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[Slayer1557]

Hm. I'm not familiar enough with the games to comment on a purist approach, but could you differentiate between power and specialization, or level and equipment, or other such distinctions between "effective" and "what I want to play?" For instance, consider if everyone entered the dungeon as a Boring Noob class, with decent stats but nothing to do but autoattack each turn. Then assume they can work through some kind of class or ability or equipment tree/scale, becoming closer to a gunslinger or regeneration passive bearer or guy with a shield or whatever it is that they actually want to be simply by defeating enemies or finding loot. They're not necessarily getting any or much stronger for non-progression achievements, but they are getting more personalized and fun.

For the most part, I plan on upgrading equipment to be a very minor part of the game.  Aside from what starting equipment you use, there's really only going to be changing accessories, maybe someone may want to switch to a shield from not using one, but for the most part the traditional "get new weapons and armor, discard old ones" will not apply.  Its just extra stuff that isn't adding much.  As for class progression.  Every class has skills to make them interesting, and for the most part every class has at least 2 options for specialization.  And beyond that I'm going to allow for custom abilities, or even borrowing abilities from other classes, so long as you can justify it.  This is especially the case for the Tank classes, because they tend to be different flavors of "Protect the party" so I'm encouraging pulling skills from the other tank classes.

Also, as a point of caution- I don't know how the games work, but if you're going to introduce permadeath based on the party wiping or fleeing, you might want to pay attention to how at risk different classes or approaches are. Usually you don't want to penalize tanks, for instance, but often they are at the most risk because it's literally their job to take damage.

Honestly, I think everyone should be about equal in terms of risk.  Tanks are really good at mitigation, and have stuff like "chance to survive a hit with 1hp", often deaths for the rest of the party comes from area damage, status effects, surprise attacks, and the like.  Overall I think it evens out.  Besides, I aim to make combat more cinematic than in a simple turn based RPG.  So you can certainly try anything you can come up with to win.  If the party doesn't want to do something traditional, by all means they will have other means to deal with problems.  Oh, and not everything is going to be combat.  Umm... as an eyeball figure, maybe 70% combat, 20% exploration/puzzles, 10% social.  Its hard to say until it gets going.  And the path they take of course.

Ah, that's a tough one. Most people treat a 1+5 as a 6, while a few have special rules about 1s always being 1s or similar. You definitely want to carefully consider what you're doing before adding modifiers to the RTD system, especially as they get larger.

If you're not happy with what you've got, there are definitely a lot of other ways to apply bonuses. You've already got one way in your vague "100 Attack is kind of a lot" stat system, which alters effects rather than the rolls themselves.

Yea, I put an excel spreadsheet together testing different ways of applying bonuses.  I haven't settled on anything yet.  It seems likely that I will have to just not use bonuses and eyeball how effective someone is.

I did have one idea for more customization.  Just a simple allocation of stats.  Like... a regular Fighter type character is going to be moderate on offence, defense, and agility, but low on caster stats(call it "utility").  So let each character put lets say... 8 points divided among those 4 categories (or however else I decide to split it)  The points wouldn't necessarily correlate to any particular bonus, but it is just a way of saying, "My fighter is faster than a typical fighter, but has less offence" something like that.

EDIT:Added a bit to the tank section

[TCM]

I wanna play a biker gang RTD. Why aren't there any of those getting around?

There was one a while back, not Minimalist, but pretty simple. It started off with the Player Biker Gang party fighting with a rival gang in a bar, and never got much further than that.

If I may ask, which country are you from? The Biker Gangs in the US have calmed down a bit, though I hear in Australia they're up and out killing everyone.

Or you could join my Gangster game and get the rest of your crew really into riding motorcycles.

