Players want a simple game that gets out of the way ! Or do They ?

Here you go a complete Role playing game for a fantasy setting that gets out of the way and never holds your hand at all.

This is what we all want right!
Right?

If so why do designers continue to make games? Why not just say, "Here's some pretty pictures of Barbarians and caves. Roll D20 if the GM says you succeed, you do, if not you don't, now go play."

Should we all be playing S.L.U.G? 

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Is the  following game any good?
No.
Is it complete thing, like a thing for which you would give your money to a guy in a booth at MassiveCon ?
No.
Could the vast majority of  people reading this blog go and  run a fun game for their friends with it?
Yes I bet they could, because you folks are awesome.

So why are RPG systems not just this....
because this would require allot of work to get up and running..

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Oldest School RPG: A game that does not hold your hand at all, ever.

Die mechanic:  

Action Checks: Roll 1d20 target number rolling under an attribute.

Characters.

Pick a class:

Fighter,

priest,

Wizard,

Roll attributes:

All Attribute rolls are based on your choice of class.

Attributes are rolled once in the order they are listed. No swapping no re-rolling.

	Fighter	priest	wizard
Strength	3d6	2d6	1d6
Agility	2d6	2d6	1d6
Health	3d6	2d6	1d6
Intelligence	1d6	1d6	3d6
Wisdom	2d6	3d6	3d6
Social	1d6	2d6	3d6
Commune	x	3d6	x
Cast spell	x	x	3d6

Hit points:
At level 1 the  character’s hit points equal their Health score.
Base Armor score:

At level 1 is  equal to the  characters agility.  

Starting gold: 1d20 x 15 gp

Priests start with a 50 page prayer book. with  5 pages used up with the basic blessings.

Wizards start with a 50 page spell-book with 5 pages taken up by the starting spells.

Warriors start with  50 foot of rope 12 torches and an attitude.

Armor:

Wearing armor  does not make it  harder for your character to be hit, it subtracts damage from the blows that do land.

Physical attacks come in three styles. Slicing , Piercing, and  Bludgeoning. Each type of armor absorbs each type of attack differently.

Armor:	Armor score mod	Cast spell /  commune  mod	Slicing	Piercing	Bludgeon	Cost
None or robes	+1	0	0	0	0	o
Leather types	0	-1	-1	-2	0	50
Chain types	-1	-2	-4	-2	0	100
Scale types	-2	-3	-2	-2	-4	150
Plate types	-4	-4	-5	-3	-2	200

Weapons:

All weapons do 1d10 damage.

Weapon type	Damage type	Notes	Cost
stabbing blades	Pierce		50
long blades	slash or pierce choose at time of attack		100
Curved blades	Slash		100
Ax weapons	Slash		70
Great weapons	Slash or Bludgeon Choose at time of attack	two handed	200
Bows	pierce	two handed Comes with 5 points of ammo	150
Crossbow	Ignores armor	Attack every other turn. two handed, Comes with 5 points of ammo	200
Pole arms  / long spears	Pierce	can hold opponents away rather than do damage	150
Maces, morning stars	Bludgeon		100
clubs staves chuggles	Bludgeon		50
Other	Gm discretion based on situation		up to GM

Leveling up:

Characters level up  by gaining experience.

Experience is gained differently for each  class and must be tracked by the  players. the  Gm can give in game exp rewards any time he or she wishes.

Fighters:

Gain 1 experience for each point of damage they deal, and 1 point for every 10 gold pieces of treasure they find.

priest:
Gain 1 point of experience for each point of damage they heal, and 1 point of experience for every 10 pieces of gold they donate to their church. (track this gold amount separately)

Wizards:

Gain 1 point of experience for each level spell they successfully cast, 1 point of  experience for every  10 gold they put into building their tower and research facility. (track this gold amount separately)

(yes the speed of progression will go  Fighter >Priest>Wizard.)

Level	EXP level	Bonus F= fighter P= priest W= Wizard
1	0	none
2	100	F +1d8 hp P +1d6 hp W +1d4 hp
3	200	F +1d8 hp P +1d6 hp W +1d4 hp
4	300	F +1d8 hp P +1d6 hp W +1d4 hp
5	500	F +1d8 hp, 2 attacks per round P +1d6 hp, + 1 ability (18 max) W +1d4 hp
6	800	F +1d10 hp P +1d8 hp W +1d6 hp + 1 ability (18 max)
7	1300	F +1d10 hp + 1 ability (18 max) P +1d8 hp W +1d6 hp
8	2100	F +1d10 hp P +1d8 hp + 1 ability (18 max) W +1d6 hp
9	34000	F +1d10 hp P +1d8 hp W +1d6 hp + 1 ability (18 max)
10	5500	F +1d10 hp x2 damage on nat 1 P +1d8 hp x2 damage on nat 1 W +1d6 hp x2 damage on nat 1

Playing the game, Combat:

First rule: Unless otherwise specified all rolls are equal to or less than. Meaning if the attribute is a 12 any  roll of 12 or less will succeed.

Second rule: The Gm has the right (in fact the responsibility) to modify any target number for the better or worse in all situations.

Round: the time in which every  character and enemy  gets to take an action.

Turn: Each individual character or NPC’s chance to declare and resolve an action within a round.

Initiative.
Initiative is rolled once at the start of a combat

Every player rolls 10 + agility
The gm does the same for all monsters adding a flat +3 for monsters where their agility is unknown.

