Conflict resolution using only choices?

[monstah]

Hi all. I have this thing for diceless mechanics, you see. What I'm really interested in seeing is what actions does the player choose to do, and how they affect the outcome, and not how high he rolled. Besides, rolling your way through stuff makes you ponder less about the possibilities of your actions, or so I believe. That is specially true in combats; how else are you expected to win a combat other than by attacking (ok, there is rpleplaying and talking out of it, but I really mean knocking someone down)? Spellcasting usually goes down to dice rolling again.

I would like to see a more tactical approach to resolving situations. Something that forces the players not only to think what's gonna happen next if they do A instead of B, but also what long-term consequences this choice has.

And when I say that, the first thing that comes to my mind is chess. The game of chess is based on nothing else but choices, and it's outcome can be more chaotic than any dice roll. You might be winning and a few turns later you find you made a terrible mistake and lost your Rook and Queen. But you can still win, even without such pieces.

Back to RPG. Do you know any mechanics which has these characteristics? Sure, you could use chess literally, but I'm trying something less extreme. And witohut a board and pieces, too, something that can be done with just pen and paper to track a few variables, and a set of rules to mess around these variables until a desired outcome (for either side) is achieved.

Steve Jackson's solo adventure books also come to my mind. Perhaps you could create "situation maps" (miniature versions of those solo adventures) for different kinds of situation (combat, etc.)? If so, both sides would swap their turns to choose the path through the "map", changing the situation towards his objective.

Have you met such a system before? Care to share your ideas?

Thanks for the time reading this.

[Paul Czege]

Greg Porter's game Epiphany has very cool diceless mechanics that could easily be tactical. Essentially, a character goes into a conflict with a number (less than 10) that represents his relevant advantages. All conflicts are opposed. The player divides his advantages between attack and defense and throws out his fingers to display how he's apportioned them, with the right hand being "attack" and the left hand being "defense." The GM does the same. The result is interpreted, based on comparison of player attack vs. GM defense and GM attack vs. player defense. So it's possible to achieve total victory, total failure, or degrees of success with consequences, all from a combination of Karma plus resource allocation mechanics.

Paul

[Mikael]

Are you familiar with Polaris? It has the (nearly)  diceless conflict resolution system based on key phrases that largely revolves around making significant choices.

[David Artman]

Amber is a diceless game which, generally, accomplishes your first goal:

I would like to see a more tactical approach to resolving situations. Something that forces the players not only to think what's gonna happen next if they do A instead of B, but also what long-term consequences this choice has.

And it does it in a rather interesting way. Briefly, everyone has one stat at which they are "uber" and will always win in that arena: psyche, strength, endurance, and warfare. Thus, when conflicts occur--and keeping in mind the characters often can use SERIOUS magic or even shift reality around them to go to another world which is identical in all but one key way--then a big part of play is maneuvering the arena of conflict to one in which you have the advantage (or, at the least, it's equal footing). Once you can "catch" opposition flatfooted or disadvantaged, the conflict is won outright.

(I can't recall at the moment how equal footing conflicts resolve, but it's non-random: maybe a resource bidding thing? Anybody recall?)

HTH;
David

[Filip Luszczyk]

(I can't recall at the moment how equal footing conflicts resolve, but it's non-random: maybe a resource bidding thing? Anybody recall?)

(If I recall, it was pure GM's fiat, or something about smarter player tactics winning. It wasn't specified what difference in stats constitutes equal footing, I think, so it was GM's call in the first place. On a fundamental level, the stats didn't matter at all - it was all about your ability to convince the GM you should win. A shame, the system was otherwise very elegant.)

[monstah]

Still I like the ideas very much. Initially, I was aiming for something Stone-Paper-Scissors-like, but it's not really a fun game if a player acts first and another player next. It never occured to me to actually use the SPS mechanics (both sides show their fingers at the same time).

Later tho, it occured to me a way in which to use SPS in a sequential fashion (one player after the other). Instead of having different elements "beat" each other, the outcomes could all be different. So, if you are the first to play, you choose stone for instance. Next player won't necessarily pick paper, for it doesn't "win". Stone-paper would be a different outcome than stone-scissors and stone-stone, but none should necessarily be "better". So by choosing stone, you are deciding that 3 out of possible 9 outcomes will happen, and leaving room for the other player to pick which one. I still need to decide when to call it a victory, and to which side.

Perhaps it's a tug-of-war kind of contest? Specific outcomes change the balance to each side, until one wins? Then tere would be a "better" choice, but since the other guy will play again, you "better" choice now might leave you vulnerable to a counter attack.

This works better with a 5-choice mechanic instead of 3, tho. Something like the chinese elements, perhaps, with element representing a "fighting stance".

Any thoughts?

[monstah]

Just found Polaris. The new edition doesn't support the keyphrases anymore, but with a bit of google i found this, which is a lot helpful. The mechanic is GENIUS! Might need a little tweaking to suit the desired mood and setting (horror, Silent Hill-like), but I loved how players talk things out instead of rolling conflicts. Thanks a lot!

[monstah]

m-hm. Actually I had found a different Polaris ([ulr=polarisrpg.com/]this[/url] one). But still, the reference sheet proved useful in understanding the mechanics.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I am a big fan of ...In spaaace!
http://www.gregstolze.com/inSpaaace.zip
  In this game there is a limited economy, which you spend to decide the outcome of a conflict. Basically, the "winner" gets to decide the conflict outcome and pays the "loser" for the privilege. Consequently, it is advisable to choose to lose early conflicts so you have more resources to better manage conflicts at the end of the story (or vice versa depending on what part of the story is most important to you).
  You might want to check it out. It is not too long, well written and inspiring!

[Raymond Caleatry]

I would suggest card based mechanics.  I recently started looking at card games as they offer strategy but with a dash of luck which is found in which cards you draw.  But within your choice of cards you have hard decisions that are not controlled by luck, hence you can emphasize strategy.  Within my system, combat characters are those that not only draw more cards in combat situations, but also have more combat related card to draw from.

Ray

[masqueradeball]

The Marvel Universe RPG (Not the Marvel Super Heroes RPG or whatever the SAGA edition was called) used Stones. Each turn a character generated a number of red stones of energy based on the current health (white stones). They could then allocate those stones to various actions or to defense. Once all stones were placed in their appropraite actions (which were big square spaces on a multi-page character sheet), the actions were resolved. Pretty good game with a far too short of a life span.