Topic: I Hate Dice
Started by: Chasuk
Started on: 10/7/2005
Board: RPG Theory
On 10/7/2005 at 4:09am, Chasuk wrote:
I Hate Dice
I've been playing rpg's of one sort or another since I was 19, and I'm 44 now, so that makes me a fairly experienced player. However, generally, I hate games which require dice. If rpg's didn't require dice, I would be in heaven. This means, of course, that I prefer the deduct-from-a-set-number-of-points style of character creation. Usually, in my own experience, this puts me in the minority.
Does the majority really prefer dice-based character creation, or have I been hanging out with the wrong people? If I am correct in my observation of what the majority prefer, can anyone offer a reasonable theory as to why this might be?
When I ask players around here, the answers I get amount to: "It's harder to get uber characters with point-deducting systems," which I translate into: "It's harder to tweak/cheat with point-deducting systems."
If I had an accurate theory/model (other than the above) as to why die-character-creation is more popular, I might be able to figure out ways of enhancing the attractiveness of my favorite method, the deduct-from-a-set-number-of-points style of character creation.
Any theories?
On 10/7/2005 at 4:56am, planetouched wrote:
Re: I Hate Dice
That's a strange thing... I thought everybody and his dog loathed dice-based character creation. Well at least it's the case for my gaming group, and I believe that here in France most gamers don't like the randomness of this type of creation.
And isn't it a reason why, for instance, there are now a few deduct-from-a-set-number-of-points styles of character creation in D&D?
On 10/7/2005 at 5:12am, Bankuei wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Hi,
Welcome to the Forge!
Here's a question- are you planning on designing a game with point build character generation, or are you looking to prove an argument with someone you know? Because, honestly, the latter is an opinion war and there is no "reasonable" way to really convince anyone against what they like.
Overall, I've found that people like random rolls for character generation based on the joy of raw gambling. It's a thrill to roll a good character, and a let down to roll a bad one. Just the same, I think most games do it out of habit of tradition rather than a genuine design purpose. If you look some of the most popular games out there (White Wolf games & GURPS, to name a couple) use point build systems.
Chris
On 10/7/2005 at 5:14am, Valamir wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Chasuk...what games have you played?
Far from being "more popular" there are hardly any games out there (and fewer yet designed recently) that use dice predominantly in character creation. You have to go all the way back to the 80s to find many examples of games which use it other than D&D, and D&D was an intentional throw-back to the 80s...
So I'm really not sure where your question is coming from.
Nor am I sure how prefering point based character creation gets translated into hating games which use dice...does that include using dice for resolution mechanics as well? I fail to see how those are related.
On 10/7/2005 at 7:36am, Chasuk wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Arnaud wrote:
That's a strange thing... I thought everybody and his dog loathed dice-based character creation. Well at least it's the case for my gaming group, and I believe that here in France most gamers don't like the randomness of this type of creation.
And isn't it a reason why, for instance, there are now a few deduct-from-a-set-number-of-points styles of character creation in D&D?
Hmm. Maybe I really have been playing wih the wrong crowds, then. Are there now deduct-from-a-set-number-of-points styles of character creation in D&D? I've been out of the loop with vis-a-vis roleplay, precisely because of the randomness of the character creation process (and other reasons, but that's another subject).
Thanks for your input!
On 10/7/2005 at 7:58am, Chasuk wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Bankuei wrote:
Here's a question- are you planning on designing a game with point build character generation, or are you looking to prove an argument with someone you know? Because, honestly, the latter is an opinion war and there is no "reasonable" way to really convince anyone against what they like.
Okay, you caught me: I didn't want to confess that I had any aspirations to design a game (as I really hate to fail in front of groups of people), but that is my desire, yes. I've played for a long while, but never paid much attention to the rules. I generally take a nap while everyone one else is rolling characters and disputing trivia, because I play for the puzzles and the storyline ONLY. Call me the Anti-Rules-Nazi. Ideally, I would like a character creation system which makes it possible for a player to create a character in 5 minues, max, whilst simultaneously making it possible for the more minutiae-obsessed player to tweak and customize his character for days, if that was his/her desire.
I'm not fond of re-inventing the wheel, so is there a character creation system which already matches my requirements?
Gambling bores me to tears; Yahtzee to contemplations of suicide (I am exaggerating the latter claim, not the former). The tedium of either pursuit overwhelms me, and I transfer this near-aggression of mindlessly juggling dice to die-based character creation systems.
