Iron Sky
Procedurally Generated
I was reading the "5 RPGs, stranded on a desert island" thread and in posting my reply I got to thinking about what it was I liked about all the systems, and, in turn, to what would make the hypothetical "best" system.
Note: I reference Exalted, 1st Edition many times below. This is not to push/promote/glorify/etc the system; it is simply the system closest to the system I'm trying to describe here.
For me, my ideal system would have the following attributes:
Level-less
I far prefer a small, personally defined advancement at the end of each session to a large, predefined advance every couple to several.
It makes me feel like my character is growing in ways meaningful and relevant to what I've been doing, rather than all-the-sudden arbitrarily jumping up to a new threshold of capability across the board.
Moderate ability/skill/capabiltiy "granularity"
White Wolf's games have a simple "low granularity" 1-5 scale for most character attributes.
The system works great, but the 1-5 scale seems a bit limiting at times, both from a GM's toolkit/world-shaping perspective and from a player advancement perspective. I think a 1-10 rating provides enough granularity in a Storyteller-like system. Which leads me to the next point:
No "capability cap"
There's something about "capping out" in all games that kills them for me (prime example: hitting max level in an MMO or hitting the unit cap in an RTS).
Even if getting that final rank/dot/level is exhorbitantly expensive in whatever form of character capability currency the system uses, I like to know that there is still room for advancement.
Even if you can only temporarily exceed the limit, as long as there's no "you're now the best there ever is/was/will be" it helps maintain motivation (mine at least).
"Roll vs" over charts and/or "dice add" and/or "dice plus"
Humans, like computers, compare two numbers far faster than they add them together and the comparison is fastest when there's a simple set number for comparison rather than needing to refer somewhere else to find it.
I've found that I can roll 25d10 for some epic roll in Exalted and figure out the result faster than some players can calculate their 1st level daily + quarry/curse/sneak attack + static bonus in 4e.
Rolling many dice vs a set number also gives more consistant results(while still allowing for variablity) than rolling a single large dice and adding a relatively small modifier.
Simple ground rules and "rules of thumb" vs comprehensive rule minutia
If a game has too-few basic ground-rules, you can end up with totally arbitrary, potentially unbalanced, "game harming" spontaneous GM rulings.
If it has too many, the table comes to a standstill while the GM looks up the Orbital Laser Ground Strike Miss Impact Location Deviation Chart, cross referencing the Ranged Attack Terrain and Visiblity Effect Modifiers and bogging down what should probably be the most exciting, fast-paced, and cinematic bits of the game with multiple rolls and/or pages of text/chart skimming.
Finding that balance is hard: "There's rules for excavation in cubic-feet-per-minute in the Basic rulebook?" vs "There's no crafting rules in any of the books?" Again, I think Exalted handles this well, covering basic uses of every skill that cover most uses of a skill or ability and at least giving comparison benchmarks when skills are used in different but similar ways: "Ok, so it's x difficulty to do this with this skill, so it's probably about x+2 to do this other thing that he's trying."
Having a few solid rules of thumb to augment the specific rules works the best in my experience.
Overall Cinematic Theme
When I play RPGs, I play them to feel like I'm a character in a cool movie(or directing a cool movie if I'm GMing).
I think a game should reflect that by keeping things (rule-wise) simple and fast moving to keep the focus on the characters and the action. When I'm playing Exalted and suddenly we're in combat, there is little feeling of "transition" where in 4E, it's like being in a Final Fantasy-style game where we're wandering around the world and suddenly there's an encounter, the grid comes out, and we're in "combat mode."
To clarify, I love strategic turn-based combat. My friends and I have played Warhammer 40K minatures and various other tabletop minature games and had a blast. I'm a (struggling) Flash game designer/developer and all my games I'm working on involve strategic turn-based combat. They are great in their place. I just don't think that place is in RPGs.
When we play Exalted, unless the scene is really involved, we don't even usually draw it out and even then it's more of a sketch than a battlefield layout. The battle, like most of the rest of the game, takes place in people's imaginations rather than in minatures pushed around a grid.
In my ideal system, all rules would have cinematic, fun, fast play as one of the primary design goals(with balance/believability slightly above it on the design document's list of goals).
Stunts
Exalted combat rewards cool cinematic descriptions of what your character is doing with small bonuses to the action associated.
Its one of the things I love about the system, but think it should go further and extend to any meaningful action(i.e. requiring a roll) the player takes. The bonus should be small enough that it doesn't hurt the players who are shy/relatively unimaginative but just having it there encourages players to think of cool ways to describe what they are doing or allows them to at least have some shot at trying something their character may not be good at if they have a great idea.
Generic
Since I'm discussing an ideal game, I'd like it to have all of the above and still be generic.
I'd love to use the same core system and think "man, I could run a cool scifi action game with this" or "man, I could run a cool fantasy sword-and-sorcery game with this." Many systems are "flavored" by an associated world, whose fluff may or may not match my own(and other's tastes). Since the vast majority of games I run are homebrew settings, the less "flavored" the rules are by setting the more value I tend to find in the game in the long run.
An "attatched" campaign can be great, but I find games with implicit settings(such as Shadowrun and Call of Cthulu) tend to limit the time the system gets played in the long run.
Modable
Even though the system is generic, I think it should be designed to easily integrate such things as cybernetics, magic, psychic powers, space combat, mecha, and other setting-specific mechanics.
In fact, many of the mechanics for high-technology, magic, and psychic tend to cover the same sort of ground. If the system had a generic: "Energy blast" or "mind reading" ability that could be reflavored as appropriate, that would probably work best.
Pre-designing a wide array and/or giving consistant, balanced rules for creating new powers/vehicles/enhancements/whatever would go a long way to making the game universal.
