The World of Darkness game system has a similar spirit. Basically your abilities determine your dice pool, e.g. Intelligence = 3 + Academics = 2 gives 5 dice to try to understand a technical book. You then have to roll the dice and obtain at least one 8+ on 5 d10. Bonus/malus apply on the dice pool, e.g a noisy room is −1 die and access to google is +1 die. Of course incremental bonuses are less relevant the bigger the dice pool is.
One simple way of keeping that playable:
Each skill is an integer that is at zero by default, and can go up or down depending of circumstances (items, skills, roleplay ..)
For a modified skill of zero, roll a (six-sided) die, succeed on a 4+
For a positive modified skill of N, roll N extra die (N + 1 total), succeed if one of them is 4+
For a negative modified skill of -N, roll N extra die (N + 1 total), succeed if all of them are 4+
The World of Darkness game system has a similar spirit. Basically your abilities determine your dice pool, e.g. Intelligence = 3 + Academics = 2 gives 5 dice to try to understand a technical book. You then have to roll the dice and obtain at least one 8+ on 5 d10. Bonus/malus apply on the dice pool, e.g a noisy room is −1 die and access to google is +1 die. Of course incremental bonuses are less relevant the bigger the dice pool is.