Chameleon: Prototype TLHH RP System

[AgentDrake]

Well, just interjecting my opinion in here....
I can see how CG's system is more realistic. Thing is, FM's seems more easily workable.
What about a hybrid system, wherein we have two of FM's system: Disabling Wounds and Critical Wounds.
Roll a die to determine hit type. Some sort of "Attack Control" skill, denoting how good a character is at using attacks for specific goals (ie, cut off Luke's lightsaber hand, so that he's not too badly damaged, but he can;t fight anymore) would be, say, on a d10, 6. Player announces which they want to go for: critical or disable. On a successful roll, they make that form of attack, and strike against that damage set. Unsuccessful, they're rolling for the other.
So two rolls in a row: 1 for damage type, then #2 for damage amount, check against armor.
Sucessful disable attacks check against armor, and once a character loses all their disable hitpoints, the announced goal of the disable attacks (Darth Player: "I wanna try to cut off Luke's hand. I roll twice now....") is achieved. Not 100% realistic, but having a modular, fairly simple system is sorta important, too.

Player characters would, of course, be designed to have certain amounts of disable/critical damage as determined by the player and Gamemaster, or whatever, that way you can have characters who are hard to take down as far as penalties go ("It's just a flesh wound!"), but once you get one good hit on them, they're doomed, and characters who get penalties; worn down by fighting, ("Wah! My hand has a blister!"), but take a lot of damage without dieing right off, like CG was saying.

Does that make sense? Would that work? I must confess, I have no clue what I'm talking about. I've never done D&D, and my RP experience is limited to computer games and the DCRPGs. I know some of the basic ideas of dice/stat based off of the old rouge-type games, like hack, larn, Moria, et cetera, but that's about it.

Yep. There's my thought. Hope it's at least somewhat constructive.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

D&D DOES have combat rules to deal with targetted attacks, you know. Most people simply avoid using it, because most groups will rather use the system as it is, since any set of rules that makes combat more deadly or tricky WILL hurt the PCs more, since NPCs are just that, random minions that can get killed, run away, etc, but the PCs are always the same, taking blow after blow, THEMSELVES being "worn down", thus why most playgroups will usually experiment with the optional rules for targeted combat for a while and revert to the regular way. Also, the way I suggested, damage rolls would be ignored completly, and the attack roll itself would play a major role. In the example I gave, it's fairly common for a trained sword fighter to hit once and drop the opponent, given a rather "weak" opponent as a Goblin, most swordplayers will usually aim for lethal areas anyway, so that way, the better the attack roll, the closest to hitting a lethal area (and hitting it hard enough, of course) you are. I can't see how this relates to the abstract "damage rolls" system of D&D, which makes weapons pretty much obsolete from 6th level onward, since the damage BONUSES are more than enough to make up for a roll of 1 in a d8, for instance. The combat system I suggested is not only simpler than yours, being more fluid and quicker, but it's ALSO more "realistic" flavor-wise, after all, I don't see how "distributing damage points between Light, Moderate and Critical" is flavorful, it's actually closer to the abstract "generic hit point loss" system from D&D.

Yeah, sorry, I did miss the bit about scrapping damage rolls. What still strikes me, though, is the lack of an active defense in that style.

I'm not sure how dividing damage into three types is more close to the generic HP system. Could you elaborate on that? Because in this case, it will provide a way for a wound to do damage, but that damage will potentially be greater or lesser. What I like most about the three types is how the collapsing of each type leads to a trickle-through for wounds. Once you reach a certain threshold, a difference of "1" on the attack vs. defense suddenly becomes a lot more lethal. There's also a lot of ways you can die. Like...

If you have 3 Light Wound Points, 1 Moderate Wound Point, and 1 Critical Wound Point, a moderate difference (let's say 3-4 between attack and defense) or a big difference (greater than 5) will kill you. In your system, though, you'd have 5 HP at that point, so a difference of 5 or greater would be the only thing that would kill you.

And yeah, it's more deadly. That'll make characters think more about getting into combat. This RP (the one I'm thinking of) wouldn't be one of "monster, npc, monster, npc". More like, figure out what's going on, make a plan to get out alive, etc. Because as fun as dungeoncrawls are, it's nice to spice things up a bit.

PS: There are also rules for parrying in D&D, if a character wants to fight defensively. And then, there are feats that increase your defense based on base attack bonus, which pretty much stands for a character ability to parry a few blows. There're also feats for dodging blows, akills for tumbling across the battlefield, etc. It's not at all like Final Fantasy...

The thing is, those rules are not general, but specific. From how I've seen it played, anyway. You've got a character, they try to attack and get higher than a static defensive value, and then they let the other character have a swing at them. It's a lot less dynamic than something where you've actively got rules for defense. The defense itself still stays static, being bonused from time to time. When in reality, you have to keep working to keep a defense up.