[Yoink]

In Australia (or well, my state at least) they've meekly accepted recent new laws that basically make them literal outlaws.
I can't remember the specifics (not like I know anyone who is a member of a motorcycle club) but if three or more members of a motorcycle club that's declared 'criminal' are found together in public, they can be arrested and jailed, whatever the situation.
And if they do then receive a prison sentence for whatever other reason, they get 15 extra years for being a member of a "criminal organization".  It's pretty crazy, really.

But anyway! That's not terribly relevant to RTDs.
I might just run that post apocalyptic/fantasy biker gang RTD at some point, if no-one beats me to it. (Feel free, anyone!)
Maybe I would even have some basic motorcycle customization system or something, but then I'm not great at making game mechanics.

[tuypo1]

I wanna play a biker gang RTD. Why aren't there any of those getting around?

There was one a while back, not Minimalist, but pretty simple. It started off with the Player Biker Gang party fighting with a rival gang in a bar, and never got much further than that.

If I may ask, which country are you from? The Biker Gangs in the US havehave calmed down a bit, though I hear in Australia they're up and out killing everyone.

Or you could join my Gangster game and get the rest of your crew really into riding motorcycles.

Wait the u.s has had motorcycle clubs as fronts for criminal organization I always thought it was only ever an Australian thing

[tuypo1]

In Australia (or well, my state at least) they've meekly accepted recent new laws that basically make them literal outlaws.
I can't remember the specifics (not like I know anyone who is a member of a motorcycle club) but if three or more members of a motorcycle club that's declared 'criminal' are found together in public, they can be arrested and jailed, whatever the situation.
And if they do then receive a prison sentence for whatever other reason, they get 15 extra years for being a member of a "criminal organization".  It's pretty crazy, really.

But anyway! That's not terribly relevant to RTDs.
I might just run that post apocalyptic/fantasy biker gang RTD at some point, if no-one beats me to it. (Feel free, anyone!)
Maybe I would even have some basic motorcycle customization system or something, but then I'm not great at making game mechanics.

Also a few years ago they enacted a law that the gangs weren't allowed to do anything deemed fortification to there clubhouse

[poketwo]

Hello, I got an idea for a non-minimalist RTD going. The setting is my interpretation of a Converted EUIV game I had observed and played as  " New Holland" for a small time. This is about a war I played on it. You play at first regular soldiers fighting in battles. But you can rise up the ranks to become commanding officers of your own regiment! But right now I want to test it before further development of it in my mind. Anyone want to do it?

[Digital Hellhound]

Sounds like the world could be interesting enough. You could even play your EUIV game on, and have what happens there happen in the game as well, which could be fun for you.

[Slayer1557]

Any other thoughts on my two posts above?  I want to put this together in the next day or two, and I was hoping to iron out the details.

[Alev]

Hello, I got an idea for a non-minimalist RTD going. The setting is my interpretation of a Converted EUIV game I had observed and played as  " New Holland" for a small time. This is about a war I played on it. You play at first regular soldiers fighting in battles. But you can rise up the ranks to become commanding officers of your own regiment! But right now I want to test it before further development of it in my mind. Anyone want to do it?

I'm interested.

[flabort]

Are there any Looters Delight style arena games going on right now?

[Caellath]

Any other thoughts on my two posts above?  I want to put this together in the next day or two, and I was hoping to iron out the details.

I'm not very knowledgeable about the games, having only read about them once or twice, but the idea seems good. I have little time to type things out since I'm studying for a test, but here are my opinions on:
-Player death: most people in the RtD board seem to deal well with PC death as long as it doesn't feel unfair - which is, admittedly, something hard to judge. Generally, if the game doesn't involve "surprise, you are dead forever" moments, there's opportunity for people to decide whether they make gambles or retreat, and dying is usually the result of some bad rolls and/or bad decisions ("I'll walk around alone, that'll surely go well!"), it can be hard without being punishing. See Mother's Crest, a now-dead dungeon-delving game with a similar idea and fairly deadly mechanics in which the PCs weren't doing too badly because they were generally cautious, even during combat, and retreated to get their wounds treated after a single encounter in order to avoid deaths;
-Bonuses: bonuses can get messy. If you are using a stat/stat allocation system, you might take an approach similar to ER, in which only by having a certain amount of points in a stat you can reach +1, and stats that are too low give you a -1 penalty for rolling them. You could probably use something similar to Mother's Crest's system too. You could also forget penalties and just take a slower approach with a similar milestone/level system to make people work for their bonuses (the usual stuff, like +1 or 50% of chance of +1 to a roll) or perks/extra perks (counter-attack, survive deadly hit once per battle with 1 hp remaining, +1 only to defensive actions, never be surprised, magical resistance).

