David A. Hill needed the money. As he puts it:

A near stranger but loose associate from my Twitter account said that he couldn’t provide the full 200$ I was asking for, but would instead contribute 50$ to the project, if three other patrons would. You can find out more about his idea here. Thing is, he wanted the four contributors to come up with the game idea, then he wanted to see it released as a Creative Commons licensed product.

So now Hill is designing an RPG in public, from a core mechanic on through, all in 10,000 words and all with the windows open, so you can stick your head in. It’s an ambitious, reckless, crazy project — I applaud him.

Two of Hill’s core posts, “Talkin’ ’bout My Core Mechanic” and “Character Traits” lay out a fairly fascinating target-number-based mechanic utilizing a single d4 and multiple target numbers:

I like the idea of using the four-sided die. It’s simple, it uses numbers that are easy to visualize. It also keeps the four motif in the front of your mind, even when you’re moderating combats. [via]

and

These four traits determine the target numbers of a given challenge. The GM declares the target, depending on what the player declares. “I’m slapping him,” would likely have a target of 1 for instance. To succeed on a different target, a point of another trait would have to be used. In that instance, the character might slap another, and tell him that he’s a miserable wretch, and that he should leave before things get worse. In that instance, a Soul trait would be spent to allow success on 1 or 3. [via]

This is my brainstorming response to his example of the system in action:

What do you gain by drawing out contests into “best of three?” What if it is simply the first to gain a success, since you’ll have so many ways to tie once the additional traits are in play? That is, once players are lumping two and three traits together at a time, they’ll be rolling against two or three numbers at a shot, and ties may become frequent. The first to not-tie is simply the victor, and let the stakes be what they may. It’s severe, but so is the setting, yes? (We’re getting closer to the GUMSHOE system with this, I think.)

Optionally, let points be attached to each trait, so you can only add a trait to a roll so many times, so you’re not just having every roll attempt to tap as many traits as possible. If I feel like spending points out of Body, Reason, and Soul, that’ll cost me. It contributes to the stakes. Plus, players can easily say to themselves that they’re buying 25/50/75% chances and intuitively eyeball the mechanic along the way.

Alternatively, higher numbers are still better, so assigning a value to a trait is part of character creation — it’s not just that 4 is a success for me, it’s that 4 is better than 3, 2, or 1, and for me a 4 is Body (while, for you, a 4 is Reason). Thus, I want to Reason with you while you want to fight with me, and it’s a race to the target number (of, say, 10). So in a fight (where Body is the base trait in play), if I buy my Body (2) and Reason (4) into the conflict, any roll of 2 or 4 adds to my total, climbing towards success. If you fight me with just Body (4) — not being willing to pay a trait cost to add something else to the mix — you have a 25% chance of scoring 4 points, while I have a 25% chance of scoring 4 points, too, but a 50% chance of scoring any points at all (because I might roll a 2 and score two points, whereas you won’t score anything if you roll a 1, 2, or 3). The conflict is just that important to me, so I spent point on it.

I haven’t run the math on it, so it may be wobbly as hell, or it may work. I’m just spitballing here.

[via]

What do you think? I’ve tried not to think about it at all since I posted it, just to leave this mechanic on the table so you can fiddle with it.

Exploring mechanics like this is great fun for a certain kind of nerd. If it sounds like fun, you should join in. It’d be wonderful to see as much discussion going around Hill’s project as possible, to see a bunch of gamers being creative and cooperative, in the spirit of his Creative Commons license. To that end, comment here, or comment there, but if you’ve got an opinion (or a warning, or a suggestion, or some praise), and you’re willing to share it, then please share it. David Hill’s the developer, but he’s invited us all into this design meeting. So let’s play.