Let's build an RPG together.

Hey everyone,

I recently had a crazy idea. You know how the guys on the /tg/ board at 4chan collaborate to produce an RPG from time to time, well, how about we do the dame thing? Let's create an RPG together, tweak it, playtest it, and then release it. Heck, maybe we can even make a nice pdf of it, and release it on online shops like RPGnow, ENstore, or drivethruRPG (pay what you want option), and the profits could be used to fund this site... What do you guys say?

Will at have kick ass Ninjas?

(Actually, sounds like a blast, although not something I've ever thought about doing before - would certainly be interested in watching the process)

It could have kick ass ninjas... Of course, the first thing we'll need to do is come up with a concept. Med-fan? Sci-Fi?
Steampunk? Cyberpunk? Horror? Superheroes? Generic/Universal? Etc.

I'm totally in. I'm up for anything, but am drawn atm to Steam/Dieselpunk ala Mad Max.

a friend of mine made up a game world and used a generic system. I always thought the concept was pretty cool. you play as teenagers with mundane lives, but at night at sleep all the players are together in the realm of dreams where they fight to fend off any intrusions that could damage or attack the great human consciousness

Sounds like a good plan.

I considered trying to make a mobster-based rpg a while ago, mostly because my wife won't go near anything involving "magic". I chose that sort of setting because of the high-stakes nature and the fact that so many people will be familiar with the tropes because of the dozens (maybe hundreds) of films and tv series about organised crime. My point is, in deciding what setting to do maybe we should aim for an established target market. I'm not criticising the steam/dieselpunk idea, on the contrary, I think that would be great. I just mean it's something we should keep in mind when comparing that idea with any other suggestions which people make.

I have only tried a couple of systems so far, so I am very far from being an expert in RPGs. So I'd like to ask those who have more experience; what makes a great system? Is it possible to boil it down to, maybe, five factors?

That sounds cool. I would play that.

I think John Wicke has one where you play as cats defending the world from spirits that only cats can see.

I like games where you can use real world maps. I think it's so cool to go to the Chamber of Commerce to get your RPG map. I don't know if your opening it up for suggestions, but that's mine: A real world setting.

This could be doable. Recently, I thought that maybe my zombie apocalypse game I posted somewhere else could instead be used to mage a "generic apocalypse game system" instead. With enough tweaking, this could be feasible, thus allowing some people to make their dieselpunk games, others zombie apocalypse games, and still other other types of apocalypse and post apocalypse settings...

A sort of Nightmare on Elm Street RPG... :D
That's also an interesting concept, though I am loathe to steal something someone has already done...

The trick with generic systems is that the system informs the pace of the game. A gritty complicated system teaches the players to look for tricks and tweaks while not taking chances, whereas as a light, fast system does the opposite.

Yeah, indeed, in chosing genre, we are going to aim at a certain market, but of course, this cooperation idea does not need to be a one shot, we can always explore later genres which were not chosen.
Hmm, I'll admit that I'm not very inspired by a mobster RPG. Not that they're not fun for me, but my knowledge of various criminal organization is pretty much limited to Hollywood movies and politicians... :P
If we go with mobsters, I'm afraid this will severely limit my contribution to maybe some crunch and the pdf layout...

I sort of did managed both, I believe with my Zombocaplypse game, where the system was pretty light and fast paced, but the game was designed to be rough and gritty on player and character death was to be expected...

What about a game like "They Live" where all of the heroes are people with gifts (Magic User, fighter, whatever) and they are the only ones who can see the Baddies.

kinda like Men In Black with character classes

Fighting an invading force, but you have to be careful about how you proceed lest you be arrested for murder or terrorism... I love it. Are the baddies aliens? Demons? Creatures fro a different dimension?

We seem to be leaning to variations of a modern day game. I think there is a greater need for such games than for medieval fantasy or super sci fi.

I'm a bit more impartial to a classless system myself. Or at the very least, make the "classes" loose, like they're more archetypes rather than something that locks you in a set progression...

yes

I meant to quote this

I like the idea of some people having powers

me too. Wouldn't it be fun to look at a map of your own city and decide where you were going to build your HQ.

Hmm, yeah, though its probably because they get outdated quickly... Heck, even the old Cyberpunk decker concept is kind of ridiculous when you think about it using today's standard. Some near-future sci-fi games can have a simialr problems. I remember in the late 90s playing some GURPS Cyberpunk, and all the computers described in the sourcebook had less memory than computers from the late 90s... XD

Would you play a game set in the real world based on the stuff that's going on in the news right now? THAT would be a crazy game.

I'd rather not be reminded of that in my games. We play games for escapism after all...

good point.

Also, this would also make the game become dated quickly as per my point above... Unless the whole point of the game is the the action happens in one of the past decades...

How about this? You're in the real world. There are demons, invaders and people from other dimensions.

Our Heroes can see the baddies with:
Science
Magic
or
Psychic powers

or they can use cats

"Trust my cat boy, he's like a bloodhound for the undead."

Equipment world become stale quickly, if you bothered to fully stat it out. Otherwise, if you leave that stuff vague, the user can supply names for gadgets.

Yeah, like you can simply say "top of the line computer", and the players can assume it has whatever HD/RAM/cores/etc. a top of the line computer of whatever year the current year is...

I think the trick would be to make it so that you could stat anything easily on the fly so that you could tell players, "Okay you have x dollars, and you can use Ebay, Craigslist and Amazon (or modern equivalents) to outfit your character.

What are you thinking for mechanics? Personally, I like rolling dice.

I think we all do, however, it seems to be an unavoidable fundamental principle of RPGs that the more die you roll, the more it tends to slow the game down. So I tend to try my best to limit the die rolls as much as possible when I create new games... Also, lately, I've been challenging myself in creating systems which doesn't use the d20...

I think it would be cool if you could sell a PDF, and somebody could basically raid their board games for everything they needed to play. Of course if you're selling an indie RPG you can assume that your players probably already have all of the DnD dice

Using only d6s is good for newbies as you're guaranteed almost everyone already has those. It,s also good for the players on a budget, because they don't need to buy 7 different types of dice, most likely 2-3 of each... and also, they probably already have d6s at home...

Diceless?

That would be cool. I feel like 5d6 is the max. Anything beyond that is too much.

No, I mean that I try to give some love to the other die types, d4 to d12... I never played a diceless system (aside from systems which uses cards, but I don't really consider those "diceless"), so I really don't know how to make one...

Check this out:

What if you let people roll 5d6 for physical stats, but anything short of 30 would go towards their magical/psychic/whatever stat?

By the way I have no ego attachment to any of these ideas, so don't be afraid to say no to any dumb thing I say. That goes for lurkers too, don't be afraid to contribute. I have a tendency to be a bigmouth in brainstorming sessions, but really it's just because I LOVE the creative process.

So for example let's say I roll: 3,3,4,6,6 (22 total) I put each one of those numbers into one of my stat slots:
Muscle: 3
Dex: 3
Smarts: 4
likability: 6
Conviction: 6

and put an 8(30-22) into my magic power. I might have a measly 3 in strength, but I can also shoot mind beams (or whatever)

Kick ass weird power: 8

I'm not too sure I get it... Isn't 30 the max you can roll on 5d6? So unless you roll the max, you've just rolled a mental stat?

Oh, ok. I get it now. That's a lot of dice to roll for attributes, and the magical which works differently makes the character creation mechanics a bit wonky.

Use the K.I.S.S. principle: Keep it simple stupid. a straight 2d6 roll for each attribute, giving a score between 2-12 sounds much simpler and already cleaner.

Another simple option could be 1d6+3 for each attribute, giving a score between 4 and 9...

So on and so forth...

Yeah so like a super Jock-y Genius would be like, the fighter. But your weakling would be the super wizard.

Okay. We're probably putting the cart before the horse anyways. I guess you have to figure out what the game mechanic is before the stats become very meaningful anyways...