[Slayer1557]

<3 You guys from ER.  I have been reading that.  And having you reply to my post feels like meeting a legend XD  I'm going all fangirly here.

In any case.  I'll take a look at Mother's Crest, I'm sure to get some good ideas from that.  And you are probably right, I need to be careful not to kill the party off without fair warning.  Even though the games didn't give you that courtesy... at least you could reload your game there.  Nothing quite like an ambush attack leading to your party getting status effect locked and/or petrified/instant death.

I think I'm going to use 2d6 for the game.  It gives me a little more control over odds of success.  2 is crit fail, 3-4 is fail, 5-10 is succeed, 11 is overshoot, and 12 is crit(defined as spectacular success), or crit overshoot (Spectacular success with bad stuff).  Using a 2d6, I can easily give +1 or -1 to represent buffs or debuffs, or whatever.  Players probably will not get bonuses to the roll from stats.  Thus most players can expect no more than +1 or 2 at best.

ER was of course a big inspiration, but the Rolls was the reason for one of my concerns.  At least where I am in the story (mission 3 I think, the Research Outpost with the Puddle), I saw nothing that addressed handling the effects of high bonuses.  Especially for someone like Armory Master, or someone in an Avatar of War, they could get bonuses that push them to and above 6 quite regularly.  So are they going to suffer from overshoot all the time?  In any case I'm hoping my system will avoid that.

[SeriousConcentrate]

Yes, they would overshoot all the time, but piecewise introduced decompensators that turn 6+ into a 5. Only the most expensive ones always work, though.

[flabort]

I've been considering a system where instead of a 1d6, the die roll is 1d100 (also known as 1d%), where more points in the skill is obviously a higher % you can roll under to succeed. But once you pass 50%, the number of points to achieve the same increase doubles; except, like BaB from D&D, you get a second chance, too, that increases at the original rate. So what happens when your "second chance" reaches 50%? Both current chances halve their increase rate, and you start a third chance.

Like so:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Points invested|% Chance(s) to Succeed
1|2
2|4
3|6
4|8
5|10
6|12
7|14
8|16
9|18
10|20
11|22
12|24
13|26
14|28
15|30
16|32
17|34
18|36
19|38
20|40
21|42
22|44
23|46
24|48
25|50/0
26|51/2
27|52/4
28|53/6
29|54/8
30|55/10
31|56/12
32|57/14
33|58/16
34|59/18
35|60/20
36|61/22
37|62/24
38|63/26
39|64/28
40|65/30
41|66/32
42|67/34
43|68/36
44|69/38
45|70/40
46|71/42
47|72/44
48|73/46
49|74/48
50|75/50/0
51|75(.5)/51/2
52|76/52/4
53|76(.5)/53/6
54|77/54/8
55|77(.5)/55/10
56|78/56/12
57|78(.5)/57/14
58|79/58/16
59|79(.5)/59/18
60|80/60/20
61|80(.5)/61/22
62|81/62/24
63|81(.5)/63/26
64|82/64/28
65|82(.5)/65/30
66|83/66/32
67|83(.5)/67/34
68|84/68/36
69|84(.5)/69/38
70|85/70/40
71|85(.5)/71/42
72|86/72/44
73|86(.5)/73/46
74|87/74/48
75|87(.5)/75/50/0
76|87(.75)/75(.5)/51/2
77|88/76/52/4
78|88(.25)/76(.5)/53/6
79|88(.5)/77/54/8
80|88(.75)/77(.5)/55/10
81|89/78/56/12
82|89/78/57/14
83|89/79/58/16
84|89/79/59/18
85|90/80/60/20
86|90/80/61/22
87|90/81/62/24
88|90/81/63/26
89|91/82/64/28
90|91/82/65/30
91|91/83/66/32
92|91/83/67/34
93|92/84/68/36
94|92(.25)/84(.5)/69/38
95|92(.5)/85/70/40
96|92(.75)/85(.5)/71/42
97|93/86/72/44
98|93(.25)/86(.5)/73/46
99|93(.5)/87/74/48
100|93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
Etc.|Etc.
125|96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
150|98(.4375)/96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
175|99(.21875)/98(.4375)/96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
200|99(.609375)/99(.21875)/98(.4375)/96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
Etc.|Etc.
500|99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/98/96/93/87/75/50/0

