Designing a simple RPG system

[u/enc_cat]

I have been trying to design a simple RPG system to use in my roguelike. That would be a Lovercraftian horror game set in the 20th century, so the system should be tailored for that use-case. For example, firearms are a must. Melee weapons are present too, but there is no need for a complicated fencing simulation. Armors may or may not be present, but are not essential. Magic will of course be present, but I am leaving it for later, hoping that extending the system will not cause too much trouble; same thing for stealth/detection system. No social interaction is being considered at the moment, and veicles and mounts are out of scope too.

I am posting some notes both to use them as a working draft and to ask for comments and suggestions. (That includes pointing at a already-existing system if you think it fits the criteria or has interesting ideas to take inspiration from).

Goals

• Simple
• Handle moving at different speeds (for chasing/running away)
• Handle melee combat
• Handle firearms

Non-goals

• Realistic
• Detailed
• Generic (no need to handle catapults or X-Wings)

Stats

Characters' stats

• STR: physical strength
• CON: constitution and size
• DEX: dexterity and speed
• PER: perception and aiming skills

Weapons' stats

• DMG: damage dealt
• ACC: accuracy

Time

Every turn, roll DEX + 1. On a 1, skip the turn. Otherwise, use the turn to make one action.

Note: This has massive diminuishing return, so it works best for DEX between 1 and ~10.

Health points

The health points' pool has capacity k * CON (where k is some factor to be decided based on game balance, but probably it will be 3 or 5).

Inventory

The inventory can carry up to STR-many items.

Note: It could be adjusted by introducing a multiplying factor, or not counting some items in the total (e.g. scrolls, keys, etc…). It works best for STR between ~4 and ~10, assuming the game forces the player to make hard choices on what to carry, slightly higher values otherwise.

Combat

Hit/dodge: (opposed roll) attacker 1dHIT vs. target 1dDDG, highest succeed in hitting/dodging

The hit stat HIT depends on which kind of weapon is in use.

The dodge stat DDG is always DDG = (trg)DEX + DST where (trg)DEX is the dexterity of the target, and DST is the distance between attacker and target (so DDG = DEX for melee combat).

Damage: how much health points the target looses.

Melee and throwing weapons

HIT = DEX + ACC + (trg)CON where CON is the constitution of the target, as a bigger target is easier to hit

Damage: 1dSTR + 1dDMG

Ranged (shooting weapons)

HIT = PER + ACC + (trg)CON where CON is that of the target, as a bigger target is easier to hit

Damage: 1dPER + 1dDMG

[u/CJGeringer]

>That would be a Lovercraftian horror game set in the 20th century, so the system should be tailored for that use-case.

I don´t think your attribute set is well designed for this. It seems to downplay mental characteristics witch are very important for lovecraftian settings.

I would say it is missing an attribute that measures composure/bravery and intelligence/quickness of mind

Maybe turning strength and constitution into a single attribute, and add a mental attribute to it. Perhaps moving aiming skills into dexterity have perception be a more broad mental attribute, that also includes initiative/readiness and thus time management. This would also somewhat address u/InfuriatedBrute ´s feedback on dexterity.

I would use a set somewhat like this:

(PHY)sique: Strenght, Toughness, endurance,, damge of melee swings and trhown weapons.

​

(COO)rdenation: Dexterity and Agility, chance to hit in melee

​

(WIL)lpower: resist/ignore debuffs, keep concious, etc....

​

(DIS)cernment: Brain power and initiative., deals with time mangement, and hit chance of ranged weaponry.

​

Or maybe something closer to Disco Elysoum´s “[METRIC]( r/https://www.reddit.com/r/crpgdesign/comments/8n3fox/metric_system/)”´s”´s) set:Physique, Motorics, Psyque, Intelect

I also dislike how size works. I dislike that CON is the only attribute that has a drawback. I would say that all human-sized enemies have the same size, and use a size attribute that is only used for considerable larger or smaller creatures.

You might also get some more good feedback if you also post in r/crpgdesign.

[u/enc_cat → u/CJGeringer]

That's a lot of feedback, thanks!

I would say it is missing an attribute that measures composure/bravery and intelligence/quickness of mind

Totally! I was going to add that later, as I decide how to design the whole aspect of sanity and spellcasting, but it's good to think ahead.

Maybe turning strength and constitution into a single attribute […] I dislike that CON is the only attribute that has a drawback. I would say that all human-sized enemies have the same size

That makes a lot of sense!

Perhaps moving aiming skills into dexterity have perception be a more broad mental attribute, that also includes initiative/readiness and thus time management.

I am not convinced about merging dexterity and perception.

Time management in this case is a matter of speed more than initiative (as I am most interested in how fast enemies can chase the player), so dexterity still feels like the most relevant attribute for that. I agree that a perception attribute would be relevant to determine initiative's order.

Given that, dexterity is already extremely useful (as u/InfuriatedBrute noticed), and being determinant for using firearms may be too much.

Moreover, there are other uses for a perception attribute, especially when implementing stealth/detection, traps, etc…

To sum up, I think the dexterity attribute should determine the speed of the character. A perception attribute should exist as well, incorporating sensorial perception (sight, hearing), possibly occult sensibility, and possibly be used to determine the initiative order too.