Pretty much, yeah. :P

Since I pretty much gave up on my Zombocalypse game, perhaps we could see if there are any mechanics which could be salvaged here? Basically, you roll your attribute dice + your skill level, you need to beat a set TN, 7 for average difficulty.

Haha. A cool system might have a gimick, and be simple as well. For example, how about d8s as a base? Then, do you want successes, or a target number? Like, maybe roll some d8s and 6,7,8s are a success, rest are fails, and you may need 1 success for a simple action, many for complex.

Or a target number: like roll x d8s, and you need to total 10 for a normal action, more for harder.

Roll 2 dice, you succeed if you don't roll doubles. Crappy skills roll d4s. awesome skills roll d12s.

If this game is ostensibly about fighting a secret war with evil forces, maybe the central mechanic should have something to do with the tradeoff between victory and secrecy.

This is a rough idea (and more narrative-focused than tactical), so let me know what you think:

There is a dice pool of d6s that represents "the power to defeat evil" and 5,6s are successes. You can make this dice pool as large as you want, BUT every 1,2 represents not only a failure but you being noticed. The secret escaping. You can usually find the power to defeat the evils you need to defeat, but can you prevent others from discovering the truth of this war?

Interesting mechanic. This could also be applied with my "rolling doubles screws things up " idea from previously. You roll your dice, try to get success, but each doubles (or triples, etc.) means you were careless and left traces of yourself. stealing a bit from O.R.E., the higher teh doubles, triples, etc., the worst your mistake was...

Then you not only have to worry about losing the battle, but how to clean up after yourself.

A system for battle is comparatively straightforward, but how to make a system for allaying suspicion...

I will say, ignoring how AMAZING this idea is, the more specific a game we make, the easier it will be to generate ideas coherently. Given it's our first go, generic is ideal, but harder. Consider, the first game Jim McClure is releasing (though he's made a number of them), is VERY specific: a story-telling RPG between two players who play Samurai in their final battle.

Also... this don't roll doubles mechanic is NEAT! Damn you people smarter and more creative than me!

I've just read the thread, and, aside from the crunchy system parts, the whole thing screams FATE to me.

It's just that I don't think you could leave traces of yourself only by failing. I think you could still succeed, but somehow got caught on CCTV footage, a casing of your special super-secret ammo could have rolled behind a filing cabinet and been left there, etc. Also, I believe doubles protects the player a little bit more to "bad rolls nights" than only 1s and 2s...

Here's an idea I had last night while I slept. Attributes could be listed from 1d4 to 1d12, skills could be listed from 1d4 to 1d12, equipment could be listed from 1d4 to 1d12, and finally, modifiers could also add or subtract 1d4 to 1d12. The more dice a player decided to roll could increase his chances of beating a target number/difficulty level, but also increase his chances of messing up somewhere and leaving traces of himself/being seen/etc. Then the system becomes a delicate balance between victory in the fight to free humanity or getting discovered by a humanity which is unaware of what's really going on and getting arrested for various crimes or risking exposing the secret organization, etc.

Needed to be careful with interpreting probabilities there. Rolling doubles will be relatively common.

Depends on how small the dice are and how many you roll.

2d4
1-1
1-2
1-3
1-4
2-2
2-3
2-4
3-3
3-4
4-4
Chance to roll a double, approx: 40%.

2d6
1-1
1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
1-6
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
2-6
3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
4-4
4-5
4-6
5-5
5-6
6-6
Chances to roll doubles: approx. 28.57%

2d8
1-1
1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
1-6
1-7
1-8
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
2-6
2-7
2-8
3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
3-7
3-8
4-4
4-5
4-6
4-7
4-8
5-5
5-6
5-7
5-8
6-6
6-7
6-8
7-7
7-8
8-8
Chance to roll doubles: approx 22.22%

2d10
1-1
1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
1-6
1-7
1-8
1-9
1-10
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
2-6
2-7
2-8
2-9
2-10
3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
3-7
3-8
3-9
3-10
4-4
4-5
4-6
4-7
4-8
4-9
4-10
5-5
5-6
5-7
5-8
5-9
5-10
6-6
6-7
6-8
6-9
6-10
7-7
7-8
7-9
7-10
8-8
8-9
8-10
9-9
9-10
10-10
chances to roll doubles: approx. 18.18%

2d12
1-1
1-2
1-3
1-4
1-5
1-6
1-7
1-8
1-9
1-10
1-11
1-12
2-2
2-3
2-4
2-5
2-6
2-7
2-8
2-9
2-10
2-11
2-12
3-3
3-4
3-5
3-6
3-7
3-8
3-9
3-10
3-11
3-12
4-4
4-5
4-6
4-7
4-8
4-9
4-10
4-11
4-12
5-5
5-6
5-7
5-8
5-9
5-10
5-11
5-12
6-6
6-7
6-8
6-9
6-10
6-11
6-12
7-7
7-8
7-9
7-10
7-11
7-12
8-8
8-9
8-10
8-11
8-12
9-9
9-10
9-11
9-12
10-10
10-11
10-12
11-11
11-12
12-12
chances to roll doubles: approx. 15.38%

granted, mixing and adding dice will change those chances somewhat, but so far, I think this system has merits... also, keep in mind that the higher that double is, the worst it will be. so, while that d4 might increase your chances to roll a double, this double will be relatively low.

Those statistics are not correct. On 2d4, your chances of rolling doubles is 1 in 4, d6 is 1 in 6, d8 is 1 in 8, etc.

No, those are your chance of rolling any result on a single dice. Just because you rolled a result on your first dice does not mean your second dice will automatically roll the same result again. When trying to figure out your chances or rolling your double on two dice, you have to list all the possible combinations and divide the ones which comes out double by the total number of combination to find your % chance of rolling doubles.

Oh, wait, yeah, I think I see what mistake I made...

Still odd that your chance of rolling doubles on two dice would be teh same as your chance of rolling any given number on a single dice. Doesn't sound quite right...

I think it's more like you multiply your chance of rolling any given result on a dice by your chance again, no? Like 25% x 25% = 6.25% for d4s, 16.67% x 16.67% = 2.78% for d6s and so no?

Yeah, looks like I'm starting to get closer...

I think you'll find that you didn't list all of the combinations in your brute force analysis. With 2d4, there are 16 combinations (4 for each dice), four of which are doubles.

Think of out this way. Given one roll, what is the chance that the second roll is the same as the first. It's 1/X for a dX.

Best way to consider rolling doubles:

You have a 1 in 1 chance of rolling any number on the first dice.
You have a 1 in x chance of rolling that same number on the second dice of x sides.

Which means your total chance is 1 in x to roll a double.

If you roll a 1 on your first die you chances of getting another one is 25%, same if you roll a 2, 3, or 4.

The 6.25% is your chance of rolling two of a specific number. Rolling two 1s is 6.25%, two 2s is 6.25%, two 3s.... Etc.

Overall, though, it adds up to 25%.

You have 1 of X chance to roll a number on one die, but then you have 1 out of X * X chance of rolling the same result on your second die, no? otherwise, you'd roll double at the same rate you'd roll any given number. Add a 3rd die, and your chances increase a bit in where your chances are now 2 out of X * X since you need to match one of two possible results rolled? add a 4th die and it's now 4 out of X * X?

Urgh, headache... I hate maths... XD

Now I'm confused...

kalajel: you're right, but X * X is the chance of a SPECIFIC number (so 2 1's, specifically). But two of the same is just a 1 in X (because the probability of anything on the first dice is 1 of 1.

But that's the same chance of rolling any given result on 1 die. It does not makes sense that you have the same chance of rolling doubles. You are aiming for a specific result on your second dice, so it would be closer to the, "I aim to roll two 1s" analogy, no?

Yeah, I think this is more right...

What are we trying to answer? If we're just asking for the odds of rolling the same number on two dice, it is in the case of 2d6, 1/6.

