A common question: “With so much stuff on your site, have you considered making your own RPG?”
The simple answer is contained on pages like these:
http://www.rpg.net/directory/diy.html
http://www.darkshire.org/~jhkim/rpg/freerpgs/fulllist.html
There are hundreds of home-made RPGs out there! I wonder how many ever get read, let alone played…
Any RPG I “invented” would look like… well, GURPS with some changes. I think GURPS makes a great RPG base, and lends itself to tweaks pretty well too… I’m happy to stick with that!
But just for the fun of it: if I were to think up a spanking-new set of mechanics for a game, without legacy ties to GURPS, features might include:
- Skills expressed as modifiers (Bicycling +4, Fishing 0, Bolas -3, etc.).
- What the heck: attributes expressed as modifiers too, with human average being 0 (ST +3, HT 0, DX -2, etc.).
- Log ST (so every +X points of ST = xY lifting ability, etc.). This enables working Contests of ST, unlike GURPS. However, damage would not follow a HERO-like “+X points of ST = +Yd damage”.
- Skills and other attributes also made into log stats, if and when useful and playable.
- Possibly log-based damage? It has its good and bad points…
- Task success computed as a roll of 11+ on 3d plus modifiers (skills, attributes, situational mods).
- Reworked versions of lots of the stuff at the Diner…
