game system idea(s)

[Kindling]

I've had a couple of vague ideas bouncing around in my head on and off for a few months now. I was wondering if anyone a) thinks they're worth anything - a lot of you are a lot better with games crunch than I am - and b) knows of any games that already do these things or anything similar.

First idea: your stats, skills, attributes or whatever aren't static numbers that say "this character is x good/bad at this thing." Instead they're a spendable resource. So say the base mechanic is rolling 4 or more on 1d6 to succeed, if you spent a point of the relevant skill/ability on a particular roll it would turn into rolling 3 or more on 1d6 or rolling 4 or more on 1d8 or something. So you can excel more times in things you have high scores in, but you will still eventually exhaust yourself and be no better at doing those things than anyone else. It's like a measure of available effort or reserves of energy or something, maybe.

Second idea: damage comes straight off your skills/abilities rather than having any kind of HP. Most damage is general, so the player gets to spread it between skills/abilities as they choose but certain types of attacks or environmental hazards or diseases or whatever deal targeted damage to a specific skill/ability - a psychic attack might specifically deal targeted Intelligence damage for example. So the more you get smacked about the less reserves you have to call on to get shit done yourself. This could also represent fatigue, hunger, etc. as well as direct combat/magic damage.

Third idea: each skill/ability heals by doing a different activity. So your Courage might heal if you spend time with your loved ones, telling jokes and stories and singing songs, your Piety might heal through meditative prayer and your Swordsmanship might heal by practicing your cuts and stances with a sparring partner.

[Ghostman]

First idea: your stats, skills, attributes or whatever aren't static numbers that say "this character is x good/bad at this thing." Instead they're a spendable resource. So say the base mechanic is rolling 4 or more on 1d6 to succeed, if you spent a point of the relevant skill/ability on a particular roll it would turn into rolling 3 or more on 1d6 or rolling 4 or more on 1d8 or something. So you can excel more times in things you have high scores in, but you will still eventually exhaust yourself and be no better at doing those things than anyone else. It's like a measure of available effort or reserves of energy or something, maybe.

The stats would have to regenerate over time, otherwise you'll run out of points. Even then it might feel awkward, depending on how easy it is to exhaust your reserves. Why would someone who is factually a piano virtuoso revert to the level of a fumbling beginner after playing a few sonatas (spending piano skill points on each one until none are left)?

Second idea: damage comes straight off your skills/abilities rather than having any kind of HP. Most damage is general, so the player gets to spread it between skills/abilities as they choose but certain types of attacks or environmental hazards or diseases or whatever deal targeted damage to a specific skill/ability - a psychic attack might specifically deal targeted Intelligence damage for example. So the more you get smacked about the less reserves you have to call on to get shit done yourself. This could also represent fatigue, hunger, etc. as well as direct combat/magic damage.

Allowing players to choose the target could get really bizzarre if it's not restricted somehow. I'm also thinking that most kinds of damage should logically apply to several different skills/abilities rather than just one.

Third idea: each skill/ability heals by doing a different activity. So your Courage might heal if you spend time with your loved ones, telling jokes and stories and singing songs, your Piety might heal through meditative prayer and your Swordsmanship might heal by practicing your cuts and stances with a sparring partner.

I think that might work better as a means to increase the maximum value of your skill/ability rather than recovering lost points. The source of healing seems like something that should instead be determined by the cause of the damage suffered: if the damage is due to hunger, you heal by enjoying a healthy nutritious diet; if it's due to sleep deprivation, you heal by following a steady sleeping rhythm for a few days; if it's due to exhaustion from running an ultramarathon, you heal by resting your muscles; if it's due to wounds, you heal by being treated in a hospital.

[Steerpike]

The idea of skills-as-resources is explored somewhat extensively in GUMSHOE (free SRD here - it's the system used for things like Night's Black Agents) which might be looking into to refine your own ideas.

Characters have a static rating and a pool that fluctuates.  There are pools/ratings for individual skills.  You spend points from your pools to do stuff better, until your pool gets depleted.  It can periodically refresh.  The presence of ratings means that even a character whose pool points are exhausted can have an advantage over another character with a lower rating in the same skill (i.e. sometimes you're comparing ratings, not pool points), but the core mechanic is about expending pool points to represent special effort and exertion.

[Kindling]

Why would someone who is factually a piano virtuoso revert to the level of a fumbling beginner after playing a few sonatas (spending piano skill points on each one until none are left)?

I feel like that could be solved by codifying exactly what level of effort is represented by each point spent. If only 1 roll is made for each entire concert, rather than for individual pieces, for example, then your pianist might not be forced to play like an amateur at the concert at all - instead they would just decide whether to pour everything they have into the concert, leaving their hands trembling and clumsy from exhaustion (spending all their Piano points) or hold back a little in case for whatever reason they end up needing to perform again before they have a chance to rest and recover.

Allowing players to choose the target could get really bizzarre if it's not restricted somehow. I'm also thinking that most kinds of damage should logically apply to several different skills/abilities rather than just one.

I was kind of picturing the player choice as going something like this...
GM: He hits you for 5 damage!
Player: Okay, I'll take 3 to Courage and 2 to Charm - I'm now terrified as I seem to be losing the fight and my bruised, bloody face isn't going to win any beauty contests until it gets cleaned up.
... so it's sort of giving some narrative control to the player as to exactly how their character gets affected... but like I said maybe some kinds of damage would target specific stats, where appropriate.

The source of healing seems like something that should instead be determined by the cause of the damage suffered: if the damage is due to hunger, you heal by enjoying a healthy nutritious diet; if it's due to sleep deprivation, you heal by following a steady sleeping rhythm for a few days; if it's due to exhaustion from running an ultramarathon, you heal by resting your muscles; if it's due to wounds, you heal by being treated in a hospital.

Unless the source of the damage means that it only ever affects the ability that is healed in the logical way? Like, hunger damage targets the ability that's healed by eating well, fatigue damage targets the ability that's healed by sleeping?

The idea of skills-as-resources is explored somewhat extensively in GUMSHOE (free SRD here), which might be looking into to refine your own ideas.

That sounds a lot like what I was envisaging, I'll check it out. Thanks!

[sparkletwist]

Treating skills and such as a spendable resource is also something that diceless RPGs do rather often, because they need some way to add variety/chaos/whatever without any dice. So that might be a direction to look, also.

As for damage coming straight off abilities, this is generally a bad idea because it makes characters less capable, often in a task they are trying to do right now, which can lead to a "death spiral." If you want some semblance of this without as much bookkeeping or problems with a death spiral you could always use HP (and/or a Fate-like consequences system) and apply a small but noticeable global penalty if a character is really hurting.