If we want a specific result, such as "double 1s" on 2d6, it is 1/36.

The first example, we're just looking for any double, which is a result of {1,1}, {2,2}, {3,3}, {4,4}, {5,5}, {6,6}.

The second example, we're looking for only one result out of the many combinations, {1,1} out of {n,n}.

Condider 2d2. There are four results:

1,1 (double)
1,2
2,1
2,2 (double)

So lets say your goal is to find the odds of rolling a 1 on the first dice: your chances are 1 in X, where X is the number of sides.
Now your goal is to get another 1, which means you need to roll another 1 in X, bringing the total to 1 in X * X.

You already showed that part.

Instead, you're not concerned with what the roll of the first dice is, as a double can happen on any of the dice. So your chances of rolling a number on the first dice is 1 in 1 (guaranteed).
Now that you have that result, you want a specific result on the second die, a 1 in X chance. That means the total chance is 1 in 1 * X, or 1 in X.

If you look at the original, 1 in X * X, the chances of getting a specific double, there are X number of possible doubles in that collection, so it's 1 in (X * X) / X (chances of a specific combination / the number of combinations you'll accept), which is 1 in X.

Yeah, I think I get it now. I think I was overthinking the whole thing...

so 2d4 you have 4 x 4 =16 possible results, 4 x 3 = 12 of them won't be doubles, so 16 - 12 = 4 of them will be doubles, so 25% chance of rolling doubles.

On 3d4, you have 4 x 4 x 4 = 64 results, 4 x 3 x 2 = 24 of those won't be doubles or triples, so 64 - 24 = 40 of htem will be doubles or triples, so 62.5% chances or rolling at least a double...

and so on...

You got it :)

Can we rename the thread "Let's learn to teach math together?" because we're all not that great at it :p

I like it. Are you thinking like you get so many notice points before you have to deal with the ramifications. Like maybe an extremely trustworthy guy gets extra notice points whereas a shifty looking guy would get lower notice. I don't know...

Alright, let's mix and match for fun...

1d12 + 1d8 + 1d6...

total number of possible results: 12 x 8 x 6 = 576

number of results which won't result in doubles or triples: 12 x 7 x 5 = 420

number of results which will result in doubles or triples: 576 - 420 = 156

% chance of rolling at least a double on 1d12 + 1d8 + 1d6: 156 ÷ 576 x 100 = 27.08333333 or about 27.083%...

Makes sense?

Oh you... I think I was just overthinking it... It's a bad habit I have...

TMMDR (too much math, didn't read :p)

That's a similar result in rolling 2d4

Well, the more dice you'll add (the more resources your character will use), the more chance to roll at least a double (the more chance you'll leave traces of yourself). ;)

If you stick with the two dice and doubles you're looking at a 1 in 4 chance in failure on a wimpy die and a 1 in 12 on a strong die. If you also apply the magnitude of failure as in the lower the double, the greater the failure, then I feel like your chances of epically messing up begin to shrink. This also has the benefit of saying that if your guy rolls d4s, his failures will most likely be greater than those of a guy rolling d12s for the same skill check.

isn't that more like the hunter games by white wolf? that's mostly supernatural stuff

but an RPG that focuses on an invasion of the body snatcher type stuff.. like the government really is infiltrated by reptilian overlords... or the invasion has just started... that could be interesting.

how about to focus more on the system first? do we want action, fast paced, and over the top? or do we want gritty, realistic, and tactical?

OH, OH!!! the aliens are hiding because they use psychic shielding of some type, and for reason, the players are immune to this!

Well, more chances to mess up, but the overall mess up will be less than say for a double 12...

I don't think I can contribute much to the game mechanics but would love to be involved in plot. I was thinking about the motivation for keeping this war secret. In many examples of this kind of plot it comes down to one of the following:

An elite want to retain power
Fear that society cannot handle the truth
Fear that by revealing the truth the enemy will inevitably win
The secret needs to be kept until X time, when the plans will be fulfilled
Fear that if they knew, they would turn on us
A "Prime Directive" kind of situation



How about a time-travel based game? The players belong to a group from the future in whose interest it is to keep the timeline pure. They come back to neutralise forces which seek to make small changes which would let that group have more power in their future. Neither side want to reveal themself because that would be a huge and unpredictable shift in the timeline, which would be disastrous for both groups. The game would have its own timeline, from the point-of-view of the players who would travel together, but they could be jumping around in history, even revisiting the same settings multiple times.

Could get complicated, but could also be interesting.

Any thoughts?

I was going the other way. But that works too.

We still haven,t decide if they're aliens, demons, or something else entirely... Personally, I'd vote for extraplanar beings form another dimension (the edge of reality). We could say that H.P. Lovecraft tried to warn humanity a while back, but failed. And while he was right, he may not have necessarily gotten the details right... So Cthulhu, may not be what we think of Cthulhu... :P

Do you think there's a way to stat the evil secret invasion force and the characters and then leave it up to a GM to determine where the forces come from and leave it up to players to come up with why their characters can see those forces?

Probably, but do you think people would buy it then? I think people need some kind of hook. They need to know "this is a game about X". I'm sure some people would love an open game where they have almost total control, but I'd imagine (could be wrong here) you're going to get more people playing if you have a defined genre/setting.

I would play that. Also you could play around with unreliable info from the future via 12 monkeys. Tons of opportunities for mysteries.

Leaving things too vague means we're just basically making a generic/universal system. We'll have to create equipment and make rules for a bunch of different eventualities then which might increase our workload. I think Keleth is right in that when you're making your first game, you need to focus it on a particular genre/niche to make it more focused and simple...

Secret Invasion.
Where do they come from? Why are they here. Play this game. Learn the Truth.

Okay I give. Personally, I like demons or aliens. But am totally open to whatever the group likes.

Learn Define the truth!
:-)

a friend of mine did made a time travel game a bit like that in GURPS. however, we were not limited to the past, but also alternate universes. for example, our base was on an alternate Earth were life never developed, and one of our agents (another player) was a dark elf...

As for my "edge of reality" idea, did H.P. Lovecraft ever abused any drugs? I don't know much of his life, but my idea was that some rare people capable of seeing the creatures for what they really are, and another small group of people have the potential to do so, but only when under the influence of drugs. However, they'd perceive distorted visions of what those creatures really are, partly because their gift is not quite developed, and partly because of the drug trip... :P

Ability to see others, that's a stat. Othervision.?

Interesting. Could you model that somehow? Finding the balance between getting the most information and being able to interpret it.

I feel like some form of Str and Dex are necessary too.

And of course there is always a risk of a psychotic break, but how would you know when it happens? How do you know when the visions are "real" or just imagined?

so now we're starting to wander into call of cthulu

Do we make it a stat or do we say every player characters are part of the few rare humans to be able to see the "others"? Otherwise, why would you even join those cooks? :P

Hey, I'm just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. :P

I say have the players just be gifted for some unknown reason. why do they see them? now that you have this knowledge, what do you do with it?

I become a gutter punk and start playing my three-string guitar on street corners telling people THE TRUTH Man.

Also I'm a demolitions expert

Besides, my idea isn't technically CoC... It's more like H.P. Lovecraft tried to warn us, but because he did not quite have the gift, he saw a distorted version of the creatures, which he used to write his stories. Cthulhu might not be the Cthulhu, but a Cthulhu, an army of which currently lies in cryostasis in their mothership R'lyeh which is currently at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle. :P

I like this.

I also like action.

I liked the time travel idea because I hadn't heard of any games like that before. I've just looked it up; there are a bunch of them. Kinda depressing. Just once I'd like to have a genuinely original idea.

To build on this; do we want a game which you can just break out and play immediately for an evening, or something which requires preparation and lasts multiple sessions?

everything has been done at least once man. This is why you need a "twist" to your games now to differentiate them from the mass.

The time travellers are from the past!