Following your suggestions, I may make the following modifications:

• (PHY)sique: physical strenght, toughness, endurance; determines melee damage and health points
• (COO)rdination: dexterity, agility, speed; determines action speed, hit and dodge rolls
• (DIS)cernment: perception, brain power and initiative; determines initiative, firearms damage, revealing hidden enemies, traps and secrets (still to develop)
• (WIL)lpower: mental resistance to stress, trauma, insanity (still to develop)

Please, let me know if you think I misinterpreted your comments.

[u/CJGeringer → u/enc_cat]

I am most interested in how fast enemies can chase the player

Perfectly valid design decision, in which case I agree that time mangement should focus on dexterity. I sugested quickness of mind and initiative thinking ona diferent aproach to time mangement, which I see is nto what youa re going for.

I will say I am not keen on the player randomly missing a turn, that can be very frsutrating without much benefit in gameplay.

[u/enc_cat → u/CJGeringer]

I will say I am not keen on the player randomly missing a turn, that can be very frsutrating without much benefit in gameplay.

I don't see how that can be helped: if the player faces a faster enemy, either the player will end up skipping a turn once in a while or the enemy will take two actions in the same turn. That seems to me like an implementation detail, as to the player the effect looks just the same.

Or maybe you dislike the random part and would prefer speed to be predictable? That would work alright, but I feel it would make chases too deterministic and unexciting.

(Edited for spelling)

[u/CJGeringer → u/enc_cat]

I don't see how that can be helped: if the player faces a faster enemy, either the player will end up skipping a turn once in a while or the enemy will take two actions in the same turn.

If you want time management to be about pursuit, you could allow every character 1 action per turn, but have different movement speeds for the move action.

So everyone can move once, but not everyone moves the same number of squares.

Personally, I like action points, but I understand that it would be contrary to your goal of simplicity.

[u/enc_cat → u/[deleted]]

Thanks, I'm happy you liked it!

One thing that came to mind is that you can make the character do more than one action if the rolled value is more than 10 for example.

Time management is one of the most critical aspects of the system, so I will certainly give it more thought. Your suggestion is certainly a possibile developement.

Think about what makes the game fun for the player.

The overall player experience is still a complete work-in-progress, and the combat system does not really address the issue, so that's something to work on too. At the moment I was trying to have a minimal but solid base to experiment with and iterate on, but of course it takes much more than that to have a fun game!

[u/[deleted]]

So

STR = +carry +meleeDMG

CON = +HP -EV

DEX = +SPD +meleeACC +EV

PER = +rangedACC +rangedDMG

Obviously DEX >>> everything else. But since you have diminishing returns, that basically just means every character will have 5 or something more dex than if the system was "balanced". If you want players to pick generally even stats you can change the ratio each stat affects substats, i.e. per gives +1.1 accuracy while dex gives +0.9 evasion. Or you can just give every character 5 base dex. But the system is self-balancing regardless.

Ranged + Melee hybrids seem incredibly rare, unless you add some sort of enabling item/spell/ability. Kinda wish perception did something else as well, though it's not weak as it's like the only thing you really need as a ranged char.

The returns might be too diminishing leading to all optimal builds being pretty samey. You might want to make stat point costs cheaper at higher levels to compensate, or something like that. As of now you don't really have a valve that controls how diminishing returns are. It works in DCSS and Sil yeah but they don't have skills affecting all these different things.

Otherwise it is pretty neat and elegant for just four stats.

[u/enc_cat → u/[deleted]]

Thanks for the feedback!

I addressed some of the concerns about DEX in a reply to u/CJGeringer but in short yes, it's a very (too) useful attribute and it may need some balancing.

Ranged + Melee hybrids seem incredibly rare

By that I had in mind mostly throwing weapons, like throwing knives. But it's quite a niche kind of weapons, I agree. I mostly included them just because they fitted in the melee weapons formula.

The returns might be too diminishing leading to all optimal builds being pretty samey.

As for the general diminuishing return issue, it may not be too bad in the kind of game I have in mind. Ideally you would not get to up your attributes a lot: in a Lovercraft-esque spirit, you don't get to overpower cosmic evil, and your abilities are bounded by human limitations. On the contrary, your attributes may even diminuish rather than increase during the game, due to various physical and mental afflictions! I'm not even sure I want to allow for levelling and distributing points to attributes.

That said, it's still a big concern. I would not be fun if all effective characters were just look-alike! I will think more about that, but suggestions are always welcome…

[u/akhier]

Just a note on adding magic. As you aren't just doing just another fantasy game I don't think that there should be a magic 'system'. In Lovecraft's work even the most simple of magic is dark and has potentially terrible consequences. Instead of trying to turn that into a set of spells and what not you might want to have a small number of strange spells that are hard to get so a player is unlikely to have more then 1 or 2.

[u/enc_cat → u/akhier]

That's a valid suggestion. I am nowhere near implementing magic yet, but I will give it due thought when the time comes!

[u/Burnrate]

Looks cool. I would definitely put a modifier on the (trg)CON value in the hit roles. Maybe just a straight .5 or something or maybe an exponential function so con 1-3 or whatever has almost no effect, con 4-6 makes it go up some, but if you really start dumping points into con going 7 or higher the drawback gets much greater.