Hi everyone.

I'll make it short. I've been working on a world of fantasy of my own for a couple of years and I recently felt the need to move those ideas and stories written on paper to a playable format. Dungeon & Dragon is a very fun game, I like it and will probably keep playing it for years. We all have our personal opinion and here I'm wondering what would be the best elements to incorporate in a game like D&D to assure a certain success. As you probably understood, I'm currently designing my own Tabletop.

So here are my guideline questions, feel free to state anyway else you'd find useful to point out:

-What do you specifically like to see in a Tabletop Pen & Paper RPG ?
-What are D&D strengths ? Things to are happy to see.
-What are D&D weaknesses ? Things that are missing or things that you'd like to see in it.
-Any good features or systems you appreciated in other tabletop Pen & Paper RPGs ?
-If you'd be waiting for a new game to release: what would you like that game to propose ?

You get the main picture of my questions. I'm trying to know what interest peoples to most and what are good shots and bad shots. I'm also trying to take the best out of each popular game and leave what's not appreciated.

I thank you all in advance hoping you'll all help me with my project.
Alkaizer.

I've played RPGs since way back in the pre-D&D Chainmail days, and have tried to play as many as I could...even designed my own at times, and quite regularly modify the ones I play.

The main things I look for in RPGs these days:

Playability. Simple, easy to learn and easy to remember systems have always stood out to me. If I have to use a calculator at any stage of the game, whether it be character creation or working out combat, then it's too complex and prone to bog down when it shouldn't. The same with vast arrays of charts and tables.

Creativity . I want to be able to build my character as he develops, and like having enough options available that I can start with a certain character at level one but have several viable build options by the time I'm well into the campaign. A system where I can easily build any character from a fantasy setting that I can imagine (with minor tweaks for feel and flavour of course) is a good'un.

Consistency. The game doesn't need to be ultra-realistic, just internally consistent and have sound meta-physics...enough that I can interact with the game world through my character and not continually end up dead through game-logic loopholes that my character would be aware of.

Long-term playability. Some systems have sound game mechanics that work really well for one particular type of scenario, but are useless for other scenario types. The first adventure is often great, since it's built on them, then falls apart when the campaign moves on.

Short-term playability. We generally only play one night a week, for a few hours a night...I want many things to happen during that time. Epic, drawn out combats that are fought over 3-4 hours sound great, but it means they're being fought out over 2 weeks real-time, and that's too much.

Standard mechanics. I want to use the same game mechanics for combat as I do for non-combat encounters, and I want both of them to be seen as necessary to the game...a combat character should be just as viable (in the right setting and party) as a diplomat.

Minimal book-keeping. Speaks for itself. Particularly with hit points / health / wounds etc...numbers might not be "realistic", but they're manageable and work out okay (suspend that disbelief!).

Dice! Yeah, I like dice, and they add a nice random touch to event resolution. But keep the dice mechanics simple and in the background...if you need special dice to play, or the best thing about the game is that it uses D30 instead of D20, it's a gimmick, not a game. Ditto for games that use coins, counters, cards etc...if the only thing about them is that "they don't use dice like DnD", then it's likely a suspect system.

Trying to create your own RPG to compete with D&D is like trying to make a home movie that competes with Titanic or Avatar. Try listening and talking to these folks: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forge/index.php

this may not relate directly to what you're doing, but i'll throw it out there for fun.

i am an ex-WoW raider/addict/etc. i quit oct 31 2009, because i saw the game going downhill fast and didnt want to watch it tear itself to shreds the hard way. in any event, i've done a lot of thinking since on why exactly it became so popular, and i've got a couple ideas.

one: Simplicity with the option of Complexity. some people like a nice, easy ride to be the best. do this enough, and you'll get this, which will make you #1. on the other hand, some people like figuring out precise mechanisms, theorycraft, and (if they get really extreme) spew overthought BS out of their mouths (fingers?) 'till the topic drowns in the filth. if you're designing a system, keep in mind that different players want different things.

two: shiny. people like big numbers. this may be a bit gimmicky, but 1d10 = 1-10 feels so.. unsatisfying. 1d10 = 1000, 2000, 3000, etc, though, feels like you just made that <monster A> have the absolute worst day of it's life. nevermind that instead of 36 HP, it has 36,000 - nobody gives a rat's about that! (keeping in mind here that my basic social-interaction philosophy can be summed up in three words - People Are Stupid.)

three: advertise like a crackwhore in bangkok, but dont get tacky. random ads on websites, at least to me, tend to actually throw me off a game rather than make me want to play it, simply because of the sheer amount of malicious code that can and does go through those ads, let alone the websites they often direct to. nevermind that yours dont do that - nobody else knows that. anywho, do interviews, write (personal! copy-pasted crap goes under the same line as above) explanations and such about the game. random fanboying, though, will turn people off - it's really a fine line.

four: use stereotypes, but deviate from them as well. a perfect example is the Assassin class in DnD. instead of the usual assassin's creed-esque rogue, it's a shadow-bound not-quite-<race> who wields magic that isnt quite magic, and does so to deadly effect. it's still got the basic purpose - divide and destroy - but the way it does so is refreshing.

i'll likely have more, if you're interested, after a good night's sleep.