Characters and monsters act in initiative order from lowest to highest, ties are decided by the GM.

Actions cannot be held, any player that asks for a skip or a hold action loses their turn, the  character stands there dumbfounded.

Attacking:
physical melee:

The  attacker rolls 1d20 trying to roll under their own strength attribute.
The defender rolls 1d20 trying to roll under their own armor score.

Results:

Attacker succeeds Defender fails: Defender takes 1d10 damage

Attacker fails Defender Succeeds: Attacker takes 1d6 damage

Both succeed Both take 1d6 damage

Both fail No effect

Attacking:
ranged:

The  attacker rolls 1d20 trying to roll under their own agility attribute.
The defender rolls 1d20 trying to roll under their own armor score.

Results:

Attacker succeeds Defender fails: Defender takes 1d10 damage

Attacker fails Defender Succeeds: Attacker loses 1 point of ammo

Both succeed no effect (shot held, not fired, what ever)

Both fail No effect

Spells:

by spell description Roll VS spell casting

Priest blessings
By blessing description. Roll VS commune

Damage:

Damage is done to the targets Hit points

Damage is equal to the  rolled damage - the appropriate armor value.

When the hit points fall to zero  the  target is dead.

level 1 characters will not last long, as it should be.

Non-Combat:

Skill checks:

Every other kind of action follows this process
The  player declares what the character would like to do.

The GM decides if any roll is necessary if one is the Gm decides which attribute the character will roll against.  Decide as many  things without rolling as possible.

The  Player rolls 1d20 if the result is equal to or lower than the attribute the action succeeds if not the  action fails.

Spells and Blessings:

A wizards and  Priests may  cast a number of spell per day equal to their intelligence + level.
When casting the player must roll equal to or  under their cast spell attribute on 1d20 for the  spell to take effect.

The following spells can be considered common in any new wizards spell book.

Spells:

Magic Bolt:

damages one target in line of sight per level of caster for  1d6 damage. Range is 100 feet

read magic:

This spell allows the cast to read any sort of magical script. lasts 10 minutes per level.

Detect magic:
Mages magical items in the same room as the  caster glow. If the caster is in a huge room or in the open the  spell fails.
Light:
can create a torch like light that follows behind the caster 1 hour per caster level.

Shock:
The caster can  shock anyone they can touch for  1d8 damage. Any human sized or smaller target must roll under their strength on d20 or be knocked down. This effect is conducted through mettle.

Blessings:
These are the five basic blessings any young Priest would know.
Heal:

This blessing  heals any touched ally of 1d10 damage.

Holy weapon:

This blessing  causes the  blessed weapon to do an extra 1d6 damage to  evil or undead targets for 1 round per  level of the priest.
Purify:

This blessing allows the priest to purify water or food of a volume equal one person's worth of food for one day  per level of the caster.
Harm evil:
This blessing causes 1d6 damage to any evil or undead creature within 10 feet of the caster.
Bless: Costs 2 casting slots

this grants the target a re-roll usable only in the same round as the blessing was cast.

Research a new spell or gaining a new blessing:
discuss the effect you would like to produce with the spell.

The Gm will decide the following

1. How many of your  daily spell or blessing slots this  spell will require.
2. Any modifiers to the roll for researching the spell.
3. roll 1d6 to determine how many pages of the caster's spell or prayer book the spell will take up.
4. how much damage/ healing or other effect the spell will create.
5. how much gold the spell will cost to research.
6. Anything the character  might have to  get to conduct the research. In other words things to quest for.

Once all of this is in place the player may make  1 research roll per character level.

The Character must be successful on a number or rolls  equal to the number of daily spell or blessing slots this  spell will require. If the player succeeds the character  now has a new spell.
If unsuccessful the character must wait until the next level to try again.

Further Spell and blessing effects must be negotiated with the GM. No spell should do more than 1d10 damage or healing  to a single target in a single action without some other limiting factor.
-Fin

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That’s the game. It’s an RPG. Go play.
No?
Why not?

I have a theory, as much as I read about folks wanting games that are simple and get out of the way, that's not the kind of game that makes it to peoples tables. From what I have seen what I think gets accepted largely comes down to systems that invoke a certain style of play, or embrace an accepted aesthetic. These factors vary widely form community to community and from table to table within those communities, but simplicity isn't something I see very highly valued, even if it is mentioned quite a bit.
Players choose systems for a wide variety of reasons, hell I would play  DCC simply as an excuse to look at that amazing book. 
Designers design games in a constant quest to marry the experience at the table with the vision in their heads. Just like good Gm's can bend pretty much any system to what ever insanity gets whipped up; good designers can marry an original system with content and context so it looks like they were all born to be together.
That's why the  simple system with  lack of context rarely wins out. Why would it when you can stare at the image from  Lamentations of The Flame Princess and see 1000 stories in that one face? Knowing that within the book there is a solid system that supports all of the things that face suggests, seals the deal.
My final point is this,  when playing a game remember the games system rarely gets out of the way, it only feels that way. The art of it is creating a system that becomes so married to what the character's are doing that every one at the table can't imagine one without the other. Being simple, is simply not enough.

Thanks for reading.

Questions and comments below as per normal question and comment protocol, 

The white zone is for loading and off loading only.

-Mark.