Hey everyone. I have been tossing around the idea of starting a RTD of my own. My main concern is whether it should actually be a RTD or a regular RP. So let me give you a short pitch of what I have planned (The short short version, I have a LONG notepad file with stuff I've been pondering for the last week)
The game would take place in the world of Etrian Odyssey(The DS/3DS games). Possibly some amalgamation of all 5 games in terms of setting. It would certainly take place after the events of any of the games. Players would be able to pick any class from any of the games, and form a party of 5, MAYBE 6. I'm not sure if I want to allow more than one party to be running around independently, depends on the level of interest and such. There will be a plot of my own devising, but I will give the players many options to go through it, however they want.
I want to use relatively simple player mechanics, namely the 1d6 roll common among RTDs. There will be some stat keeping, but most of it will be just guidelines. As in, you may have... 100 attack, but that does not necessarily equate to exact damage amounts. I would just look at how you rolled, your stats compared to your opponent's stats and roll, and make a determination from that. I'm not sure if I want to have a visible or invisible HP stat for players/enemies. On the one hand, it may make it easier to understand how hurt something is, but on the other hand, it can be more work trying to keep the numbers nice. I HAVE all of the formulas for damage/accuracy/etc from the games, but I don't necessarily want to recreate those in forum form, if it will work as good or better by fudging it.
Then there's the issue of player death. I want the game to be difficult, similar to the games. One critical mistake can mean death. I was hoping to have it in classic RTD form, where replacements can come in should other players die. But because you can be revived in town, or if one of the players knows how to revive, or just uses an item that can revive, USUALLY the player's will only permanently die if they all die. A player could also die if the party is forced to flee and leave the dead player's corpse behind (Unlike in the game). It would be assumed that the corpse was eaten or otherwise missing, and thus be unable to be revived. So this begs the question, how do I make sure my game is fun, difficult, but still allows for player progression? I figured there would be leveling of a sort, but you don't level from grinding, but rather from progress. So even if the party wipes, then the next group would come in at a similar level. I'm a little torn though, because part of the fun would be attachment to your characters as you progress and develop their personality. So I'm not sure if making it an RTD is a good idea or not.
And finally, Rolls and bonuses. How do most people handle this. If its 1=Crit fail, 5=Success, 6=Overshoot, how do you handle bonuses? What happened when someone has a +5 and they roll a 1? Do they fail? Or overshoot? What should I do for cases where someone should be more accurate/reliable at something, or someone is inaccurate/unreliable? Should it still be bound to the 1d6 scheme?