---
Off the top of my head, this is what the hypothetical "ideal" system would look like: Leveless, uncapped, simple, cinematic, generic, modable.
What does your ideal system look like?
Note: I reference Exalted, 1st Edition many times below. This is not to push/promote/glorify/etc the system; it is simply the system closest to the system I'm trying to describe here.
For me, my ideal system would have the following attributes:
Level-less
I far prefer a small, personally defined advancement at the end of each session to a large, predefined advance every couple to several.
It makes me feel like my character is growing in ways meaningful and relevant to what I've been doing, rather than all-the-sudden arbitrarily jumping up to a new threshold of capability across the board.
Moderate ability/skill/capabiltiy "granularity"
White Wolf's games have a simple "low granularity" 1-5 scale for most character attributes.
The system works great, but the 1-5 scale seems a bit limiting at times, both from a GM's toolkit/world-shaping perspective and from a player advancement perspective. I think a 1-10 rating provides enough granularity in a Storyteller-like system. Which leads me to the next point:
No "capability cap"
There's something about "capping out" in all games that kills them for me (prime example: hitting max level in an MMO or hitting the unit cap in an RTS).
Even if getting that final rank/dot/level is exhorbitantly expensive in whatever form of character capability currency the system uses, I like to know that there is still room for advancement.
Even if you can only temporarily exceed the limit, as long as there's no "you're now the best there ever is/was/will be" it helps maintain motivation (mine at least).
"Roll vs" over charts and/or "dice add" and/or "dice plus"
Humans, like computers, compare two numbers far faster than they add them together and the comparison is fastest when there's a simple set number for comparison rather than needing to refer somewhere else to find it.
I've found that I can roll 25d10 for some epic roll in Exalted and figure out the result faster than some players can calculate their 1st level daily + quarry/curse/sneak attack + static bonus in 4e.
Rolling many dice vs a set number also gives more consistant results(while still allowing for variablity) than rolling a single large dice and adding a relatively small modifier.
Simple ground rules and "rules of thumb" vs comprehensive rule minutia
If a game has too-few basic ground-rules, you can end up with totally arbitrary, potentially unbalanced, "game harming" spontaneous GM rulings.
If it has too many, the table comes to a standstill while the GM looks up the Orbital Laser Ground Strike Miss Impact Location Deviation Chart, cross referencing the Ranged Attack Terrain and Visiblity Effect Modifiers and bogging down what should probably be the most exciting, fast-paced, and cinematic bits of the game with multiple rolls and/or pages of text/chart skimming.
Finding that balance is hard: "There's rules for excavation in cubic-feet-per-minute in the Basic rulebook?" vs "There's no crafting rules in any of the books?" Again, I think Exalted handles this well, covering basic uses of every skill that cover most uses of a skill or ability and at least giving comparison benchmarks when skills are used in different but similar ways: "Ok, so it's x difficulty to do this with this skill, so it's probably about x+2 to do this other thing that he's trying."
Having a few solid rules of thumb to augment the specific rules works the best in my experience.
Overall Cinematic Theme
When I play RPGs, I play them to feel like I'm a character in a cool movie(or directing a cool movie if I'm GMing).
I think a game should reflect that by keeping things (rule-wise) simple and fast moving to keep the focus on the characters and the action. When I'm playing Exalted and suddenly we're in combat, there is little feeling of "transition" where in 4E, it's like being in a Final Fantasy-style game where we're wandering around the world and suddenly there's an encounter, the grid comes out, and we're in "combat mode."
To clarify, I love strategic turn-based combat. My friends and I have played Warhammer 40K minatures and various other tabletop minature games and had a blast. I'm a (struggling) Flash game designer/developer and all my games I'm working on involve strategic turn-based combat. They are great in their place. I just don't think that place is in RPGs.
When we play Exalted, unless the scene is really involved, we don't even usually draw it out and even then it's more of a sketch than a battlefield layout. The battle, like most of the rest of the game, takes place in people's imaginations rather than in minatures pushed around a grid.
In my ideal system, all rules would have cinematic, fun, fast play as one of the primary design goals(with balance/believability slightly above it on the design document's list of goals).
Stunts
Exalted combat rewards cool cinematic descriptions of what your character is doing with small bonuses to the action associated.
Its one of the things I love about the system, but think it should go further and extend to any meaningful action(i.e. requiring a roll) the player takes. The bonus should be small enough that it doesn't hurt the players who are shy/relatively unimaginative but just having it there encourages players to think of cool ways to describe what they are doing or allows them to at least have some shot at trying something their character may not be good at if they have a great idea.
Generic
Since I'm discussing an ideal game, I'd like it to have all of the above and still be generic.
I'd love to use the same core system and think "man, I could run a cool scifi action game with this" or "man, I could run a cool fantasy sword-and-sorcery game with this." Many systems are "flavored" by an associated world, whose fluff may or may not match my own(and other's tastes). Since the vast majority of games I run are homebrew settings, the less "flavored" the rules are by setting the more value I tend to find in the game in the long run.
An "attatched" campaign can be great, but I find games with implicit settings(such as Shadowrun and Call of Cthulu) tend to limit the time the system gets played in the long run.
Modable
Even though the system is generic, I think it should be designed to easily integrate such things as cybernetics, magic, psychic powers, space combat, mecha, and other setting-specific mechanics.
In fact, many of the mechanics for high-technology, magic, and psychic tend to cover the same sort of ground. If the system had a generic: "Energy blast" or "mind reading" ability that could be reflavored as appropriate, that would probably work best.
Pre-designing a wide array and/or giving consistant, balanced rules for creating new powers/vehicles/enhancements/whatever would go a long way to making the game universal.
---
Off the top of my head, this is what the hypothetical "ideal" system would look like: Leveless, uncapped, simple, cinematic, generic, modable.
What does your ideal system look like?
