Diceless RPGs

Cafe Society
1

I don’t know anyone who has played one

but in someplace on the Net i find that there is Militant movement against people who still use Dice and claim that those of who will not abandon all combat situations and are dice we are stupid munchkins who don’t understand the true purpose of “role playing”

Now I’ll be fair i know many gamers (my self included sometimes) who do tend to focus too much on combat over story. But I will always say that combat in an RPG is boring with out playable story

Rant over

So can anyone give me some insight into the Diceless RPG experince (no pun intended)

2

I seem to remember that Paranoia was played without dice-- fate was instead at the hands of the sadistic and capricious GM. Unless, though, you feel like being at the hands of a sadistic and capricious GM (which is the point of that particular game) I’m not sure what the pros are. Dice weren’t just for combat. . . I think they allowed you to play characters who weren’t identical to the player. “My thief with a 6 intelligence reads the manuscript!” “Um. . . no, apparently you don’t understand a damn thing, although you had a bit of a chance. . .”

3

What place on the net do you find these militants?

I’m curious. It’s been a good long time since I picked up the d20 and flung it with my prayers attached.

I find the concept of diceless play interesting, mainly because it was always the stories that drew me into the fold of play.

4

There are several diceless games. Puppet Master, Everway, and the Adventures of Baron Munchausen are diceless. But the one I am most familiar with is Amber, based on Roger Zelazny’s Amber Chronicles.

Four Stats. Warfare, Psyche, Strength and Endurance.

All conflict is resolved by who has the higher stat or necessary combination. For example: Eric’s Warfare is Higher than Corwin’s, but Corwin’s Endurance is higher than Eric’s so if he can just wear him down, he can win the fight.

I love the diceless system because it is focused on the roleplaying. None of this spending half an hour rolling dice to resolve a conflict. It’s roleplayed out in a lot less time. As an added bonus, diceless games move from tabletop to Play By Email smoothly indeed. Since there is a derth of good roleplayers in my area these days, this is a godsend for my gaming addiction.

5

I think you’ll find just as many militants who insist that an RPG without dice is not a “game” (er, okay, I guess we could argue that, but it’s still a good time, and isn’t that the point?), that they could never trust a GM enough to play diceless (uh, if you don’t trust your GM, why do you play with him/her?), and mostly that diceless gaming just wanking (got news for you, friends–all gaming is wanking).

I like diceless. I like it a lot. I now find rolling dice slightly silly. I mean, I tell the GM what I’m going to do, the GM decides if it works based on how carefully my character is prepared, how well I’ve taken into account the facts of the situation, how creative I am, how he thinks the NPCs (if any) react to my actions, and what direction the plot is going. Why waste time tossing polyhedra around?

What I like most about diceless RPGs is that combat can be very vivid and can be resolved in a timely manner. I hate when a nice session of roleplaying is put on hold for a long interlude of rolling dice and comparing numbers, and wading through combat at a pace which doesn’t approach real time. I mean, you try to put yourself in your character’s place, and imagine the combat unfurling, but it’s so . . . damn . . . slow . . . And you’re constantly distracted by rules, rules, rules, rules . . . What’s my bonus with this sword, again? Wait, you took five points of damage last round, and you forgot to mark it down. Did I get flanked? What exactly does this spell do again? &c.

On the other hand, lots of other people, both GMs & players, seem to relish the element of uncertainty that dice bring. They enjoy combat as a melding of the mathematics of the rules, pure strategy, and the element of luck. I see no reason to criticise them for liking a different kind of game than I do.

Is there any particular aspect of diceless RPGs you’re interested in, Lear’s_fool (or anyone else)?

6

Yes exaggerated on the militant thing but there people who are down rite vicious flames about why RPGs should be dice less (more than those in traditional pro dice camp)

that the point?" absolutely rite and every time there is a flame war about dice less (and I’ve scene a lot at RPG.net oh boy do they those people hate D&D)

raises hand I do have to be honest I’ve scene to many and bad guys attach at least 4 times a secession campaigns. But to me the uncertainty is very important

7

There is uncertainty in diceless combat.

Do you know the stats of the opponnents? Do they have Bad Stuff (like Bad Luck that kicks in when you least appreciate it)? If your GM (or other Player) is a very good roleplayer in their own right, diceless combat is far more exciting than combat that depends upon the roll of the dice because the conflict is actually being played out and described.

8

I’m afraid of Diceless roleplaying, not because of the challenge or the dependence on my own abilities as a roleplayer, but because I’ve noticed in my many gaming years how smarmy and condescending many people get after they switch to diceless. Suddenly they’re the only ones doing “real” roleplaying and anyone playing a diceful game may as well just be playing Parcheesi. Plus, the main diceless game is Amber, the subject matter of which doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

Sorry if I sound defensive, but I too have seen these people on the net and met them in real life, and a little of them goes a very long way.