Or not.
:-)

Can't we have a little bit of both? Very fast character creation for a one night pick up game, but the possibility to have long campaigns and optional/advance rules to add depth of play for the people who want a bit more mileage out of their RPGs...

I agree on making character creation simple, But also like being able to upgrade your character. You can play as a resistance member and games can be either mission or campaign based...

Pregens or fast-start guides are good for this kind of thing. Say, "Hey, if you want to do a fast character of _______ type take these skills and this equipment" (D&D 5e has the quick start instructions in every class description)

Allow people who don't love the mechanical character building process to make a well-designed character quickly, while allowing those who want the more in-depth tuning to have their wish as well.

Alright, even if the setting is not completely defined yet, I think we also need to thing of mechanics.

How about distribute 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, and 1d12 between Body, Move, Mind, Soul, and Luck?

Then the character gets a handful of character points to buy skills and maybe advantages/disadvantages? Skills would also range form 1d4 to 1d12.

Give starting equipment, gear granting 1d4 to 1d12 to certain actions?

When rolling, attempt to be a TN of 10 for average difficulty? the more you beat your TN by, the more it adds to "victory"? Characters then has the chance of trading a few points of "victory" to cancel a few points of "discovery" at a yet to decide ratio when rolling doubles/triples/quadruples? (so there is still possibility to cover your screw ups to some extent?)

Depending on the length of the campaign, it could last until you reach a certain amount of "victory", in which you win, or "discovery" where you lose...

So Body is like Strength/Constitution and Move is, well, moving. Speed and Dexterity?

How about Physical, Mental, Spiritual, Luck and Other (connection to the Other Plane)?

Pretty much yeah. Mind would be intelligence, wisdom, charisma, etc. Soul could be intuition, sixth sense, awareness? Luck, well, everyone needs a bit of luck every now and then... :P

Or Emotional instead of Spiritual? Emotionally strong people are better at interacting with people and less likely to break mentally.

Yeah, could be something like Ego instead of Soul...

How about naming it in a more visceral way? Something like;

Muscle
Neurons
Glands
Etc.

It's just flavour but might make it stand out.

Another thing to think about; if there's a bit of a body-snatcher thing going trust would be an important factor. Do we need to measure that or do we leave it to the players to RP?

Body: Body is a measure of how strong, enduring and tough you are. It will affect how much you can lift, how hard you can hit, and how much stamina you have.

Move: Move represents agility, dexterity, and reflexes. It makes you quick to act and do so with finesse.

Mind: Mind represents your logical and analytical mind. It is your ability to gather, store, process, and analyze information.

Wit: Wit represents your charisma, presence, and sense of self. It allows you to keep your emotions in check and gives you an advantage in tests of will.

Luck: Luck is simply how lucky you are, d'uh! High luck means things tend to go your way or you tend to end up being at the right place at the right time...

Hmm. Perhaps like Shadows Over Camelot where there can be a (or more) traitor(s) or not in the game? Of course, the GM sort of needs to know who the traitor is, if any... I'm not sure how to handle this with mechanics, really...

There would need to be a rule about how a character would be taken over (which the players would not necessarily know). There could be a selection of possibilities and the one for this game is determined randomly at game start. Something like "the character must be out of contact with other characters for at least five minutes".

that's interesting... One of your party members might be an invader with an immunity to your vision... Certainly changes the tone of the game.

The vision could be a finite resource. Especially if it is drug-fuelled.

It would also leave you vulnerable when you are tripping, so you would only use it if you have a strong suspicion.

Since Wit (maybe rename it Will?) seems to be your "sense of self" attribute, it could play a role in this? But then again, people will automatically suspect the players who put a d4 or d6 in Wit...

Good point, you should be able to resist somehow.

How about a strain meter. It starts at zero and increases when stressful things happen. The higher it is the more likely you are to get infected.

For example, chance of infection could be determined by a d12. Roll a 1 and you're gone. Each point of strain increases the threshold, to 2, then 3, etc. But the GM only rolls under the circumstances defined by the secret rule.

I'm not entirely sure about Luck... Maybe Luck could be something else entirely rather than a attribute, and it could be replaces by Soul (awareness, sixth-sense, intuition) instead? Or maybe we could limit only to 4 attributes from 1d4 to 1d10 and 1d12 would be the domain of a high skill level or other things??

I like luck being a thing, but maybe you're right about doing it a different way. It also makes sense in this type of game to have a Soul stat.

So;
Body
Move
Mind
Will
Soul

(Luck will be implemented some other way...)

distribute 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, and 1d12 between the 5 attributes.

Gains X character points to buy skills, advantages/disadvantages.

Skill Level / cost
1d4 / 1
1d6 / 3
1d8 / 6
1d10 / 10
1d12 / 15
(??)

List of skills:
Melee Combat
Ranged combat
Defense
Driving/Piloting
Chemistry
Computers
Security Systems
Demolition/Explosives
Stealth
etc...
(??)

Must beat Average TN of 9?
Difficulty / TN
Trivial / 0
Very Easy / 3
Easy / 6
Average / 9
Difficult / 12
Very Difficult / 15
Insane / 18
(Nearly Impossible / 21??)

how about the alien or entity is a virus? it "possesses" a host, and the hosts are working to make more of their kind and undermine the world governments. and the "Strain" or whatever meter is you measure of your immunity to the virus? people who are weak willed are more susceptible?

Hmm, virus. Some sort of alien/demonic/extra dimensional virus which which possess people and make them work to undermine humanity. Would certainly explain the extremists of just about anything... :P

I really love this idea.

I'm a huge fan of the virus idea as well. Maybe more advanced strains of the virus can even mutate their host, giving them special abilities and even physical deformities (Allows you to implement "monsters" as well as powerful human-ish opponents)

"The Gift"
To see if your character possesses The Gift, roll your Soul die and consult the table below:
8-12: You possess The Gift, you can clearly see the invaders for what they are.
4-9: You have the potential for The Gift. You can see the invaders, but only under the effects of strong mind-altering substances (the substance in question varies from individual to individual). However, when under the influence of the substance, you only see a distorted impression of the invaders, which can be partly explained by your undeveloped gift, and partly because of the trip you are currently having.
1-3: You do not possess The Gift. Who knows why you follow those cooks...

How about the virus spreads through social media? :P

HOLY SHIT

Well, that would certainly explain tumblr... :P

that's cool

Since the game seems to be more based on "success vs. discovery", it seems that most conflict should be resolved with this sort of mechanic. I'm wondering if, in order to fit the "infection/strain" idea, there would be no HP for characters, but rather just an infection track to act as an "HP pool" instead? Or maybe try to use some sort of "Troubles" system sort of like what Rocket Amoeba does?

Also, to make character creation a bit faster, maybe instead of having character points, the players could also distribute other dice among skills? like 1d4, 1d4, 1d4, 1d6, 1d6, 1d8, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 among the various skill lists. Later the character could buy new skills/improve old ones with character points?

If I were designing it I would have two health pools: One equivalent to HP (some players will probably end up in a violent confrontation) and one for resisting infection (Whether it's just a track that you follow or an actual pool is negotiable).

That sounds reasonable

Just an idea; how about the higher your Gift rating, the more likely it is for you to get infected? It would give it a nice double-edged feel.

It's like a mind virus, and minds with the gift are more open.

That is a nice idea...

Not that I think we should necessarily get rid of HP altogether, but since the focus of the game will be victory vs. discovery, it should be simplified in some way. Perhaps a check boxes system of Well -> Nicked -> Hurt -> Wounded -> Dead would work well?

That would work well as a compromise, I think

Sounds good. So how would physical combat work then? Getting shot, for example, in real life could take you right up to Dead. How do we determine the severity of wounds?

Guns would probably be in the d10 to d12 range of tools, and using one or more die depending on the firearm. The more you beat the TN of your opponent (remember average is 9), the opponent has to check more boxes on his wound track?