The reason that I was asking for theories regarding the popularity of one system versus the other was to help me devise a system which might be attractive enough to pursuade my peers away from those bloody dice! We congregate to play at noon, but I'm lucky if we have started by nightfall.
Pardon my hyperbole. I just find this situation very frustrating, and I'm looking for a way to continue playing rpg's without destroying my sanity. :-)
On 10/7/2005 at 8:24am, jmac wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
I think random element in character creation makes playing the very character more challenging. playing convincingly some shithead those dice prepared for you - is clearly a challenge :)) lots of drama too :)
It also cuts playing before the game actually starts.
On 10/7/2005 at 9:08am, contracycle wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Chasuk wrote:
I'm not fond of re-inventing the wheel, so is there a character creation system which already matches my requirements?
OK. Get HeroQuest and a comb, 'cos its gonna blow your hair back.
Character creation works roughly like this: you get some attributes that arise from your culture, organised in a number of tiers. But then, you define the character by writing a 100-word paragraph describing the character. So you might say something like "Bob is tall and brown haired..." etc yada yada. Then you come along and underline all the definitive terms in your 100 words: so Tall and Brown Haired are both underlined, and become attributes written on the character sheet.
Thats probably the most radical actual system of character creation around at the moment, completely detached from anything other than description. But other games use other techniques and point-buy systems are quite widespread these days.
On 10/7/2005 at 4:16pm, nikola wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Welcome to the Forge, Chasuk! Do you have a real name we can call you by?
I think you're really gonna like it here. Your questions are the tip of the iceberg. Folks here have been discussing issues like your for years and have generated some pretty solid theory. Up at the top of the window there is a link to the Artlices. There's a lot of good stuff there and some is kinda obsolete. The important thing to read about is the Big Model, particularly GNS: Gamism, Narrativism, and Simulationism. The words don't mean what they seem to mean — that's the glory of jargon, right there — so don't be put off by any comprehension you have of the concepts that you've gotten from your, you know, reading comprehension skills, until you're read an article or two on the subject. You can discuss and ask questions in the Theory forum.
It sounds like you're making some assumptions about the nature of your game design that you'll be relieved to discover aren't necessary, but I'd like to hear more about your game. Of course, that's outside of the scope of this thread, so you'd probably want to post and ask some questions over in Indie Game Design.
You should probably also play some games made by Forge folks. Once you've said what you're after, it'll be easier to give you a reading list to steal fr—er, be inspired by.
I think you're going to like it here.
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On 10/7/2005 at 4:31pm, nikola wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Oh! I just saw another thread. You already read that stuff.
Yeah, give examples: what you've experienced, what you want, etc.
On 10/7/2005 at 4:52pm, John Kim wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Chasuk wrote:
I've played for a long while, but never paid much attention to the rules. I generally take a nap while everyone one else is rolling characters and disputing trivia, because I play for the puzzles and the storyline ONLY. Call me the Anti-Rules-Nazi. Ideally, I would like a character creation system which makes it possible for a player to create a character in 5 minues, max, whilst simultaneously making it possible for the more minutiae-obsessed player to tweak and customize his character for days, if that was his/her desire.
I'm not fond of re-inventing the wheel, so is there a character creation system which already matches my requirements?
I think what technically best fits what you describe is a template system. This was first used in Star Wars (1987), and later used in Shadowrun and other games. Basically, you have a dozen or two generic character types which are almost fully pre-made, with some options which can be adjusted in five minutes. So you can either pick a template and go, or you can use the design system to build a character from scratch. I've got a short essay on Class and Template Mechanics. The only times I've seen character creation take literally under five minutes is with templates.
On the other hand, given your anti-rules stance, you might want to look at some games with freeform stats. These aren't lack of rules, but rather rules with a different flavor than you might be used to. Gareth (contracycle) mentioned HeroQuest. To sample some free games of the sort, you might look at The Pool or FATE. With freeform stats, you can define whatever stats you want for your character. This tends to take longer than five minutes, but is still potentially much quicker than a complex system like D&D. You can go with ideas which are off-the-cuff, or spend a long time pondering exactly how to define it.
Chasuk wrote:
The reason that I was asking for theories regarding the popularity of one system versus the other was to help me devise a system which might be attractive enough to pursuade my peers away from those bloody dice! We congregate to play at noon, but I'm lucky if we have started by nightfall.
