Diceless or heavily narrative.

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Stumpydave

Stumpydave

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As I've alluded to elsewhere, I wrote (or am I writing - its a bit Schrodinger) a game. It was a diceless game but I know some people balk at the thought of no randomisers.
The only system I've read in the last 20 years that made think 'Ooh, this is new and exciting!' was the narrative system used in Houses of the Blooded.
Which also makes people balk - only this time at the thought of directing the story/game. But at least there's a randomiser, which is good.
My current thinking is to strip out the diceless side and replace it with a variation on the risk/wager mechanic of HotB.

My question to hypothetical players is this.
What puts you off more - the thought of diceless play or the thought of player-led control of the gameworld?
 
Stumpydave said:
As I've alluded to elsewhere, I wrote (or am I writing - its a bit Schrodinger) a game. It was a diceless game but I know some people balk at the thought of no randomisers.
The only system I've read in the last 20 years that made think 'Ooh, this is new and exciting!' was the narrative system used in Houses of the Blooded.
Which also makes people balk - only this time at the thought of directing the story/game. But at least there's a randomiser, which is good.
My current thinking is to strip out the diceless side and replace it with a variation on the risk/wager mechanic of HotB.

My question to hypothetical players is this.
What puts you off more - the thought of diceless play or the thought of player-led control of the gameworld?
Click to expand...
Honestly, diceless (or randomizer-less if being really technical, as I have been known to accept different sorts of cards as randomizers).
 
Diceless by a long, long way. I don't have a problem at all with shared narrative control except that I find that "most" gamers (insofar as I've encountered them) don't want that and would prefer a GM to "run" the game.

Diceless on the other hand is an instant deal-breaker.
 
Stumpydave said:
What puts you off more - the thought of diceless play or the thought of player-led control of the gameworld?
Click to expand...


For me, I don't mind the former, but it's not my preference. I've played games where it was simply based on GM fiat - players say what they are going to do, the GM describes the outcome. And they went fine. But in the long-term, I prefer a randomizer.

As for the latter, for me that's an entirely different gaming experience from playing RPGs. It's like, I enjoy miniature wargames, and I like chess, but they are different things.
 
Savage Schemer said:
Diceless by a long, long way. I don't have a problem at all with shared narrative control except that I find that "most" gamers (insofar as I've encountered them) don't want that and would prefer a GM to "run" the game.
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Man, ain't that the truth?

I love some shared control stuff in games (not all games, all the time, but ones designed for it).

OTOH, most of the gamers I know IRL aren't hanging out on gaming forums talking deep ideas or variant styles of mechanics and play in RPG. Most have never (or only rarely, often unsuccessfully) GMed.

Even the concept of shared control is largely a n alien concept. Like, it's literally outside of any possibility they've ever even considered, and even trying to explain it broadly to them gets confused looks and incomprehension.
 
Shared control I'm fine with. I've been doing that since I started running games, as a reaction to the overly-precious, heavy-handed "listen to my story" GMs I played with as a youngster.

But I need me some dice to randomise all the things. Even cards don't do it for me.
 
Savage Schemer said:
Same. I need the dice or it just doesn't put me into the same happy place.
Click to expand...
Same, although the cards Iwas personally thinking of were the Mythic GM Emulator cards, which kina sorta sub in for both dice and a few different charts from the parent, dice using game.
 
Neither are deal breakers. I've done the collaborative setting creation thing and it can be effective, especially if I am GMing because it cuts down on my prep work.

I don't mind diceless. I'd be happy to play Puppetland again and I'd be willing to give Marvel Universe with a well organised GM who could keep track of things without getting overwhelmed (I wonder if Marvel Universe would have done better in these days of VTT with digital characters sheets with macros?). I don't think I'd play Amber, largely the whole fictional political schemeing thing doesn't appeal to me any more.

I do have concerns about resource-based diceless games that work on a secret auction principle (what I think you mean by risk/wager) because it creates an adversarial tension between GM and player. That's not my style.
 
