Dice & Diceless?

[pete_darby]

Andif that decision is placed in the hands of the players, not the designer, then the players explicitly make decisions about the theme of the game through their selection of mechanics.

This is true. It's also true that a designer can give players the choice by supplying both options. Whether the decision is made in design or in play, the decision is still deliberate and has some meaning behind it. It's not whimsical or random.

Yeah, I thought I was agreeing, but I forgot to include "yeah" in my post...

[Jack Spencer Jr]

And if that decision is placed in the hands of the players, not the designer, then the players explicitly make decisions about the theme of the game through their selection of mechanics.

This goes back to something I've always noticed about RPG culture in that it's more a hobby culture and a group is better off making their own system than to purchase one, although most seem to prefer to buy a game that interests them and modify it.

Which is what bothers me about the idea of a game that is either fortune or fortuneless. It seems too much like an attempt to get as many different types of people/player to buy it. That's what I'm seeing with this.

[Hunter Logan]

Yeah, I thought I was agreeing, but I forgot to include "yeah" in my post...

And my reply has a harsher tone than I intended. I hate when that happens.

Jack,

I don't think decisions to include both options are necessarily intended to make more/different people buy the game. Maybe, sometimes... but for me, it's an effort to make more/different people comfortable playing the game. If I want to have control over my results, but you want to gamble, why not let the game work in a way where we can both get what we want?

[Daniel Solis]

It seems too much like an attempt to get as many different types of people/player to buy it.

That wasn't my intent with the Matrix RPG (obviously). It just struck me as a setting where a decision between succumbing to the winds of fate and taking control of one's own life was a fundamental concept of role-play.

[Jonathan Walton]

... then the players explicitly make decisions about the theme of the game through their selection of mechanics.

Honestly, I think this is destined to happen anyway, not because of the mechanics themselves but because of the emphasis different groups will put on different parts of the setting or mechanics.  Different groups will play the same game differently, no matter if you give options for diceless/diceful or not.  I don't think it makes the system weaker if both are viable options (as to one just being half-heartedly tacked on).  Heck, I like playing both Fortune-based and Fortuneless games.  Why does making that an option weaken the game?  I don't think I quite understand what you guys are trying to say.

[pete_darby]

Honestly, I think this is destined to happen anyway, not because of the mechanics themselves but because of the emphasis different groups will put on different parts of the setting or mechanics.  Different groups will play the same game differently, no matter if you give options for diceless/diceful or not.  I don't think it makes the system weaker if both are viable options (as to one just being half-heartedly tacked on).  Heck, I like playing both Fortune-based and Fortuneless games.  Why does making that an option weaken the game?  I don't think I quite understand what you guys are trying to say.

Well, I think it's always nice to have these options explicit in the rulebook, rather than "discovered" in play (but witness the hostility on the RPGnet boards over Tri-Stat DX making "chuck out the rules you don't need" explicit in a rulesbook). I don't think it makes the game weaker, unless there's a mechanical bias towards one or other resolution method.

Perhaps this is a glimpse at a new stance beyond Director, where decisions are made about the way decisions are resolved.... Cameraman? Lighting Director? Best Boy?

[M. J. Young]

I know it's a bit late in the thread for this, and I'm embarrassed to say that it has come to my mind every time I've read this thread so I've no excuse for not mentioning it until now (well, my excuse is that some days I didn't think it was worth writing and other days I didn't want to tuck it into a post on something else--but it's not a good excuse).

Dice versus diceless doesn't really express what this discussion is about, because diceless has at least three meanings:

[*]A fortune system with a randomizer other than dice, such as cards, coins, stopwatch, or roshambo.[*]A karma system in which strategy and strength are elevated to critical importance.[*]A drama system in which decisions are made by one or more players based on what outcome is desired.[/list:u]All of this discussion has compared the diced fortune system to the karma system; but would a drama system be considered in some way? One could in theory devise a system where the player and the referee each propose an outcome of an action, and everyone votes (perhaps as simple as a colored chip or marble held in hand and displayed simultaneously) on the outcome they want to see happen.

--M. J. Young

[simon_hibbs]

Which is what bothers me about the idea of a game that is either fortune or fortuneless. It seems too much like an attempt to get as many different types of people/player to buy it. That's what I'm seeing with this.

I agree to the extent that any game should realy present a clear and consistent default set of game mechanics, that coherently express the game designer's intended mode of play.

Having said that,  I don't think there's anythig wrong with then offering a range of customisation options for those who want them. What I am dubious about is giving the choice of game mechanics to players on a situation-to-situation basis. I'm concerned that this might encourage players to use the mechanic they feel gives them the best advantage in a given situation, rathert than which mechanic is thematicaly appropriate to the situation.

My favoured approach is to use cumulative game mechanics (such as with plot points), rather than alternatives.


Simon Hibbs

[Daniel Solis]

One could in theory devise a system where the player and the referee each propose an outcome of an action, and everyone votes (perhaps as simple as a colored chip or marble held in hand and displayed simultaneously) on the outcome they want to see happen.

That's brilliant! Has this been implemented anywhere else? I'd love to see it executed.

I'm concerned that this might encourage players to use the mechanic they feel gives them the best advantage in a given situation, rathert than which mechanic is thematicaly appropriate to the situation.

Ideally, either mechanic would be equally thematically appropriate and any advantages a player gains from either mechanic are also in line with the themes of the game. I think it was mentioned in another thread that a game is well-designed when the powergaming possibilities are in sync with the themes of the game.

EDIT: I'm going to start a new thread on Indie Game Design about that mechanic M.J. mentioned.

