Asking for advice on the system for a game

Hey everyone! :D I came here seeking some advice again!

I have a solo game concept that I wanted to play, but I can't decide on a system which would work best for it. Originally it was a test for my homebrew rules, but I wanted to see if there are any already existing systems that will match it well.

The basic idea is that the character starts with absolutely no skills/attributes/perks (or with their lowest values) and has to increase them by doing things. They learn skills by trying to perform corresponding actions, receiving experience even if they fail, increase attributes if they do a lot of activity of specific type (like a lot of physical exercise to up Strength?) and gain perks by completing specific requirements. Maybe it's supplemented by being taught by books or other characters as well. Progression that isn't tied to levels and happens during the entire game, with focus on learning with practice?

I can technically adapt any system to more or less work for it, I think, but I was curious if there were any RPGs with a similar experience system already in place. I don't know that many of them myself, and wasn't sure how to word it for a search. XD So I'll appreciate any hints!

Oh, and if it matters, it's not supposed to be a combat-focused game. More along the lines of a journey to a destination, with survival challenges on the way. Setting doesn't really matter either, though if the system doesn't assume characters are all human, that would be a plus! :D

Thanks for reading! :)

Hi there

I've been doing that for years, depending on the game.

Usually, on those systems, one die is used to resolve the action, the second die increases the xp of the skill.
That way, the skill is progressing while playing, which encourages players to usd the skills they want to rise up.
And if the xp gets to a certain landing, then the skill's level goes up by one.

And as you said, it's not just about combat skills, but all of those.

Works fine :)

I think Roll for Shoes fits? It's very, very rules lite though, so you'll probably have to add your own subsystems. It also lends itself to more ridiculous off the wall games.

Mouse Guard uses a system where in order to increase a skill you have to succeed and fail with it a certain number of times. For instance, improving a skill rating from 3 to 4 requires 3 successful attempts and 2 failed attempts. That's the simplest "learn by doing" mechanic I've seen, though it requires you to regulate when and how often PCs are allowed to roll for things if you don't want sessions to turn into Elder Scrolls-style grinding sessions.

Sounds like how an old game Element Master did increasing skills by use.

Call of Cthulhu is easy to use for solo games. I think some other systems that work well are Mythic (designed for use without GM), also combining Mythic with your favorite game system is popular as well. I often combine Mythic with Gamma World Alternity and sometimes Dungeon Crawl Classics or Mutant Crawl Classics. Ultimately it's up to you, I've even combined Mythic with HARP, Mythras (various settings including M-Space) and another popular combo Savage Worlds.

It depends on how much detail you want. The original basic roleplaying (BRP) has it that when you use a skill you mark it and at the end you roll against the skill to see if it increases. let's say your skill is at 20% and you use it. Then at the end of the adventure you roll above 20% the skill increases. This means low skill improve faster but as you get better it takes longer and is harder to increase as you need to roll above the skill to improve it.

Recently played a version of Dungeon Crawl Classics. I found that I really disliked the magic system in it.

Thank you for all your responses! There are much more systems like this than I expected. :0 And a lot to muse about.
Wow, I haven't considered rolling a second die specifically for experience! It sounds very interesting. Do I understand it correctly, the result on the EXP die is the amount of EXP you get - so, you'll always get at least 1?
I checked it out, it looks quite fitting! I usually dislike randomized experience gain, but it does seem to offset it with the failure experience at least. Though it certainly is very lite. XD Thank you for the recommendation!
It sounds pretty good, thank you for the rec! ( Also, a game about mice? I love RPGs with animals, so double thanks for that! :D) Maybe a bit weird that you might end up in a situation when you need to fail to improve, but it does make sense at the same time. Is it hard to make characters that aren't mice/rodents in it?
I'll need to look into it more, I couldn't find a lot of info with a quick search. Probably because it's old? But thanks for recommendation anyway! :D (Is your second post in the wrong thread, perhaps?)
I don't think Call of Cthulhu uses progression like I described? At least I believe it doesn't from what I read about it? Correct me if I am wrong, though!
That... sounds very fitting for what I had in mind! When you can become good quickly, but for mastery you might need much longer? Thank you for the recommendation, I shall take a longer look at it! :D

The conceit is that if your characters aren't failing, they aren't pushing themselves to tackle new challenges (it's been argued you learn more from failure than from success, after all). The game helps out with that by encouraging GMs to set high obstacle numbers and giving players tools to hinder their characters' own efforts.

The game is pretty focused on being what it is, a game about mice survivalists, but people have hacked it for other kinds of characters and stories. Since you're talking about a game that's "journey to a destination with survival challenges on the way," you probably wouldn't have to change much aside from the PC's basic Nature, which gives them an edge when doing things that come naturally to mice. That, and reskin a few of the challenges, since some of them are based around the fact that mice are tiny and other animals/natural obstacles are big.

Yup, that's the idea. The point is: you can learn from any experience, success or failure, you can learn from it.

Though, you could learn more from a failure than from a success, so you could say that when it's a failure, the XP you gain for the skill is the difference between the action die result and the difficulty level, plus the XP die. I don't do that, i want to keep it simple and fast. But you could.

I have to say that all my systems are based on "Attribute + Skill + Dice >= Difficulty" as a resolution.

@Kaigen

My character is also an animal (a fantasy tiger), so Nature probably will be easy to tweak by just giving bonuses to different actions that come naturally to them - if I understand how it works correctly. :D And I like the idea of having a high obstacle number too, survivalistic challenges are what I wanted to be the main point of the game alongside character progression.