A question: do they enjoy themselves? I ask this because if you want to move to a less dice-focused system, it's not going to help if it is something they don't enjoy. If you want to keep playing with them, you have to look at the things which both you and they enjoy. If they really are enjoying themselves and you want to do something that they won't enjoy as much, then very likely you should look at playing with new people.
On 10/7/2005 at 6:01pm, ewilen wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Chasuk wrote: Are there now deduct-from-a-set-number-of-points styles of character creation in D&D?
In the D&D Third Edition DM Guide, there are a couple of non-diced character generation methods offered as alternatives to the standard "4d6 drop the low die". There are also race/class packages in the Player's Handbook which could in theory speed up character generation. But that still doesn't mean that D&D is a good fit for your needs, if you're looking for storytelling and puzzle solving.
On 10/7/2005 at 7:04pm, Sydney Freedberg wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
I used to hate dice as an obstacle to narration (my favorite college GM rolled a whole sheet of random numbers for everyone and checked them off as needed to as not to intrude mechanics into the session); now I think they can be a neat way to inspire more interesting narration ("I rolled THAT? Uh, what could've happened? Oh!"). But, y'know, it totally depends on how the dice are used.
My bet (yay, gambling): You don't hate dice (unless you have a profound aversion to tiny Platonic solids?). You hate the way you've seen dice used.
But! The real answer to that will only come out in a description of Actual Play, so, I'll wait for that.
On 10/7/2005 at 8:57pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
John wrote:To take John's comments to their logical conclusion, have you looked at "complete freeform" as well? That is playing with people who's only rules are "don't trample on each other's narration" or something like that? It's a very common way for people to play these days, especially online. It's just that that community and ours doesn't tend to overlap much.
On the other hand, given your anti-rules stance, you might want to look at some games with freeform stats.
Mike
On 10/9/2005 at 12:32pm, pells wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Okay, you caught me: I didn't want to confess that I had any aspirations to design a game (as I really hate to fail in front of groups of people), but that is my desire, yes. I've played for a long while, but never paid much attention to the rules. I generally take a nap while everyone one else is rolling characters and disputing trivia, because I play for the puzzles and the storyline ONLY
Why don't you just work on a story and let the DMs use the system they want ?
If you design a game, do you have to design rules while all you care about is narrative ?
I don't like (rolling) dices either. For character creation or combat resolution for that matter. But some of my players do like it... depending on who I'm playing with, I'll be using one system or an another. But, I would still be playing the same story.
So, if you give me a good story, I would go for it and let my players decide on what system they want.
Am I the only one interested in this kind of product, not caring about the system ? Would it possible to just sell a story ?
On 10/9/2005 at 3:32pm, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
pells wrote: If you design a game, do you have to design rules while all you care about is narrative ?
Yes. Game is a component of the activity in question. If you want narrative without game, that's called fiction, not "game".
Am I the only one interested in this kind of product, not caring about the system ? Would it possible to just sell a story ?
They're called books, usually. Gamier versions of them include interactive fiction (Zork, etc.) and similar choose-your-own-adventure products (whether electronic or paper). All "rule"less.
On 10/9/2005 at 4:51pm, Vaxalon wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Actually, the choose-your-own-adventure books have rules, too.
And if you think about it, text adventures like Zork have them, too.
On 10/9/2005 at 7:43pm, RedWick wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
I've always thought that Amber's character creation by way of auction was a pretty interesting method. In a lot of cases, you end up establishing the future intra-character conflicts depending on how viscious the auction went for whichever attribute.
Most systems that I've looked at lately tended to use a point buy method of character creation (though I fully admit that I'm probably nowhere close to being as well read/experienced as a majority of posters here).
On 10/9/2005 at 10:22pm, greyorm wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Vaxalon wrote:
Actually, the choose-your-own-adventure books have rules, too. And if you think about it, text adventures like Zork have them, too.
Fred, hence the quotes around "rule" in ruleless, as they do indeed have rules, of a sort. They do not have RPG or game-like mechanics, however. But those sorts of nuances are most likely for another thread. The point was that in game design, you do, in fact, have to develop a set of game mechanics (or borrow an existing set) or you are merely writing either fiction or a glorified travelogue.
On 10/10/2005 at 3:59pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
pells wrote:
So, if you give me a good story, I would go for it and let my players decide on what system they want.
Am I the only one interested in this kind of product, not caring about the system ? Would it possible to just sell a story ?
