A Questionnaire

[zolga]

I am an passionate gamer that just recently realized I finally have enough time to fulfill one of my plans, which is to create a new RP system.
I do have many ideas and concepts I wanna implement. There are though many points that I am not sure for yet.
To solve this i decided to post across several RP boards a group of questions with the goal of the layers themselves giving me feedback on what they want.

Before asking questions of course I wanna give the people an idea on the things I am pretty sure about already.

Defined Concepts:

The system will feature a GM like figure.

It will have ability scores(differently named)(will they be the usual retro ones or a complete new set is to be determined).

It is a system based on skill trees for all purposes.

Individual feats located in this trees are purchased by spending experience points.

This point-buy nature is supposed to make it incredibly homebrew friendly and module dependent (everything can be removed by the gamemaster and any tree can be added).

A character will be greatly influenced by his race.

All official material will feature lots of variant rules.

The Questions:

1. The type of dice used
Personally a completely d6 game would be something I want even though it is unoriginal.
A d100 centric game is also an option.

2. How rule defined should combat be?
Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
Turn based or initiative/action point based one?

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
Dice mechanic in general?

4. Fluff in the basic rules?

5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Vancian magic(divine and arcane?)
Bardic music?
Maneuvers from Tome of Battle?
Bending from Avatar: The Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender
Force from the Star Wars trilogies
Trade fleet management
Hypnotherapy
...

6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
Something similar to the mana system in many none PnP rpgs.
Different power sources would function differently.

7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
Please.

8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
This is the capital one.

9. Format of the ruleset?

Books(PDF) or a downloadable web site(this (http://www.d20srd.org) format is what i would strive for)?

More question may be added.



If anyone is interested on working on this type of project even with so little information provided they should feel free to PM me.


Thank you for your time.

~zolga

[zolga]

~reserved~

[Vauron]

The Questions:

1. The type of dice used
While novelty dice like d12s or d8s may cause you to stand out more, d6 are the most omnipresent type of die. Unless all games using your system assume access to a die-roller program, the accessibility of d6s will be your best bet.

2. How rule defined should combat be?
It shouldn't be too heavily defined. Too much definition can be a detriment to outside the box thinking, while if there is too little you might as well be playing free of a system entirely.
Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
I'd be willing to try it.
Turn based or initiative/action point based one?
Turn based feels like less effort to keep track of, but action points give you the option of making certain actions take longer with finer granularity than turn based.

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
I feel that there should be guidelines on how much you might get from circumstances, not specific values.
Dice mechanic in general?
I personally prefer the 'value rolled +modifier' and 'roll under a given value' options over 'count all the dice that rolled over X'.

4. Fluff in the basic rules?
I'd say not too much. From the sound of things you are going more for a generic 'can be used for anything' system like GURPS instead of one with a setting grown around it like Exalted. I suppose that something like a 'World-Building' chapter or one talking about how to incorporate certain elements like magic or groups like the Illuminati might be appropriate, however.

5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Considering your desire for modularity, I'd suggest getting down the basic mechanics before magical elements. It might be a good idea to keep the 'core' clear of such systems, while magic and supertech are in optional splats.

That said, Jedi, meta-humans (x-men), or mad scientists would all be nice to see eventually.

That said, I personally am interested in the magic of words and of pacts. The former would be like speaking the name of fire to light a spark or manipulating the words relating to the sky and clouds to push away rainclouds. The latter has more to do with making deals with various beings to obtain goods or services. Imagine binding a minor spirit to watch over you while you sleep or getting a personification of law to help you track down a criminal.

6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
The idea that if you gain power from X and someone else gets their power from Y makes sense. To my mind, if a power source system is used than each 'power' should be noticably different from the others, with strong rules about what themes and abilities are appropriate for each power. There is no point splitting up things by color if Blue is functionally identical to Red and Yellow.

7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
As a general recommendation, I suggest that you get your hands on as many different pnp rpgs as possible to see what they do right and what they screw up. I haven't really looked at a large number of rpgs myself, but this (http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/FATAL_%26_Friends) is a collection of comments about varius rpgs, many of which are obscure. It may be of some use to you.