I don't like the idea of people with stronger Gifts being more susceptible to the virus. what I do like is the idea that the stronger your gift, the more obvious you become to the virus and it works to silence or infect you.

so wait.. if we're going through the virus thing, that makes the players humanity's immune system

Okay, so I've worked a bit on the idea last night.

So you distribute the following dice 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12 among the 5 attributes Body, Move, Mind, Will, Soul, putting 1 die per attribute. do not roll the die, simply note the die you placed for the attribute. For example Body 1d10.

Then you gain a number of skills to place, a bit like how you proceeded for the attributes. The number of skill depends on your Mind and Will attributes. (maybe make the player roll them or simply base it on the dice?)
Result(Dice?) / Skills
2-4 (2d4 to 1d4+1d6) / 2 x 1d4, 2 x 1d6, 1d8, 1d10
5-9 (2d6 to 1d8+1d10) / 2 x 1d4, 2 x 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12
10-15 (2d10 to 1d10+1d12) / 2 x 1d4, 2 x 1d6, 2 x 1d8, 1d10, 1d12
16-22 (2d12) / 3 x 1d4, 2 x 1d6, 2 x 1d8, 1d10, 1d12

Next determine your wounds levels. Roll your Body (how though you are) and your Will (your will to live) to determine the number of health check boxes you gain.
Roll (Dice?) / Health Check Boxes
2-4 (2d4 to 1d4+1d6) / 1 x Well box, 1 x Nicked box, 1 x Injured box, 1 x Wounded box, 1 x Dying box
5-9 (2d6 to 1d8+1d10) / 1 x Well box, 1 x Nicked box, 1 x Injured box, 2 x Wounded boxes, 1 x Dying box
10-15 (2d10 to 1d10+1d12) / 1 x Well box, 1 x Nicked box, 2 x Injured boxes, 2 x Wounded boxes, 1 x Dying box
16-22 (2d12) / 1 x Well box, 2 x Nicked boxes, 2 x Injured boxes, 2 x Wounded boxes, 1 x Dying box

Penalties at the various health levels
Well: no penalties
Nicked: one die drops 1 category
Injured: one die drops 2 categories, or 2 dice drop 1 category
Wounded: one die drops 3 categories, or 1 die drops 2 categories and 1 die drops 1 category, or 3 dice drops 1 category
Dying: must roll Body + Will TN 9 or die (or maybe total of roll is number of round you must receive medical attention before you die?)

I've also reworked the difficulties a bit, I think it,s better if the TN to beat always remains 9 (placeholder), and circumstances either increases or decreases die category, or add or remove dice. Of course, a player is not obliged to roll all dice he got, he only needs to beat TN 9 after all, and must avoid rilling doubles, triples, quadruples, etc...

Circumstances/Difficulty
Trivial / Increase a die 5 steps*
Extremely Easy / Increase a die 4 steps*
Very Easy / Increase a die 3 steps*
Easy / Increase a die 2 steps*
Somewhat Easy / Increase a die 1 step*
Somewhat Difficult / Decrease a die 1 step**
Difficult / Decrease a die 2 steps**
Very Difficult / Decrease a die 3 steps**
Extremely Difficult / Decrease a die 4 steps**
Insane / Decrease a die 5 steps**

* Increase steps are d4 -> d6 -> d8 -> d10 -> d12 -> +1d4 -> +1d6 -> +1d8 -> +1d10 -> +1d12
** Decrease steps are d12 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4 -> -1d4 -> -1d6 -> -1d8 ->-1d10 -> -1d12. If you must lose 1 die and you do not have this type of die, reduce the value of the die to be lost (its number of faces) to the value of a die you have, the result is the new die you must use instead (ex: d10-d6=d4). If the result is less than 4, you simple lose the whole die as there are no d2 in this game.

Luck could be used to bump dice or add dice (mostly to circumvent penalties), but I haven't finished working on it yet. I'm not sure if I should make the player roll for it (or use the die value) or if all players should start with a set amount...

Oh, and as for all those doubles and triples, etc. the players must avoid rolling, I've been toying with this as well.

My first idea is to simply add the values of all dice who roll multiples (ex: two 6s and three 4s would total 24) and keep a running total on some sort of table, with some consequences or penalties when the discovery total reaches certain thresholds...

My other idea was that each die which roll the same numbers could be added together to form a TN under which the GM must roll for complications (ex: two 6s and three 4s would become two rolls at TN 12 each). If the GM beats the TN, there is no problems, if he fails the TN, then consequences or penalties happen...

Edit: Who knows, it might even possible to have both ideas at once. for example, the running total would determine which consequence/penalty could apply, and the TN rolls would determine if they do end up applying?

Really? No one else? If it's my system idea, don't worry guys, I'm not that attacked to it, we can always change it. Like I previously said, I'm merely throwing stuff at the wall and watching what sticks... In fact, I might very well abandon this idea since I remember I wanted to use only d6s to make the game more accessible to beginners and make it cheaper...

Haha, I think I lost track of where this thread was going with the explosion of interest and posts. I'll want to try and catch up later, though.

Like, I have a quick idea for only using d6s.

Keep the same attributes: Body, Move, Mind, Will, Soul.

Roll 1d3 for each attribute, but the result are read like this instead:
1-2: 0
3-4: 1
5-6: 2

Then you have 18 - (the total of your attributes) Skill Points to buy skills at the following rate:
Skill Rank / Cost
1 / 1
2 / 4
3 / 9

When rolling your dice, roll 2d6. You succeed if at least 1 die rolls equal to or lower than your skill + attribute. But beware of doubles!

So, the lower your attributes, the more skills you'll have?

I haven't lost interest, but I do need to focus on work today.

Yeah, in order to make up for crappy rolls...

I like the idea, characters will be balanced but different

Another possibility would be to give more Luck to a player who have rolled crappy, but I haven't worked on Luck yet on this d6 version...

How about you start with a number of HP equal to your Body + 6.
You die once you reach a number of negative HP equal to your Will + 2.

Weapons could inflict damage like this:
Unarmed attack: 1d6÷3 (1d2)
Small melee weapons: 1d6÷2 (1d3)
Medium melee weapon: 1d6
Large melee weapon: 1d6+2
Light firearm: 2d6
Heavy firearm: 2d6+3
Explosive: 3d6 (on a radius)

Keeping things very simple here...

An interesting project. I'll keep an eye, maybe toss out a few comments here and there.

I do notice a lot of your ideas buy into a lot of standard RPG tropes (granular hit points, and attributes that govern skills, generating mechanics to cover really narrow details like differentiating between category of weapon). You might find it interesting to push beyond that, and try something a bit different.

Instead of granular hit points as numbers, what about something like Burning Wheel's condition-based vitality. Instead of the typical attribute > skill system, why not a system that simply uses skills (or a system that simply uses attributes, and doesn't try to represent every micro-detail of a character). What about a system that encourages failure, or at least risk taking (players are rewarded for failing rolls in some way)?

Just some thoughts, and bit of pressing to expand your thinking beyond those tropes.

Well, my original idea was the use of wounds check boxes. I guess I can always move back to that idea. It's just that with a Body score which now varies between 0 and 2, I did not have an immediate idea how to implement those, so I went to an HP system instead. I can always try to implement those wound boxes again.

Using attributes + skill just seems more natural. It's a combination of your potential plus your training. It also seems more intuitive that way. I guess I could use an attribute only or a skill only system, but honestly, those type of games seem weird to me and they're usually games I don't feel like playing... and I'd like to work on a game I'd want to play.
So far, the only game I know of which manages to use only attributes and ignore skills to my satisfaction is Dungeonslayers. Their "skills" were basically a combination of an attribute and a trait (a sub-division of your attributes) which gave you a TN you had to roll equal to or lower. This could always be another possibility...

Rewarding failure sounds like an interesting concept. Perhaps a double is always bad, but can always bring some good to the player? I'll have to look into this...

