I have been driving myself crazy the last couple weeks trying to design a simple RPG system. I want it to be simple (maybe even diceless) but I also want realism. Obviously, I can see where some of you may think that sounds contradictory, but I’m remaining hopeful. 
Here is the idea that keeps sounding good to me. Just use percentage to resolve actions. Characters could use adjectives to describe their abilities, like strength = like an ogre’s and shooting = awesome. Any descriptors could be used, as long as they were understood by the GM. When the player encountered a monster, the GM would just use common sense. For example, after analyzing the character’s description and the monster’s, the GM could say, “You have a 70% chance of attacking first.” Assuming he rolled within that 70%, then the player could describe his first move. He could say, “I want to stab the beast in the chest.” Based on the descriptions (maybe the character’s sword use was described as “expert” and the beast’s speed or reaction was described as “ok”) the GM might say, “Ok, you have a 80% chance of succeeding. And so forth………….
Damage would be explained in story terms, no hit points, ect. For example, if the player succeeded in that chest shot, the GM would determine the damage based on the character’s descriptions and the monster’s descriptions. For example, since the character is “strong”, an “expert” with his sword, and the beast has no armor, then the wound was fatal.
In general, we’d just use common sense to describe outcomes. If the player didn’t agree with an assigned percentage, he could suggest raising or lowering it, ect.
The only real drawback I see with this system is the GM’s burden. It may be hard to come up with reasonable/realistic percentage all the time. It’s easy when the opponents are greatly different (like a crippled Halfling vs King Kong……….the Halfling MIGHT have a 1% chance of beating him), but when they’re closer it may get tricky. Like for example, would Wolverine have a 50% of striking Spiderman? Ect.
FUDGE seemed similar to what I cooked up, but their descriptors could relate to math. For example, if your character was rated “good” and rolled a +1, his result would be “great” (a level higher on the description scale). In this system, higher results trump lower ones. This system sounds decent, but what about supernatural creatures? It starts to get complicated when you imagine combat with creatures above their given descriptor scale.
I don’t know, maybe I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too. My quest for an ultra simple (yet realistic in terms of common sense and logic) led me to GURPS Lite 4e, but even that seems like too much in terms of rule and math. I guess theoretically you could roleplay simply using logic. For example, the player could describe his action and the GM could describe the result. It just seems like it would be TOO simple…I could be wrong, I’ve never actually tried that.
Anyways, I know some of you have been down this road before, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts, ideas, and/or advice. I’ve resorted to posting this because my internet search hasn’t provided anything too exciting. All the “simple” systems (some even diceless) I’ve found seem to either boil things down to coin flips, ect. I want a system (or method) that doesn’t do away with logic and common sense. For example, Steve Urkel couldn’t defeat Hulk in hand to hand combat, even if he rolled an 18 or used his “trump card”, ect. LOL.
Here is the idea that keeps sounding good to me. Just use percentage to resolve actions. Characters could use adjectives to describe their abilities, like strength = like an ogre’s and shooting = awesome. Any descriptors could be used, as long as they were understood by the GM. When the player encountered a monster, the GM would just use common sense. For example, after analyzing the character’s description and the monster’s, the GM could say, “You have a 70% chance of attacking first.” Assuming he rolled within that 70%, then the player could describe his first move. He could say, “I want to stab the beast in the chest.” Based on the descriptions (maybe the character’s sword use was described as “expert” and the beast’s speed or reaction was described as “ok”) the GM might say, “Ok, you have a 80% chance of succeeding. And so forth………….
Damage would be explained in story terms, no hit points, ect. For example, if the player succeeded in that chest shot, the GM would determine the damage based on the character’s descriptions and the monster’s descriptions. For example, since the character is “strong”, an “expert” with his sword, and the beast has no armor, then the wound was fatal.
In general, we’d just use common sense to describe outcomes. If the player didn’t agree with an assigned percentage, he could suggest raising or lowering it, ect.
