What are the weaknesses of the gaming systems out there?

[Talanic]

I've been pondering the prospect of making a gaming system myself; I don't want to get into it too much because it might come to nothing anyway. The problem (from my perspective) would be making one that didn't rip off other systems while still addressing just about all aspects of what the players would want to do in the game.

I don't want to make a clone; nor do I want to make a D&D-killer, or a replacement for GURPS, or any of that. I just want to create something comprehensive, yet simple. Something that addresses some of the obvious holes in the system.

For example, here are some of my complaints about D&D:

1. For most characters, defensive ability does not improve with skill, only equipment.

2. Essential adventuring skills are lumped with all other skills. Versatility is expensive and capped low.

3. Feats and maneuvers are nice and all, but a lot of them imitate real-world actions that were accomplished by training--and not even that much training, sometimes. Why does a fighter need to spend a feat to whack someone with the butt of a polearm?

4. Class trumps race, heavily. A level 20 gnomish wizard has almost no distinction from a level 20 elven wizard.

[AstralFire]

There are a LOT of systems out there. Far too many to really sum up even in a Berlin/Great Wall of Text. Such a comprehensive post would spontaneously transform you into Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan would rise from the dead to quip at you once more.

I am currently designing a system myself.

Your game will have weaknesses. That is something you cannot, under any circumstance, avoid. If you model everything in the most balanced, interesting AND verisimilitudinal way possible, trust me when I say your game will take forever to learn and even longer to play. So take your focus off of "this is what other systems did wrong" and onto "this is what I want my system to do well."

One can clearly lead to the other, of course.

The chance of any one of your mechanics or story ideas being entirely new? Low. The usefulness and flavor of a system comes from a group of mechanics and fluff bundled together that mostly play nice with one another in accomplishing the goal of the system.

[Tormsskull]

I've been pondering the prospect of making a gaming system myself; I don't want to get into it too much because it might come to nothing anyway.


First, let me start off by saying, good luck. You're going to need a lot of patience, determination, and self-discipline.



1. For most characters, defensive ability does not improve with skill, only equipment.


Some systems handle this with have a 'Defense' ability that is similiar to BAB except for defending, of course. This will make a few other thoughts jump in your head:

Does Defense skill and any additional defense gained from wearing armor stack? If so, will this be unbalancing? If not, why not, and realize that at high levels no one will wear armor.



2. Essential adventuring skills are lumped with all other skills. Versatility is expensive and capped low.


This is easily solved in a point-based system, or even using a system like Weapon versus Nonweapon proficiencies in 2e AD&D.



3. Feats and maneuvers are nice and all, but a lot of them imitate real-world actions that were accomplished by training--and not even that much training, sometimes. Why does a fighter need to spend a feat to whack someone with the butt of a polearm?


It all depends on how you want the system to work. Maybe you would allow all maneuvers to be attempted by anyone, but at a penalty unless they are trained. Or perhaps being trained gives you a bonus?



4. Class trumps race, heavily. A level 20 gnomish wizard has almost no distinction from a level 20 elven wizard.

How much do you want race to matter? You could have the equivalent of Feats from 3rd edition that have prereqs of 'Elf level 5'. Or you could give all races abilities at every so many levels. It all comes down to how you want your system to work.

[nagora]

1. For most characters, defensive ability does not improve with skill, only equipment.
Apart from all those hit points, you mean?

[TheThan]

There are basically two types of role playing games out there.

Rules heavy:

Games like dungeons and dragons and G.R.U.P.S are rules heavy games. In systems like these, if a player can do it, there’s likely a rule for it. Much of the time role-playing takes a backseat to the rules. Players will tend to ask “can I do this?” instead of just “I do this!”.

Rules light:
The opposite of rules heavy games are rules light games. These game require a lot of improvisational skills on the part of the DM. You’re more likely to run into situations where the DM just says “role some dice” and makes up the results of your actions as you move along the story. For Thespian types these games are great, because they get the chance to act and don’t focus on optimization or what’s written on their character sheets in order to play.

Both types of games have their unique advantages and disadvantages. Its up to the Dm and players to discover which style works best for them.

Now that we’re done with that, there are basically two types of systems available. There are “class and level” based systems, where you level up and gain new abilities according to your class. Then there are “point buy” systems where you don’t really level up, you advance your character by earning points and spending them to improve your character. DnD is an example of the former, and G.R.U.P.S is an example of the ladder. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Since I tend to be long winded, I won’t get into those here.

