I decided to start a new thread as this is a new game I am working on.

Deep World RPG is a game set on a world that is almost entirely water. Think Waterworld meets D&D kinda sorta. There are islands on this world, both natural and man-made. Medieval Tech. Vast areas still unexplored. All things seaworthy; pirates, leviathans, merpeople, island kingdoms, massive ships, etc. are to be included. Thats the basic premise of the setting. I have uploaded the first version of the rules which are an extension of my old One Page RPG endeavor which can be found in this thread .

Deep World is meant to be a design experiment. I want to document the creation of the game as it evolves through the different iterations. The download available is a very basic overview of the game system as I am envisioning. Character Creation, conflict resolution, and magic is present in this first version although all need some major work. I am just interested in any advice or criticisms that people have of the system and the direction it is moving.  

You can download Deep World v0.0 here.

I have revamped the Character Creation portion. I wanted to stay away from skill lists and leave PC creation very flexible for the players...


Character Creation
Players first decide what type of character they will create. For example, our character will be a Barbarian. Because our character is a Barbarian, he is considered to have the traits of a barbarian, both positive and negative. For positive traits, our barbarian has things such as strength, combat prowess, long hair, leadership ability, strong will, etc. However, our barbarian also has negative traits such as low mental ability, dislikes things he doesn't understand, quick to anger, poor social skills, etc. Players should write down four positive traits and four negative traits for their PC. All positive traits receive a +1 bonus to dice rolls while all negative traits receive a -1 penalty to dice rolls.

If a player wishes to give a PC a trait which would not normally be associated with that type character, for example, if our Barbarian was extremely skilled in alchemy, the player must explain why the Barbarian is proficient in Alchemy, what in his past led him to be skilled in such a thing. Based on the explanation, the other players and GM then vote as to whether the PC should be granted that particular trait. If the trait is way off the mark, for example, our Barbarian is skilled in Magic, the GM may outright deny that the PC has that trait.

For undetermined PC traits, there is no modifier to the dice.

During game play positive/negative traits can be added by the GM as the PC shows particular prowess or lack of ability in a certain situation based on decision making or dice rolls. For example, perhaps the PC attempts something and rolls a Double Critical (two 10s). The GM may choose to raise the PC's ability in that area +1. On the other hand, perhaps the PC rolls a critical failure of 1,1 when performing a task. In this case the GM may choose to give the PC a -1 modifier on future rolls concerning that ability/skill/trait. These traits should be recorded on the character sheet. This rule only applies to undetermined traits or traits which already have a negative modifier. Traits with a positive modifier cannot be reduced in this way.
Attributes

Some significant changes have been made, especially to character creation. Here is the newest version...