The only real drawback I see with this system is the GM’s burden. It may be hard to come up with reasonable/realistic percentage all the time. It’s easy when the opponents are greatly different (like a crippled Halfling vs King Kong……….the Halfling MIGHT have a 1% chance of beating him), but when they’re closer it may get tricky. Like for example, would Wolverine have a 50% of striking Spiderman? Ect.
FUDGE seemed similar to what I cooked up, but their descriptors could relate to math. For example, if your character was rated “good” and rolled a +1, his result would be “great” (a level higher on the description scale). In this system, higher results trump lower ones. This system sounds decent, but what about supernatural creatures? It starts to get complicated when you imagine combat with creatures above their given descriptor scale.
I don’t know, maybe I’m trying to have my cake and eat it too. My quest for an ultra simple (yet realistic in terms of common sense and logic) led me to GURPS Lite 4e, but even that seems like too much in terms of rule and math. I guess theoretically you could roleplay simply using logic. For example, the player could describe his action and the GM could describe the result. It just seems like it would be TOO simple…I could be wrong, I’ve never actually tried that.
Anyways, I know some of you have been down this road before, and I’m curious to hear your thoughts, ideas, and/or advice. I’ve resorted to posting this because my internet search hasn’t provided anything too exciting. All the “simple” systems (some even diceless) I’ve found seem to either boil things down to coin flips, ect. I want a system (or method) that doesn’t do away with logic and common sense. For example, Steve Urkel couldn’t defeat Hulk in hand to hand combat, even if he rolled an 18 or used his “trump card”, ect. LOL.
I don't think one can have a simple and realistic game system, if for no other reason than reality is very complicated.
Salla, thanks for your reply. In short, you very well could be right. 
Although I'm going to remain hopeful and keep brainstorming.
Keep in mind, I'm well aware that such an approach to roleplaying is inevitably going to result in the GM making some judgment calls (winging it). Maybe saying that I’m looking for “a system” is a bad way for me to word it. What I’m really looking for is a method to resolve things while roleplaying.
I think the idea of assigning percentages as needed would work, with the only drawback being that the GM would have to be good at putting things in those terms. From all my practice scenarios, it works well for encounters where the opponents are very different in their ability levels. It gets hard when players or creatures are similar. It’s tempting to just say it’s a 50/50 chance.
Maybe my head is TOO far outside the box, lol. Curious to hear other’s thoughts.
Thanks again Salla.
Try here...
shop.ironcrown.com/index.php?main_page=i...
shop.ironcrown.com/index.php?main_page=p...
You may like them, you may not. But take a look...
For instance, Chameleon Eclectic's system, used for The Babylon Project and Millenium's End is a percentage based system very similar to Basic Roleplaying. At its core, it's fairly intuitive, your skill has a certain percentage chance of success, and you roll for success or failure, and sometimes have an opposed result of success or failure. So you have success vs succes, failure vs failure, failure vs success and success vs failure. All fairly intuitive from the system. You also have degree of success which can be done by subtraction or comparing numbers. That takes you from a fairly simple system to having something fairly complex.
Working with percentage based systems, they're fairly modular and cross-compatible. % is % from one system to the other, so it's not like trying to compare ST 10 in GURPS to Str 10 in D&D. 50% is always going to be 50%. That gives you modularity, as if you want to simulate something in more detail, you plug in rules for it, while if you want to gloss over it you leave it out. That's going to be one of the best ways to keep it simple.
Take a look at Chaosium's BRP Quickstart. It's 48 pages, so it keeps it simple, but the full version is some 320 pages I think, so you get a lot more detail for specific rules. From the quickstart, for any fields that I have real world expertise I found nothing wrong with the rules, and plenty right, but the rules were also vague enough to allow me to interpret them the way things actually work.
Short version, percentile systems are the simplest way to make a simple and realistic system.
Dice pool based systems are also worth looking at, although they're not as obviously simple, and depending on what you're looking for it's harder to nail, so I'd suggest looking at BRP first.