Okay, Kalajel, so using the system that you brought up earlier in the thread, I'm building my anarchist street punk

Name: John Exampleman
Goal: To help Justin understand the rules

Body d8
Move d6
Mind d4
Will d12
Soul d10

I'm not sure how many skills I would receive if my Mind is d4 and my Will is d12. I don't think I'm interpreting the chart clearly.

For Wounds I rolled a Willd12, got 11 and a Bodyd8 and I got a 1
so my Wound threshold is 12

How do I determine my gift rating?

@Justin. I haven't really worked on The Gift yet. I'm not even sure if we'll go with this system or not.

To follow Candi's advice, I tried reworking my system a bit, and I think I might have something which might work well.

First, the Attributes are changed. The are called Aspects, and are grouped under categories.
Body Group -> Strength, Vitality, Stamina
Move Group -> Agility, Technique, Reflexes
Mind Group -> Intellect, Wisdom, Logic
Wit Group -> Courage, Charm, Willpower
Soul Group -> Awareness, Intuition, Presence

At character creation, players select 7 of their Aspect they'll roll for, all remaining Aspect are considered to have a score of 0. For rolling an Aspect, a player rolls 1d6, but the results are a bit different. On a roll of 1 to 4, your Aspect gains that many points. A roll of 5 is worth 1 point, and a roll of 6 is worth 2 points. so your Aspects will be rated between 1 to 4, with greater chances of having a 1 or 2.

Next, the player select a certain number of Traits, such as "I am skilled in __________" or "I am good at __________". When rolling for an action, still use the 2d6 method with at least one die needing to roll equal to or under the Aspect appropriate for the action. If more than 1 Aspect would qualify, then the player rolls under the highest Aspect +1. If a Trait would apply to the action in question, then the player can reroll 1 die of his choosing.

That is pretty much all I have so far...

I've worked a little bit more on my idea. Basically, I'm trying to find some use to all the Aspects in order to make it a hard choice for the players when choosing the 7 of which to roll the score for... Also, as you'll notice, my flavour text... leaves a bit to be desired... That's because I'm more of a crunch guy rather than a fluff guy. Hopefully, since this is a cooperative effort, there are some among you who will be a bit more eloquent... XD :P

The character is divided in several Aspects, each grouped together in a certain category.
Aspects are a mix of your natural potential and training. They are rated between 0 and 4. An Aspect of 0 does not mean you are unable to do thing, it simply means that either your natural potential is unremarkable, or that you lack training. An Aspect of 0 can always be increased later with Character Points. Groups are not rated, and only serve to regroup similar Aspects together for various purposes.

Body Group -> Endurance, Strength, Vitality.
Move Group -> Agility, Reflexes, Technique.
Mind Group -> Intellect, Perception, Wisdom.
Wit Group -> Charm, Courage, Willpower.
Soul Group -> Awareness, Intuition, Luck.

Body Group: The Body Group represents your physical capabilities. It is a representation of how tough and vigorous you are. Its associated Aspects are Endurance, Strength, and Vitality.

Move Group: The Move Group encompasses the various natural movements your body makes, not only when walking, but also when exerting itself in some task or other. Its associated Aspects are Agility, Reflexes, and Technique.

Mind Group: The Mind Group represents your mental faculties, your ability to reason and process information. Its associated Aspects are Intellect, Perception, and Wisdom.

Wit Group: The Wit Group is a representation of your personality, magnetism, and emotional stability. Its associated Aspects are Charm, Courage, and Willpower.

Soul Group: The Soul Group represents things about yourself that are difficult to explain. It is a measure of those "feelings" and "hunches" you get from time to time. Its associated Aspects are Awareness, Intuition, and Luck.

Endurance: Endurance is your reserve of energies. The more enduring you are, the longer you can perform certain actions. It measures your reserves of Stamina. Type of rolls endurance can be used for: Running or swimming for long periods of time, trying to say awake, etc.

Strength: Strength is a measure of your muscle power and your ability to apply force, it shows you how strong you are. Type of rolls Strength can be used for: Pushing, lifting, climbing, jumping, holding something in place, hitting, breaking things, intimidation, sprinting, etc.

Vitality: Vitality … Types or rolls Vitality can be used for: Resisting poisons and diseases, shrugging off wounds, shaving off the effects of dehydration and hunger, etc.

Agility: Agility is… Types of rolls Agility can be used for: Shooting, throwing, gymnastics, acrobatics, swinging from ropes, running, etc.

Reflexes: Reflexes is how quick you are to react. Types of rolls Reflexes can be used for: Dodging, weaving, diving for cover, getting out of the way, catching something, etc.

Technique: Technique is a mix of your manual dexterity, fine motor skills, and coordination. Types of rolls Technique can be used for: Fixing a watch, hot-wiring a car, soldering electronic components, playing an instrument, cheating, sleight of hand, etc.

Intellect: Intellect is a measure of your intelligence and life experiences. It is your ability to process information. Types of rolls Intellect can be used for: Knowledge, remembering something, computer programming, etc.

Perception: Perception is a measure of your senses. Types of rolls Perception can be used for: Seeing things, hearing things, tasting poison, feeling wind on your skin, finding the book you are looking for in a bookshelf, etc.

Wisdom: Wisdom represents your common sense. Types of rolls Wisdom can be used for: Judging quantities accurately, estimating, choosing the shortest or fastest route, etc.

Charm: Charm represents your charisma, magnetism, and your ability to say the right things. Types of rolls Charm can be used for: Flirting, seduction, diplomacy, bluffing, lying, intimidation, etc.

Courage: Courage … Type of rolls Courage can be used for: Resisting fear and intimidation, jumping through flames, jumping down great height, climbing a cliff without gear, etc.

Willpower: Willpower is your ability to say "no" and resist temptations. Type of rolls Willpower can be used for: Resisting intimidation and seduction attempts, quitting an addictive substance, ignoring pain, etc.

Awareness: Awareness is how much aware you are of your surroundings, how hard you are to surprise and how quick you are to notice things around you. Types of rolls Awareness can be used for: Noticing ambush, find hidden things, spotting danger, etc.

Intuition: Intuition represents your "gut feeling". Types of rolls Intuition can be used for: Discerning a person’s motives or disposition, know if someone is lying or cheating, etc.

Luck: Luck is well, how lucky you are. Things tend to go your way or you tend to be at the right place at the right time. Types of rolls Luck can be used for: Gambling, avoiding risks, making a "one in a million" shot, pulling the right item on the first try out of a large full bag, etc.

A player chooses 7 (?) Aspects for which he will rolled 1d6 to assign points to, all other Aspects are considered to be at 0. For each Aspects selected, roll 1d6. On a roll of 1 to 4, apply that value to the aspect. On a roll of 5, apply 1 point to that Aspect. And on a roll of 6, apply 2 points to that attribute.

The the player chooses 3 (?) Traits. Each Traits are defined as "I am skilled in ________" or "I am good at ______". Other Traits such as "Ace at the wheel", "Expert Marksman", or "World renown martial artist" are also acceptable. However, "Good at everything" or "Always knocks weapon out of enemy’s hands" are not. Each Traits will allow 1 possible reroll (to succeed a roll or avoid a double, the reroll is not mandatory) on rolls they can apply to.

A player then has 2 (?) advantages to choose from. An advantage allows the player to ignore a double once per session on a particular type of rolls. Alternatively, you could merge your two advantage together to instead ignore the effect of a double once per scene or encounter. For example, the advantage Computer Geek could allow you to ignore the effect of a double once per session on any rolls involving computers. The advance form of this advantage could be called 1337 Hacker and allow you to ignore the effect of one double once per scene on rolls involving computers. When creating advantages, it can affect rolls involving a certain situation, object, or Aspect Group (Athletic for example could allow to avoid the effect of one double per session on any Body Group Aspect rolls).