Stumpydave said:
As I've alluded to elsewhere, I wrote (or am I writing - its a bit Schrodinger) a game. It was a diceless game but I know some people balk at the thought of no randomisers.
The only system I've read in the last 20 years that made think 'Ooh, this is new and exciting!' was the narrative system used in Houses of the Blooded.
Which also makes people balk - only this time at the thought of directing the story/game. But at least there's a randomiser, which is good.
My current thinking is to strip out the diceless side and replace it with a variation on the risk/wager mechanic of HotB.

My question to hypothetical players is this.
What puts you off more - the thought of diceless play or the thought of player-led control of the gameworld?
Click to expand...
Diceless play, I like it when they throw a spanner into everything.
 

Diceless or heavily narrative.

Neither is a deal breaker for me but, like most of the posters here, I have a strong preference for the random element introduced by dice, cards, Jenga blocks, tea leaves etc,
 
I've played a few diceless games and observed a strange phenomenon where a decision point is reached in the game, and all someone has to do is narrate that choice, but things get all twitchy and you see folks reaching for the invisible dice. That person has been me. I need some form of dice in my game, it's what the g represents to me. I don't think I could do diceless again so that's far more off-putting than a player-led gameworld, which is not off-putting at all.
 
I find it hard to find randomizer free games appealing.

On the other hand, I can find the games with some shared authority OK, but it may depend on the amount. I would also offer that shared authority IS a central feature of role playing games. Players have always been able to say things like "I swing from the chandelier" without the GM having explicitly mentioned chandeliers. If the GM hadn't really thought about it, he might evaluate whether to say yes or not. Players have also long been able to conjure details of NPCs. So it's not a case of do the players have authority beyond their character, but how much, and how are differences in expectation handled. So I MIGHT not be interested in an RPG where players can make major statements about the world, or I might not, and it might depend on how much I get to say as GM, "no, this is the way the world works." There has been argument that a player can force any fact on the world (via a wise test) no matter what the GM has in mind, pointing to "say yes or roll the dice," but others have argued that "say yes" can also include "say no." "No, the evil villain is NOT your best friend who you have influence over so you do not get to roll." Other games handle player contribution with the players asking permission "Hey, does this tavern have chandeliers?" That's still a player contribution in a sense. Without the player question, the chandeliers may be Schrödinger's Chandeliers, we simply don't know (and may not care).
 
When I firsts heard of Amber Diceless I thought it couldn't work, but in play I have found to my surprise that it can work quite well. I understand the desire for dice but I think a lot of my diced RPG is almost diceless anyway:

(1) If an outcome isn't really in doubt I don't bother to have folks roll
(2) if we have a "take 10" type situation (where the character isn't rushed) I don't need for folks to roll.

So in my experience a lot of action in a RPG doesn't really need a roll at all. What the dice do is produce a sense of drama in places where it might not otherwise happen. A 1st level character might get that lucky critical hit against a 10th level monster; not often but often enough that we anxiously await the time time it does happen. (If an absurd dice roll happens we feel like for some reason it was "supposed" to go that way, but in a diceless setting if the absurd happens the GM is blamed.)
 
PolarBlues said:
I do have concerns about resource-based diceless games that work on a secret auction principle (what I think you mean by risk/wager) because it creates an adversarial tension between GM and player. That's not my style.
Click to expand...
The risk/wager thing is from HotB. You roll from a dice pool to beat 10. But you can keep some dice out of the roll and if you still win they give you increased say over the outcome.
 
Diceless my question would be how? The only diceless game I've played was a single session of Amber and that crashed and burned it depends on what the game actually is.

Shared narrative? Eh. Is it a one shot? It's probably a one shot because most such games seem to be, or designed for convention play. I'm happy to try anything for a one shot, especially if there's beer.

Shared narrative for long term play? I guess if I was with a group of people who actually wanted to try and make it work I might give it a go. My general experience is that that's not what anyone wants from long campaigns though. (I suspect it would still run out of steam pretty quickly though).
 