8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
I suppose. I like messing around with new things, even if I never end up using them.

9. Format of the ruleset?
I prefer the website, myself.

[zolga]

The Questions:

1. The type of dice used
While novelty dice like d12s or d8s may cause you to stand out more, d6 are the most omnipresent type of die. Unless all games using your system assume access to a die-roller program, the accessibility of d6s will be your best bet.

Understandable

2. How rule defined should combat be?
It shouldn't be too heavily defined. Too much definition can be a detriment to outside the box thinking, while if there is too little you might as well be playing free of a system entirely.
Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
I'd be willing to try it.
Turn based or initiative/action point based one?
Turn based feels like less effort to keep track of, but action points give you the option of making certain actions take longer with finer granularity than turn based.

I wanna make it so you can pretty much roll once for any action.

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
I feel that there should be guidelines on how much you might get from circumstances, not specific values.
Dice mechanic in general?
I personally prefer the 'value rolled +modifier' and 'roll under a given value' options over 'count all the dice that rolled over X'.

If I go d6 which I almost certainly will(the only things stopping me is how similar to hero this would be then) I will probably go for adding dice and using the sum. It's not really math intensive but is really intuitive because you see your results for what they are, you don't have to add imaginary numbers to them.

4. Fluff in the basic rules?
I'd say not too much. From the sound of things you are going more for a generic 'can be used for anything' system like GURPS instead of one with a setting grown around it like Exalted. I suppose that something like a 'World-Building' chapter or one talking about how to incorporate certain elements like magic or groups like the Illuminati might be appropriate, however.

The comment to this one is in the next one.
The module implementation/world building chapter is a nice idea which I am sure going to use.

5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Considering your desire for modularity, I'd suggest getting down the basic mechanics before magical elements. It might be a good idea to keep the 'core' clear of such systems, while magic and supertech are in optional splats.

That said, Jedi, meta-humans (x-men), or mad scientists would all be nice to see eventually.

That said, I personally am interested in the magic of words and of pacts. The former would be like speaking the name of fire to light a spark or manipulating the words relating to the sky and clouds to push away rainclouds. The latter has more to do with making deals with various beings to obtain goods or services. Imagine binding a minor spirit to watch over you while you sleep or getting a personification of law to help you track down a criminal.

My modules would pretty much be a set of things u need to play in a certain genre
Wuxia, HFRP, LFRP, Lovecraftian...
Your name magic could and might very well be an optional thing in either a LFRP or HFRP or both depending on its fluff.
It sounds cool and I will probably do it at the same time I fix the truenaming from DnD which lorewise I love and I want to make work in the fantasy modules of this game. In fact truenaming in this game might really work like this.
Also that would be a perfect example of a powers source.

6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
The idea that if you gain power from X and someone else gets their power from Y makes sense. To my mind, if a power source system is used than each 'power' should be noticably different from the others, with strong rules about what themes and abilities are appropriate for each power. There is no point splitting up things by color if Blue is functionally identical to Red and Yellow.

Well the power sources would be for instance: Rage for a barbarian like character, Innate arcane for anyone with sorcerer type spellcasting, Eldritch for a warlock
The possession of a power source would be a prerequisite for many things.
You can't learn arcane spells without a source that gives you access.

7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
As a general recommendation, I suggest that you get your hands on as many different pnp rpgs as possible to see what they do right and what they screw up. I haven't really looked at a large number of rpgs myself, but this (http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/FATAL_%26_Friends) is a collection of comments about varius rpgs, many of which are obscure. It may be of some use to you.

This is very useful. Thank you.

8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
I suppose. I like messing around with new things, even if I never end up using them.

That's good to know. I will send you a beta draft once I have one.
No obligation you have to ever use it of course.

9. Format of the ruleset?
I prefer the website, myself.

Me too.


Thank you for answering.

