With the announcements of new games in development (shout out to MCDM and Kobold Press which are two of my favorites, and I can't wait to see what they come up with), I've been thinking again about new systems. There are countless incredible games on the market, though I still feel there are some aspects to gameplay that are not represented, or at least not quite what I think it could be. Here are some notes on what I would look to bring to a TTRPG system...
1. Character advancement (leveling) - I don't love any of the popular leveling systems. Milestone has its benefits, but it doesn't effect gameplay directly enough and in my experience it does not motivate the players the way I want a leveling system to. XP for Gold, while it encourages exploration (the most underserved part of TTRPG play, but we'll get to that) it just doesn't quite work for me, and old school calculating XP... while I respect the commitment... no thanks. I want an advancement system that directly motivates and drives the way the PCs act. My system would be something like, when advancing the player can pick skills to improve that they used in sessions leading up to this advancement. Has your character been attempting to move with stealth? Casting spells? Swinging a giant axe? Those are the things that your character has improved. Failure makes you better. This system might even track failed rolls, which would then become the currency used to advance. I believe Blades in the Dark uses a system of experience based on failures if I'm not mistaken, so I might look for inspiration there.
2. Exploration - Exploration is often completely overlooked in modern play, mainly due to D&D 5E lacking pretty much any support for it. Any game I write would include a set of actionable tools for the DM to make exploration challenging and interesting for the players. I have heard that Free League's Forbidden Lands RPG has a solid exploration system built in, so that might be a good starting point to explore (get it?).
3. Magic - Another criticism often thrown at D&D 5E is that the magic does not feel magical. This is due partially to it being too predictable and easy to obtain. Unlimited cantrips and spell slots that refresh every day automatically make magic feel cheap. Magic should have a cost, a real cost, and it should be dangerous and somewhat unpredictable. DCC does a good job of achieving this, but it goes to god-tier levels of crunch in order to get there. I'd like something in that DCC neighborhood in terms of feel, but much more rules light.
4. Skill check capping (I don't have a name for this yet and "check capping" sucks)- One thing that has always bothered me about the D20 roll system most TTRPGs are based on is the idea that one character who is skilled in a particular area can be so easily outshined by another unskilled character simply by a roll. For example, a muscled human fighter with a high strength score might attempt to lift a heavy portcullis. The player rolls a 3, not enough. So now the tiny halfling thief tries and rolls a 19. There should be a game mechanic that solves this problem. I have heard of GMs only allowing certain skill checks to be made by characters with proficiency (to use a 5e term) in a skill. This starts to get in the right direction, but more is needed. As far as existing games that solve this problem... I have run a few games of Kids on Bikes, and the system they use assigns different dice to each skill based on ability. So a character who is poor at a skill gets a D4, but that same character rolls a D20 for skills they are good at, thus creating a ceiling for unskilled rolls.
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