Action roleplaying game

[kylesgames]

So, before I get autoflushed into spam, I've had an idea.

What about trying to make a game with a three-minute start-to-finish combat turn (assuming, oh, 8 combatants). That's not three minutes of declaring and resolving actions; the goal is to have 33% mechanics time and 66% narration time. I also want it to have combat versatility with modifiable giant robots (and interesting but largely analogous personal-scale combat).

Here's what I've got so far:

Simultaneous turns: Actors get cards that they use to declare their actions; no need to verbally announce. You roll your dice, place your card, and move the dice onto the card, which has special spaces for special effects.
Single Rolls: There's no to-hit chance, every attack hits unless a defender manages to avoid it or block it entirely. Multiple dice may be used, but never in sequences: roll all of 'em at once [special weapon effects may actually be separate, but you could, say, use colored dice and roll simultaneously or roll extra dice separately].
Single Math Operations: No more than one math operation per actor. Preferably a total number of operations roughly equal to .75*Actors.
Limited Persistent Resources: We're not going to be tracking any changing numbers that we can't store on dice. Weapons have an ammunition count, for instance, but Ammunition is basically "Weapon does a bonus Xd6 starting at this value, rather than rolling the dice they start at a certain face value and are decreased by 1 for each subsequent attack." There are no hit points: mechs lose locomotion systems or weapons each time they get hit, while people lose arm/leg use. Fifth hit always incapacitates. Brutal weapons cause permanent damage, most weapons just take someone out for a combat. Mechs don't get incapacitated just by losing locomotion and weapons if they have spares, while people actually wind up going down after four hits. You can build some truly frightening giant robots, but even a twenty-limbed monstrosity still goes down after five successful hits, and its evasion pool falls pretty low.

Out of combat, I have a very simplified system for play, because I want this game to be novice-accessible. The roll system is somewhat inspired by D&D's Proficiency system, with a Attribute plus Skill rating that is then modified by an overall Renown rating, which provides d6 dice to roll. A "specialist" should have a A+S rating of 5 per die from Renown, while a "weak" character gets about 1.5 on average. At high levels, normal actions become reliable, but not guaranteed for characters who aren't specialists in the field, while specialists do epic feats like it's nothing.

[Onix]

I like the goal of fast play and the simplification that it requires. I've been playing a system that, while very different from the one you're working on, has a lot of the same goals. This is how I'm working it.

Players can roll a number of dice that depends on their resources and skill. Equipment usually adds it's values only after you've rolled and resolved for skill.

There is no dodging or missing. The better roll wins and moves the contest forward.

I've taken the approach that the roll is done first and the narration of what just happened is up to the players. The better the narration, the better the chance the GM will give you a little bonus.

The one thing I want to do with the system is to eliminate adding all your dice together. I want to have the players compare their dice and evaluate the rolls from that. Doing that does cause problems with the system though.

[kylesgames]

I still have math, but I keep it to addition. I can't really get rid of dice (except for defense ratings, which use d20's or d100's to indicate values because they don't need to do that) because I use dice on the weapon scale.

One of the things that I'm going for is to minimize the communication required. The narrator doesn't need to give you input on your events (barring in adventuring, which has a similarly minimalistic ruleset since the game is intended for novices, but in which time is typically less critical). I'm hoping to get an IP for it (a particular IP, one I've worked with in the past), which will allow me to write in some interesting mechanics: if a character fails, they can force a success, but take a penalty die for a while. All communication takes place physically, and persists until everyone interested can check it and it's time for the next round.

[Onix]

Minimal narration is fine, no narration though just leaves the game an odd version of Yahtzee.

I'm still struggling with how to balance giving the player the ability to narrate what's going on and a need to structure the story. My players are already flabbergasted that they get to say what happens as a result of their rolls. Getting them to input story elements has left them dumbfounded. I'm stepping back from that.

My players tend to be minimalistic in their descriptions which is okay, but not very satisfying. It's interesting that other players tend to flush out the details of what just happened as a result of the roll and not the player that just rolled. I think I should be favoring that behavior but I'm not sure how to reward it yet.

[kylesgames]