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[Sensei]

You know, there ought to be a good LEGO system. There's Brikwars, but that's strictly a wargame... I'd like to see a CRPG take good advantage of the fact that lego figures placed into studded platforms actually have a facing, unlike most RPGs where you character is basically assumed to be omnidirectional unless they're distracted or something.

[Nadaka]

Do not go with the tick system. in 1997 I designed my own system called Pair O' Dice that used a "real time" tick based initiative system. It was slow and unwieldy even with initiative aids.

What made it slow and unwieldy?

I had an sheet of paper with initiative with IIRC 12 tracks numbered 1 to 30. The first track is current time and the others are creature initiative. each creature got a token placed on that track.

At the beginning of combat initiative is rolled and each creatures token is placed at the initiative point of their track. The current time token is placed at 1.
1: The current time token is advanced to the next lowest initiative count.
2: That creature/character begins its action and advances its token based on the duration of the action.
3: The current time token is advanced to the next lowest initiative count.
4: If that creature/character has already begun its action, it is resolved and the it rolls initiative again, advancing its token a number of spaces based on the initiative roll.
4a:otherwise, return to 2.
5: return to 1

If an initiative or current time token advances to the top of the page, it cycles back to the bottom. Basically it was too complicated, especially for the DM as the number of creatures in combat increased.

[Glowcat]

Do not go with the tick system. in 1997 I designed my own system called Pair O' Dice that used a "real time" tick based initiative system. It was slow and unwieldy even with initiative aids.

What made it slow and unwieldy?

I had an sheet of paper with initiative with IIRC 12 tracks numbered 1 to 30. The first track is current time and the others are creature initiative. each creature got a token placed on that track.

At the beginning of combat initiative is rolled and each creatures token is placed at the initiative point of their track. The current time token is placed at 1.
1: The current time token is advanced to the next lowest initiative count.
2: That creature/character begins its action and advances its token based on the duration of the action.
3: The current time token is advanced to the next lowest initiative count.
4: If that creature/character has already begun its action, it is resolved and the it rolls initiative again, advancing its token a number of spaces based on the initiative roll.
4a:otherwise, return to 2.
5: return to 1

If an initiative or current time token advances to the top of the page, it cycles back to the bottom. Basically it was too complicated, especially for the DM as the number of creatures in combat increased.

Ah.

I was just going to do something simple like marking down Current Time and each actor would have a Next Action value that increased depending on their action's speed cost. Whenever Current Time reaches somebody's Next Action they'd get to move. This determines action order while keeping track of total combat time.

[Gunner-Chan]

I like Gurps. All I can really say on the matter. Everything else feels so arbitrary and random in comparison. Not to mention it's so much simpler to wrap your head around and write for.

[Sergius]

I like Gurps. All I can really say on the matter. Everything else feels so arbitrary and random in comparison. Not to mention it's so much simpler to wrap your head around and write for.

You want arbitrary? Try Rifts.

"When you dodge guided missiles, roll versus a single volley up to 3 missiles. 4 missiles however, everyone knows, duh, are impossible to dodge. As if. And levels? Some games have 12 levels, others have hundreds of levels! Ridiculous! My system is the best, since it has 15 character levels, which is exactly the right amount. Any fool could see that!"

It actually reads like that in the book (not both examples in the same section).

[Grakelin]

I've always wondered if the irony in the Rifts Core Book is self-aware.

[Siquo]

Personally, I loved the Mutant Chronicles TTRPG. It's a shame nobody ever played/plays it.

Pros: Lots of setting, hardly any rules.
Cons: the rules that did exist were often pointless (deducting armor from damage in a world that has 1d6 damage vs 9 point armor with no 20-is-crit rules is pointless), so even for the existing rules you often needed to make up your own. The skill and XP system needed some fixing, as well.

Ok, I guess that's not much help, I just like making shit up as I go along, as a DM, and I like that my players do the same (instead of "gaming" the existing rules). Changing the rules, making everything arbitrary, or having my own made up secret rules all help.

The character creation was fun, too. It's like: choose background. Ok, you're born in a family of your choosing. Roll for childhood random events. Stats are modified accordingly. Choose education. Random events are rolled, stuff is modified, choose career or higher education, stuff happens, switch career, stuff happens, ok you say you're done? Right, there you go. It's not as slow as it sounds, and having the background story progress in front of you (you need to fill in blanks, for instance you can have event: "you make an enemy, you gain a nemesis" during your career, you make up the story) will make that character "come alive" a lot more, you can relate to him/her a lot better. There's also quite some tables for different careers/backgrounds, but not overwhelmingly many.