Where if a chance is a fraction of a percent, it always rounds down, because rolling equal or less to the chance to succeed is a success; any more is a failure.

So let's say that the points in a stat can never exceed 75 except by supernatural means. That's 3 chances at 87%, 75%, and 50% odds for success, a complete mastery at that stat; technically, there's a fourth roll, but at 0%, it's ignored and skipped. So an average stat would be close to 30. You have 55%/10%/0%/0% at that level. Pretty good, eh? Nice and average. So whatever the case, starting points should be 30 times the number of stats, with a 75 point max.

Bonuses to a roll should be formatted in a +X/+Y/+Z/+A style. They wouldn't have to follow the same growths as skills, and in fact shouldn't. Bonuses to X and Y would be for mundane tools and stuff that isn't overtly magical. Up to... a 5% bonus should be possible for X and 10% for Y, for masterfully worked equipment; the best of the best. Working with two such maximum bonuses, someone with 75 points in the relevant stat would achieve 97/95/50/0. Z is for magically enchanted items. They don't have to be masterwork items to be enchanted, they can be shoddily built and still be magical. You'd just have a +0/+1/+4/+0 or such item. Magic items would be limited to about +15. And +A bonuses would be of a Divine nature, or some such, unlocking the fourth roll basically. Even someone with just 5 points (10/0/0/0) could use a +A item and achieve a second chance (10/0/0+5/0+15), and even maxed stat players would benefit from it. The upper limit on a Divine bonus would be around +20. If you receive a bonus to a roll that your points don't allow you to use, you can still use that roll.

So the highest possible stat yields odds of 87/75/50/0, and the highest possible bonus from a single source is +5/+10/+15/+20. If a player achieves two sources for that bonus on one stat, the result is 97/95/80/40, which is legendary. However, I highly doubt any sane GM with a sane game using this system would give two max-bonus items to a player with a maxed stat anyways. Come to think of it, I don't think any sane GM would take this system.

[Alev]

I've been considering a system where instead of a 1d6, the die roll is 1d100 (also known as 1d%), where more points in the skill is obviously a higher % you can roll under to succeed. But once you pass 50%, the number of points to achieve the same increase doubles; except, like BaB from D&D, you get a second chance, too, that increases at the original rate. So what happens when your "second chance" reaches 50%? Both current chances halve their increase rate, and you start a third chance.

