A bit of background:

This weekend, it being Father's Day weekend, I had the privilege of improvising a roleplaying game for my girlfriend and my kids.
Among children's books that I read to them, Fighting Fantasy books are a staple of our household. If you're familiar with Fighting Fantasy books, you might know that there is an Advanced Fighting Fantasy tabletop game out there. I don't own it, so instead I gathered the FF books I do own and made a preliminary character creation guideline. It took us about 5-10 minutes to make characters and for me to introduce the setting for this scenario.

I don't want to reinvent the wheel, but on the other hand, I want to preserve some of the customizations that we make to our game so I am hoping this thread will serve this purpose primarily.
Secondarily, get other folks interested in the very simple, yet effective game system that Fighting Fantasy books uses.

With a small tweak to the character creation and magic rules I was able to use the generic three Attributes (Skill, Stamina, Luck) to great effect.

Standard character creation works as follows:
1D6 + 6 = Skill (fighty stuff)
2D6 + 12 = Stamina (Health and endurance stuff)
1D6 + 6 = Luck (Pushing your luck yields additional results, or negates a bad outcome)

Some FF books introduce a Magic Attribute and Magic Points for choosing and casting spells (Citadel of Chaos). I decided to keep things simple and just have them roll +1D6 to their Luck and use Luck as the new magic attribute. Essentially casting a spell requires the same rolls as "Pushing your Luck", meaning that you roll 2D6 and if you roll under your luck, you successfully cast a spell, and lose a point of luck. This worked especially well in our game since they were supposed to be apprentices, and not fully honed in the magical arts.

They also had a tendency to be helping one another a lot, which was fantastic, but not covered in the Fighting Fantasy rules (since when you are reading the gamebook, you are a lone warrior or mage, exploring on your own). This was handled by having each helper roll a D6 and call out the total, to be added to the main character's results for that effect.

Effectively, if the player character was being tested, they rolled 2D6 and tried to roll under their current Attribute, subtracting one from the attribute, which simulated their exhaustion. If they were up against an outward situation, they would roll 2D6 + Attribute and compare to an arbitrary target number.
That's where I want to improve the system:
A big part of the fun in the Fighting Fantasy combat is how it is resolved: the player rolls 2D6, add their Skill, and compare to the enemy's 2D6 + Skill roll. I like the idea of establishing the difficulty of the situation with a standard rating + 2D6, so there is a "roll against the referee/GM" thing that happens. This sort of adversarial stance is good for the game, I think.

The game ran very smoothly. Of course, for the most part, I had them fight (and cast spells), which is already covered in the rules as long as we found stats for the monsters they fought.

After running the game, I located the Advanced Fighting Fantasy quickstart and gave that a read.
I saw that weaponry is handled differently: players roll for damage and each weapon type has a different chart. I don't like this. It adds yet another roll to resolve combat and doesn't really add to the excitement of combat.
I decided to resolve that more simply: you do a standard damage based on your weapon. Hand to hand will be 1, small weapons and projectiles deal 2 damage, swords and axes weapons deal 3 damage, heavy weapons deal 4. Monsters by default deal 2 damage, they sometimes have more than one attack per round to reflect their strength, or lethality, but this is rare from what I have come across in most books.

What I am lacking is the opportunity to resolve situations amicably using dice. In the Fighting Fantasy books, you often have the option of dealing with a threat in a peaceful way if you have the proper item, or the proper approach. We had a chance to emulate that during the game which was loads of fun, and I think it's fine if the players want to do that some of the time and improvise, rather than having to create a whole other attribute system which won't add anything to the experience. A Luck test once in a while does wonders, of course.

What I liked most about the game: Fighting Fantasy Combat!
No initiative roll. Essentially, you have to be skilled and roll high enough to beat the other guy's skill + roll, deal or receive damage, until someone goes down, or you decide to flee. Those who flee receive one round of 'hits' automatically, but are allowed to leave the fight.
This simple system kept things simple, short and sweet. Perfect for the group I was running for (attention spans only stretch so far with a 5 and 9 year old at the game table).
PCs start the game with a ton of Stamina compared to monsters because they need enough to make it through an adventure. This works out well. Even a fairly unskilled PC will be able to outlast most fights, or strategize well enough to leave the fight without dying.

This post is a bit all over the place. I'll be establishing my thought process of the game's design in subsequent posts.

Goals:
Always focus on the SIMPLICITY of the simulation and the rules.
Establish basic rules.
Avoid "exceptions" to the rule.
Offer a character creation customization (3-6 classes/specializations).
Compatible with all Fighting Fantasy monsters, challenges, and obstacles.

What if you added the weapon rating to the attack roll, so you don't add another roll for damage. And make the amount you beat your opponent by (maybe divided by two) be the damage amount?

You could also add (or subtract) from the defender's skill based on their armor & equipment.

The equipment modifiers wouldn't need to be recalculated during play unless there's a way for someone to drop/break/change a weapon during combat.