And I mean, honestly, I'd much rather just toss what I've got out there and see how it goes.

[FM]

The parrying rules I mean is a different set of those, very close to your attack VS. defense one, actually, and it's to say it works. Thing is, you "roll against the attack" in D&D, when in your case, from what I've gathered, you'd simply roll defense in advance. I didn't grasp it entirely before, so I assumed you'd wait for attack rolls to then roll for defense, but from what I see, you actually give characters a "randomizable" AC, since they roll for defense, and that's their AC for that turn (or whatever measure of time you use). THIS works. Pretty well, actually.
But I'd still advocate to not let too much to the dice, you could merge both systems, and end up with a basic AC (or defense) value, which would be modified for his defensive roll (so a fully-plated warrior would still have a good enough defense on a roll of, say, a 1 on a d6, which makes for a more realistic approach). Damage could follow the same trend, with a basic attack modifier, plus the roll for the turn. And the thing about using HP rather than a wound-type system would be EXACTLY for that reason, lowering the chance of a PC getting killed in a single blow, because believe me, I've been a DM for a long time, and it IS frustrating to players when that happens. So much that some players will quit because of stuff like that. ANd even if the RP is about figuring stuff out, having a good ol' battle IS still one of the most fun parts for a lot of players, and given a battle with, say, a Lord and his 10-14 minions, the amount of dice rolled is almost bound to wipe at least 1-2 guys out of a 4-6 PC party.
My only advice to you, as a DM, is this: if you have to choose between a small lacking in realism and a rule that makes combat more deadly (thus risking the PCs life even more), I'd choose the former. As I said, though, YOU are the DM, so it's entirely up to you what to do. I was just offering some advice so you don't risk pissing of your players, after all, they are the ones that make RP'ing possible after all, and it IS all about them. I'd advise consulting your playgroup as to see what they think about it.
On a sidenote, what I meant was that both our systems deal with a simple rule: higher roll damages lower roll by a figure based on how higher it was. However, since mine is an absolute system, the higher the roll, the higher the damage, until the character drops, while in the system you suggested, when depleted of Light wounds, three rolls of 2 against three rolls of 1 would be enough to outright kill a character, when the blows were ALL poor attacks anyway, while a character with a high toughness (translating into a larger hp) would survive this flurry of attacks with not much more than a scratch, which ends up being more realistic. But I guess it could be tweaked further for allowing damage to specific body areas, but again, as I said, it's bound to hurt PCs more...

[sickofpalantirs]

why don't we just get a prototype RPG started, set out a few rules, use his system and see what happens?

[FM]

Suit yourselves. As I said, I was just tossing some ideas out there, due to my previous experiences (followed a DM's progress for 3 years and been DM'ing in his place for the last 7), but it might work just fine as it is.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

why don't we just get a prototype RPG started, set out a few rules, use his system and see what happens?

That's what I'm planning on doing.

As regards fatalities, there are high-fatality systems out there...and people do play them. Another thing is, the nature of the system makes a big difference. In a game where one of the major incentives of playing is leveling up, getting awesome equipment, and doing awesomely powerful stuff, death is a big deal. Because you lose all that work. But in one where there's no level advancement/equipment advancement to speak of. So the loss is only in the character you've developed. And even then, a GM can easily fudge it into unconsciousness. That's the thing, it's bendable.

I would also be using straight modifiers, it wouldn't be entirely dice-based. Essentially, a modifier is applied after the die roll, and it reflects your ability to absorb damage. For instance, you might have bullet-proof armor that gives a modifier of +2 against projectiles. They roll an attack of 5, you roll a defense of 3. It hits you, but causes no damage because of your boost.

The other thing to make randomness more viable is the fact that I'd be using more than one die. Probably based off of the appropriate stat. The more dice you add in, the more of a bell curve the results have. d20 uses a flat curve (each number has a 5% chance of being rolled), whereas if you rolled 2d10 instead, you'd get different results. (1% chance of getting 2, 2% chance of getting 3, all the way up to around 10% for rolling 5...so you're 10x as likely to roll a 5 as you are to roll a 1) So you'll more often get an average result.

And I'm aware of the potential pitfalls. I'll be working with those. I'm also intending to run with squishy rules. The initial rules are short, which gives a GM leeway to slot in rules.

[sickofpalantirs]

Suit yourselves. As I said, I was just tossing some ideas out there, due to my previous experiences (followed a DM's progress for 3 years and been DM'ing in his place for the last 7), but it might work just fine as it is.

and I at least appreciate it, but I think we should just give it a try, and see how it works out.