This has been proposed a lot, creating material for RPGs without system. But, as Raven points out, there's a lot of good fiction out there already that serves this purpose. In fact, much freeforming is "interactive fan fiction" of stuff like Harry Potter. So, unless you can make your materials better than this fiction, it seems prudent to attach some game-related information so as to make the supplement more attractive. People purchase such because they want the work in question to be done for them already. If you don't provide that, you'll have to replace it with some rather high quality.
Mike
On 10/10/2005 at 7:33pm, Chasuk wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
I'm sorry to have been less than responsive to a thread that I started, but I've had a few chest pains this weekend, and I'm doing the treadmill thing tomorrow, which leaves me just a tad too stressed to pay as much attention as I'd like to the forums.
You guys have been swell, though, and I very much appreciate your inputs.
Cheers,
Chas
On 10/13/2005 at 10:22pm, M. J. Young wrote:
RE: Re: I Hate Dice
Chasuk wrote: I'm not fond of re-inventing the wheel, so is there a character creation system which already matches my requirements?
I'll post this for whenever you get back.
There are actually quite a few varieties of character creation systems. Some have been mentioned already, but let me toss out a few more, in no particular order.
Lifepaths have been around at least as long as Traveler, and have been used in other games even recently. The concept is that you create a character at some point in his past, and then through a combination of in-character choices and die rolls you fast forward through the events that brought him here--where he went to school, whether he married, what he studied, what happened to him, whether he was in the military and what branch, and stuff like that. With each step in the path, the character is developed both in the mechanics of skill and attribute values and in the personality of what he has been through.
Templates, Point Systems, and Random Systems have all been mentioned. I would suggest, though, that these can all be and have all been hybridized in various combinations--dice modified by point expenditures, points determined by die rolls, templates modified by either dice or points, life paths around templates, and so on.
The Hero System's approach to describing your character and then building the stats off that has been mentioned. This idea of creating a character based on description has appeared in a number of games, in various forms. I'll name two.
The first is ]Multiverser, my own game. It's normally played as an "I" game, but it allows the "not-I" player character, and uses the same method of character creation for non-player characters as it does for player characters. That is, the person creating the character forms an image in his mind of who the character is and what he can do, and then renders that character onto paper pretty much as envisioned.
The reaction many gamers have to this is that it wouldn't work because the players would all create monstrous uber-characters given such free reign. However, that assumes a particular sort of play built around overcoming challenges of a sort that having a powerful character facilitates. Since Multiverser is actually built around the sort of play of asking who you would become and what you would do in various situations encountered through play, there's no particular value to having an uber character. The real value comes in having a character with whom you can identify, through whom you can make the kinds of choices you would like to make in play. Thus if you want to play an incredibly strong hero, there's no reason you can't. It's impossible to unbalance play by doing so, because play is not really about how powerful a character you have.
The other I'll mention is Legends of Alyria. This one will completely undercut everything you currently think about creating characters. First, you don't create your character; you join with the other players in a cooperative effort to create all the characters that will matter in play. Second, "all the characters that will matter in play" means all the heroes, all the villains, all the important sidekicks, everyone who would have a prominent role in the story you expect to tell. Third, the creation of these characters begins from a story concept. You start with the idea of telling a story about, say, a peasant girl who has discovered that she has powers most people don't have. You then create a character who is something of a "witch hunter", trying to destroy those who have such powers before they become dangerous. The girl's mother might be an important character, as might be the village chieftain or shaman. There might be a weasely informer who hopes to profit from giving the witch hunter information about the girl. (Hey, this could be a good start for an Alyria game.) In any event, you create the characters that the story needs by figuring out who the important characters in the story will be. Fourth, creation of the characters, although limited by some point build concerns, is primarily based on trying to define this character in terms of the game's mechanics. Fifth--but not at all finally, as there are a lot of other wonderfully innovative quirks in this game--once you've got the characters fleshed out, you decide between you who gets to play which one, including that some of the players will play the villains. That decision is based on how to make the game as much fun as possible for everyone, by giving each person a character with whom they can have a good time creating a great story.
So there are a lot of ways to create a character.
Let me mention in passing that before you decide how to create a character, you probably ought to have some understanding of what the function of the character is within the game. That may sound like a silly question, but it should already be apparent from what's here that characters don't always have the same function in every game. Since I address a lot of this in the article Applied Theory I'll let you pursue it there at least until you've got more questions.
I hope this helps.
Oh, and we do create characters for Multiverser in about five minutes when we play.
--M. J. Young
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