[Jason Lee]

All of this discussion has compared the diced fortune system to the karma system; but would a drama system be considered in some way? One could in theory devise a system where the player and the referee each propose an outcome of an action, and everyone votes (perhaps as simple as a colored chip or marble held in hand and displayed simultaneously) on the outcome they want to see happen.

Gee, I just have to comment (off-topic though it is).  I agree - that's very clever.

You could use those d6's with the different colored dots on each face and assign each player a permanent color (Sam is yellow).  Conceal your d6, reveal the vote as a color on the d6.  Mostly yellow votes and Sam's suggestion happens, with narration of the event passing to Sam.  (I only mention the d6 and permanent color assignment because I think the handling time would be slightly lower than a chip/marble).

[M. J. Young]

The trivia game Malarkey contains chips of six colors plus black; the function of the black is for when the player is identifying himself--his own color chip is in front of him, so everyone can see what color he is. Each player proposes an explanation of the question, and everyone votes by displaying a chip of the color of the person they think is right. Handling time is not so bad, really. It plays more smoothly than Fictionary in practice.

I've seen other games in the trivia and personal issues areas which use similar mechanics, but nothing in roleplaying.

I don't think there would be a lot of handling time problems with the idea I proposed, as long as there are only two proposed outcomes--the referee's and the player's. That way it would be a simple black-and-white choice. I think handling d6's to make sure you've got the right side up would be more complex, even than having chips in six different colors.

You could perhaps let the votes represent points, positive and negative (or votes for the player versus votes to increase the target number), toward victory; then a player might succeed even if most people voted against him, if he had high enough scores.

I see a lot of stragizing happening in the formation of the outcome statements. Some people will generally vote for the player's outcome, but not all will; and there will be some who will vote for "the most reasonable" or "realistic" sounding outcome. Thus there's an inherent social motivation to try to create a moderate outcome description, and so garner more votes. On the other hand, proposing an outrageously good or bad outcome once in a while can win votes just to liven up the game--a referee could win votes particularly by proposing that one of the player characters gets in trouble, and needs the others to rescue him, which might draw the others to vote for the referee's option so as to give themselves more screen time in the rescue.

I'd like to hear how it goes when you've got something.

--M. J. Young

[ClaudeC]

Do you think it'b be possible to have players who love doing diceless rpg and players who love using dices play the same rpg at the same time? Like one side of the table would be the pro-dice and the other side the pro-diceless?

The system I'm working on looks like this:

It uses the concept of effort points. The more effort you use to make an action, the more chance you have to succeed...and consequently, the more tired you get.

To make an action, you need to add:

Attributs + Skills + Effort Points Vs Level of Difficulty

For exemple:

Dexterity (+3) + SwordFight (+4) + 4 effort pts = 11

For the pro-diceless, he would use the 4 points from his pool of effort points.

For the pro-dice, 4 points of effort means using 4 D6 and he will take the highest score to add to Attributs and Skills.

The pro-diceless will have more control over the effort points but he will be limited to the number of points he uses for the action.

The pro-dice will have to rely on fate to succeed, but at the same time, he can have a higher score with less effort points. With the exemple above, he spends 3 points of effort, but if one of the die land 6, his total goes from 11 to 13 (3+4+6). Of course, if the highest score is 2, for exemple, it would mean that he has spent 4 effort points to add only 2 (intead of 11, he'd get 9).

So each system has its own pros and cons. It's up to the players to use the system that fits best his needs. With that system, do you think it would be possible to have both types of players during a game?

Note: the core rule of my system is a little bit more complexed, but I hope you guys understand its philosophy.

ClaudeC

[Mike Holmes]

For the pro-dice, 4 points of effort means using 4 D6 and he will take the highest score to add to Attributs and Skills.

This statistically favors the dice rollers at some points, and the non-dice-rollers at others on the curve. But there are simple ways to make it statistically even. The simplest I can think of involves just rolling your 4 FUDGE dice, and taking the sum and adding it to the base value that the non-roller would get (for those unaware, FUDGE dice have 2 +1 sides, 1 -1 sides, and 2 zero sides, meaning that the average roll is zero). Or just roll Hero System "Body" dice, equal to the number taken (1 = 0, 2-5 = 1, 6 = 2, easy to read method which bell curves over a value equal to the number of dice rolled). Basically, the player has the choice to take the average or gamble in either method.

That said, this will favor one method or the other in specific cases. If the player knows what they need to get, they can decide which method makes the most sense. In any case, if they can even estimate the difficutly, they'll have an idea of whether or not it's beneficial to roll or not (roll for hard, take average for easy). Essentially, it merely becomes yet another form of strategy in effect.

Which could work for the right game.

Mike

[ClaudeC]

You know, I think using the Fudge-like dice system is really neat for my system. For exemple, if the player use 4 effort points. He would throw 4 dices.

If the result is: 1 or 2 or 3, he would add -1 to the effort points. If the result is 4 or 5 or 6, he would add +1.

Yeah, I really like it. Thank you Mike for suggesting the idea. :)

ClaudeC

[Mike Holmes]

You're welcome, Claude.

Your take has an oddity to it that's not neccessarily problematic, but I thought I'd mention it. When rolling an odd number of dice, you can't ever get the original number as a result. Even numbers you can get the original number, but then you can't get a number that's one away from the number, either more or less. These ommisions in the curve occur then at every two points. So, with four dice, you can only get 0, 2, 4, 6, 8 as results. With five dice you can only get 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 as results. As you can see, only even numbers can ever result from this method.

Mike