Suggestions on a game

[Magrus]

Not D&D oriented, but seemed the best place to post this.

I've been toying with the idea of writing up my own game with its own rules and such for the past 5 years or so, I keep coming up with ideas, and plans and such but no true inspiration to keep motivated in following through with all the tediousness of calculations and such. I was hoping perhaps some people might be willing to share anything they've thought of that they thought was either something they truly enjoyed in any RPG they've found, or things they truly disliked, or things they've thought were missing and essential in a game they enjoy playing.

It's been my opinion a lot of these games are simply too unwieldy, and far too much material to absorb and use to make them appealing to a larger audience of people so I've tried coming up with ideas that were interesting, creative, customizable and variable with replay value and such, but that clashes with wanting to slim down the amount of rules and reading you'd need to use on a constant basis. I'd like to come up with something that you can look at one book and absorb the rules and not really have to go back to it during play. It would make the game go faster. I've toyed with a system that reduces the amount of dice usage, one that gets rid of it altogether, and some other things. Any thoughts or suggestions people would be willing to share? I figure a survey on here might help steer me in a direction that would motivate me to either condense the ideas I've taken notes on over the years, or stick with one and modify and expand on it into something of substance thats going to be realistic and playable. A good deal of my older notes happen to have been lost do to computer crashes and such this past year, the ideas are still there, but the actual work was lost, hampering my motivation to recreate all of the notes and writing I did without having a good sense of what direction I'm going in.

Any suggestions are welcome.

[Rob-hin]

Phew, that's quite an idea you have there

Well, what we do, which I like, is for players not to know their stats.
The DM rolls them, you announce what level(s) you want, what equipment, skill points, feats. The DM counts it all and creates your character.

So basicly, everything is filled in on your sheet. But you don't know how you got to that attack bonus, AC, HP etc. Naturally you can count back, but a good player won't do that.

Some skills you roll for yourself, like jump and spot, because you know if you make the DC or not.
Sence motive is rolled by the DM and players only know if the man is believeable in their opinion or not. This way, a player who makes the roll know if a character is lying and the other thinks he's speaking the truth. (and vice versa if the man is speaking the truth). This is a guarantee for good in character discussion!

[Magrus]

Thanks, I kind of like that actually. Sort of keeps the player from focusing on improving numbers and more on how to go about focusing on actually playing. Makes it run smoother I'd think for the players too unless I'm wrong about that.

Anyone have any other thoughts or ideas?

[Magrus]

I figured I might as well share the very basic concepts I've come up with as possibilities of a game design and see if someone has input on those as well. Very beginning stages of development for this as I've yet to have a breakthrough on the system I want to base things on to write for. I've got other ideas brewing, but I like this one and if this succeeds I may shell out my next idea I've had come to mind lately. Here goes....

A three planet environment, with a power struggle based on energy producing crystals. Each planet has a different type of energy produced by the crystals, or short of that, different species that have tapped the crystals in different methods. For example, each planet radiates this said energy, which happens to permeate the planet and everything on it. Somewhat like the concept of gravity, or how sunlight happens to create light and heat wherever it touches. Certain areas would be higher in the amount of energy than others, just like more areas would have more water than others. My thought was making on planet very advanced with technology and focused on production and trade. Another peaceful and isolationist that happened to be fairly primitive in technology but has a very mystic feel to it. Third, an expansionist planet that happened to raid the others and have developed a very strong martial stance and psychic abilities along with it.
Each planet would have its own species, classes, equipment and laws (both in the traditional sense and in the sense of physics).

You would end up picking species, class, and planet to start from, explore there and sort of along the lines of becoming an "epic character", you break free of your own planet and explore the others, and become involved in interplanetary travel, politics and such. Spending too much time on another planet besides your home planet in exclusion to any other (I.E. moving and staying there for years) would have the effect of changing you in some manner based on the energy your surrounded by.

I've toyed with a basic plotline for an adventure to go with it, but figured that would be something I'd focus on should I happen to end up designing a system and using it for testing once finished.

Any thoughts on this as well as a general commentary as before?