It's for this game: http://www.gamedev.net/topic/648921-minotaurs-unicorns-old-school-rpg/

First of all, I was making RPGs for decades already, so I don't need examples of existing stuff (the odds are I know it already) :) Also I don't want D6, GURPS, etc. What I look for is, well, more like a fresh look at this, that is not mine (after designing these systems for so long I got my habits and these gets in the way).

I want something simple (the game is not complex at all), fairy tale like, a bit childish maybe, relatively light. Yet it does not mean it can't be unique or traditional with a twist.

So far I plan to go this route (just an example):

Attributes:

Strength (damage)
Constitution (HP bonus)
Intellect (MP bonus, also higher level spells have a min intellect requirement)
Dexterity (evade chance)
Accuracy (hit chance)
Speed (initiative, the order in which characters act)

There are also several resistances:

"Fire","Cold","Poison","Acid","Energy","Magic","Petrify","Chaos","Fear","Mind"

Level up grants only HP and MP and damage (hidden bonus, strength is a separate thing), based on profession (barbarians get more HP than mages), also some professions/races will get small resistance bonuses. Attributes are earned in dungeons (by touching magic crystals). Resistances are gained via items and temporary resistance boosts via drinking from fountains/wells and spells.

How you would do it?

BTW, if you feel the current system is OK and I'm sweating over nothing, say it too.

The current system is "okay". Personally though, I prefer more attributes.

It's okay, but I find it very far from unique. But if it's not your goal to be innovative then I think this system is okay.

And I also prefer when there is a lot of attribute :)

It doesn't really matter what you decide to call them, everything is used somewhere and there's little chance and point of being unique in your attribute naming. But the important thing is which stat affects which and you've only just begun listing them. I suggest you should review the names after you've decided on your final approaches to attack, defense, evade, etc formulas. Like currently calling your ability to dodge "dexterity" doesn't really seem the best since dexterity is often connected to how swift and skillful you are with your hands.

It seems that you want to keep things as simple as possible with one stat affecting one thing. That's of course a good starting point but these things tend to grow more complicated or maybe better say "refined", so don't worry if you find that happening. Simple is always good but on the other hand it narrows down the scope you customize your characters within.

For example: physical attack damage is currently solely depending on Strength and it affects nothing else. So pretty much your physical characters all have the priority on that. On some systems there is a stat like "agility" that describes being nimble and thus enabling you to compete in physical attack proficiency on different terms. This makes it possible to have a 2 physical characters that are a whole lot different from each other in character and gameplay, one could be brute giant and the other a stylish and slim rogue and they'd both still stand out from the mystical magic users. This was just an example.

Based on what I read here I personally find the Dexterity and Accuracy stats could use more things which they affect. Depending on how you balance things out with your formulas, Accuracy seems like pretty trivial stat compared to Strength and Constitution. It seems you can't really make Accuracy and Strength the same kind of complimenting stats like Strength and Agility would be because all physical attackers need Accuracy, otherwise they won't hit and building their Strength is useless. Can you make building Accuracy a viable development path for a character compared to building Strength? Regardless on how you balance them, since all physical attackers need Accuracy, they will be in turmoil about if investing in it will be really worth it. Some games have a single stat affecting both your chance to hit and your chance to dodge and I assume you've considered it as well but you have your reasons.

Some of your elements (which is really what they are when you talk about resistances) are of a bit peculiar hierarchy. Most systems consider all elements just elements that can be used by both magical (like a fireball or acid arrow spell) and physical attacks (hitting with flaming torch or a weapon dripping with acid). But you have "magic" as an element you can have resistance for. "Chaos", "Mind" and "Fear" all have pretty same impression on them to me but maybe you have a solid idea on how you make them clearly distinguished from each other.

I would be very much interested in your attack and damage formulas and how things like weapons (types? quality?), armor, levels (if you have them), magic and healing work. Coming up and adjusting them will have key effect on which stats you want to combine and which not. So far so good :)

Level up grants only HP and MP and damage... Attributes are earned in dungeons (by touching magic crystals).

So, how do you want the gains from leveling up to compare to increasing Con, Int, and Str?