9

It is the Diceless Game of Which All Others Are Mere Shadows. :wink:

The saying “Great strategist, lousy dice roller” was coined with me in mind. The Dice Gods hate me. That’s what drew me to diceless games in the first place. When I run a diced game, my NPCs get their asses kicked all the time because I am such a sucky dice roller. It’s sad, very sad, when a pack of six 1st rank Garou totally wipe the floor with the 3 BSDs they came across in the park.

10

I don’t know if that’s necessarily true. A friend of mine who’s running a D&D campaign I’m currently playing, manages to do a good job keeping combat exciting and descriptive, even though it’s dice-based. I suppose it just depends on the gamemaster–I think what’s different about diceless is that it tends to weed out lackluster gamemasters (and players) more effectively than dice-based does.

11

yes i’ve noticed that too

12

My feeling, based on having played both diced and diceless games with what I consider to be good GMs is that there is generally more railroading in dlced games. It seemes paradoxical, right? In the diceless game, the GM has more control, and yet it has been my experience that the players tend to have more freedom.

I think this occurs largely for two reasons.

One is that in a dice game, the GM by necessity has invested a lot more time designing an encounter or dungeon or scenario or what have you–pouring over rulebooks, calculating stats and skills, making spell-lists, etc. They are going to be hesitant to let you deal with a challenge in a way that sidesteps all their hard work.

Another is that in a dice games are far more rules intensive. The GM designs challenges with the PC’s character sheets in mind. In general, a challenge will be overcome by the PCs using their skills, individually or in concert.

Neither of these are bad things, per se, nor are am I saying that every GM runs dice games like this all the time. Just that, in general, these are factors that affect the game.

I think there’s plenty of uncertainty in combat if you have any kind of a decent GM. It’s no fun waltzing into a fight knowing that you’re going to triumph no matter what. It’s also no fun getting jumped by your enemies and knowing you’re going to get creamed. Your GM knows this, so they are going to take many factors into account–factors that shift and change as combat evolves, to decide what happens next.

I used to like combat with dice–the thrill of rolling high, the tragedy of failing a save–so I don’t look down on people who still enjoy that. But I like diceless combat better than even the best-run combat with dice. It’s a personal preference. To each his own, is my opinion.

Legomancer, I am surprised to read your post. If you think that diceless RPGers are snobby assholes and you don’t have the strength of character to play diceless without becoming a snobby asshole yourself, well, without making this pitworthy, that’s your fucking problem, okay? Of course on RPGnet the obnoxious jerks are the ones making the most noise. The same is true of the obnoxious jerks who insult diceless roleplaying. I’m not sure who you mean by “these people,” but if it’s only the loudmouth jerks, it’s not fair to judge all diceless RPGers based on them. I’ve always bent over backwards in diceless vs. dice debates to defend diceless roleplaying without denigrating those who like to play with dice, and I am personally insulted by what you’ve said. Furthermore, I think it’s ridiculous to try to scare off a newbie from a style of roleplaying he might enjoy through overgeneralized ad hominem attacks on what you percieve to be the type of people who play the game.

Lears_fool, I’m sorry, but I’ve read this sentence three times and I still can’t parse it. Can you rephrase it, please?

13

You are right, Podkayne, I was too obnoxious in my response. The only defense I have is years of hearing Diceless RPG fans crow about what a superior game they’re playing and how they clearly are superior players for playing it. Funny you bring up RPGnet because yeah, that’s one of the first places that springs to mind.

As I said before, I’ve yet to see a Diceless game with a subject matter that I find interesting. This is the main reason I haven’t played that way. But yeah, I have been turned off also by the attitudes of many of the fans of the system.

However, being a gaming geek, what I’m mostly sick of is the inane “my game is better than your game” battles, to which I’ve contributed above, to my shame. It used to drive me crazy to be standing in a game store and have to hear about how the game I’m buying cards for (Magic) is nothing but a big money pit and ha ha need another hit of card crack? and I’d never play a game that required so much money to play - all of this from people with armloads of Warhammer miniatures. Hey, at least I didn’t have to color the cards myself. It was a stupid debate and I hated it. The diceless gamers hated the dice gamers, the wargamers hated them both, and everyone hated the card gamers. Nevermind that the public at large thinks we’re ALL a bunch of freaks and thinks it’s amusing that we bother to categorize ourselves.

So yeah, I apologize for that and contributing to that.

To get back on the topic, though, there does seem to be a trend I don’t fully understand. I read a review of the new Buffy the Vampire Slayer game (probably on RPGnet, though I don’t remember exactly) and the reviewer was glad that there weren’t too many rules and most of them could be ignored. This is just odd to me. While I don’t want to play a game in which you have to factor in the relative humidity and blood sugar levels each time you make an attack, I don’t see what’s so bad about rules.

