I'm not a number cruncher

[Captain_Bleach]

Although I like to invade an orc's home, raid its valuables, and loot its corpse as much as the next gamer, but even in a Core-only game, the amount of variable modifiers/buffs are too tedious for me to remember. I took a break from d20, and found myself enchanted with Mutants and Masterminds and Grimm; the former because of PL limit making it so that you don't have a bigger number than the rest of the party, and the latter having a system where someone in grade school could figure out the math.
So, I am here to ask if any of you folks know any good RPG game system that doesn't rely upon variable modifiers that increase and decrease as the circumstances dictate?
When I design characters, I don't want to take into account how much skill points total the Wizard has from increasing Intelligence, I just want "you are more powerful, here is what increases, there!"

[virgil]

Low math RPGs that I can think of include Spirit of the Century, FUDGE, Amber DRPG, Window (look online somewhere, part of the Children of Fire RPG), that Hong-Kong Action Fu movie (forget the name), & Universalis.

[Captain_Bleach]

Checked out FUDGE, liked it. Have the PDF.
From what I saw of the combat and healing section, is the game intended to be more "grim and gritty" instead of "high action?"

[Koumei]

GRIM AND DARK!

With that out of my system, I'll think of a few:

Wushu is probably the one virgileso was thinking of. It's pretty good, though if you don't like describing your actions then it isn't for you.

RISUS also works, although it's... amazingly simple. This may be good or bad. It also has the issue of the downward spiral, where getting hit makes you more likely to get hit again.

Teenagers From Outer Space: Very simple system, the whole thing is also made for laughs, so it doesn't do GRIM AND DARK. Like, at all. It's also relatively setting-specific, or at least, genre-specific. It relies on it being a school setting, with aliens, unless you want to modify things in any way.

Wandering Monster High School: This has a basic enough system, and doesn't have much in the way of math. It does have a chart you'll need to refer to if something gives you a bonus or penalty, though. Again, it's rather setting-specific in that you are a monster (of any variety. You "buy" your wings, breath weapon, stone skin or whatever with character points) in high school. The character stats only work from a school perspective - skills are classes and stats are graded.

[CatharzGodfoot]

1200803273[/unixtime]]
Wushu is probably the one virgileso was thinking of. It's pretty good, though if you don't like describing your actions then it isn't for you.

I'm pretty sure it's Feng Shui, which is awesome. Time is measured in "bullets".

[Koumei]

That's pretty cool.

I want to one day make a game that's based on actual Feng Shui, such as gaining Chi by arranging furniture correctly and adding a plant to the room, and blocking your opponent's Chi flow by adding sharp angles to their room.

Hmm, sounds like a card game though, and they inherently suck.

[Jacob_Orlove]

It sounds like it'd play better if each player had a pen and paper, and you each first drew something for your own room, then swapped pieces of paper, drew something for their room, then swapped back, repeat. You'd spend half your time messing up their "room" and half the time fixing what they'd just done to yours.

Hard to make good rules for it, though.

[virgil]

I was at a bar a couple weeks ago in the back, and the had a stack of communal books, a box of Jenga, and a tile-based board game for Feng Shui. You would arrange the lines of chi to work in your favor while blocking others, and other stuff which I don't remember since we never actually played it.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Amber pretty much assumes that you are familiar with and playing in a world based on Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber. The amount of effort it would take to remove the setting-specific rules from the game would be almost sufficent to create a game in and of itself, as it leaves you with only the attributes. Also, conflict resolution is as Magical Teaparty as you get without breaking out your wizard's hat and going into your 8yo sister's room.

[Koumei]

Another great one comes to mind: SLA industries. This one can't be used for just anything, but could be more or less adapted to anything that has cyber-implants, robo-armour, guns, vibro-weapons, explosives, aliens and psychic powers.

It's also a little GRIM AND DARK, so has a Stress rating in it to send you mad if too much bad shit happens. You can lose Stress easily though, by breaking things that belong to other people or getting laid.

It works in a very simple manner. You put points into the skill. That is your total. Add this to 2d10, with circumstance modifiers almost never coming into play, and 11+ succeeds. 0 ranks counts as -4. A matched success is a "critical", a matched failure is a "fuck up". Get 9 ranks and the lowest you can roll is a critical success, assuming no penalties. Not that every roll will be a crit, of course.

For combat, it still works exactly the same (weapons even have a set damage value, with melee weapons basically adding your strength to them), but if you roll over 20, then every point over 20 adds +1 damage.

I basically explained the entirety of how the game works, in one post. It's a very easy system to play, even if it lacks balance (though in every game I played, everyone was useful and no-oe dominated the game, so *shrug*).

Note that the game is essentially all about stabbing people in the face on live TV and being paid money for it, which you then spend on new weapon mods or cool clothes. You can also get sponsors.

[angelfromanotherpin]

Feng Shui is awesome, but the advancement rules are craptacular. However, since characters start off completely viable, there's no need to ever advance them. Action movie stars don't usually upgrade between sequels anyway.

Amber's system is all about using role-playing prep to overcome an opponent's higher static rating, which creates a lot of scenes like the last fight in The Dark Knight Returns. It has real fluff problems, though, particularly in the inflation of the canon characters' abilities. The auction system of character creation is very cool. The real problem is that it is almost a 100% GM-fiat game. The scores tell you that someone is better, but how much better? How long will it take them to win against the other guy? What if the other guy has help of whatever quality? You're on your own, because the book says nothing.

[cthulhu]

1200809189[/unixtime]]That's pretty cool.

I want to one day make a game that's based on actual Feng Shui, such as gaining Chi by arranging furniture correctly and adding a plant to the room, and blocking your opponent's Chi flow by adding sharp angles to their room.

Hmm, sounds like a card game though, and they inherently suck.

In Feng shu you have to cpature power sites of special feng shui off the other guys and align them to your chi flow to power up.

Unfortunately thats the crappy advancement system referred to previously.