Stumpydave said:
As I've alluded to elsewhere, I wrote (or am I writing - its a bit Schrodinger) a game. It was a diceless game but I know some people balk at the thought of no randomisers.
The only system I've read in the last 20 years that made think 'Ooh, this is new and exciting!' was the narrative system used in Houses of the Blooded.
Which also makes people balk - only this time at the thought of directing the story/game. But at least there's a randomiser, which is good.
My current thinking is to strip out the diceless side and replace it with a variation on the risk/wager mechanic of HotB.

My question to hypothetical players is this.
What puts you off more - the thought of diceless play or the thought of player-led control of the gameworld?
Click to expand...
While I'm not playing with you, here's my 0,02EU: I've got no problems with diceless play. I don't like "player-led control of the gameworld", because I want to be wandering around a place that actually exists somewhere, even if it's only in the Referee's imagination and notes.
Other people might disagree, and I'm obviously* not one of your players, so they might as well.

*Otherwise, you wouldn't have the whole group balking at the lack of randomizers.
BTW, I'm also fine with only the GM using randomizers in a diceless game, especially for stuff like random tables and the like.
 
AsenRG said:
I don't like "player-led control of the gameworld", because I want to be wandering around a place that actually exists somewhere, even if it's only in the Referee's imagination and notes.
Click to expand...
I think I've broken this default thinking. I'm not a fan of giving players control of the game world either. I loved Donjon, but it gave way too much control to players.

There are games that encourage steering the game in desired directions and using negotiations and vetoes to stay true to original themes and genres. I feel like that gets annoying fast. I don't want to talk about how the game needs to realign to true. I want to play, and my character should be able to definitively act as fast as I can speak.

The middle ground is to give each player full control of their character.

There are some kinks to be worked out, and lots of simplification required to communicate the playstyle clearly, but I'm very close.
 
Of the two, diceless is more likely not my cup of tea. But that really depends on how such a system works. Like, if there’s a way to calculate odds of success and the like, so players can make informed decisions, then I’m good. If it’s purely GM fiat or the system is unknown to the players, then I’m out.

Sharing narrative authority isn’t a problem at all. All RPGs do it to one extent or another.
 
I have Chuubo's Marvellous Wish-Granting Engine and while I eventually got the hang of it, by the time I did I couldn't see the point in doing things that way over some ultra-lite dice mechanic. It could well be a testament to my shallowness, I dunno.

Sometimes sharing narrative authority is as simple as picking up on a cool idea one of your players has had, and running with it, or incorporating into the setting, or whatever.
 
Stumpydave said:
What puts you off more - the thought of diceless play or the thought of player-led control of the gameworld?
Click to expand...
I'll listen to such ideas, but I almost never want to play either.

Unless by "player-led control of the gameworld" you mean the players and/or PCs play decision-makers in the gameworld (kings, lords, guildmasters, magnates, faction leadership, etc).
 
I am very conservative, but I think one generally needs dice to play a game. Now there are many games that do not have dice, but there are clear rules for adjudication, like "Knight takes Pawn.". There is no argument

Based on what I can tell, some of these narrative games are really party entertainments, sometimes also called games, (:-)) and there should be no need for a GM. Every player is also a GM as well as an actor: what they are based on is theatrical improv. Which can be a hell of a lot of fun with the right people. John Belushi: Dragonslayer.

Or we could just play Charades. Which is generally also called a game.
 
Savage Schemer said:
Diceless by a long, long way. I don't have a problem at all with shared narrative control except that I find that "most" gamers (insofar as I've encountered them) don't want that and would prefer a GM to "run" the game.

Diceless on the other hand is an instant deal-breaker.
Click to expand...
This. My own experience.
 
Diceless play by a long shot. A randomiser of some sort is important to me as a GM to make an RPG a game which I can enjoy along with the players.
 
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