Diceless or Dicealicious?

[Bert]

[greyorm]

Something isn't clear to me from your description of the rules: why WOULDN'T you put all four tokens back in the pot at the start of play? What do Balance tokens even do that make them a resource you'd want to have rather than having a bonus or in spite of having a penalty?

[Vulpinoid]

Indeed.

Why not reverse the pot mechanism so that everyone starts with nothing from the pot?

In this case, anyone could draw counters from the pot in exchange for a 1 pt penalty on their current action (up to a maximum of 4). At any later stage, they can return counters to the pot to claim a bonus.

In this way, every starts evenly, and those character who take risks in the course of play will gain benefits for those actions later on.

Just some thoughts...

V

[David C]

I really like the Cosmic balance mechanic a lot, EXCEPT for one thing.  Why not just do actions you don't care so much about, or take penalties, when it won't effect you?

For example, lets say I have "Strong 5" and then the GM says you need "Strong 4" to resolve.  Why wouldn't I just take a token then? I know I'll still succeed since there's no chance. 

There's a mechanic from a diceless board game I'm thinking of, that might be of assistance to you. (A Game of Thrones strategy board game.)  The way it works is you know both modifiers beforehand (in this case it's your armies strength), but every combat, you play a card from you hand (which you then discard.)  Cards have a rating of +0 to +3, and you never know what your opponent is going to play (and they'll always play a card.) 

You could do a similar thing, and have it so players always start with a certain hand (3x +0, 3x +1, 2x +2, 1x +3) and then whenever they get kudos (however you do that), have them draw a card from a collective pile that could be anything. 

[Bert]

Hi Greygorm,

Something isn't clear to me from your description of the rules: why WOULDN'T you put all four tokens back in the pot at the start of play?

The the bonus only applies to a single action. Once the action is resolved, that's it - the bonus evaporates. Leaving you with a debt to repay. If you put all 4 tokens back in the pot for the first contest/challenge you encounter, or initiate a trivial challenge and put 4 tokens back, you're going to do really well at something that might not be terribly important or even irrelevant - racking up a bumper debt for when it really counts.

What do Balance tokens even do that make them a resource you'd want to have rather than having a bonus or in spite of having a penalty?

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. Balance tokens are bonuses - or at least potential bonuses. Putting balance tokens back in the pot gives you a bonus, allowing you to succede when you would otherwise fail. If you dont take balance tokens from the pot and suffer penalties, you'll have no bonus tokens to put back in exchange for bonuses when you really need them. Does that answer your question?

If you think about it for a minute dice offer pretty much the same deal. With enough die rolls the lousy results and the good results balance out. The only difference here is the you get to choose when you get a good result or a lousy result.

Do you think this system is flawed? If not, would it work with the others?

[Bert]

Greetings Vulpiniod,

Start the buggers with zero tokens? Make them pay before they can reap any rewards? That's mean - and I like it!

Do you think the Cosmic Balance mechanic will work with any of the others?

[Bert]

Hi David,

Thanks for your response.

I really like the Cosmic balance mechanic a lot, EXCEPT for one thing.  Why not just do actions you don't care so much about, or take penalties, when it won't effect you?

For example, lets say I have "Strong 5" and then the GM says you need "Strong 4" to resolve.  Why wouldn't I just take a token then? I know I'll still succeed since there's no chance. 

[David C]

I really don't like playing in games where the GM doesn't announce a difficulty before the attempt.  In my experience, things start becoming very arbitrary.

bob "I jump the ravine and spend a token" Strong 2 + 1 (GM, *hmm, he did spend a token* "You succeed")
alice "I jump the ravine and take a token"  Strong 5 - 1 (GM, "You fail")

Bert, for cards, what if you used a deck of playing cards?  Face Cards + Ace could be +2,  non face black cards could be +1, and non race red cards could be +0 (or something like that.)   Everytime you take a penalty, you could draw a card.  You'd never want to run out of cards, because then you won't be able to "bluff." 

You mention you wanted to shoot for diceless, if you could, so why are you mentioning d6, or is that a failsafe (if you don't come up with something better?)

Also, excuse my ignorance, but what does RPS stand for?

[Bert]

[chronoplasm]

Some ideas...

Cosmic Balance
Instead of tokens, the players get dice in their dice pool.
When performing actions, players may 'Extend' their dice (substitute whatever verb you may.) When they do so, they reroll the die and add it to their score, but then they throw the die in the pot.
Players may also elect to 'Bite the Bullet'. When they declare this, a die is taken from the pot and rolled, and that number is added to the difficulty rating of the action.

Calculated Risk
Before a player performs a check, that player may bet dice on the outcome. If the check is successful, that player may draw a die from the pot. If the check is not successful, that player must put a die into the pot.
If a player takes a risk while Biting the Bullet at the same time, they gain two bonus dice if the check is successful.

[David C]

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Do you think all three systems will work together, or am I going to have to pick one or two? Which combinations might work best? Will these supplementary mechanics devalue Player tactics? Has anyone had any experience playing or play testing something similar?

1) Why do you want all 3 systems?  What does Cosmic Balance add to the game, that Calculated Risk doesn't already handle? 
2) I feel Cosmic Balance and Calc. Risk overlap a lot.
3) Calc. Risk is just an elaborate randomization method.  Basically, you can choose not to use it (unknown chance of success.)  Or use it and have a 50% chance of increasing or decreasing your unknown chance of success (whether you pick +1 or +4 doesn't seem to matter in my mind.) 

I think you need to figure out if you want your players to have a pretty good idea of how their actions will effect their outcome, or just settle on a simple randomization method.  For example: a situation where they know their actions will effect their outcome using the AGoT mechanic.

GM: "Your difficulty is 5" (+0 to +3)
Player: (Hmm, my skill is 6. I can play a +0 and save my good cards for later, and hope I succeed, or I can cement my chance of success by playing my +3 card...)

For example: scenarios using your mechanics.

GM: "The ravine looks challenging..."
Player: (Hmm, I probably won't succeed unless I RPS.  I could RPS +2 and hope that's enough, but if I do +4, I'm sure I'll succeed, if I win the throw...)

GM: "The ravine looks challenging..."
Player: (Hmm, I doubt I'll succeed, I guess I better put in a token)

GM: "The ravine looks challenging..."
Player: (Hmm, I better use some of my favor dice.  It's not that important to me, so I'll just use 2...)

[Bert]

[Bert]

[greyorm]

I'm not 100% sure what you mean here. Balance tokens are bonuses - or at least potential bonuses.

Thanks for the clarifications. How they worked was not clear to me from your post, which is why I asked.

[CKNIGHT]

Hi Burt

Is this system for fun(free pdf)
or is it for market?

Extra parts (tokens and cards) if manufactured may have descriptors or special uses that might be useful(colorful).