Designing a New Roleplaying System

As many other fellow Roleplayers that I've met online and in person, I am somewhat disgruntled about the systems I've had to work with. Dungeons and Dragons 3.x (Which includes D&D 3.0, 3.5 and Pathfinder), the main system I've dealt with, has some severe problems in balance at all levels, and the entirety suffers from very inelegant design choices. It makes it very hard to do any good homebrewing with the system, as the main body of the system is nearly collapsing under a pile of nitpicky rules that nobody has the time to keep track of and which often conflict with each other or overlap. All of it gets in the way of having fun with the game. Even other versions of  Dungeons and Dragons have their own problems. 4e combat turns into a horrid slog at higher levels. 2nd Edition was confusing to simply carry out basic combat with THAC0 (or that was my experience with it). 5th Edition isn't out, yet. And the others don't represent current-day gaming sensibilities.

So, I've been thinking about how I would be able to design a system that world work for me. So, I've come up with a few points that I've having serious problems with in the systems I'm familiar with, so I can address these problems in a new system.

• The whole magic system in 3.x is wack. (Wiggity-wack)
• Allowing too many options for actions within a single turn mucks everything up and slows down combat to the point where it's painful
• Ranged Combat doesn't integrate very well with Melee Combat balance (Then again, it didn't do so well in real life)
• Part of the problem is the fact that Melee Combat is the basis for the system, and it's abstracted a bit oddly
• Speed of Combat is screwy in both 3.x and 4e
• In 3.x, while technically the combat itself goes quickly, for characters that have classes that don't suck (e.g. Not Fighter and Samurai), there's so many options to sift through each round, and so many implications of how the combat will turn out for each option, that the actual speed of combat slows to a crawl (getting through every character in a half hour is about the average).
• Another problem at higher levels of 3.x, combat devolves to basically throwing nukes at each other and hoping that you make every save and the enemy fails at least one. After the enemy fails one, they're unable to fight, anyway
• Higher level combat in 4e is reminiscent of old and badly made bosses in old and badly made bosses which takes nearly ten-hundred billion turns to kill anything at all. Really quite boring to sit through and takes just as long at a 10-turn combat in 3.x
• In 3.x, there's a high amount of "trap options" which are very, very bad, or they're very, very situational. Unfortunately, there's absolutely no way to tell what's bad, what's situational, and what's actually good in many situations without basically mastering the system, or understanding what bonuses affect what
• This one gets on my nerves, because it would really be easy to note that certain feats, spells or even classes are massively inferior to others in every field, or are simply there to master a single aspect of the system, while other classes master or come close to mastering every aspect of the system
• Adding mounts or other factors in any part of 3.x or 4e seems to massively screw with the balance of the system
• This one I have seemingly had the worst problems with. Adding situations that aren't basic melee combat to the system create huge delays in combat, or are simply left out and forgotten after one or two rounds
• HP seems to be worthless at higher levels of play in both systems
• When a character can take tons of really heavy wounds in a single combat, then the abstraction of HP seems to be really, really odd
• Also, in 3.x, there's the "rocket tag" problem of HP not mattering because people are throwing tons of options that bypass HP around is rather serious at higher levels of play
• Armor adding to your ability to dodge and avoid damage has always confused me
• I've always thought that armor should be more like damage reduction; for example, you can hit the big guy easily, but your hits don't do a lot to him, on the other hand, you can't hit the agile guy at all, but when you do, it hurts him a lot
• Exploration isn't fun, takes time, and often is full of problems that are either impossible without the right skill, or are way too easily bypassed by utility spells
• Though this might be overcome by having good DM's who can make puzzles that have an end goal but not a single solution (sort of like how in Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, they give you rooms in the dungeons that have a general goal, and then you can pretty much do it with any of the tools you bring with you instead of having to have one single tool), a good deal of the blame for this rest on the shoulders of the system. Exploration in 3.x is often miserable or completely avoided at higher levels where scry-teleport strike raids are the best way to do things. Exploration in 4e was simple and avoidable to the point of being stupid. The biggest problem is that the rules make it hard for people to really explore anything.

So, I've taken a few ideas from this ripping apart of systems I've grown tired of, but are still pretty good systems. They've helped me learn more of what I want in a game.  Anyway, here are the points I would like to imbue into this new idea of a system.