To determine Wounds, a player must add his Vitality (how thought the character is) and Willpower (his will to live) Aspects together to see how many check boxes his character has. The various halt levels are as follows:
Fine: No wound boxes checked.
Nicked: At least one wound box checked, no penalties unless Injured or Wounded boxes are checked.
Injured: At least one Injured wound box is checked, penalty of -1 to all rolls’ TNs.
Wounded: At least one Wounded wound box is checked, penalty of -2 on all rolls’ TNs.
Dying: If Dying wound box is checked, the player must roll Vitality + Willpower or die. If he succeeds, he is unconscious for 1d6 hours or until he receives medical attention.
The amount of boxes a character has is as follows:
Vitality + Willpower Aspects
0-1 [Nicked], [Injured], [Injured], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Dying]
2-4 [Nicked], [Injured], [Injured], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Dying]
5-6 [Nicked], [Nicked], [Injured], [Injured], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Dying]
7 [Nicked], [Nicked], [Injured], [Injured], [Injured], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Dying]
8 [Nicked], [Nicked], [Injured], [Injured], [Injured], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Wounded], [Dying]

A character can move a number of spaces (squares, hexes, inches on a mapless table) per round equal to their Agility Aspect score + 4. If not using miniature and playing "mind’s-eye theatre", then imagine each space as being roughly 1 meter or 1 yard. If a player wishes to move more, he can try running, moving 2 more space plus a number of extra spaces equal to the result of his roll if successful.

Your character has a maximum number of Luck Points equal to your Luck Aspect score + 1, although, you start at 0. A point of luck, when you have one, can be used to reroll both dice. Once used they are gone. The player can gain them by rolling a double or as an award from his GM for succeeding against great odds or for coming up with a cunning plan which succeeded. The GM can also award all of his players a Luck Point for surviving a particularly rough encounter.

Your character can carry only so much on his person. Your character has an amount of encumbrance slots equal to his Strength Aspect rating + 6. Encumbrance Points are a rather abstract way of figuring out how much weight you can carry. Most objects take up 1 encumbrance slot, but some lighter or smaller objects could take up a single encumbrance slot for a grouping of 2, 5, 10, or more, depending on what your GM decides. the GM might even decided that some objects, like the clothes on the character’s backs, take now encumbrance slots at all. Similarly, particularly heavy or large or cumbersome objects might take up 2 or more encumbrance slots. Some objects, like backpacks and duffel bags, will allow a character to have anywhere from 2 to 4 more encumbrance slots, but might very well take up a character’s encumbrance slot to begin with.

Most characters will have some version of "The Gift". The Gift is what allows your characters to see the invasion for what it truly is. It allows you to see humans who have been infected and mutated by the virus. However, not everyone is strong with The Gift, and even worse, not everyone has it. to figure out if you have The Gift, at character creation, make rolls (rolling 2d6) under your Awareness, your Courage, and finally Intuition. Not one roll under the highest of the three with a +1 bonus for the other two like when performing an action, but rather an unmodified roll for each. No double penalties, no modifiers, no use of Traits or Advantages, just a straight roll. Then count the number of success you rolled.
Number of Successes
3: You have The Gift. You will always notice infected people and will always recognize the invasion for what it is.
1-2: You have the potential for The Gift. Your Gift is not completely developed and will likely never improve. You cannot perceive infected humans and the invasion unless you ingest some mind-altering substance (the exact substance differs from person to person). Once under the effect of such a substance, you can attempt an Awareness or Intuition roll (one or the other, cannot use the other to increase the score you have to roll under like when performing actions, double penalties apply). On a success, you can see infected people for what they are, however, you perceive a distorted version of what they are. You must then roll an Intellect roll to interpret your visions correctly. You can use stronger substances to help you out, giving you a bonus shift modifier of -1 or -2 to your Awareness, Intellect, or Intuition Gift rolls, but an equal penalty die shift to all other rolls.
0: You do not possess The Gift. Who knows why you follow this bunch of coocs…

When performing actions, you simply roll 2d6. You succeed if at least one of your dice rolls equal to or under the Aspect you used in your roll. If more than one aspect applies to a roll, use your highest Aspect to roll under, but consider it to be 1 higher for each additional Aspect which applies, to a maximum of 5, and only if those Aspects are rated 1 or higher. For example: Tim is driving a car during a high speed pursuit. His GM asks him under what Aspect he will roll. Tim declares that Technique, Reflexes, Perception and Awareness would all apply and his GM agrees. Tim’s Technique is 3, his Reflexes are 2, Awareness 1, but his Perception is 0. This will mean Tim will roll under his Technique of 3+2, or a 5. Since his Perception of 0 cannot be used to increase the number under which he must roll, an seven if it was rated at a 1 or higher, it still would not change anything since Tim is already rolling under a 5 which is the maximum he can get.
However, you must also try to avoid rolling doubles. Doubles are bad. When you roll a double…

Circumstances can make an action easier or more difficult. When performing harder or easier actions, you apply a modifier to your die roll, either decreasing it (making the action easier) or increasing it (making the action harder). This die shift can be applied to dice as the player desires, however, no dice can be lowered below 0 (which is the only way to succeed at an action which requires the use of an Aspect with a score of 0), and no dice can be increased above 6, any remaining shift must be applied to the other die. If both dice are reduced to 0, remaining shifts are ignored (not that a double 0 is not a double). If both dice are increased to 6, remaining shifts are counter an additional double with a value equal to the remaining shifts, in addition to having rolled a double 6.
Difficulty / Die Shift
Trivial / -3
Very Easy / -2
Easy / -1
Hard / +1
Very Hard / +2
Insane / +3

With Character Points, a character can increase Aspects, or purchase more Traits or even an advantage.
Aspect / Cost
1 / 1
2 / 4
3 / 9
4 / 16
New Trait: 5
New Advantage: 3 for once per session or 7 for once per scene or encounter.

I've been slowly working a bit more on this new system. Work has been slow because, I still don,t know what system exactly we'll settle on and also partly because I'm busy with other things.

Finally, every characters will start with a normal set of clothes, 3 (?) tools with resource cost no higher than 2 (?) and 4d6 (+Charm?) resources. (?)
Resources are an abstract measure of wealth, credit, connections, and favours owed to your character. (?)
Toll die Shift Resource Cost
-1 2
-2 6
-3 12
(?)

Combat
When combat start, each combatants start by rolling initiative. They do so by rolling 1d6 + Awareness + Reflexes. Combat then proceeds each rounds from the highest initiative to the lowest initiative. In cases of ties, highest Awareness goes first. if there is still a tie, highest Reflexes goes first. If this is still a tie, settle it with a roll of 1d6.
Each round a character can move and perform an action. The move can either be take before or after the action, but the character cannot take art of his move, perform an action, and then finish his move unless the character possess some advantage which would allow him to do so. A character can attempt to perform more than one action each rounds, but each extra action will suffer a cumulative -1 penalty to the Aspect’s TN. If the TN drops below 0, the action cannot be performed. For example, a character attacked earlier this round, but suddenly needs to dodge 2 attacks, he rolls his first dodge at -1 and his second dodge at -2.
Rounds are a means to measure the amount of time a combat lasts. The length of a round can vary depending on the number and type of actions taken, but usually vary between 2 to 12 seconds long.
Melee attacks are usually resolved by rolling under the Strength Aspect. Ranged attacks are usually resolved by rolling under the Agility Aspect. Dodging an attack is usually resolved by rolling under the Reflexes Aspect.
Other actions which doesn’t require rolls to perform are falling prone, standing up form prone, drawing a weapon, changing a weapon, loading a weapon, picking up a weapon, opening or closing a door, etc.