[Togath]

1. The type of dice used
Personally a completely d6 game would be something I want even though it is unoriginal.
A d100 centric game is also an option.
a d100/d% game would be neat, as it allows for a larger range of variables then a d6 or d20 based one

2. How rule defined should combat be?
Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
Turn based or initiative/action point based one?
I'm personally a fan of well defined rules for combat and turn based systems

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
Dice mechanic in general?
percentage based sounds interesting, but with mostly static modifiers(with something such as only 10% or 5% of the damage of a damaging ability being random)
4. Fluff in the basic rules?
fluff can be fun, but dont make alignment based fluff too common

5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Vancian magic(divine and arcane?)
Bardic music?
Maneuvers from Tome of Battle?
Bending from Avatar: The Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender
Force from the Star Wars trilogies
Trade fleet management
Hypnotherapy
...
something such as ToB maneuvers could be interesting, or utility abilities such as bending from avatar, along with some sort of mana/magic point/spell point system for traditional wizards, to give the option of using a lot of weak magic, or a smaller amount of powerful magic

6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
Something similar to the mana system in many none PnP rpgs.
Different power sources would function differently.
it may be interesting, though I'm not 100% sure what you mean

7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
Please.
depending on the era of the setting, or if it could be used with more then one era, the mortal instruments, and immortal secrets of Nicholas Flamel serieses of books could be good, but both assume a modern setting(mortal instruments is a bit grimdark seeming, at least from ym understanding of the genre, but the immortal secrets of Nicholas Flamel series is a somewhat lighter setting), some of the fluff in the base d20 modern rulebook is good for a modern or semi modern setting as well(semi modern being within the last 300 years).
if you would want a suggestion for a manga or anime, the kuroshtsuji/black butler anime could be good, or the anime/manga fairytale, if your going with a very high magic setting., Spice & Wolf could also be good, as could Claymore

8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
This is the capital one.
it seems like it would be interesting to try.

9. Format of the ruleset?

Books(PDF) or a downloadable web site(this format is what i would strive for)?
I personally enjoy pdf book formats, but somethign such as that website is nice as well, as it's easy to navigate

[zolga]

1. The type of dice used
Personally a completely d6 game would be something I want even though it is unoriginal.
A d100 centric game is also an option.
a d100/d% game would be neat, as it allows for a larger range of variables then a d6 or d20 based one
I am not a big fan of d100 systems to me they feel somehow less elegant and less intuitive.
I will probably try both d6 and d100 and see what feels right.


2. How rule defined should combat be?
Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
Turn based or initiative/action point based one?
I'm personally a fan of well defined rules for combat and turn based systemsAnd I am not :) .
My goal is to well make combat fast and dynamic. Turns don't do that.
The feeling I wanna have for combats is a fast paced but complex(not complicated) flow of events. Would you like that?

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
Dice mechanic in general?
percentage based sounds interesting, but with mostly static modifiers(with something such as only 10% or 5% of the damage of a damaging ability being random)
I kinda dislike static bonuses. Even though i am good with even advanced calculus they and the way they accumulate and their effect on the game is something very repulsive to me.
It also slows down combat greatly.
What i will do probably is add variant rule to make the game work with bonuses in some aspects.
4. Fluff in the basic rules?
fluff can be fun, but dont make alignment based fluff too common
I am not even sure if there will be any alignments. Probably wont.
The whole thing is so flawed.
The only things I could need them for are paladins and divine magic.


5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Vancian magic(divine and arcane?)
Bardic music?
Maneuvers from Tome of Battle?
Bending from Avatar: The Legend of Korra and Avatar: The Last Airbender
Force from the Star Wars trilogies
Trade fleet management
Hypnotherapy
...
something such as ToB maneuvers could be interesting, or utility abilities such as bending from avatar, along with some sort of mana/magic point/spell point system for traditional wizards, to give the option of using a lot of weak magic, or a smaller amount of powerful magic
Something similar to maneuvers but more logical will be implemented in some of the modules.
6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
Something similar to the mana system in many none PnP rpgs.
Different power sources would function differently.
it may be interesting, though I'm not 100% sure what you mean
Its a type of a system used to manage similar abilities being used.


