Combining saves and stats is obviously not new, but I feel like we could take it a bit further. Do we really need HP?
Stats
How stats exactly work doesn’t actually matter a ton, so long as we’ve got the philosophy that each stat represents a different way to avoid danger. I’ve got:
- Tough
- Fast
- Sneaky
And then different classes can give you others. For example:
- A Fighter can get Well Trained
- A Paladin can get Divine Luck
- A Wizard can get Protective Wards
Etc. You can even have stats you get diegetically, maybe you meet a master in the woods and she teaches you the Skin Of Stone stat or the Reading the Wind stat.
Rolling
When you are in danger, you pick and roll a stat to avoid it with. Obviously some things just won’t work: if you’re in the middle of a group of guards, sneaky probably isn’t going to cut it, try something else.
Rather than success/failure, we have Success + Marked Success.
- On a Success, you avoid the danger
- On a Marked Success, you avoid the worst of the danger, but get a Mark
Marks
A Mark is an injury, curse, or effect placed over one of your stats. While a stat is marked, you can’t use it to avoid danger.
The default Marks might be like, “Injured [body part],” “Spooked,” “Hungry,” but different monsters might have specifics, like a dragon might have “Charred to a Crisp” or a Nymph might have “Entranced” or “Wrapped up by vines.”
Marks stick around until they logically would be removed in-fiction.
If all your stats are marked, you can’t roll to avoid it if you’re in danger: probably, this means death, but it basically just comes down to “if a monster wants to do something to you, sorry bud, it happens.”
Why do I like this system?
- Diegetic ties between your ability, your injuries, and when you get hurt.
- Forces characters to use their less-favoured stats sometimes.
- Reduces numerical bookkeeping.
- Your death is unlikely to come as a surprise; it’s a lot harder to die before you have 0-1 stats remaining. It’s still lethal, but it’s a bit more about being ground down by the dungeon rather than getting unlucky.
- More stats = higher ‘HP.’ Higher stats = less chance of getting a Mark in the first place. There’s flexibility in how to use it.
Here's a proof of concept for a system that uses this engine, including a core dice mechanic, GLOGian magic system, example class, and example monster