• Acknowledgement of an Option's Applications
• Different options should have their intended applications acknowledged in the text that describes them. An option that is intended to help "squishy" characters survive will be noted as originally being intended as such, though it will also be noted that it can be applied in any circumstance where it is useful.
• Non-serious and Serious Damage are Represented Differently
• This isn't going to really solve everything, in fact it'll have it's own problems.
• It allows for characters to have basically an amount of "stamina" -- or vitality, which is what I'm probably going to call it -- which is them barely dodging blows, taking scrapes or bruises, etc. 
• This "stamina" allows for environmental factors to affect it, making the characters less able to defend against serious blows.
• It makes more sense for characters with healing abilities to be able to "revitalize" other characters in combat, rather than healing a severed limb or gut wound in combat. This works with a lot of the "second wind" abilities that don't necessarily use magical healing, as you're basically just giving another character the will to fight on.
• Some special abilities cost stamina, making it a resource for characters that choose options which drain it. This makes it useful for them to have minor "revitalization" abilities to keep themselves from getting shredded.
• It allows for characters to take severe damage along the lines of "wounds", which could cause some conditions which would make it easier to simply back out of the thick of combat for a bit while you tie up that massive gash in your leg and get "revitalized" by your buddies, then wade back into combat.
• The biggest way I see this going wrong is if characters aren't given any way to retreat when damaged, especially guys whose abilities are mainly for bringing the heat down on them. This would cause people to get damaged once, probably from luck, and then they would keep taking damage from the debuffs associated with getting seriously wounded.
• Being seriously wounded causes some debuffs depending on how many times you've been hit within so many rounds. This goes up to being knocked unconscious or losing a limb.
• Running out of wounds causes you to die. And then you're dead.
• Classes are Not Tied to a Role
• Players are not thrust into a specific role by choosing a class for their character. Each class should be able to take on multiple (not all) roles. They would have to specialize into a role, or they would have to take bits and pieces of each specialization available to them. 
• Optimally, this should have each class have a basic ability, and then each "branch" of options for the class should modify the ability so it's used differently for each of them.
• Suboptimally, this would add different abilities for each "branch", allowing the class to fulfill the role.
• Honestly, these two will probably come to a middle ground of having a basic ability with some modification and then some auxiliary abilities which can be used alongside the main ability.
• In-Combat Options are Limited
• Keeping Characters from having overly inflated numbers of options to choose from per action in each turn will help combat run more smoothly. A character should have something around 3-4 abilities he or she can use at basically any time, with another 1-2 that are available in the situation he's facing, instead of having to choose between hundreds of Powers, Spells, etc. or tens of Combat Maneuvers and such things. Point is, there's too many choices to make in a single round.
• The balance to strike here is giving everyone the tools they need to deal with situations that are going to come up without crowding up the number of options available. When a new combat option is introduced in a character's repertoire, it should be a huge game changer and a huge indication of progress (i.e. Achieving the "second stage" of development, or acquiring a hard to enter Prestige Class).
• The combat options for each character should mainly come from their Classes, and these should be modified by the class "branches" and by perks/feats (whatever they're called).
• Weapons, Armor and Other Tools are Simpler to Apply
• Weapons, and the weapon proficiencies of characters, are to be streamlined and made slightly more modular. Weapons themselves are to be created in a modular point-buy system, so that people can have the effects they want from the weapons they get. Weapon proficiencies are to be by Proficiency Groups of kinds of weapons that are used in similar ways (i.e. all pole weapons used to stab are in the same Proficiency Group, as the techniques they use are all the same or very similar).
• Weapons being created in a modular system is something I've wanted for a while, but might be hard to pull off. It does mean that two handaxes might not work the same, but then again, not every handax is equal. Yes, it means you can purposefully handicap players with gear that doesn't match their level, but that's a jerk move. The basic idea is that you'd be able to create what you need. You need a spear that does all the damage? You got it. What if you're more tanky? A spear that has properties that help you use your abilities to keep enemies at a distance and not let them get up in your friends' grill is more your style. So, you pick the category, the type of weapon, and then use the rest of the points to buy abilities or damage. 
• Weapon proficiencies would be grouped into how the weapon is used. So a hacking weapon, like an ax or a khopesh would be in the same group, because they work generally the same and you use similar forms and techniques. Your class will generally have suggested proficiency groups. The weapons from these groups are typically found with the bonuses that help your class preform its abilities better.
• Armors and armor proficiencies are similar to the changes with weapons and weapon proficiencies. Armors and their attributes are now in a modular point-buy system. Armor proficiencies are grouped by type of armor, though this is not much different than the "Heavy, Medium, Light" armor proficiencies of D&D, except with slightly more delineation, due to the new modularity of the armor creation system.
• The biggest changes to armor is that you now have the armors created in a modular system, and that armor is treated as damage reduction instead adding to the ability to dodge damage. The modular system allows you to pick a proficiency group, and then spend points in attributes and damage reduction.
• Proficiency Groups, while still being thought through, might be slightly more or less complex than D&D's system, depending on how things turn out. I'll have to get back to you after I think about it.
• Among other tools, Mounts need to be streamlined a ton. Mounted combat of all sorts (from horses to dragons to flying diesel-powered jet bikes) will be more fully integrated into the typical combat system.
• Mounted combat is confusing as all get out; you add the actions of the mount, except when you move together and.... Yeah. It just gets more complicated after that. So, instead I've been thinking about how to simplify mounts to the point where the information you need for them can be put on an index card alongside your character sheet, and it wouldn't dramatically increase the number of actions your character has.
• Exploration tools are very hard to keep track of in D&D, especially 3.x -- And all the others, too, but especially 3.x --, where tracking the weight and uses of every single thing you happen to have on you is the third-most time-consuming thing in the game (topped only by leveling up and deciphering the grappling rules). To simplify this is going to take a bit of work, most likely the creation of kits, where you have all the supplies you would likely take on an adventure, minus a few big things that cost too much and would have to be bought separately, and you just keep it topped off every time you visit a market, rather than truly having to keep track of what's really going on with your inventory.
• I know some people actually like having an inventory, but, frankly, it's not fun for 99% of people who play roleplaying games. So, instead, you just need to have a few kits for the things you think that you'll need to do. This needs a bit more thought than what I've currently put into it.
• Exploration is Engaging and Fun
• Well, this is a bold claim, but I hope to make Explortaion into a much more engaging and stimulating by re-evaluating the skills and streamlining the system so it's understandable and works correctly. That's going to take more thinking and work than I've got in me currently.

Well, I think that's enough thinking about that for now. We'll get back to this when I've got more think in me. Any suggestions on what else I need to think about would be appreciated, and I will also try to explain more about how the system will work in the next post. So. Stuff and stuff.