7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
Please.
depending on the era of the setting, or if it could be used with more then one era, the mortal instruments, and immortal secrets of Nicholas Flamel serieses of books could be good, but both assume a modern setting(mortal instruments is a bit grimdark seeming, at least from ym understanding of the genre, but the immortal secrets of Nicholas Flamel series is a somewhat lighter setting), some of the fluff in the base d20 modern rulebook is good for a modern or semi modern setting as well(semi modern being within the last 300 years).
if you would want a suggestion for a manga or anime, the kuroshtsuji/black butler anime could be good, or the anime/manga fairytale, if your going with a very high magic setting., Spice & Wolf could also be good, as could Claymore
The modules of the game(which i want to call genres packages) I think will be the part where i will need much help.
I have good understanding of fantasy and gothic horror.
Even though I love cyberpunk i have no experience in cyberpunk rpgs. Same goes for many other genres.
I will need a team for those I think.
Oh and thank you for your recommendations.

8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
This is the capital one.
it seems like it would be interesting to try.
This is worth a great deal to me :) .

9. Format of the ruleset?
Books(PDF) or a downloadable web site(this format is what i would strive for)?
I personally enjoy pdf book formats, but somethign such as that website is nice as well, as it's easy to navigate
I fell in love with that format myself.It would also be pretty original for a new system to come out as such.

Thank you for answering.

[zolga]

Bumping.

Also i forgot to say the name of the system will probably be TReePG.

[zolga]

Ok, I get that nobody is interested.
Bumping it up in hope I get some feedback.
Anyone got an idea where I can maybe recruit someone.

[Vauron]

Ok, I get that nobody is interested.
Bumping it up in hope I get some feedback.
Anyone got an idea where I can maybe recruit someone.

You are going to need to be more specific than 'someone'. Do you want someone to bounce ideas off of? An artist? A beta? A lion-tamer? The answers to those four possibilities are not the same. Also, remember that what you have up now couldn't even be called a skeleton. As such, some may not care enough to comment due to the low odds of anything coming from this.

[erikun]

1. The type of dice used
As someone else mentioned, d6 are the most common dice and thus the ones that most people would have access to. If you are going to use uncommon dice, you might be better to use a smaller number of dice so that players don't run short on them.

Other than that, there isn't much reason to use one die type over another. There are a bunch of different ways to resolve a dice throw: roll-add-bonus, dice poll, rolling above a specific number, roll and match, dice poker, randomizing with a deck of cards, dice with nonstandard values (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gA4nyjec2nc/TT4hRd75SHI/AAAAAAAAARU/nWbXrs4oCzM/s1600/fudge-dice.png), or even playing without a randomizing factor. Your dice are going to depend on your resolution mechanic, and you probably want your resolution mechanic to match the game. Playing poker with dice (or even with cards) would work best in a game where poker would be relevant to the setting; wild west or Mississippi steamboat, perhaps.

For personal preference, I tend to like d8 or d10 dicepools. Why? Not sure. I would also like to see a roll-under d% game, mainly because the chance of succeeding would equal the level of difficulty (rolling 78 or under has roughly a 78% chance of succeeding).

2. How rule defined should combat be?
Without knowing the game, I can't really give a good answer to this. High-seas swashbuckling or wuxia would probably want well-defined combat counters and maneuvers; superhero stories could probably get by with just basic attack rolls and resisting damage.

As a general/generic system, you're going to want to take the middle road. Define hitting, damaging, and resisting damage. Define avoiding or dodging attacks, however you wish to handle it. Define getting away from an attacker, defending an ally, and stopping an attacker (i.e. grappling). That should cover most of the common situations in combat.

Note that there is no one "generic" combat system. How you answer these questions and create the rules will determine how the game plays. Just a quick example, D&D uses AC to defend, and works against any number of attackers. World of Darkness has a Dodge stat, which gets divided between multiple attackers. What this means is that crowd combat is highly lethal to WoD characters, even against 'weak' opponents, which D&D characters can wade through entire armies of low-level characters without much risk.