What I’m saying is, if you want freedom, if you want true role-playing, why are you buying a game book in the first place? Why not just you and your friends sitting on the sofa, making up Buffy the Vampire Slayer episodes? Why bother with rules at all?

I had a friend in high school who loved RPGs but he wasn’t a very good speaker. He himself was not much of a fast talker, or very eloquent. Should he not be able to play a fast-talking character, just because he can’t do it himself? At what point do we let the guy play a role rather than make him play himself. Do you see what I’m saying? I’m not a rules lawyer, and I’m not a straight up hack-n-slasher - I like role playing and I like character development. But I’m also not an actor. I’m playing a game.

I don’t have a problem with dice. When making a D&D character, I’ll happily roll dice for stats however the GM wants me to, and I’ll use whatever numbers come up, and build a character out of them. To me, that’s part of the fun and the challenge. I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of gamers out there who can’t abide that their master archer might botch a roll and miss the target. It doesn’t bug me. Yeah, some sessions I’d roll crappy all night long, but that’s part of the game.

Besides, I love dice themselves. Love em.

14

I do have to be honest I’ve scene to many campians where get jumped by bad guys at least 4 times secssion. But to me the uncertainty is very important

15

Thanks, Legomancer. My reply was pretty harsh as well, but I was in shock, mostly because I like and respect you as a poster. :slight_smile:

I’m fond of dice, too, but I like to use 'em for Button Men or stuff like that.

Don’t mistake “diceless” for “rulesless”, or “rules light” for “no rules at all.” In Amber, for example (sorry to take a genre you don’t like, but I haven’t really don’t have much experience with other diceless games), has four stats, as Arden Ranger mentioned.

Psyche is taken by some GMs as your sensitivity to other people, your ability to manipulate them, and so on. So if your character has a high psyche, you as a player don’t have to be especially perceptive and pick up subtle hints that the GM throws in. Rather, the GM will probably feed you extra information (“He seems nervous . . . She appears to be holding something back.”) You also don’t have to have a golden tongue. Instead of rolling against your “Leadership” skill (or what have you). Instead, you can say, “I give a motivating speech.” Or, if you are a little more ambitious as a player, you can actually try to give the speech (“Ladies and gentlemen, we face a terrrible horrible awful enemy, and by golly by garsh, we gotta beat 'em! We just gotta!”) and the GM, taking your Psyche score into account, will judge that this was the Right Thing To Say to motivate the troops.

Taking a different example, I, personally, am no great whiz at strategy. Some people I’ve played with are military history buffs, and can describe at great length what their characters do with their troops. But, see, if I’m leading an army into battle against them, and their character has a Warfare of 10 and mine is 65, and our forces are roughly equal, then I can just tell the GM, “I do the right thing with my troops,” and, unless the other guy takes some sort of special action (bringing some new weapon onto the field, doing something clever with powers, or something like that) I’m going to be victorious.

I don’t have to look up my leadership skill, add in my terrain bonus, my troop bonus, my technology bonus, my magic bonus, yadda, yadda, yadda, and roll innumerable times to resolve the situation. I do have to respond to my opponent’s choices, or any weirdness the GM throws in, which, for me is more interesting than making die rolls and reading results off a chart. But I realize that for other people, the squidgieness of a diceless, rules-light system would be maddening. They want to have the numbers all laid out in front of them and they want the result settled by a dispassionate roll of the dice.

Certainly not everyone plays diceless in the way I describe. Possibly some of those jerks in the “We Are Superior Roleplayers” camp would consider it herasy. But I’m with you–I don’t want to be limited to characters who are only as suave as I am, only as smart as I am, only as strategic as I am, only as manipulative as I am, etc., any more that I would want to be restricted to characters who can only benchpress as much as I can. Part of the roleplaying experience, after all, is trying to realisitically portray a character who is different from you.

16

I like a randomizing factor in roleplaying. I like the idea that the fall of a die or a drawing of the card can deflect the course of events. Targets the character was trying to subdue can be killed because of misjudged amount of force. Things happen that no one expects. To me it is this that makes me like games that are run with a randomizing factor as opposed to those without.

Diceless can be fun though. I think that it is the only way to go with real high powered games. I have a game that I’ve been working on that’s like In-Nomine and uses a wager system of conflict resolution. If you bring more power to bear in the situation you win. There is no randomness involved but there is a lot of uncertainty. Is that Demon really interested in fighting or are they going to discorporate making you waste a lot of resources? Is the sorcerer playing games and not showing his full power with the sloppy summoning? Things like that.

