I've been wanting to run a game of courtly intrigue for some time now, but the systems that I typically use and know are really bad at dealing with such things and tend to reward players for stabbing things rather than not stabbing things. Looking through new systems, I've found a number which have interesting mechanics to help deal with more exploration- and roleplay-based challenges, but they often don't have the systems I can easily sit down with the players I've got and teach them how to use them in one sitting. So, instead, I'm working up a system that I'm pretty much only going to use to run this single campaign.
I'm building Classes and Perks that help the players understand that while they may participate in combat sometimes, it's risky business, and their particular roles in said combat aren't usually going to be the guys stabbing things. A captain doesn't always lead from the front, but they always need to rally their troops and organize their resources. An investigator isn't necessarily going to deal with a scuffle with a few hired thugs by slaying them, in fact it would probably be smarter to escape, and even smarter to lead the thugs into a trap where the police will take them into custody. If you're going in for the long con, you're not going to go into it by slicing throats, that draws too much attention.
So what happens when your character is a miserable pile of secrets but holds a place in society that they shouldn't necessarily have due to their history or backstory? How do you keep those who would tear you from your place from getting to the secrets while uncovering the plots of those around you? That's the fun part.
There's a multitude of skills that you have, plus your "professional skill". I've been using a mutation of the system that D&D 5e uses for skills, with your character gaining the ability to buy proficiency in skills through skill points, or use those skill points to boost skills you're already proficient in. You can engage in several different types of skill challenges, from the simple "Roll higher than this difficulty class" to the complex parrying and riposting of word and sword.
Similar to skills, I'm using a mutation of the typical D&D stat-line. Strength, Agility, Endurance, Dexterity, Willpower, Intellect, Perception, Personality, and Mystic are your 9 stats. Yes, nine. Why? Deus vult. Or something of that sort. In the end, I really wanted more stats, so I could give people more of a challenge to actually be effective in combat while giving them more skills to play with.
I'm trying to handle spells differently than D&D, though. Using magic is typically going to be more of skill-based thing, with the skills being tied to your Mystic stat. A few abilities are going to come from your class, but your spellcasting is going to be very limited, much like the D&D 3.5 Warlock rather than the Wizard. Anything more complex than basic thaumaturgy is sorcery, and sorcery takes rituals of different types to cast. Divination, Geomancy, Abjuration, etc. are all things that take skill and finesse to produce. I'm thinking that there will be various ways to create some spell items that complete much more complex spells than you would normally be able to throw out, but then you've spent that item or it has caused some disruption to your body that makes your perform worse for a time. For example, you can use arcane mathematics and Geomancy to craft a scroll which holds a mostly complete spell and you can lay the spell down and cause the spell to be complete with a few small words and actions.
I feel like this would make the magic more of a risk with some bad consequences, perhaps even permanent consequences. If you mess up your skill check, you could have a spell backfire on you, causing your character penalties depending on what sort of spell it can be.
The Professional Skill is something your character gets during character creation. They all know how to do something, at least. Whether this is carpentry or chemistry, your character can use this as a knowledge skill, a crafting skill, and an economic skill within his or her profession. If a character is a lumberjack, he can use this in place of his knowledge nature skill to identify trees, for example. If a character is an alchemist, she can use this in place of a crafts skill to create a poison. All professional skills can be used during downtime to gain a wage.
For health, I'm returning to the good old Vitality and Wounds system, with vitality being your near misses, your scrapes, your bruises, and wounds being your gut stabs, your crushed ribs, your broken bones. This one's simple, and it allows for people to take scrapes and get out of places that would kill them without them immediately dying, but it also allows me to gear up some of the enemies so that they'd inflict deadly wounds on the players if the players decided to waltz in and try to kill people instead of going about things other ways. If a player decides to clomp up to the bandit leader and try to run him through, he'll probably end up with a very dead character as the rest of the bandits fill him full of crossbow quarrels and throwing daggers, but if he sneaks up while the bandit leader is in the privy and puts a nice, quiet bolt through the man's head, his character will get out alive.
Most classes and perks are going to be geared at helping the players create characters that can go about doing skillful things in ways that other characters can't. For example, being able to use your willpower to lie properly despite the fact that you might have a bad personality stat, or being able to add your hulking strength to intimidate someone. You might even be able to use specific skills in place of others, but it will probably not be completely equal. Like using your senses to see magical effects and auras instead of having to use divination, which may be a very bad skill for your character.
In the end, stabbing people in the back can be fun, and keeping rules somewhat arcane can work for certain styles of game.
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