I don't want this thread to die ! I still need more feedback while I'm working on this. I invite people that didn't participated in the thread yet to do so. Thanks in advance. I'll soon do a resume of the answers I got up to now from the different forums where I posted this.

Ok here's a new set of questions.

Which model do you like the most concerning the spells:
-At a certain level your class has access to a certain number of spells, you can use them all. (example: DnD3e for spellcasters which didn't have a spellbook. If you were the right level for 3rd level spells, you could cast any of your 3rd level, 2nd level or 1st level spells, you knew them all already).
-You have to select a few spells available to your class, restricting your abilities and pushing you do take decisions. (example: kind of like the 4e, classes offer a large number of spells but you can't take them all)

Which model do you prefer concerning fighter-type classes and spells/exploits:
-Fighter-type classes (fighter, rogue, ranger, etc) have exploits in the same format has the spellcasters spell giving them more possibilities than just attacking. (example: 4e, fighters have the ability Brute Strike, the Warlock has Flames of Plethegos. Mathematically and design-wise speaking they are the same, but one is called a spell and the other an exploit).
-Fighter-type classes get more "class features" to make their gameplay for dynamic and give them possibilities but do not have "spells" or "exploits", their damages/effects comes mainly from their basic attack or from their class features.
-Fighter-type classes do not get more class features than other classes, they do not have any "spells" or "exploits" and thus play by doing basic attack constantly, that's what a fighter is supposed to do anyway.

You can still answer the previous questions or give a general feedback about what you like or dislike in roleplaying games you know. Thanks !

Just to throw you a curve, I really liked building a "class" in 2nd edition. You basically picked the skills and features you wanted from any class, but the more you took, the longer it took you to advance.

I guess the basic concept of being able to create whatever you like is appealing, but then give a few core "builds" for beginners or people that just want to play a rogue, fighter or wizard and don't want to spend 3 hours in chargen.

As a player, I like being able to cast any spell I want, of my level. As a DM, I like the player to have to make a choice. Maybe a hybrid would be to make them choose, but let them cast a spell they know but not have memorized, but at a penalty?

Overall, I like quick and simple rules i.e. streamlined. I like a dice system that seems natural and minimizes the amount of factors you need to add/subtract before you roll.

Creating a game system from scratch, though, is only half the battle. If you aren't a big game company that can create a system and sell rulebooks with very little setting information, then you also need to create a setting. Without something like that, most people aren't going to take a risk trying to play your "game"...

I'll throw the other curve ball at you.

If I was to pick the perfect table top RPG game system, I would pick something that's as unlike D&D as possible. Honestly, I think 4e is clunky, overly complicated and generally a huge mess of rules and modifiers. They fixed a lot of things that were a problem with D&D but they forgot to address the most stressing and problematic aspects; the complexity, the modifiers and all of that together makes it incredibly time consuming.

I only have 4 hours a week to play table top RPGs - and the first time that we spent that entire interval fighting some trash mobs (a single battle) we closed the 4e books and haven't looked back since. Between the amount of conditions and things flying around, conditional effects, tracking power use and tracking hit points - the bookkeeping at higher levels is horrendous - it just took forever to manage the battle (for everyone)

Not to mention the modifiers on damage are so big that the random element of the dice ceases to matter. 2d6+50 damage... And the modifiers on hit dice are superficial (sure you roll 1d20+21 to hit... but the monsters defenses have increased by about 15 since you were rolling 1d20+6 to hit. Go figure eh?)

So what would I want to see?

Meaningful Dice Rolls I want that randomized value to actually have an impact. But there's such thing as too much random, player decisions so be more important then the result of the dice. But the dice should matter - else why use them?

Low Complexity Less is more. A lesson from my childhood, friends and I were trying to make a variant of D&D and we wanted to make damage huge because big numbers are cool. We had swords deal 4d8*100 damage, and to balance it we multiplied monster HP by 100. Another friend pointed out that not only was this adding needless complexity, but it was artificial at that. Lesson: bigger numbers/more conditions or abilities is not better.

Quick A single event in the game should be resolvable within an hour, and it should still be rewarding. My favourite game system at the moment is Savage Worlds and their motto is a very very good one to take to heart: FFF - Fast Furious Friendly

Classless It sucks to be put in a box. Don't force everyone to have a box when it's not necessary.