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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 5636388" data-attributes="member: 5890">Starting from the premise that when you play a roleplaying game, you want to spend time doing things in that game that appeal to you.Some people want to say "I hit it with my sword" each round and not be penalised. Others want to move to square B, ready a 2-square move-and-attack on monster C when player E steps into a flank and then spend a minor action applying Class Z poison to their weapon.Some people want to have a furious back-and-forth negotiation with the baron that's every bit as involved and tactical as current 4e, while others want to say "yeah, yeah, 500G for your daughter back safe and sound, lets go kill stuff".Current methods of building a character don't actually accomodate these on a basic level: you spend resources to be good at your chosen area, but being good at the area doesn't mean you'll get to see more of it - typically hte opposite is true: in the extremes, your optimized-to-the-hilt combat character will clear a battlefield in 2 rounds of combat, or your diplomat simply cannot fail to convince the baron of... anything he pleases. No speech necessary, no back and forth. A simple roll.This leads to the mandate that combat and non-combat resources must be siloed seperately - if you have inadequate levels of one or the other, you'll simply be a drag to the party, while still being required to spend the same amount of time engaging in it.So why not make "time spent doing stuff you find fun" be what you pick when you build a character?How would such a system look? Well, basically the entire game would be a bunch of modules where once you take one, you get a penalty to the default scenario and a bonus once a specific mechanic kicks in.We'll start with something simple, just to describe vaguely how it might work: a d20 game. Roll a d20, and if you beat the target number, you succeed (at hitting a foe, convincing someone of something etc). We'll have hitpoints and damage rolls too. As a default, everyone does d6 damage, no matter what they describe themselves as wielding. As a default, there's no such thing as modifiers, different defenses, armor, skills etc etc. We have somewhere a list of appropriate target numbers for things.From this point, every character will get to spend their character creation and advancement currency on a bunch of rule modules. In D&D terms, they're pretty much feats. Things like:"if you flank, you gain a +2 to hit"Previously there was no benefit to positioning (possibly apart from how many monsters could reach you), but now, because YOU chose to focus on combat, there is. You want to get that +2.orIntimidate"you gain a +3 to attempts to use fear to convince people"previously you could just say "I convince him" and roll. Now you have to think up a plausible threat to grab your bonus.orFireball"you may attack any number of targets within 2 squares of a central point for d3 damage each"These options are all positives, which isn't really what I was going for. The idea should be that you manage to somehow make each option generally power neutral, and then you can make a group decision on how many options each person gets, based on how much time you want to spend on game mechanics. At the same time, since overall power level hasn't changed, the same adventures that were good for the "everyone gets 1 option" group are still good for the "everyone gets 46 options" group.</blockquote>

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