One thing I’ve seen done in several systems is to treat “luck” as a bonus ability that lets you re-roll or gives you other benefits. It’s a Trait or Advantage or Feat that lets you, say, re-roll three rolls per game session, or in the case of GURPS’s Serendipity, lets you just request a lucky event from the GM.

Agon is played with a range strip and tokens to represent character locations in combat. Positions are one-dimensional only, so it’s not as complex as miniature combat in D&D 4e with a full grid.

I think you keep having indie systems pointed out to you because they were made by designers who addressed the issues you point out rather than doing what everyone else was doing.

Based on various descriptions I’ve heard and read of Amber DRPG, it’s an interesting system. You seem to think it doesn’t suffer from the problems above; I haven’t played it, but I would believe it. The character creation system does sound like a lot of fun, if a bit complex, and the system definitely avoids the bad side of dice rolling. Of course, it also seems to all-but-eliminate the element of chance, which I find to be fun.

But as I’ve said in response to other comments, I don’t think all of these criticisms are true of all systems, just that most of them are true of most systems. I’ll edit the article to make that more clear.

I’ll have to check out Agon and Spirit of the Century. Agon does sound a bit more complex than I tend to look for in a combat system, though. And I do approve of systems which make character creation interesting even though it takes so long. I just decided to try going the other way, and streamlining character creation. I’m not sure if I’ve been successful; further playtesting will decide.

Agon has just the right level of abstraction where maneuvering and initiative both actually matter. The character with the highest initiative can move a bit more than other characters, and each weapon has an optimal range with a kind of rock/paper/scissors mechanic so you’ll constantly be wanting to move out of range of your enemies (or moving enemies out of range of other players) and into your personal best range so that you can get the kill and all of the glory.

Mouse Guard is an extremely stripped down/streamlined version of Burning Wheel, so the combat has a heritage with Miniatures RPGs, but positioning mechanics aren’t actually relevant and combat is centered on group cooperation and tactical decisions (There are only four things you or anything else can do each round and they each have unique interactions inbetween each other)

As far as Character Creation taking too long, I really like how Spirit of the Century works (character creation works as a group, with each character ‘guest-starring’ in two other character’s pulp novels). It’s actually fun and takes advantage of the trend that character creation takes a session to happen.

I totally agree with you on combat. Players should be able to do whatever they want. There does need to be a strong base to the system, though. For the majority of the rolls, players won’t be using the environment. They’ll be trying to hit the enemy. And you need solid, smooth mechanics for that, and they need to be well-defined.

I don’t think you’re a bad person for re-rolling initiative each turn, but doing that has always been way too slow for me.

2. My system is based almost exclusively on d6s, and while I quite enjoy its flexibility, in late stages of campaigns players do tend to have ridiculous numbers of dice, which is annoying.

3. Personally I prefer a flexible and simple combat system, in which the players can basically try to do anything. Want to kick your enemy’s foot? Roll for agility and/or martial arts. Want to throw something at them? Roll for strength and dexterity. And so on… there’s always some way of turning a player’s action into a roll.
This is very dependent on the game master and his or her ability to describe the battle and the environment properly. It’s very important to see battles as parts of the story rather than just mathematical procedures. You never know what players will come up with, if you give them the material. It’s also quite important to make the environment as three-dimensional as possible, and to make it react to what’s happening. (Somebody shoots a fireball in a wooden building? Make it burn! Make the roof collapse!)
We re-roll iniative every turn, and it does make a big difference. Maybe it’s because I’m pretty harsh when it comes to enemies – their level of power is based on the reality of the situation, not what the players can handle, so who gets to play first makes a huge difference. Plus, when combined with the players’ ability to do what they want, playing first may mean making the enemy lose their turn.

The Keys system does sound really cool.

Keys in TSOY define how you earn experience. e.g. the Key of Bloodlust gives you XP for defeating other characters in combat, or the Key of the Conscience gives you XP for helping those in need. You buy them with XP, either your starting XP or the XP you’ve earned in play. You can also “buy off” a Key, which means that you do something drastically in opposition to the Key, you cross it off your character sheet, and you get enough XP to buy two more things (including a new Key if you want one). So Keys both define a character and spotlight how the character changes.

I think TSOY hits all of your points. Character creation gives you a fair number of choices, but it’s nowhere near as complex as D&D. Rolls are reserved for important situations, and if a player doesn’t like the outcome, s/he can call for “Bringing Down the Pain”, a zoomed-in “combat” system. (It can be used for non-combat conflicts as well.) You can easily swap settings by coming up with different Keys, Secrets (basically feats), and skills.

You can read all of TSOY on http://tsoy.crngames.com/ . There’s also a booklet about the Solar System, the underlying system of TSOY, available from http://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/solarsystem .

Primetime Adventures also hits your points, in a slightly different way. It’s all about playing a TV show. You can come up with the show concept, create characters, and play through a single episode (session) in four hours. You draw cards instead of rolling dice (the first edition use die rolls) once per scene and only to resolve the most important conflict of the scene. There’s no subsystem for combat because combat isn’t what the game’s about. And setting is generated at the start of the game and on-the-fly as needed.

I think the way I’d prefer to address that issue is through clear terminology, as you said, and through GM leniency. The choices the player makes should be clearly defined and described in natural language, and the GM should allow a player to change the details of her character if she discovers it’s not what she thought it was or wanted it to be.

A related issue is most RPGs (tabletop and digital) require players to make decisions without understanding their implications and then prohibit any significant changes (without creating a whole new character). Deciding your class is probably the most influential decision you’ll make in the game, yet if you haven’t played much or at all, it’s a pretty arbitrary decision. E.g. try to explain the differences between a 3rd Edition D&D Wizard vs. a Sorcerer to a new player.

Even classless systems like Shadowrun make it very difficult to dramatically switch from one character concept to another.

One of the things I like most about D&D 4E’s class system is how each class fits into a certain role. Being able to easily communication “If you want to be good at this, look at these three classes.”

I haven’t played Burning Wheel, but it looks interesting from the free previews. The basic dicerolling looks fine, although I question the use of obscure flavor-words like Obstacle, Shade, and Exponent in place of, say “target successes,” “difficulty,” and “skill rating.” The Duel of Wits seems like an amazing idea, but it’s really complicated (on first read).

Also, I’d be interested to know what you think of Burning Wheel.