The difference makes the game very, very different, and you wouldn't get the same feel by simply switching the two types of defense around.

Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
I prefer the option to play without a map. You aren't always going to have paper, or even everyone in the same room, and so requiring a gridded battle map is just awkward. Preferably, the game would have defined distances to work with and thus allow you to put it on a hex/square grid easily.

Turn based or initiative/action point based one?
Might I recommend an initiative wheel? It is basically a 0-9 initiative system that loops back upon itself. It can be used as a regular initiative by keeping characters on the same point, or turn into your action point/weapon speed system by setting a delay on how long before the next attack.

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
There are lots of other options, from reroll-take-best to extra actions to being in a superior position afterwards. How good the option is will end up deciding if circumstance modifiers are considered extremely good (as in, high ground almost always wins) or mostly ignorable (stats win).

Dice mechanic in general?
As mentioned before, there are far more options than this. Rolling dicepools and then comparing the highest roll, next highest, etc is another popular choice. Qin (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12349.phtml) uses two d10, and success is determined by how closely they roll to each other.

Spoilered for related but off-tangent.
As I mentioned before, I like the idea of a d% that is roll-under (meaning rolling the target number or less) and with modifiers changing the target number itself. This has the benefit of making the chance of succeeding immediately obvious. For example, if a character has +15% on a skill and is facing something with a 40% chance of success, they'd have a 55% chance of succeeding.

The one big tricky part of such a system is that you need to figure out what the 0%-100% range actually means. If it means an average person's capability of doing things, then you quickly find expert challanges going in the 120%+ range. If it means the challanges that someone skilled would face, then you'll see starting characters frequently with negative modifiers, even with "average" abilities.

Other than that, I tend to like dice pools myself.

4. Fluff in the basic rules?
Yes, because I want to know why a rule is relevant and when I should be using it. I'm not talking about setting details like the Kingdom of Kingdomar's royal yearly produce, but just what the "Lancing Assault" feat is supposed to be and what it is supposed to do.

5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Depending on the base setting, you'll want martial interaction (fighting), social intereaction, possibly tactical interaction (war), daily life maintanence, travel, communication, magic spellcasting, and the scientific/technological level. Some may not be necessary (war tactics probably aren't if the characters are never expected to fight in a war) while you may need others depending on the setting (high-tech internet skills for a futuristic setting).

6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
This is an odd question, because the term "Power Source" has only been used by one system I am familiar with, and it probably doesn't fit what you are trying to do.

It can work, although the whole point of D&D4's power sources were to create a base system where the individual abilities could be swapped out for a different type of power. That's a lot of up-front work and means that everything else would be required to use the same system. If that's what you want to use, go for it. If not, then you'd probably want to avoid it.

7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
I will second that reading as many other RPGs - and as many other kinds of RPGs - is a good idea. Sticking with a bunch of different d20 systems isn't going to help you much, especially if you are trying to make something that isn't a d20 system.

I don't have any free systems on hand, but I will recommend Burning Wheel, Fudge, HeroQuest, Shadowrun, and World of Darkness along with D&D. They should give you a number of different views of how a RPG can play.

8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
No, because there isn't anything here yet. Maybe when it's further along, AND there is a reason for me to look at it, then I'll check it out. However, just "I'm making my own game" isn't that much of a reason. Lots of people have made their own games, and sad to say, but most of those games are either incomplete or not worth much (or both).

9. Format of the ruleset?
I am more likely to read it on a webpage than in a PDF.

[zolga]

You are going to need to be more specific than 'someone'. Do you want someone to bounce ideas off of? An artist? A beta? A lion-tamer? The answers to those four possibilities are not the same. Also, remember that what you have up now couldn't even be called a skeleton. As such, some may not care enough to comment due to the low odds of anything coming from this.

Well sadly you are right. The whole system as I have it in my mind now is very, well robust and a bit to rule heavy for me to even know where to start writing it down. Which I did anyway.
Right now since i don't have much done I was actually just hoping someone would hop in and help out in this early stage. I do realize its too much to ask anyone to do so.

