Semi-simple RPG design
I've been working on and off for a while on making my own RPG, and wanted to get a little feedback from the community on how I'm doing so far. The fundamental unique mechanic (or at least different from what I've played before) is that instead of having an 'attack' roll and a 'damage' roll, each attack, spell, or applicable skill has a precision and a power component. So the six primary attributes are Str, Dex, Con, Int, Will, and Spirit. Power is based on Str or Int, precision on Dex or Will, and the character's health and defense comes from Con and Spirit. There are three class options, essentially no magic, all magic, and hybrid choices, and three race options (though I am playing with the idea of having variations of each race, possibly as options within an advanced set of rules). There are three elements that make up spells and other forms of magic: Spirit, Matter, and Death. Any spellcaster will have a certain number of espers of each of these elements which are used to power spells and magical effects. (The exact nature of espers to be determined).
Coming back to the attributes. What a character can do is almost exclusively determined by his or her attributes, with the classes, races, and feats providing starting points and customizing tweaks. Whenever a character levels up, he or she gets to increase one stat and get one feat connected with that stat. So the individual feats give smaller bonuses (such as +1 when rolling for a sprint), but are acquired often. My hope is that this method will allow players a good level of customization without having complex class features or the equally complicated nature of build-your-own ability style games. (I'm thinking of GURPS here, though I personally love the complexity of it xD )
So what I'm mainly wondering is what kind of traits or characteristics might be good to give the races so that they are distinct and unique without being excessively complicated or just "this is the race you use for this class." Also, what do you guys think of the way I'm thinking of doing feats? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Coming back to the attributes. What a character can do is almost exclusively determined by his or her attributes, with the classes, races, and feats providing starting points and customizing tweaks. Whenever a character levels up, he or she gets to increase one stat and get one feat connected with that stat. So the individual feats give smaller bonuses (such as +1 when rolling for a sprint), but are acquired often. My hope is that this method will allow players a good level of customization without having complex class features or the equally complicated nature of build-your-own ability style games. (I'm thinking of GURPS here, though I personally love the complexity of it xD )
So what I'm mainly wondering is what kind of traits or characteristics might be good to give the races so that they are distinct and unique without being excessively complicated or just "this is the race you use for this class." Also, what do you guys think of the way I'm thinking of doing feats? Any help would be greatly appreciated.