I think the diceless, rulesless people are the ones who tend to be asses. That is in every segment of the gaming spectrum you have asses. At the end characterized by diceless and ruleless you have a higher concentration of asses than in other sections. I personally think if they enjoy making what amounts to collaborative novels or plays that’s great. I also think they should shut the hell up about their “superior” roleplaying style. Just like people who play differently shouldn’t heckle them about their choice.

17

The “four stats” breakdown seems to be pretty common in diceless systems–that Amber thing casting shadows, of course. :slight_smile: Everway breaks characters down by four stats named after the traditional elements, with lightly symbolic areas of effect–a high-Fire character has more active strength, that sort of thing, while a high-Earth character has more endurance. It uses a cartomantic approach to randomizing factor–a small deck of cards with images and keywords, vaguely like Tarot deck trumps. I like its setting, but there’s a sort of crystal-waving New Agey feeling permeating it that repels me (gustibus non est etc.).

Nobilis is a diceless system that’s been piquing my interest lately–I gather it uses a wager system similar to what The Tim mentioned. Characters have pools of points that affect various areas, and have to choose how much to budget per situation. There’s an “example of play” excerpted chapter in PDF format on their website that’s entertainingly surreal.

18

Here’s the thing: Suppose that my character is a seasoned general, leading the most powerful army in the world, and is personally a whiz with the sword, to boot. Does he win the battle against the savages? Probably. But maybe by some fluke the savages just happen to lay a successful ambush for us in the mountain pass. Sure, I sent my scouts out ahead to look for ambushes, but they just happened to miss this one. Or even if I do win the battle, at what cost? Surely, there are some casualties. How many? And perhaps, my character is even one of them. There’s always that chance of an arrow in the eye.

If every conflict were decided entirely on the relative abilities of the combatants and the amount of preparation and effort they expended, then history would be an awfully boring subject.

Yes, sometimes the roll of the dice forces the DM to change his plans, in order to keep the game playable. But changing plans on the fly is part of the fun of an RPG, for both the players and DM.

19

I agree with what Chronos is saying, for the most part. I think that’s why the diceless system is the best fit for the Amber setting, and vice versa. In a game of D&D, BattleTech, Middle Earth, etc., your characters are humans (or something similar), trying to make it in the world with their own skills and resources. Human skills aren’t perfectly reliable, however, and the dice-based system reflects this.

Amber, on the other hand, is a very different situation. I mean, the characters are deities, more or less–it can be assumed that just about any task–whether picking a lock, making a fire, or even conquering some Shadow kingdom–is within their grasp, given sufficient time and planning.

To illustrate the point: in D&D, if your character is, say, attacked by two bears while strolling through the woods, the immediate question is “Can I kill these bears before they kill me?”

In the Amber setting, it can be taken as given that you can kill these two bears–you’re a god, for crying out loud. The immediate questions are more like “Are these just natural forest denizens, or did one of my brothers send them? Which brother? Does he actually think he’ll kill me, or is he just trying to make me waste my time? Will this slow me down long enough for his evil scheme to work before my own evil scheme is set up?” And so forth. Those sort of questions can and do come up in D&D et al as well, but in those situations, they’re secondary.

That, combined with the totally open-ended nature of Shadow-walking, makes the Amber setting one that is not well suited to dice-based gaming.

20

There are many factors besides the relative ability of the combatants that will determine the outcome of a battle.

If you have a good GM, the unexpected will happen. The savages will sometimes lay an abmush that the seasoned scouts miss. An assassin will wend his way through the enemy lines and show up in your command tent disguised as your faithful aid de camp. A herd of Tyrannasaurus Rex will blunder onto the field, throwing both sides into chaos. The savages will appeal to their gods, who will wreak vengence on you by causing a nearby volcano to erupt.

It’s dangerous to emphasize that point in a dice vs. diceless debate, because it causes the dice militants to crow, “There you go! Everything is dependent on the whim of the GM! What kind of idiot would entrust the GM with such power?”

I think the answer is obvious: a roleplaying game is not some kind of a contest where the players try to defeat the GM through superior strategy (and lucky die rolls). The GM’s job is not to try to “beat” the players; it is to provide an interesting roleplaying experience. GMs who never let the players succeed, and who fail to adjudicate the game system’s rules fairly and reasonably will, quite simply, piss the players off. Similarly, if the GM doesn’t provide any real challenges, or if gameplay is completely predictable and boring, the players won’t be satisified and they’ll either complain or leave.

My husband runs an Amber game, and many’s the time that, on the ride home, he’s said, "Wow, that’s not how I expected that scenario would be resolved! As KillerFig pointed out, the type of uncertainty is definitely different, as are the situations where uncertainty comes into play, giving diceless games a very different feel, but if the outcome of every situation was just determined by the numbers on character sheets, obviously the players would be bored and go home.

I wonder how many of those who are complaining about the lack of uncertainty have actually played a diceless game? Or are your objections purely philosphical?