I do realize people with this 'I am making a game attitude' show up all the time so I am not really shaken by the fact nobody comments.

The moment I have skeleton(probably a month more or less) I will put it up here in a new thread.


1. The type of dice used
As someone else mentioned, d6 are the most common dice and thus the ones that most people would have access to. If you are going to use uncommon dice, you might be better to use a smaller number of dice so that players don't run short on them.

Other than that, there isn't much reason to use one die type over another. There are a bunch of different ways to resolve a dice throw: roll-add-bonus, dice poll, rolling above a specific number, roll and match, dice poker, randomizing with a deck of cards, dice with nonstandard values (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gA4nyjec2nc/TT4hRd75SHI/AAAAAAAAARU/nWbXrs4oCzM/s1600/fudge-dice.png), or even playing without a randomizing factor. Your dice are going to depend on your resolution mechanic, and you probably want your resolution mechanic to match the game. Playing poker with dice (or even with cards) would work best in a game where poker would be relevant to the setting; wild west or Mississippi steamboat, perhaps.

For personal preference, I tend to like d8 or d10 dicepools. Why? Not sure. I would also like to see a roll-under d% game, mainly because the chance of succeeding would equal the level of difficulty (rolling 78 or under has roughly a 78% chance of succeeding).

Now in the current version of the game I am going with a d6 success count system.
For instance attacking with ranged(sometimes even melee) weapon is 2d6(coming from your skill with the weapon which you can spend EXP on)+your DEX-like stat(stats have the same function of modifiers in DnD)d6 and you compare your number of successes(a 5 or a 6) with the number of dodge successes(also DEX-like based) of the defender.
This is very similar to warhammer fantasy wargame dice mechanics.
I like the current system because all rolls can be expressed in a format of # of d6(number of successes needed).
Also if your roll is 6(3) you can and probably will only role 2(1).

2. How rule defined should combat be?
Without knowing the game, I can't really give a good answer to this. High-seas swashbuckling or wuxia would probably want well-defined combat counters and maneuvers; superhero stories could probably get by with just basic attack rolls and resisting damage.

As a general/generic system, you're going to want to take the middle road. Define hitting, damaging, and resisting damage. Define avoiding or dodging attacks, however you wish to handle it. Define getting away from an attacker, defending an ally, and stopping an attacker (i.e. grappling). That should cover most of the common situations in combat.

Note that there is no one "generic" combat system. How you answer these questions and create the rules will determine how the game plays. Just a quick example, D&D uses AC to defend, and works against any number of attackers. World of Darkness has a Dodge stat, which gets divided between multiple attackers. What this means is that crowd combat is highly lethal to WoD characters, even against 'weak' opponents, which D&D characters can wade through entire armies of low-level characters without much risk.

The difference makes the game very, very different, and you wouldn't get the same feel by simply switching the two types of defense around.

This is really very interesting.
It gave me an idea on how to make flanking work without just subtracting the dodge dice from all attacks.
You will just share the dodge dice pool for all attacks during the time you are flanked. There will probably be a purchasable(with EXP) ability that will make you subtract dodge dice from someones dodge dice pool if you are flanking him.

In fact world of darkness is very awesome and for some reason I haven't read it yet.
Thanks!

Would you enjoy a no hex mat no dice kind of combat?
I prefer the option to play without a map. You aren't always going to have paper, or even everyone in the same room, and so requiring a gridded battle map is just awkward. Preferably, the game would have defined distances to work with and thus allow you to put it on a hex/square grid easily.
Everything that requires distance value will have one.
But I like no battle grid combat more so it will be supported.

Turn based or initiative/action point based one?
Might I recommend an initiative wheel? It is basically a 0-9 initiative system that loops back upon itself. It can be used as a regular initiative by keeping characters on the same point, or turn into your action point/weapon speed system by setting a delay on how long before the next attack.
That's the part of the system that is giving me the most problems.
But I am approaching a decision here and it looks like it will work pretty much in the manner you described.

