical way for your character to do the task at a good rate of success based on your traits, then you are given a default level.

Let's say your Librarian Plumber is suddenly forced to pick a lock or do an Irish jig.  If the player can't fathom a cool reason why either his Librarian or his Plumbling background could not help, maybe he just rolls a Base X.

And if he succeeds, maybe he gains that ability at Base + 1 level.   So the Librarian Plumber gains Irish Jig at slight better than default.

That could be a fun way to develop characters but rewarding them with a narrow focus skill.  It would be interesting to see such characters after 3-5 sessions of play.

Personally, I like to have the dice do double duty.   Maybe one of the dice has to be a different color and whatever it rolls equals your XP for that action.   Maybe to make life easier, you only get an XP point the die comes up a 1 (for roll low games) or 6 (for roll high games).   Or if your game uses Bennies / Luck Chips / Cow Patties, they get one of those instead of XP.

My gut says this would be most fun in a less serious, less exacting, more freeflowing setting.  Probably fun for a Harry Potter fantasy or Buck Rogers space game where doing stuff outside your zone is part of the genre.

My thoughts on combat - such as a fist-fight or sword duel is that both parties make 1 roll during the round. They must roll under their fisticuffs score. If 1 person suceeds and the other fails, then you have a winner and a loser. You have a losing dice that you place on the table, each round that you lose you turn the dice to the next highest number. When it gets turned to 6, you are losing the combat (several options for players or NPCs to choose from - yet to be thought about). The next time you lose, you turn the dice back to 1. The losing dice now represents damage to your character, the number is the amount by which you skills are reduced. Once the second use of the dice reaches 6, you are dying and out of the combat. The first losing dice is white in colour and the second is black.  

If both combatants suceed or both fail, the round is a draw, so no-one uses the losing dice.

You can mix/match the opposed rolls. So it might be sword vs knuckle-dusters. Different weapons might turn the losing dice more than once or do different damage based on whether they are opposed or not.

Multiple opponents are unopposed beyond the first. Unopposed rolls either win or fail. If they win, then the victim loses even though he did not oppose the roll and he must turn the losing dice. Surprise attacks or those that you are unaware of are similarly unopposed.

Edit: I'm playing with the idea that the losing dice gets bigger with experience and that the type depedns on the kind of character you are playing. So novices (or librarians!) might start with a d4, then up to d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d100 etc. (well, maybe not all those, but a dragon might have a losing dice of d12, for example).

Skills
As others have touched on, whenever you have skills in a system - without or without attributes to keep them company - you have to consider if there'll be default skills, if PCs can just give things a go.

The simpler systems give flat no or yes answers: if you don't have the skill you can't do it at all, or you can do it at some flat default level. As an example of the latter, you might have skills be 0, +1, +2 and so on, and if you don't have the skill written down, it begins at 0 - or -2, or whatever. But the same for all skills.

A simple system saying "nope" has the virtue of simplicity, but may be frustrating in play. One saying "yep" can tend to be cinematic or humorous, as the garbage man tries brain surgery or the brain surgeon throws ninja stars.

More complex systems distinguish between what I've called anyone skills and specialist skills. Anyone skills are those anyone can give a go, like punching someone in the head. Specialist skills are those requiring specialist training, and if you've not had the training you simply don't know where to start, like with brain surgery. In many cases, whether a skill is anyone or specialist depends on the setting; in modern day New York, driving might be an anyone skill, but it probably wouldn't be in modern day Nepal.

The complex systems have the virtue of feeling more realistic, though there may be the occasional argument over what's an anyone/specialist skill.

If you wish, you can go more complex than that, having "easy" skills, "average" skills, and so on - each with different defaults. And skills can default to one another; if you have Drive (Auto) of X you may get Drive (Truck) of X-1. This feels more realistic still, but can be overly complicated and lead to some minimaxing. "So Drive (Auto) +7 gives me Drive (Truck) +4, and it costs 8xp to improve it, and then I get +8/+5, whereas if I try to improve them both it'd cost 10xp, hmmm..." I am all in favour of minimaxing but it does make it all feel more like a game and less like that roleplaying thing.


Dice
In regard to dice, what I did in Risk Dice was this: you have a certain skill total, and must roll under it to succeed. However, the player chooses how many dice to roll - 1 to 5d6 - and assigns dice to "doing it quickly" and  dice to "doing it well". So imagine a skill of 10. They can roll 1d6, and be certain of doing it either quickly or well - but not both. They can roll 2d6 and do it very quickly but not well, quickly and well, or not quick but very well.

Thus people of higher skill can do things both quickly and well, but those of lower skill must choose. The guy with Lockpicking +7 will usually roll at most 2d6, so he can take his time and make it nice and neat, or can break the lock very quickly.