Now first you are going to need to decide on what works best for the types of games you want to run. Then build a system that does what you wish to do. Now I know that all this seams rather generic and probably not helpful. But without any specifics and without going into “Game Design Theory” it’s the best I can do. however I wish you luck in your endeavor.

[Artanis]

You should also look at rolling systems.

The simpler the system is, the...well...the simpler it is. However, the simpler a system is, the harder it is to make extreme results rare and really meaningful. d20 is one of the simplest rolling systems I've heard of (roll a d20, add a number, and there ya go), but there's a 5% chance of a natural 20 and a 5% chance of a natural 1. No matter how skilled your character is, no matter how devistating a natural 20 or natural 1 is, one out of every ten rolls is going to wind up with an extreme result, one way or another.

The harder a system is, the more it goes towards the opposite. It's harder to work with and harder to learn, but the results can be a lot more interesting than just "oh yay, another 16. whoo. *yawn*". The Storyteller system (White Wolf's main system) is a good example of a more complex rolling system. Silhouette, as much as I like the system, is like somebody's attempt to make the single most non-linear system they can think of.

[Curmudgeon]

Beware of dice roll artifacts. In d20 system no matter how much training and experience you have, you always fail 5% of the time on ability and combat tasks. In Serenity you get big jumps in expected results when you add extra dice, and smaller jumps when you increase die sizes.

Linear numerical distributions (single dice or percentages) are mechanically easy to implement but don't usually reflect human performance, which generally follows a bell curve distribution. Multiple equal dice (ideally more than 3) added together gives a reasonable model of a bell curve. Training and experience tends to shift the bell curve linearly by small amounts. I know of no system with mechanics that reflect behavior variations even close to realistically.

EDIT: Artanis: Great minds do think alike!

[Tengu_temp]

For example, here are some of my complaints about D&D:

1. For most characters, defensive ability does not improve with skill, only equipment.

2. Essential adventuring skills are lumped with all other skills. Versatility is expensive and capped low.

3. Feats and maneuvers are nice and all, but a lot of them imitate real-world actions that were accomplished by training--and not even that much training, sometimes. Why does a fighter need to spend a feat to whack someone with the butt of a polearm?

4. Class trumps race, heavily. A level 20 gnomish wizard has almost no distinction from a level 20 elven wizard.

1. DND 4e fixes this problem, as well as most skill-based (as opposed to level-based) games.
2. Once again, skill-based games are your choice. Skill-based games often promote versatilty, while level-based ones promote specialization.
3. And again, skill-based games, where (in the better designed ones) you can usually try most non-special maneuvers no matter who you are (of course, your chances of succeeding are a different matter).
4. Here... I think that's actually good. Races already have a very heavy influence on class choice, I don't think if it should be pushed even further.

In other words, I think you should try skill-based games (or, as TheThan calls them, "point buy"). I suggest Exalted (if you're into mythology and/or anime and enjoy very high power levels), Mutants & Masterminds (which is partially level-based too, but still offers a lot of freedom, and while it is technically a superhero game, it's versatile enough to represent anything) or BESM (which is similar to M&M but concentrates on anime, and is slightly less balanced).

[Jayabalard]

There are basically two types of role playing games out there. I've always seen heavy vs light as a play style; some games could be said to encourage one style or the other, but in the end whether a game is rules heavy or rules light depends totally on how you play it.

GURPS and D&D are only a Rules-heavy systems if you (the gm and players) play them that way.

[Raum]

I've been pondering the prospect of making a gaming system myself; I don't want to get into it too much because it might come to nothing anyway. The problem (from my perspective) would be making one that didn't rip off other systems while still addressing just about all aspects of what the players would want to do in the game. As Tormsskull said, good luck. Creating a system is a time consuming and often thankless task.


I don't want to make a clone; nor do I want to make a D&D-killer, or a replacement for GURPS, or any of that. I just want to create something comprehensive, yet simple. Something that addresses some of the obvious holes in the system.I highly recommend reading some of the articles on game theory. Some aspects were touched on in these forums a few days ago but there are far more in depth articles available.


For example, here are some of my complaints about D&D:

1. For most characters, defensive ability does not improve with skill, only equipment.

2. Essential adventuring skills are lumped with all other skills. Versatility is expensive and capped low.

3. Feats and maneuvers are nice and all, but a lot of them imitate real-world actions that were accomplished by training--and not even that much training, sometimes. Why does a fighter need to spend a feat to whack someone with the butt of a polearm?

4. Class trumps race, heavily. A level 20 gnomish wizard has almost no distinction from a level 20 elven wizard.Your dislikes seem specific to D&D, do you want to write your own system to fix them or find one already written?


