My New System Post 1 of Part 1: Dark Tony Hawk Is Born (Design Goals and All that Jazz)

In my earlier post, I talked about making a new pen and paper, dice rolling, tabletop roleplaying game system. So. Here's my general design goals for this project and the thoughts I have behind them. (Most of this will look somewhat similar to what was said last time, but either be more or less vague about it.)

• Combat needs to be quick in real and in-game time
• Combat needs to flow (Rounds need to go by at a constant rate)
• Players need to have a manageable pool of in-combat options to choose from for each turn
• Exploration needs to be interesting
• The Skill system is the basis for Exploration and needs to have good interplay with obstacles
• Players should have tools to deal with their situations
• Classes should be based off of a general concept but allow for variation in role within the concept
• Not every class should be able to take on every role, but every class should be able to take on multiple roles or even hybrid roles as they advance
• Classes should have a central mechanic that fits with the flavor of the class
• Most choices should be made in character creation, allowing for quick decisions and manageable numbers of abilities in exploration and combat

Note that these are some design choices that I'm trying to make for the project in general. I will be mussing with these as I get more into the system and will be creating some design goals for each piece of the project. The main pieces of the project as I see them now are: 1. Combat, 2. Classes, 3. Skills, and 4. Other Options.

While Combat should be the first thing I focus on, there are pieces to combat within the 

system that need to be figured out. These are:

• Action Economy
• What kinds of actions are there and how do they constitute a turn
• Turn Taking
• How is the order determined, and under what circumstances can the order be disrupted
• Defenses
• What constitutes the various defenses and how are they applied
• Attacks
• How do you attack, and what are some ideas for basic kinds of attacks
• Damage
• How is damage calculated and from what sources can it come

So, expect to hear more back when I've got a better idea of what constitutes combat, and feel free to add comments on what you would like to see out of a combat system or how you think one of these topics might work.

Post 1 of Part 1. Part 1 = General Design Goals.