Also, how will the dungeons and crystals thing work out? I can think of two main alternatives:

1. At the end of each dungeon are several crystals for different attributes. The player can only choose one.
2. Each dungeon is oriented toward particular professions. Hidden within are crystals, which are most helpful only to those professions.

Which professions do you intend to include, and what kinds of (dis)advantages would they have?

Will accuracy affect the chance of hitting with any weapon, or is it just for ranged characters?

[...]

A lot of this I simply decided to ignore. I mean, look at the screenshots, doesn't it scream "I'm a simple game" to you? Things like "development paths" will not exist, you just have professions and they gain powers based on this. There won't be any skill points or attribute point to redistribute. Attributes are gained only via dungeon exploration (and it would be pretty strightforward, you would want to give strength to warriors and intellect to mages). Skills are plain bought or acquired in some dungeons.

Attack formula is trivial at the moment HP=HP-damage damage=level*something*professionstype+strength*something. I will need to add evade and hit soon I guess

Magic is more complex, it depends on spell type and there are resistances to take into account.

Some of your elements (which is really what they are when you talk about resistances) are of a bit peculiar hierarchy. Most systems consider all elements just elements that can be used by both magical (like a fireball or acid arrow spell) and physical attacks (hitting with flaming torch or a weapon dripping with acid). But you have "magic" as an element you can have resistance for. "Chaos", "Mind" and "Fear" all have pretty same impression on them to me but maybe you have a solid idea on how you make them clearly distinguished from each other.

Almost all 90s era RPG had magic and fire resists at the same time, there is no problem here (and yes, you are right, it's not as elegant as elements systems from jRPGs, it's just that I'm fed up with that system, personally I liked the old classic res system better).

As for Chaos/Mind/Fear, I don't know, I always use this combo in my games and it works... But I guess it's not that strightforward.

So, how do you want the gains from leveling up to compare to increasing Con, Int, and Str?

Well, not sure. Probably worth equally? Or level worth twice more than attributes?

Also, how will the dungeons and crystals thing work out? I can think of two main alternatives:

1. At the end of each dungeon are several crystals for different attributes. The player can only choose one.
2. Each dungeon is oriented toward particular professions. Hidden within are crystals, which are most helpful only to those professions.

Probably 2)

There will be specific attribute crystals (like red gives strength), upon touching you decide which party member gets the boost.

(I'm still thinking if to use that system)

Which professions do you intend to include, and what kinds of (dis)advantages would they have?

All standard ones plus "barbarian princess" profession As for advantages/disadvantage it's so standard there is no point exaplaining Barbarians/knights/paladins will be good at combat (where barbarians have more raw HP while knights better damage), clerics/paladins/druids at healing, wizards/clerics at magic.

The only real twist is that you should have at least one virgin female in your party in order to meet/use unicorns (only because of the game's title, I don;t plan to make a big deal out of it).

Oh yes, there would be minor rules regarding saving checks, for example knight will have 3 Fear resist checks and the best one will be used.

Will accuracy affect the chance of hitting with any weapon, or is it just for ranged characters?

Both. Actually, I'm not sure if I will/should include ranged weapons...

Things like "development paths" will not exist, you just have professions and they gain powers based on this. There won't be any skill points or attribute point to redistribute. Attributes are gained only via dungeon exploration (and it would be pretty strightforward, you would want to give strength to warriors and intellect to mages). Skills are plain bought or acquired in some dungeons.

I know you aren't making a talent or specialization tree, but my point is the player will probably have at least some options of choosing which character to give which stat boost. And that isn't very meaningful when there's practically only one viable decision as you said, str to warriors and int to mages. Why give player the option to also choose something that isn't anyhow beneficial and could even result in the game being practically uncompletable if you are uneducated and keep misplacing your boosts?

HP=HP-damage

damage=level*something*professionstype+strength*something

This immediately provokes questions :)

Doesn't the profession, armor(still unclear if you have any?), any stat (besides dex for evading) or level of the character you are hitting affect the lost HP anyway?

Are there no changeable weapons?

What is professionstype?