This I found neat because one of the annoying things about GMing is setting difficulty levels for tasks for PCs, and then if they fail having to say, "nothing happens". It's much easier when the players decide how much risk to take, and whether to focus on doing it well or doing it quickly - which makes describing the results much easier, too.
"I have Lockpicking 10. I put 3d6 into doing it quick and none into doing it well."
"Okay, roll."
"Damn, 12."
"You're in such a hurry to pick the lock that you break the picks off in it."
- or -
"I put 3d6 into doing it well, I'm not worried about how long it takes. Damn, I rolled 12."
"While you're whistling as you pick the lock, someone walks past and you have to duck down out of the way. They seem nosey and hang around by the phonebox nearby peering in the direction of the front yard where you are."
(etc)

This approach gave the players a sort of "gambling" feel as they decided how many dice to roll and what the odds were, not very "immersive". But they weren't very deep into the game world anyway.

The idea is that there are skill catagories - physical, cerebral, scientific, military etc. At chargen, the players choose what type of character they want. Say, physical. There is a physical template that gives default ratings for all skill catagories (and therefore all the skills within that catagory. i guess it can therefore be argued that the skill catagories are stats of a type). Then , the player chooses a profession which contains modifiers to specific skills found in the skill catagories. He alters those base values by the modifiers contained in the profession description. So, yep, there's a base value that anyone can try. You may be crap at it, but you can try.

So, my current thoughts on the 'losing dice' are as follows. You have a Shock dice and a Wound dice. The Shock dice is the one that will be variable for PCs and enemies (barring artefacts) IE d4, d6, d8 etc. Some enemies might have a larger Wound dice as well (the default is d4).

At the beginning of a combat, you put your Shock dice on the table. If you lose a round of combat, the dice is turned by an amount of numbers equal to the number by which your opponent succeeded in his test. So if you have a d6 Shock dice and you lose a round of combat and your opponent succeeds by 3 points, you turn the dice to 4 (from 1). Future damage cycles around the dice, so 3 more damage would cycle the Shock dice from 5, to 6, then back to 1 again. Every time the Shock dice cycles you move your Wound dice by 1 number (or place it on the table in the case of your first wound). This number is your penalty to all actions. Each time your Wound dice moves (or is put into play), you must make an Endurance test (a skill under the Physical skill group) or lose your next action altogether. Some weapons cause 2 points of shock damage per point of success and some might even by-pass shock altogether and go straight to the Wound dice (firearms at point blank, i'm looking at you).

So a librarian might have a Shock dice of d4 and Wound dice of d4, a Soldier d6 Shock dice and d4 Wound dice, a returned ancient (Mummy of an Egyptian pharoah) Shock dice of d10 and Wound dice of d6, a Dragon Shock dice of d12 and Wound dice of d8 etc. These are numbers out of thin air BTW.

At the end of the combat, your Shock dice is removed from play, but your Wound dice remains (subject to First Aid, Field Surgery and the like). Next combat, you place your Shock dice back on the table (at 1) and this again informs your current Wound dice total.

Thoughts?

In practical use on the game table, I can see these dice being knocked over, around, off the table, etc.  You may want to include a place to tick off these dice on the character sheet; sort of like the old RQ character sheets for fatigue and hit points.  Also, some people might find it hard to resist the urge to "adjust" their dice when no one is looking.  I'm just saying.

Quote from: Drohem;254687In practical use on the game table, I can see these dice being knocked over, around, off the table, etc.  You may want to include a place to tick off these dice on the character sheet; sort of like the old RQ character sheets for fatigue and hit points.  Also, some people might find it hard to resist the urge to "adjust" their dice when no one is looking.  I'm just saying.

Yeah, i'd thought of that. A track on the character sheet is a possibility. Trouble is, that both are variable.

The mechanic seems sound (incomplete as it is) though?

Well, just have a tick line numbered up to the maximum Shock and/or Wound die.  If it's a d20 for example, then have a line numbered 1-20 twice, one line for the Shock die and one line for the Wound die.

Without understanding how or why you'd lose a round of combat, it seems sound so far.  

What happens when your Wound die is reduced to zero?

Quote from: Drohem;254704Without understanding how or why you'd lose a round of combat, it seems sound so far.  

You lose a round if you fail your combat test and your opponent passes his. The number by which he passes his determines how many numbers you turn your shock dice by.

QuoteWhat happens when your Wound die is reduced to zero?

It goes up. So, if your wound dice is a d4, the first time your shock dice cycles, you place it on the table at 1 (suffering a 1 point penalty to all skill tests). Next time the shock dice cycles, you turn it to 2 (2 point penalty to all skill tests), etc. Once you get to the wound dice being at its highest value, the next time your shock dice cycles, you either die or are out of the combat (not thought about that yet, TBH).