E.g. 2d6 + attatcker's skill + weapon rating vs. 2d6 + defender kill + defensive equipment rating (armor, weapon, shield)
If attacker wins, cut the amount he won by in half to get the amount of damage done.

My experience of Fighting Fantasy books was great fun, but the most important attribute , by a long way, was Skill.

If you want to have a non fighty attribute ('Talent' perhaps?) How about giving it a score of 19 - Skill. That way the worse you are at combat, the better you are at 'stuff'.

Another option would be to not have a rolled attribute, but a number of key words (three say) that the character can use to overcome obstacles - Strong, Handsome and Athletic would make for a great Prince Charming who would not be so good with puzzles, lore and shady goings on. Sneaky, Clever and Sly however would be just the person to navigate the slums of the city with, and open any locks that get in the way.

I really like both of those suggestions. There are pros and cons to both but I will keep them in mind as I continue. Thanks, guys!

Quote from: Nihilistic Mind;904458I really like both of those suggestions. There are pros and cons to both but I will keep them in mind as I continue. Thanks, guys!

Thank you. It will be interesting to follow this. You may also want to look at Tunnels and Trolls - another simple game with a lot of solo content. More complicated than FF, but still at the light rules end of the spectrum.

Ok, so my first step is pushing the character creation aspects to form specialized "classes" or "paths".

When I ran the game this past Sunday, I set things up so that all the characters were apprentices of a powerful wizards. I wanted to forgo the whole Magic Points thing and just had the players roll an extra D6 to add to their Luck starting score. They could each cast one spell at the cost of a point of Luck. Why only one spell? They are supposed to be apprentices.
This prompts me to look at character creation through the lens of experience. That will be my second step.

In most Fighting Fantasy books, you are usually playing an athletic, wandering warrior or wizard, well-versed in survival, etc. You got your shit figured out, and you're always up for a challenge, which gets you into some serious adventures. The books are also well-crafted so that by the time you make it to the end, you will have encountered significant challenges and didn't feel like you were underpowered or overpowered.

Zanshin mentioned Skill as the paramount attribute when playing Fighting Fantasy books, and (s)he's not wrong. If you always overpower the enemy in combat, you are unlikely to see your Stamina dwindle down unless other challenges come into play.

Introducing Apprentice, Journeyman, Master levels also means that Monster Stats might need to change a bit. Something I am considering is to leave monster stats "as is" when they face Apprentice PCs, +1D6 against Journeyman, +2D6 against Master level PCs. Not sure how that will work in practice but might be worth exploring.

So now we have the complication of "Paths" and "Rank" (or "Classes" and "Levels", whichever way you wish to look at it). With those two steps as concrete goals, I can continue with the rules, always keeping simplicity in mind.

(Please note that these "standard rules" assume you are creating an Apprentice level character. To create a Journeyman, and Master level character, take your newly created Apprentice character and follow the Experience steps.)

Making a Character:

Step 1 - Roll Attributes

1D6+6 = Skill

2D6+12 = Stamina

1D6+6 = Luck


Step 2 - Choose a Path

Warrior
You have trained hard in the art of fighting.

• Add 1D6 to Skill
• Specialty: Fighting Stances (choose 2)
• Equipment: Standard Traveling Pack (lantern, rope, 3 Provisions, etc), Standard Weapons Pack, 1 Potion

Woodsman
You have trained hard in the art of survival.

• Add 1D6 to Stamina
• Specialty: Stamina Recovery (choose 2)
• Equipment: Standard Traveling Pack (lantern, rope, 3 Provisions, etc), Standard Weapons Pack, 1 Potion

Mystic
You have trained hard in the magical arts.

• Add 1D6 to Luck
• Specialty: Spell Casting (choose 2)
• Equipment: Standard Traveling Pack (lantern, rope, 3 Provisions, etc), Standard Weapons Pack, 1 Potion

Step 3 - Choose one additional Specialty (A LOT OF THESE NEED DETAILS, WILL REVISIT LATER WHEN I HAVE SOME TIME)

Advanced Weapons Pack

Advanced Traveling Pack

Fighting Stances (choose one):
(IT'S AN IDEA I HAD, NOT SURE HOW I WILL IMPLEMENT IT JUST YET)
-Preferred Weapon: when using your chosen weapon, you deal one point of additional damage to your enemy's Stamina with each hit.
-All against one: you know how to fight multiple enemies, moving strategically so that they will be forced to fight you one at a time.
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Potions (choose one):
http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Potion (WILL BE USING THIS FOR MY LIST)
-Skill Potion: Restore to your initial Skill score.
-Stamina Potion: Restore to your initial Stamina score.
-Luck Potion: Restore to your initial Luck score.
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Spell Casting (choose one):
You may cast a spell at the cost of one point of Luck.
http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Spells_(AFF) (WILL BE USING THIS FOR MY LIST)
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Stamina Recovery (choose one):
-When you eat you recover two additional points of Stamina for each Provision used.
-When you rest and sleep (camp) you recover four additional points of Stamina.