Like so:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Points invested|% Chance(s) to Succeed
1|2
2|4
3|6
4|8
5|10
6|12
7|14
8|16
9|18
10|20
11|22
12|24
13|26
14|28
15|30
16|32
17|34
18|36
19|38
20|40
21|42
22|44
23|46
24|48
25|50/0
26|51/2
27|52/4
28|53/6
29|54/8
30|55/10
31|56/12
32|57/14
33|58/16
34|59/18
35|60/20
36|61/22
37|62/24
38|63/26
39|64/28
40|65/30
41|66/32
42|67/34
43|68/36
44|69/38
45|70/40
46|71/42
47|72/44
48|73/46
49|74/48
50|75/50/0
51|75(.5)/51/2
52|76/52/4
53|76(.5)/53/6
54|77/54/8
55|77(.5)/55/10
56|78/56/12
57|78(.5)/57/14
58|79/58/16
59|79(.5)/59/18
60|80/60/20
61|80(.5)/61/22
62|81/62/24
63|81(.5)/63/26
64|82/64/28
65|82(.5)/65/30
66|83/66/32
67|83(.5)/67/34
68|84/68/36
69|84(.5)/69/38
70|85/70/40
71|85(.5)/71/42
72|86/72/44
73|86(.5)/73/46
74|87/74/48
75|87(.5)/75/50/0
76|87(.75)/75(.5)/51/2
77|88/76/52/4
78|88(.25)/76(.5)/53/6
79|88(.5)/77/54/8
80|88(.75)/77(.5)/55/10
81|89/78/56/12
82|89/78/57/14
83|89/79/58/16
84|89/79/59/18
85|90/80/60/20
86|90/80/61/22
87|90/81/62/24
88|90/81/63/26
89|91/82/64/28
90|91/82/65/30
91|91/83/66/32
92|91/83/67/34
93|92/84/68/36
94|92(.25)/84(.5)/69/38
95|92(.5)/85/70/40
96|92(.75)/85(.5)/71/42
97|93/86/72/44
98|93(.25)/86(.5)/73/46
99|93(.5)/87/74/48
100|93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
Etc.|Etc.
125|96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
150|98(.4375)/96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
175|99(.21875)/98(.4375)/96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
200|99(.609375)/99(.21875)/98(.4375)/96(.875)/93(.75)/87(.5)/75/50/0
Etc.|Etc.
500|99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/99/98/96/93/87/75/50/0

Where if a chance is a fraction of a percent, it always rounds down, because rolling equal or less to the chance to succeed is a success; any more is a failure.

So let's say that the points in a stat can never exceed 75 except by supernatural means. That's 3 chances at 87%, 75%, and 50% odds for success, a complete mastery at that stat; technically, there's a fourth roll, but at 0%, it's ignored and skipped. So an average stat would be close to 30. You have 55%/10%/0%/0% at that level. Pretty good, eh? Nice and average. So whatever the case, starting points should be 30 times the number of stats, with a 75 point max.

Bonuses to a roll should be formatted in a +X/+Y/+Z/+A style. They wouldn't have to follow the same growths as skills, and in fact shouldn't. Bonuses to X and Y would be for mundane tools and stuff that isn't overtly magical. Up to... a 5% bonus should be possible for X and 10% for Y, for masterfully worked equipment; the best of the best. Working with two such maximum bonuses, someone with 75 points in the relevant stat would achieve 97/95/50/0. Z is for magically enchanted items. They don't have to be masterwork items to be enchanted, they can be shoddily built and still be magical. You'd just have a +0/+1/+4/+0 or such item. Magic items would be limited to about +15. And +A bonuses would be of a Divine nature, or some such, unlocking the fourth roll basically. Even someone with just 5 points (10/0/0/0) could use a +A item and achieve a second chance (10/0/0+5/0+15), and even maxed stat players would benefit from it. The upper limit on a Divine bonus would be around +20. If you receive a bonus to a roll that your points don't allow you to use, you can still use that roll.

So the highest possible stat yields odds of 87/75/50/0, and the highest possible bonus from a single source is +5/+10/+15/+20. If a player achieves two sources for that bonus on one stat, the result is 97/95/80/40, which is legendary. However, I highly doubt any sane GM with a sane game using this system would give two max-bonus items to a player with a maxed stat anyways. Come to think of it, I don't think any sane GM would take this system.

It looks like maths.

Too complicated.

So I will just say purple

or seven.