OK, here's the project. We're going to be designing an RPG. You can get as weird or wacky or serious and grim as you like.
But here's the catch. You have to design the rule the person before you says. After you design the rule, post what the person below you will have to design.
For example, the poster above you might have said, "Give me rules for falling damage." and you might answer, "Break open a pillow, toss all the feathers in the air, and have all the players jump up like mad catching as many feathers as they can before they hit the ground. Multiply these feathers by the number of feet fallen, and subtract d%. This is the damage taken."
The rules should not be setting specific.
BUT, and this might be the hard part, each rule must be internally consistent with the rules before it. No new rule can violate or render obsolete a previous rule!
OK, let's get this off the ground.
The poster below me will decide what attributes a character will possess, but will NOT decide how to generate them. *Don't forget to give a rule-creating assignment to the poster below you.)
Attributes!
Existence: If this equals 1, then the character Exists. If 0, character Does Not Exist.
Metatelligence: This score represents the depth of knowledge the character has of the game and game system they inhabit. This value is a number equalling the total amount of pages of game rules the character has metagame knowledge of.
Scope: this score represents the quantifyable amount of investment a player has made into a character, and is equal to the number of pages in the character sheet.
Favor: This score represents how buddy-buddy the player and the gamemaster are. A score of 0 means the player is banned from the gamemaster's table. Its value is typically equal to the equivalent monetary value of all bribes offered by this player to the GM (including cheesies, new books, date hook-ups, etc.)
Design Me This!
Pick a social skill; settle on a basic form of task resolution and lay out how that social skill is played out using that task resolution method.
Hide Sociopathy (Social skill, Favor): You have learned how to hide the fact that you are a soulless, uncaring monster from the rest of society. (Amongst other things, you have learned how to bathe.)
Not Born Yesterday (Social skill, Metaintelligence): You can spot when someone is trying to screw you over. This is the social defense skill.
Skills are resolved with poker hands. In the simplest variation of the RPG, five card draw is used. Each player is dealt a five card hand. For each point of skill that a charater has, they can draw one card. Alternately, by "spending" three points of skill, they can make one card suit wild. As per the usual rules of poker, the best hand wins.
For example, Bob has 5 points of Hide Sociopathy, while Ann has 4 points of Not Born Yesterday. Bob is dealt an ace of spades, an ace of diamonds, an 8 of hearts, an 8 of spades, and a 4 of hearts. Since Bob is acting, he can spend his skill points first. He decides to spend 3 skill points to make 4's wild, and treats his 4 as an ace.
Ann, meanwhile, was dealt a king of clubs, a king of diamonds, a 4 of spades, a 3 of clubs, and a 2 of heats. Bob has spent skill points first, so Ann knows her 4 is wild. She spends 2 skill points to draw two cards and gets the other two kings. She surpresses a smile now that she has a hand of five kings.
Since not all their skill points are spent yet, the "bidding" goes back to Bob. he gets greedy and spends his last two points of skill to draw two more cards. They come up a 5 of clubs and a 3 of diamonds, leaving him in a weaker position. Ann stands on her hand and wins the skill contest.
In game, Bob's character whispers in her ear. Her character listens a moment, then pulls out a fork and stabs him in the eye.
Next assignment: Describe combat skills, using the same mechanic as above, but putting some meaning on the suit of each card.