This is the playtest draft of a game I'm working on. The game is complete but is in need of refinement, and having a potential couple of infinite more eyes looking at it is more effective than sitting around in my room asking myself what to clarify, hence why I posted about it on my blog, twitter, and now here!

The PDF is 29 pages, and 3 of those are a text cover, table of contents and a backpage. This is a fairly light game. A friend of mine referred to it as a "universal challenge system" and that seems kinda catchy so let's go with that. You can download it here.

Of particular note, if you feel that the game is suited for or unsuited for play via this site, I'd like to talk about that, because one of my future plans is to try to include a section about PBP and chat play, since it's primarily what I play and so primarily what I would like to promote. I'd like to work out how to make it friendlier for this kind of online play and suitable to the people who play online (other than me).

EDIT: Thanks everyone for your support so far! I've compiled a humble FAQ here that I hope to improve with your help.

Here's the introduction.

High Score is a roleplaying game. The gameʼs story and action are divided into numerous Events. Each event has a High Score, an amount of points that must be earned to complete the Event. Each action you take that advances the scene will earn you points toward the High Score and advancing to the next scene.

So for example, if you are fighting against a mob of monsters, the high score for the round might be 300, and each monster worth 30 points. So if you defeat 10 monsters, you win. The battle may hold other objectives – for example, you might need to rescue someone from the mob of monsters, and that will give you 150 points, putting you halfway to victory. You can choose to go for any objectives.

The High Score system works the same in any situation. It does not necessarily have to be a fight. You might become involved in a high stakes political negotiation. Each participant in the talks will be worth points that you score by trying to persuade him or her. The advisors might be worth few points, but be easy to persuade – you can go from one to the other with little risk and ultimately win. But if you go straight to the President, you could shoot for a big score.

Your actions are scored based on your character’s Skills, Assets and Perks. When you roll dice, the result of the dice earns you points. However, you can also lose points and there are ways for the enemy to reduce the points you’ve collected. In any task, there is an enemy high score as well that the Game Master keeps track of. If it fills then you fail. You advance, but in unfavorable conditions.

Wait, SIMP, is that you?

I downloaded the game and will read through it, I quite liked the premise and the whole high score aspect. And I literally read a single sentence about how that operates, and I was immediately very intrigued. To be more precise, I read this sentence:
Ok, actually two sentences, but whatever, you had me at the first one.

Yeah, I'm SIMP on GameFAQs. Thanks for reading it!

This is similar to the system used in Tunnels and Trolls.

Read it and loved it. I'll probably try to run a High Score game in RL, if I get the opportunity.

I'd like a bit of clarification, though - I didn't quite get the Risk and Difficulty part, I blame the example for seeming contradictory (or maybe I'm reading it wrong): If I get this right, once the Difficulty has been cleared, all other rolls score normal, right? So if you have a Difficulty of -10 and you Score 12, you'll score 2 points but wouldn't have difficulty next time, alternatively, if you score 5, you'll have a difficulty of -5 next time, is that correct? Or is the difficulty on every roll until cleared, so you'll reduce it until cleared when it resets?

The example states that Platypus Girl rolls 8 against an Easy Difficulty and so she scores those 8, although the chart above says that Easy should be -10. Or am I misreading something.

Other than that I think it is a fun system, and definitely liked Platypus Girl. I'd suggest adding a few more examples with her

That example is definitely screwed on my end too, thanks for catching the problem. These numbers went through a few late revisions and I must have forgotten to change the examples. Doh!

Anyway, you got it right the first time. Think of a Difficulty as basically a number that got stuck on your head when you tried to do something (or alternatively, a number that got stuck on an objective when you tried to reach it). As you struggle with it, the number is reduced. So if a Difficulty of 20 gets smacked with 15 points, it is reduced to 5. It doesn't go up to 20 again next phase. You chip away at it.

This DEFINITELY needs clarification, but multiple players can work together to clear difficulties too. So let's say a reactor is about to explode and you and your buddy have to stop it. Before you can do anything to gain points and work up to stabilizing the reactor though, there's a Difficulty stuck on the objective – perhaps there's a broken console. Your engineer buddy starts working on that, and say, clears away 18 points of a 20 point Difficulty. Now, if you try to work the broken console, there's still difficulty left, but it's not 20 again for you. Your buddy got it down to 2 for you. So maybe you score 10, and you gain 8 points and bam, the console's working again. Get to work fixing that reactor!

EDIT: Keep asking questions y'all, I've got an FAQ up where I'm compiling some answers and other stuff.

Cool, thanks for that!

Also, I don't think I saw this anywhere but is there any mechanic remotely similar to how "successful roll" would work in other systems and is there a reason to not include it? Let me clarify that with an example - I'm thinking something like having a low Difficulty on every roll, say -3 or -5, so characters will only score if they overcome it but it will be present on the next roll they make. I can see that seems to be how Injury will modify rolls but I'm talking about "normal" uninjured characters. For example, they are climbing a particularly smooth wall: perhaps characters advance only when they roll good. Although I see this as requiring a bit too much of book keeping as opposed to just setting a higher High Score. I'm merely curious about it, that's all.

You can use the Efficiency Threshold complication for a similar effect (page 18):

Efficiency Threshold: Each Phase, the player’s team or individual players must achieve a certain amount of points. If that amount of points isn’t met, then points are added to an enemy team, treated the same as in Running Clock.

So they can only advance up the wall with a particularly good roll – not just any roll will do. And if you don't achieve the roll, then the enemy team gets points (in this case, well, it's the wall, but overall, it's the GM, and whatever misfortune may occur if you don't climb that wall fast enough). Mostly, I didn't really want there to be definitively successful or definitively failed rolls as a default in the game. I want the narrative to be flexible – so stuff "adds points" to one team or the other, but the players and the GM can spin what "adds points" means in many different ways. If you fail to meet the efficiency threshold then maybe you fell off the wall, or maybe you just didn't climb it fast enough.

A new version of the game is out. If you had issues with something in the other one (which I'd like you to tell me if possible!) this one might solve it.

By the way, and I know this isn't game planning, if anybody would be interested in a game, I would be glad to run one here soon.

So let me get this straight.

For example:

300 points wins it.

The difficulty is set by the required number of rolls needed to win it. Say, you have to win it in 25 rolls or less.

If you roll particularly low, your character makes a tragic mistake. In a fight, he might get wounded. If he rolls high, he gets a bonus on other rolls or he's allowed to cast a spell or whatever.

The enemy fights you in competition in on a similar mechanism - if the enemy rolls particularly high, they can wound you too.

To run away or employ certain strategies - you must anticipate at what roll you wish to employ said strategies or run away. Say, you choose to run away on the tenth roll. You might end up running away, even if the situation is good - unless yo uroll particularly high (in which case, the GM can let you prevent yourself from running away).

That said - every encounter is virtually one round. Stopping only when the GM discovers you made too many mistakes before the maximum number of rolls or when you rolled particularly high to give yourself a second chance at a new strategy or whatever.

Does that sound good? I think it adds some fun to the mix - players have to predict how a battle will turn out.