I've always seen heavy vs light as a play style; some games could be said to encourage one style or the other, but in the end whether a game is rules heavy or rules light depends totally on how you play it.

GURPS and D&D are only a Rules-heavy systems if you (the gm and players) play them that way.TheThan mentioned two types of games while I generally view it as a spectrum with those at opposite ends. In any case there is a quantitative difference between the number of rules in a 'rules light' system such as Over the Edge (OtE) and a 'rules heavy' system such as D&D 3.x. How they're played is immaterial when placing a system on the heavy - light scale.

Play styles do make a big difference and there are a wide variety of potential play styles within a single rule set. Even so I don't see how you could duplicate OtE's style while using D&D 3.5's rules (or vice versa). The systems are too different.

Each system (or at least family of systems) colors game play with the assumptions and limitations it's made.

[Knaight]

1. DND 4e fixes this problem, as well as most skill-based (as opposed to level-based) games.
2. Once again, skill-based games are your choice. Skill-based games often promote versatilty, while level-based ones promote specialization.
3. And again, skill-based games, where (in the better designed ones) you can usually try most non-special maneuvers no matter who you are (of course, your chances of succeeding are a different matter).
4. Here... I think that's actually good. Races already have a very heavy influence on class choice, I don't think if it should be pushed even further.

In other words, I think you should try skill-based games (or, as TheThan calls them, "point buy"). I suggest Exalted (if you're into mythology and/or anime and enjoy very high power levels), Mutants & Masterminds (which is partially level-based too, but still offers a lot of freedom, and while it is technically a superhero game, it's versatile enough to represent anything) or BESM (which is similar to M&M but concentrates on anime, and is slightly less balanced).
Sounds like. However, as far as number one the best I have ever seen it handled was in Fudge, which also deals with health well. Better swordsmen do not inflict huge wounds on other good swordsmen, but will leave them on some novice. The wound track always works, and by using how much you beat an opponent by on an opposed skill roll to track damage it scales up perfectly.

As for race becoming less important than class/skills, again skill based games often scale better, so race has a huge influence if it exists.

Read through Fudge, its free. Then find five point fudge, and read through articles in fudge factor if you like it.

[erikun]

The "problem" with D&D is that it's mainly a tactical combat simulation RPG. Most of the game is focused on combat, and other activities are poorly supported. Oh, a good DM (or player) can either work outside the system or use what is available to make it interesting, but that doesn't mean it's a very good system.

Secondly, I'd suggest looking into other systems to see what you like. Shadowrun (4e) seems to be more what you're looking for, and I happen to like WoD for making non-combat skills as useful as combat skills. It helps to get a better idea of what works and what doesn't if you're serious about designing your own system.

And finally, looking at your comments, I'd have to say that you haven't played much outside of D&D 3e. The comment about defensive modifiers seems to indicate that you've never played a system where a character could specialize in a single defensive score and be basically invulnerable (I'm looking at you, Star Wars 2nd edition). The mixing of adventuring skills and non-adventuring skills was never a problem in D&D 2nd ed, as the thief's sneaking/et al. was a completely different chart. Most "feats" in other systems are background abilities for the character (Eidetic memory) or specific skills that they've picked up (Judo Throw). And quite a few systems make choosing a race a far more important choice - including D&D 4e.

All in all, look around at what's available and try a few different systems. There are a lot of RPG systems available, several free, and one or two are probably what you're looking for.

[TheEmerged]

Well, I'll talk about the system I have the most familiarity with: HERO. It's a point-buy system often compared to GURPS, but it's not an RPG so much as it's an RPG creation system.

The old joke about HERO is that you can build just about anything, the problem is you have to build everything from scratch :smallbiggrin:

And I'm being literal on the "just about anything", because there are a couple of noticeable exceptions and they're deliberate: invulnerability and high-end superspeed. You can mimic them close enough for government work, but there's a reason the SPD score is capped at 12.

I've run it across dozens of campaigns, in numerous genres, at a lot of different power levels and styles. It involves a LOT more work before the session begins (there's a reason HERO was one of the first RPGs to market character creation software, back when it was DOS based). Once you're used to it, though, a lot of the work during the session becomes invisible.

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I will give you one piece of advice I swear by, but know a lot of people disagree with: try to streamline out the non-combat stuff. I know some people like having dozens of skill rolls to do one thing, but I prefer to run these things by what the players are doing instead of their dice. Different strokes and all that. I save the dice-rolling for combat (I got into RPG's from wargames, not the other way around).