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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 7382945" data-attributes="member: 6688937">Well, I'm personally really big on sacred steaks.I think I might lean towards a modular abstract story-centric approach and away from a X&amp;O's tactical dungeon-crawl approach. Players would build characters from several &quot;classes&quot; that each addresses certain aspects of the game.Pillars: Interaction, Exploration, and Combat. Honestly, Interaction and Exploration share just too much overlap for me. So I would condense them into &quot;Flavor&quot;. I would also add a (possibly optional) third pillar &quot;Story&quot;.So, for each pillar.&nbsp;Combat - &quot;How you contribute in combat&quot; things like heavy, striker, controller, artillery, leader,....Combat classes are very stripped down and include all the tactical information (HP, AC, Attack, movement) that you will ever need to know, baked right in. So every 5th level Striker does the same base damage, with the same &quot;spike damage&quot; values and the same HP/defense. How and why your character has these values in-fiction is informed by the other pillars. I would adopt some rules from 13th Age to make this work a bit easier, staying relatively abstract.Flavor - &quot;How you fit in the world&quot; - Thief, Soldier, Wizard, Scoundrel, Brute, Ranger, Saint, Lord, Highly- Muscled Barbarian,&nbsp; etc. Each is a) starting or traditional resource list, and a description of how this pillar informs the combat pillar b) a package of starting &quot;Moves&quot;. These can even use custom mechanics, because some things make sense as level-dependent and others don't. c) &quot;Advanced Moves&quot; that you can take as you level up occasionally. However, I see this class-choice as mostly static, even if some abilities improve with level. I'm not sure if race should be wrapped into this as well. So maybe &quot;Elven Warrior&quot; is distinct from &quot;Human Warrior&quot;, or maybe you pick a &quot;Race&quot; or &quot;Background&quot; flavor as well.&nbsp;&nbsp; Story - &quot;How you fit in the story&quot; - Prodigy, Hero, Mentor, &quot;Lancer&quot;, Heart, Sidekick, Buddy, Oddball, Fixer, etc.Another set of &quot;moves&quot;, but also adjustments to starting level and advancement. So the Mentor might start out at a higher level, but not advance. Might also include alternate lethality rules for each story role, and modifications to other Flavor rules, triggered by events in story. For most of these, only one character may have them at a time. Some might actually &quot;level-up&quot; into another role, allowing for characters to dual class and the like.Other Notes:This lets you get rid of equipment/weapon tables as well as hyper-detailed spell descriptions. For example, weapons are mostly flavor/narrative permission. Spells as well. So Pyrotechnics might just say &quot;You can manipulate and wield flames with magic.&quot; The limits of what you can do with it are circumscribed by the moves in the Combat, Flavor, and Story classes.There would also be a set of &quot;Basic Moves&quot; that everyone had access to.DMs could set power-levels for campaigns. That might alter things like the starting level of Mentor characters or even the races allowed for starting characters. (a low power campaign might have a 5th level Grizzled Warrior mentor, while a high-powered campaign might have an angel or something.)Anyway, prolly never see that in D&amp;D.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 7382945, member: 6688937"] Well, I'm personally really big on sacred steaks. I think I might lean towards a modular abstract story-centric approach and away from a X&O's tactical dungeon-crawl approach. Players would build characters from several "classes" that each addresses certain aspects of the game. Pillars: Interaction, Exploration, and Combat. Honestly, Interaction and Exploration share just too much overlap for me. So I would condense them into "Flavor". I would also add a (possibly optional) third pillar "Story". So, for each pillar. [B]Combat[/B] - "How you contribute in combat" things like heavy, striker, controller, artillery, leader,.... Combat classes are very stripped down and include all the tactical information (HP, AC, Attack, movement) that you will ever need to know, baked right in. So every 5th level Striker does the same base damage, with the same "spike damage" values and the same HP/defense. How and why your character has these values in-fiction is informed by the other pillars. I would adopt some rules from [I]13th Age[/I] to make this work a bit easier, staying relatively abstract. [B]Flavor[/B] - "How you fit in the world" - Thief, Soldier, Wizard, Scoundrel, Brute, Ranger, Saint, Lord, Highly- Muscled Barbarian, etc. Each is a) starting or traditional resource list, and a description of how this pillar informs the combat pillar b) a package of starting "Moves". These can even use custom mechanics, because some things make sense as level-dependent and others don't. c) "Advanced Moves" that you can take as you level up occasionally. However, I see this class-choice as mostly static, even if some abilities improve with level. I'm not sure if race should be wrapped into this as well. So maybe "Elven Warrior" is distinct from "Human Warrior", or maybe you pick a "Race" or "Background" flavor as well. [B]Story[/B] - "How you fit in the story" - Prodigy, Hero, Mentor, "Lancer", Heart, Sidekick, Buddy, Oddball, Fixer, etc. Another set of "moves", but also adjustments to starting level and advancement. So the Mentor might start out at a higher level, but not advance. Might also include alternate lethality rules for each story role, and modifications to other Flavor rules, triggered by events in story. For most of these, only one character may have them at a time. Some might actually "level-up" into another role, allowing for characters to dual class and the like. [B]Other Notes:[/B] This lets you get rid of equipment/weapon tables as well as hyper-detailed spell descriptions. For example, weapons are mostly flavor/narrative permission. Spells as well. So [B]Pyrotechnics[/B] might just say "You can manipulate and wield flames with magic." The limits of what you can do with it are circumscribed by the moves in the Combat, Flavor, and Story classes. There would also be a set of "Basic Moves" that everyone had access to. DMs could set power-levels for campaigns. That might alter things like the starting level of Mentor characters or even the races allowed for starting characters. (a low power campaign might have a 5th level Grizzled Warrior mentor, while a high-powered campaign might have an angel or something.) Anyway, prolly never see that in D&D. [/QUOTE]

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