3. Fixed number circumstance bonuses on dice or more dice to roll as a bonus.
There are lots of other options, from reroll-take-best to extra actions to being in a superior position afterwards. How good the option is will end up deciding if circumstance modifiers are considered extremely good (as in, high ground almost always wins) or mostly ignorable (stats win).
I described the dice mechanic up there in this post.
I do have an additional comment regarding 'stat vs random'.
Things that should be stat dependent will be. You sure as hell will hit an apple with an arrow with a high DEX-like ability.
You won't be able to win a game of in-game poker with a high social skills only.

Dice mechanic in general?
As mentioned before, there are far more options than this. Rolling dicepools and then comparing the highest roll, next highest, etc is another popular choice. Qin (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12349.phtml) uses two d10, and success is determined by how closely they roll to each other.

Spoilered for related but off-tangent.
As I mentioned before, I like the idea of a d% that is roll-under (meaning rolling the target number or less) and with modifiers changing the target number itself. This has the benefit of making the chance of succeeding immediately obvious. For example, if a character has +15% on a skill and is facing something with a 40% chance of success, they'd have a 55% chance of succeeding.

The one big tricky part of such a system is that you need to figure out what the 0%-100% range actually means. If it means an average person's capability of doing things, then you quickly find expert challanges going in the 120%+ range. If it means the challanges that someone skilled would face, then you'll see starting characters frequently with negative modifiers, even with "average" abilities.
Other than that, I tend to like dice pools myself.

Commented on this one up there really.

4. Fluff in the basic rules?
Yes, because I want to know why a rule is relevant and when I should be using it. I'm not talking about setting details like the Kingdom of Kingdomar's royal yearly produce, but just what the "Lancing Assault" feat is supposed to be and what it is supposed to do.

Since most of the trees(that carry all kinds off spell and feat-like abilities including lancing assault) will be in genre-sets(fantasy...) the fluff will be there. The core mechanics will be fluff dry.
I mostly asked this to see if people think it will be boring without fluff(which is a dumb reason).

5. How many things should be defined by the basic rule system.
Depending on the base setting, you'll want martial interaction (fighting), social interaction, possibly tactical interaction (war), daily life maintanence, travel, communication, magic spellcasting, and the scientific/technological level. Some may not be necessary (war tactics probably aren't if the characters are never expected to fight in a war) while you may need others depending on the setting (high-tech internet skills for a futuristic setting).

I came to the decision that the core rules will cover pretty much all the combat and other encounter type things using a male human as a reference model.
All

6. Would a power source system be a good idea in your opinion.
This is an odd question, because the term "Power Source" has only been used by one system I am familiar with, and it probably doesn't fit what you are trying to do.

It can work, although the whole point of D&D4's power sources were to create a base system where the individual abilities could be swapped out for a different type of power. That's a lot of up-front work and means that everything else would be required to use the same system. If that's what you want to use, go for it. If not, then you'd probably want to avoid it.

The power source in 4ed is a nuisance and should't have been called that.
The power source systems in this game will be a major element in the ruleset, and the feel of the game, I have decided.


7. Any recommendations on what to read or watch that could be of use to me?
I will second that reading as many other RPGs - and as many other kinds of RPGs - is a good idea. Sticking with a bunch of different d20 systems isn't going to help you much, especially if you are trying to make something that isn't a d20 system.

I don't have any free systems on hand, but I will recommend Burning Wheel, Fudge, HeroQuest, Shadowrun, and World of Darkness along with D&D. They should give you a number of different views of how a RPG can play.

World of Darkness is gonna be my task today.

8. Would you be interested in trying such a system, AND why?
No, because there isn't anything here yet. Maybe when it's further along, AND there is a reason for me to look at it, then I'll check it out. However, just "I'm making my own game" isn't that much of a reason. Lots of people have made their own games, and sad to say, but most of those games are either incomplete or not worth much (or both).
Understandable.
I will post the system skeleton once i have it right here on gitp

9. Format of the ruleset?
I am more likely to read it on a webpage than in a PDF.

Me too.
Thanks for posting bot of you.

[zolga]

Bringing this up.