Axis Stats

Premise

2 naturally opposed stats are on a single axis. Players roll for the axis, having to roll high for one stat, and low for the other. Gear and abilities adjust the roll. Not ever stat will be viable in every scenario.

Examples

Axis	High Stat	Low Stat	Concept
Conflict	Fight	Charm	The more threatening you appear, the less charming you are
Resist	Defense	Reflex	Stacking armor slows you down
Awareness	Vision	Sneak	Focusing on not being seen, or on seeking

Assuming a 6 sided die- the player faces a bandit. The bandit has 1 charm, and 4 fight. The player, chooses to either test charm or to fight. If charming, the player must roll a 1, and if fighting a 4 5 or 6.

However, some scenario might be terrible difficult to face with a certain stat, such as a dragon requiring an fight of 8. Something like a ghost may not be fightable.

Gear can shift the axis

• broad sword+1 to conflict
• White flag -1 to conflict
• Heavy Helmet +1 Resist
• Cape -1 Resist
• Lantern +1 Awareness
• Smoke bomb -1 Awareness
• ⭐ Demon's Halberd +2 conflict

Gear can also have purely positive effects, or bursts / consumable boons.

Rationale

The axis stat, and gear promote a bit more give and take. Especially in a game with multiple allied players, would encourage kitting and decision making on how to approach scenarios.

Token System

Premise

A system where tokens, where special effects, environmental effects, alternate damage such as fire, poison, heal, pit, etc are all tokens. The rest of the game system is minimalistic, putting the emphasis on the wide range of tokens and their interaction.

1. Tokens of the same kind stack
   1. Tokens may apply to entities
   2. Tokens may apply to environment spaces (pits, spikes, walls)
2. Higher stacks intuitively scale either in effect, or the environmental scale (more stacks of pit means deeper pit)
3. Tokens apply effects defending on their type
   1. environmental when in contact
   2. start of the applied entity's turn.
4. Some token types negate each other (fire vs ice, wall and pit)
5. Tokens interact heavily with a simple stat system (no more than say 10 distinct stats, ideally closer to 6)
   1. health, move, initiative, strength, guile, mind (6)
   2. health, move, melee, ranged, ability (slots), level (6)
   3. speed, defense, fight, diplomacy, sneak, perception (6)

Examples

🔥 Fire

On Entity: Start of turn, lose half (rounding up) fire tokens, and take 1 damage per token lost.
On Environment: Entities pick up fire when in space.

🛡️ Block

Counter Direct Damage

Amor, shields, and defensive boosters add this token, which exists to block damage

⚡ Lightning

On Entity: Start of turn, if health more than

Due to the culling nature of lightning, it naturally threatens low-health high-block targets.

⏩ Force

On effect push entity 1 space per token. If target space is occupied, inflict 1 damage to each space.

Rationale

• Tokens have a 'board game' charm, which works naturally at small numeric scales (3 tokens vs 9999 damage)
• Tokens encourage a simple look and feel, promoting intuitive terms and understanding

Design

Token must have a simple, one-word concept. This can be tangible things, such as traditional elements, armor, limited supplies. Tokens may also be vivid statuses.

• ✔️ fire
• ✔️ crystal
• ✔️ spike
• ✔️ ammo
• ❌ open wound is 2 words. Instead use concept
  • ✔️ bleed instead
• ❌ light armor is two words, and too specific
  • ✔️ armor or block can replace the concept, and more naturally scale to the concepts of medium, heavy.

Tokens should be expected fluctuate up and down

• ❌ Experience would probably a bad token, if it is expected to only increase and not interact with other
  tokens.

Tokens should intuitively scale. Boolean concepts should not be a token.

• ❌ immobile is binary
  • ✔️ tangle could scale as a slow that can immobile if hitting a certain quantity
• ❌ hand would be weird, if we are implying most humanoids will have 2 hands.
• ❌ king doesn't conceptually scale.
  • ❌ rank is too generic
  • ✔️ sovereign might work, if a good reasoning on how such a thing could be spent.

Tokens should not be used for stats that cannot be 0 or omnipresent. While a token type might be common, they should be optional.

• ❌ level
• ❌ ability scores like strength, agility, etc
• ❌ movespeed, as this common stat