Is there no fluctuation meaning a character will hit another character always by the same exact number of damage?

You don't really have to answer these, it's just that in my experience this is the point where I would usually start adding more stats and complexity to something I initially *though* would be simple :)

OK. This is all about the formulas/algorithms. Using the stats you have given and their descriptions, I see the basic encounters going like this: (Keeping it simple.)

Speed Attribute is calculated once at the beginning of the encounter to determine character/enemy turn order.

Physical or Ranged Attack

Compare: Random(Attacker's Accuracy) vs Random(Defender's Dexterity) + Armor(not random)

>> Hit on Greater Than, Miss on Less Than

>> Damage = Random(Strength + Weapon Damage) [ x2 if weakness, 1/2 if resisted]

Magical Attack

Make Ranged Attack check if spell is not an automatic hit. (Ignoring Armor)

On Hit, Compare: Random(Attacker's Intellect + Spell Level) vs Random(Defender's Intellect + Magic Resistance) + Other Resistance as Appropriate(Not random)

>> Hit on Greater Than, Miss on Less Than

>> If Spell does Damage: Damage = Difference between Hit Comparison Rolls [ x2 if weakness, 1/2 if resisted ]

>> Other Spell Effects are applied (Resistance was checked on hit.)

Logic

The premise is to keep the encounters simple. So if you can hit them, it hurts them.

With that design consideration, using the Random function over the totality of a combatant's ability, no combatant is inherently "invincible". A randomly high attack from a low creature (say it rolls a 15 to hit) can still hit if a high level character (say with 100 Dex and 250 Armor, 350 total) if it rolls low enough (say an 8) due to the formula randomly generating numbers throughout the entire range of the ability (1 to 350). Now, odds are very skewed in favor of the high level character defending against the low creature's attacks, but it's still possible to get hit. (15 / 350 = 0.043 ... 4.3% chance to get hit by an attack of 15. It only gets better as the attacks come in lower.) Likewise with magic. Even the best spellcaster has a chance to whiff some spells against the stupidest of opponents with the right rolls, but statistically will succeed in most cases.

Ultimately, I think this simple system will naturally generate realistic results in a satisfying way without over-complicating things. It's all about probabilities.

Note about balance. The game will be most likely unbalanced, or to be more precise it will be almost impossible for me to really balance it due to nature of world exploration (you can go anywhere, there are no "chapters" and not many locked locations and (almost) no overall storyline that dictates where you go), also there are no level caps (so when/if you got to level 100 it will/might get problematic). So I want a system that, well, works under heavy strains (like a weak one can at least hit the strong one).

Doesn't the [...] armor [...] are hitting affect the lost HP anyway?

LOL, I knew I forgot something :) Yes, armor needs to affect the defence :) Ideas? Usually I do it by EvadeModifier (usually negative, due to heaviness of the armor) and Resistance (reduction of HP loss of some sort).

About damage. Yes, there is a range (damage: 6-12 for example). By the "professiontype" in the damage formula I meant that barbarian will get +5 to damage per level while a wizard only +1.

With that design consideration, using the Random function over the totality of a combatant's ability, no combatant is inherently "invincible". A randomly high attack from a low creature (say it rolls a 15 to hit) can still hit if a high level character

Yes, I definitley want this. There will be high difference between levels during some fights.

I was also thinking of making them usually hit the target but if you score a critiacal hit you get 2 rolls for damage and the better is used (instead of the usual x2 damage for critics).

Reminds me of the might and magic games in both stats and look.

As I recall each class had a base hp level up bonus and stats and races modified this same with mp. So a knight might always gain 6 hp per level but get +2 for being an orc and another +2 for having 17 constitution.

The only way to increase damage dealt was to acquire better weapons or spells.

Its a simple system but it works. You can just give bonuses to different things for race, profession, and stat levels. Stats below 10 might give penalties, stats above 12 might give bonuses.

To hit might always start at say 10 or below on a d20 and that then gets adjusted by armor, defender dexterity, and attacker accuracy. To a minimum of 1 and a max of 19 so you always have a 5% chance to hit or miss.