What comes after The Next Project?

I'd like to take a bit of a detour today, and discuss something I've been asked a few times in the past: 

"So what's your next game going to be?"

While I did work on a few homebrew TTRPG designs in the past, I've always sort of thought as 'The Next Project' as being my magnum opus within the genre; I've often answered the question with, "I'm not a game designer, I'm just a guy who designed a game."

Early on, what inspired me was the question, "what are the classes for the next Diablo game [after Diablo 2] going to be?" My penchant for playing niche builds in the game (such as archer Paladins, and staff-wielding Amazons) combined with the idea of remixing the different skill trees, ultimately to end up with 6 different classes.

Somewhere along the way, that morphed into the more generic, 1d10/1d6-based system that I generally referred to as "Unnamed RPG" -- the 6 classes I came up with were instead broken down into a combination of whether you were a spellcaster or a warrior, and whether you had light, medium, or heavy armor.

Anyways, getting back to the question: what would I like to do next?
Well, there's a couple ideas.

One of the games that I had the pleasure of playtesting a bit was sort of... a wargame miniatures-esque system with a fantasy theme to it, called 'Feint Wars.' The basic mechanic was that you had a deck of cards consisting of 3 suits, each numbered 1 through 6 (2 through 5? something like that...) Now, this deck was split between you and your opponent, so there was an element of card-counting involved. You could use a certain number of cards on your turn, either to move or attack; you could move a number of spaces equal to the card's value, or attack with that value vs. an opposed card from the defender. The twist was twofold: you would both select your cards and then reveal them at the same time, but also there was a "rock-paper-scissors" element, where each suit trumped one other suit, effectively granting the card a +3.

Now, the idea that this gave me was, "could you base a similar sort of game off of a deck of Italian cards?" Generally, these are pretty similar to a standard deck, with a few notable exceptions, the most pertinent in this instance being that the numbered cards only run 2 through 7. There are still 3 face cards in each suit (although the naming conventions are slightly different) as well as aces; the suits are also different, and there are no "black" or "red" suits. Translated, the four suits are swords, sticks (batons), cups, and coins. Anyways, it isn't really an idea I followed up beyond my brain making that initial connection (and perhaps the suits lending themselves more to an RPG setup.)

The other idea I had for a game is likewise somewhat nebulous; I always just think of it in one phrase:

Ability Scores, done right.

Now, what does that mean, exactly? Basically, in the vein of something like 13th Age, it'd use the conventional 6 ability scores (or something close) but do it in a more modern way. For example, one hack that I always thought would be handy in 4e (or a 3.x paragidm, without multiclassing) would be to have Knowledge skills from your class skill list use either your highest mental stat, or else get a flat bonus in place of an ability modifier if you weren't "trained" with the skill. 

I also like the ways that both 4e and 13th Age do defenses, namely by using the higher of two mods, or using the middle of three mods (respectively.) My basic thought was that each defense would have one or two default stats, but that the special perk of each class would be that they could substitute in their main stat for some (or all) of those defenses. (For example: using Charisma as effectively a sort of 'luck stat' when making Reflex saves, which would otherwise use Agility.)

Another idea in that vein came out of my experience with 4e; couldn't you just use your ability score for your defenses (rather than ability mod + class bonus + magic item bonus + half-level bonus + feat bonus, etc. etc.)? I think that'd be an interesting quality-of-life simplification... if you could make the math work, which is always the rub.

As you might guess from the attibutes used in TNP, I'd like to do something where Agility and Dexterity are split up, and maybe the functions of Constitution are governed by something separate from ability scores. I'd like it to include a Wisdom stat as well, if at all possible. Another thing I'd I like is the possibility of having a handful of basic classes, and mixing them together somehow to expand the roster (For example, Fighter crossed with Priest creates a Paladin character.)

In the broadest terms, I think if there were a new project on the horizon, I would want to revisit the 1d10/1d6 paradigm. The thing that I've realized in working on TNP is that there's a value proposition (and an ergonomic quality) in using percentile dice to model advantage/disadvantage (as TNP does with skills, as well as monster mechanics.) The d20 gaming zeitgeist seems to be shifting more and more towards the idea of bending the flat math into a bell curve, by modifying the roll with other dice rather than with flat modifiers -- something which has always been a cornerstone of TNP, but also pioneered by systems like 'Shadow of the Demon Lord' with its boons/banes mechanic.

In lieu of the "d20 + class die" mechanic of TNP, a more generic/universal system with something like this as its backbone would appeal to me greatly. In particular, I think it would work great for a system that is meant to be small in scope (say, 6 different playable classes, maximum) rather than the sort of "greatest hits" mentality that can be attributed to the size of the TNP roster.

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Anyway, those are my thoughts for the time being. There's batrely a week left in June, so expect the next post to be up on (or just before) Friday the 30th.