Death and damage.
When someone is hit by an attack and fail to successfully defend against it, they get damaged. Depending on the weapon used, the victim will take 1 or more points of damage. Some weapons will also inflict an additional 1 or more point of damage per point the attack rolled under the TN. Some armor will absorb some points of damage which will reduce the total amount of damaged suffered by that amount. Anything above that, and the victim best another chance to lower the damage with a successful Endurance roll as a free action (no multiple action penalty). Each points of damage the target suffers is a wound box that he must checked. (?)

Climbing, swimming, crawling, etc.
A character climbs or swims at half his normal movement rate, rounded up, but can still attempt to "run" as per the normal rules when using those modes of movement. A character can only crawl 1 space per round but can still attempt to "run" as per the normal rules when crawling.
A character can jump an horizontal distance equal to up to his normal movement rate. If the character runs before jumping, he can increase his horizontal jumping distance by half that, rounded up. Vertical jumping distances are one quarter the above-listed distances, rounded down.

Sorry I haven't been able to contribute more; life. But I'm also not comfortable commenting on the game system, I just don't have the experience. I'm happy to chip in with fluff, whenever it's needed.

No problems.

Nice you're willing to work fluff because fluff is a bit of my weakness. I mean I can do fluff, but not as well as I do crunch.

Still, I can't help but notice there,s been a sudden drop of interest in this project when I tried to follow Candi's suggestion. Maybe people are not comfortable with thinking outside the box on this first project and would rather stick to the familiar "attribute+skill" format...

I'll wait and see what others have to say about this before I continue working on any mechanics...

I haven't been involved because I've been on vacation. I also love working on fluff and lore and stuff. I'm not so good with mechanics

Cool, every little bits help. I was thinking of including a small introductory fiction in the game. A new recruit who's being shown the ropes... I haven't really worked on the details much, because once again, fluff not my forte, but I had this idea for a few lines where the recruit asks "How do you guys fund all this?", and the grizzled veteran answers "Have you ever heard the rumours of lost fortune in Nazi gold? Well, guess who found it..." XD

:-) I like it.

The nazis' reputation with paranormal investigations would work well here. Perhaps Hitler himself was under the control of whatever the bad guys are. And his impressive oration was actually mass mind-control powers.

I don't know, I think that cheapens the horror that humans are capable of. now if the aliens used hitler as an example why our world needs them to "shepherd" us into the next age

Yeah, that could mean they actually have willing followers. So the Gift isn't a guaranteed way of finding enemies.

oooh.. humans with the Gift working FOR the alien virus... interesting... they see humanity as on the path of self destruction and the aliens are their enlightened saviors? I'm sure the virus would need uninfected humans around for some reason.. easier to do things on their behalf without being detected by the good guys? any alien force is going to need people to teach them about culture and how to operate and infiltrate.

There could also just be cynical, misanthropic people who discovered the invasion and decided to join in, which probably puzzled the virus at first... What sort of species actively and willingly tries to destroy itself?

all the more evidence that humans are fundamentally flawed on some level

"Why are you doing all this? Why are you trying to destroy us?"

"Why? Why not! Look at you! You kill in the name of nonexistent gods, destroy your own planet for greed and refuse to see the warning signs, and when you do try to actually fix injustices, you always to swing the pendulum in the other extreme, oppressing your former oppressors because more hatred and violence is your only solution. So ask us again why we're doing this..."

I like it. the best villain believes that he is acting for the cause of good and righteousness

Indeed.

So, it's been another week or so. Anyone else left interested in this project aside from me flug and darth?

I've been thinking about the whole victory vs. discovery mechanic, how about each successful rolls made is worth 1 victory point. To avoid abuse, the rolls should be made in order to accomplish something important or essential. Each doubles would be worth an amount of discovery points equal to the sum of both dice (or just the value of the double?) and the players need to accumulate a certain number of victory points before they get a certain amount of discovery points.

I want to keep things simple, but right now I feel this is too simple and boring. I also feel this victory mechanic could have the potential to cut game short, having the group win when they're in the middle of a fight or something... Maybe an ability to use some victory points to reduce the number of discovery points could be created.

Wait, what is we made the victory points be a bonus the players could cash in and discovery points a complication the GM could use at an opportune moment or when he feels this would help the story?

It now occurs to me that with the current cost for increasing Aspects, players will put all of their points into increasing their Aspects which are at 0 to 1 in order to benefit from the "multiple Aspects check bonus".

I thought of changing the progression cost on a sliding scale, in where going from 0 to 1 is very important, but increasing from 3 to 4 is not that important. This will encourage players in improving their Aspects which are already above 0 or purchasing new Traits or Advantages instead (though, they will stil try to increase 1 or 2 Aspects to 1 at a time, which is completely acceptable). Of course, another solution would also be to get rid of multiple Aspect checks altogether, but then I'd almost have to introduce skills to the mechanics...

Aspect / Cost
1 / 5
2 / 9
3 / 12
4 / 14

I'm having a hard time following this. how simple do we want to make it?

I want to be as simple as possible, I'm seeing this game as an "entry-level RPG". I know that often I tend to overthink, and as a result, overcomplicate things. I was sort of counting on the community to "anchor" me in order to prevent that. XD

What is it you have problem following exactly?

maybe it's me, but I'm not sure the dice system we're using. how does that work? or do we even want to use dice?

Basically, when performing an action, the players choose which Aspect the action will be performed with, roll 2d6, and if at least one of them rolls equal to or lower than the chosen Aspect's score, the action succeed.

If the players can make the case that more than 1 Aspect could be used for the action, the player rolls under the highest Aspect that applies, with each other Aspect that also applies and which have a score of 1 or more granting a bonus of +1 to the Aspect that is rolled under (up to a total modified score of 5).

If a double is rolled, something bad happens (still working on the exact mechanics).

Players will have Traits (maybe find a better name? Descriptor?) which will allow for the re-roll of 1 of the dice (possibly to turn a failed roll into a success or to get rid of a double).

Players will also have advantages which will allow them to ignore a double per session/encounter and possibly grant some other small bonus.

There might still be room to add a few more things, like disadvantages/flaws perhaps... But as of yet, I'm still pretty much in the conception phase of the game.

I don't know if I can put it simpler than that...

As for not using dice. I'll be honest, I never played diceless games outside of games which used cards instead, so I have no idea how to resolve the randomness of succeeding or failing a check without some dice or cards. So I'll be honest, I have absolutely no frame of reference to built a diceless mechanic from scratch and I'm not sure I can do it under those circumstances. But not requiring dice at all might be even more "newby friendly" as you'd only need our cheap and affordable pdf (:P), as well as some pencils and pieces of paper to play our game. So I'm open to suggestions...

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy with other things. I'm not giving up on this project, but I'll be busy with some other stuff for the next month or so, so I won't be working on this game for a while.

I see this as an opportunity to let others chime in. Maybe give me feedback as to which system you'd prefer using (no offense to Candi, but it seems when I tried to follow his advice to "think outside the box", this is when interest in that project suddenly waned...). So if you'd rather I go back to my first or second idea, don't hesitate to tell me.

Ha ha... you lost me during the early days as there was such a huge flurry of posts moving the project in a certain direction, I fell behind.

I really do like the idea of a community gamesystem. I promise to catch up and start contributing, heh.

I'm thinking about character creation.. will there be like an archetype system where you pick a job and your stats reflect that,. or more like shadowrun where anyone can be anything depending on where they spend their creation points

I was thinking of something more like the second one, allowing players to build their character as they see fit.

OOOOOOoooooooooooooooooo~ What's this?! Time to get READIN'!

It's a bit on the ice right now. I haven't abandoned the project, but I'm sort of busy with other projects at the moment...

I find the more open ended the game is and more control the player has, the more welcoming it is to new players.

Hmm, I just had an idea. How about the whole Victory points would be what is necessary to solve a certain case/scenario? Then once this particular scheme has been foiled, you move on to the next, which would give a bit more play value to the game...

I’m playtesting something at the moment but, when it all fails i’ll have a better look into this. What I read seems promising:D
(Just letting you know ;) )