Thank you again for all the info! I'll definitely consider trying it out with Mouse Guard.

@Delio

I like the sound of this system! Quite simple and functional.

And I think it might actually work with others mentioned here! Since most of them only increase skills with their own mechanics, maybe I can add your method as a way to increase attributes? Like, rolling a dice for attribute exp with skills that use corresponding attribute. That way attributes can grow with more stability, but slower! :D

Thank you for the idea!

If you want the whole scale, I usually go for 100x Next Level for Skill XP, and 200 or 300x Next Level for Attribute XP (same die by the way, and if the action is a critical success, the XP die counts twice).
Scale goes from 1 to 10 or 12 for Attributes, from 0 to 10 or 12 for Skills.

Something like that. If you want the XP gain to be faster, then 75x for Skill, 150x for Attribute.

My pleasure :)

To continue on Delio's idea, if the system is a roll under to succeed, perhaps just the die you rolled for your skill could also serve double duty for XP, that way a failed skill (a roll over the TN) would grant more XP, as per the "you learn more from a failure" philosophy... Plus, that's one less die to roll...

@Delio
I like that you use 100s for this, so it's easy to calculate. Thank you again, it really is a nice system!

@kalajel
That's an interesting thought. I only have experience with systems where you need to roll higher, but for them it can be dice max minus roll result. Though this way makes it more appealing to fail not-very-important rolls, too... Although if I'm my own GM, it probably doesn't matter. Thank you for the idea! :D

Pleasure to share :)

Have fun (don't hesitate to give us feedback on what you test, it can be interesting)

Mouse Guard is of course a derivative of the Burning Wheel (which someone started up a couple games of recently). Which itself employs a "use it or lose it" advancement system.

Blades in the Dark also has a take on it that's worth checking out.

Call of Cthulhu came before BRP, hence the similar advancement. Here you go:

When an investigator successfully uses a skill in play, the player should check the box beside that skill on the investigator sheet. This gives the investigator a chance to learn from experience. No tick is earned if the roll used a bonus die. In the case of an opposed roll, both sides may achieve a level of success, but only one will win, and only the winner may tick their skill.

Succeeding at something you are not good at is difficult; however, successfully using the skill probably means that the investigator learns from the experience. Conversely, being expert at something guarantees success most of the time, yet that high skill means the investigator is unlikely to learn further. It gets progressively harder to add percentiles to a skill.

If the player rolls higher than the current skill number, or the result is over 95, then the investigator improves in that skill: roll 1D10 and immediately add the result to the current skill points. Skills may rise above 100% by this method.

If the player rolls equal to or less than the investigator’s skill level, then the investigator hasn’t learned from the ex-
perience and the skill amount does not change.

Repeat the procedure for all the skills that been checked, then erase all skill checks on the investigator sheet. Skills can be checked again during the next game session as they are used successfully.

I'll make sure to look at it, thanks! :D

@umbraldragon
Thank you for the details! It's a bit hard to figure out without knowing the system too well, but I think I grasp the concept from your explanation; It really does seem like BRP! Interesting idea that skills can raise more than 100%, too... weird but interesting. :D

I thought that was weird too. Maybe for situational modifiers? So the GM might say there's a -30% penalty because it's dark and rainy. A player with 100% skill has 70% chance and a player with 110% skill has 80% chance. Just a thought.

Actually, it can looks like weird, but when you think about it, there is a time, when using a skill that you can assimilate and master it enough to do something else with that skill.

That's the concept about mastery in martial arts by the way.
You train by copying, understanding, breaking it down, and then recreating.

So having a skill over 100% ... Yes, i can understand.

You mean like using it to substitute other skills that are more appropriate for the action? Like, using something like Martial Arts instead of Performance to put on a dance show? (I don't know the system's skills, but I hope it makes sense.) Or more like inventing new techniques of the skill? I'd really like an example of 100+ skill usage, if you have time! :D

I don't have any on rpgs, but i can think of some in our contemporary world and society.

About martial arts, yes, that's basically Capoeira.

Like how 30 years+ ago, people mixed mathematics and electronics to create computers.
So far, that's probably the best example i can think of right now.

You can also think, in terms of rpg, of skills over 100% as expertise fields, which are more specialized than skills.
Well, it depends on the skills list at first, but when i see the full Shadowrun which has 7 different skills for gun handling (and i'm only talking about guns, no more).

I suppose a 100%+ skill can be interpreted in a lot of different ways.

That's a curious thought about mixing skills; your example makes me think about a game where the "character" is a whole nation, and their skill progress is technological advancement... or something like this. It would be interesting to invent computers in an RPG. :0

And expertise fields makes sense! Like when you have no more basic info to learn, you pick up a specialization. Thank you for explanation!

Percentile system. Everything starts at whatever base values you determine. Succeeding at something grants no advancement. Every time you fail, your score increases by 1%. You learn more from your failures than your successes.

In terms of skills exceeding 100%.- I can't remember exactly how that played out in prior editions of CoC, but with the introduction of difficulty levels in 7th edition, exceeding 100 basically just raises the threshold for your Hard and Extreme Success chances. I'm not sure if it adds anything in a system that isn't using difficulty levels/opposed rolls.

@Santouche
I can't say I like the idea of success not granting experience at all, since it doesn't seem too realistic to me. Though having percents instead of levels and have them grow by 1 is interesting...
Thank you for info anyway, though! And for explanation of CoCs mechanics. :D