So here's a system in progress for a storytelling game.
The players play around a large central map (board) with numerous locations marked on it. The locations are all rated by level of Peril from 1-4.
Near the map are four stacks of cards. These cards are Perils to be encountered, such as Poisoning, Betrayal, Sorcery, Torture, Enslavement, Theft, Madness, Arrest, Deception, Hunger, etc etc. There is 3 of each type of Peril. All of the peril cards are shuffled together and split into the four stacks, corresponding to the four Peril levels. When players move to a location, they flip over one of the cards in the appropriate stack and the GM narrates an encounter involving that card, at that level of difficulty.
Character creation is also card based. Character cards describe different classes of knowledge such as Military, Nobility, Scholar, Barding, etc. When creating their character, players make a small deck from these cards (say 7 to start), which delineate their skills. They can take more than one of the same card to show a higher level in it.
When players encounter a Peril, they shuffle their character deck and draw a hand of 3 cards, laying them face up. They then choose which of the skills shown they want to use to overcome this peril. If only 1 Ranger card is showing, then they would only be able to use Ranger at level 1. If they had 3 Healer cards showing, then could use Healer at level 3. You have to use all of the cards of the skill type that you pick.
If this is lower than the Peril, you lose the encounter. Narrate how you lost, and mark down which skill failed you, and you are now In Peril, with the appropriate penalty narrated by the GM. Another player might have to help you out. If you equal the Peril level, you lose, but take no penalty and are not placed in Peril. If you exceed the Peril rating, you win that encounter, and mark down which Peril type you overcame.
You increase your skills by losing. After a particular skill has failed you a certain number of times, you can take another card of that type for your character deck.
You "level up" by winning. Every time you overcome a certain number (5-7 probably) perils that you haven't overcome before, your hand size goes up by one.
So your level really does denote your experience (how many kinds of things you have overcome) while your skill level represents how hard you are practicing against difficult things. These are just the core mechanics so far. They provide a kind of underlying structure to over-aching campaigns that the GM can make and weave into the encounters. It also provides regular story seeds to keep the game flowing.
Does this sound like it could be fun? Does it sound like it could work? Are there any other games similar to this that you know of? I did take some inspiration from Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple and the Burning Wheel System, but I think this has a nice balance between them.
Thanks! You raise some good points. One option I have is to make certain perils only winnable by certain skills. The other is to let the GM be the final arbiter of whether the player's description of why his Barding skill can kill an attacker passes muster.
Obviously, this is a much looser system than most RPGs. It's more there to give a freeform storytelling game some underlying structure and some tactical character development.
I see no reason why the GM couldn't arrange the peril decks to fit his campaign. That's not a bad idea, actually. And the GM's description is important because it gives the context of the peril, and so gives players a clue as to what skills could probably solve it.
In fact, that gives me another idea. The GM could have his own stack of skill cards in front of him. When a new peril is flipped over the GM could draw 3 random skills, keep them hidden from the players, and come up with a scenario that involves that peril, where one of those skills could plausibly solve it. Players would have to guess from his description which skills were needed. Alternately the GM could just choose the skills instead of drawing them randomly.