I wrote up a diceless swords 'n sorcery game system a while back, but never actualy used it. Since Hero Wars came out, I haven't realy seen the need. Recently though I rediscovered the files and I have been thinking about it a bit more. It goes something like this:

Each character has 100 points to divide among the four attributes, and to buy skills. Each skill is associated with an attribute. A character may not buy a skill at a rank with a cost higher than the character's value in the attribute. E.g. a character with an Agility of 17 cannot buy Melee at higher than Competent rank, because Masterfull rank costs 30 (see later).

Attributes

Strength
Physical power and resilience. This is also used for endurance type stuff, although Psyche can sometimes be used for this to represent determination.

Agility
Physical speed, ballance, maove & manoeuvre, etc.

Psyche
Willpower and mental strength. Also force of personality.

Wits
Cleverness and intuition.


Skills

Skills are fairly broad, such as 'Melee', 'Horseman', 'Trade', 'Seamanship', etc and are bought at four ranks :

Unranked (0 points)
The characetr has no training or experience in the skill, but characters with high related attributes may still manage reasonably well due to their innate talent.

Competent(5 points)
The character has basic training and perhaps practical experience in the skill, and might be able to make a meagre living at it.

Proficient(15 points)
At this rank, the character can probably make a good living using the skill (assuming the skill is appropriate for this).

Masterfull(30 points)
At this rank, the character will be a recognised authority, or well-known for their knowledge and ability.

Heroic(45 points)
The character is a legendary practitioner of the skill, and may be reknowned far and wide for their expertise.


Resolution

At the beginning of each session, the characters each get 5 plot points, which may be used during contests and skill or ability tests during the session. At the end of the session, all but 2 of any remaining plot points are confiscated - you may not carry over more than 2 plot points from one session to another.

When two character oppose each other in a contest, each declares what they are trying to do and how they are trying to do it.

first compare their skill rank. If one has a higher skill rank than the other, he wins. If the skill ranks are the same, compare their relevent attributes, and the one with the higher attribute wins.

The looser has the option of spending one Plot Point to become the winner, and the opponent may counter with another Plot Point. Keep going untill one or other of the contestants gives up, or runs out of Plot Points.


Notes

The GM clearly needs a pool of Plot Points as well as the players. The number of Plot Points the GM has available, or is prepeared to use partly determining the difficulty of the game session. Probably each NPC should have a Plot Point Limit.

Perhaps you should have to buy each differentiating rank of ability with plot Points. For example, Joe is Profficient at Melee and has Agility 17, but his opponent is Masterfull at melee and has Agility 35. Joe must spend 2 Plot Point to win, to make up for his lower attribute and his lower skill rank. If his oppinent had Heroic ranked Melee, Joe would have to spend 3 Plot Points, etc.

I imagine Plot Points being represented by counters, or glass beads like the ones used in many trading card games. Probably the GM should have a clearly visible pool of Plot Points the players can see, and part of the tension is to see how many everyone has. Should you spend a Plot Point in a given situation? If you do and the GM doesn't, was it well spent? Won't that make things tougher for the players later? It could make for a fun play dynamic.

I haven't realy considered character advancement, and whether Plot Points would play a role in this too, but probably they should. Perhaps Plot Points left at the end of a game can be spent on raising skills and attributes, including PPs over the 2 point carryover limit?

I haven't considered magic in much depth yet, but it would use the same basic mechanics.


Simon Hibbs

I think you have a sound if unremarkable start on a diceless solution. Reminds me of a system I read once online where the "plot points" (called luck or karma or something in that game) were gained by intentionally losing when you should have won. So, you'd fail deliberately fail at certain points to ensure success later. Truely karmic. I always thought that this would make for a good ebb and flow. In fact, I designed an action game called Final Fight where there were no stats. As an action hero, you just decided to win or lose. However, you couldn't get to the final fight until you had accumulated Plot Points by failing, and you wanted to be sure that you had enough to outdo the Boss's pool when you got there. I felt that this would cause the players to have to create the sort of pre-final-fight failures that a character in an Action movie experiences before getting to the climax.

Anyhow, in your method, do Plot Points accumulate from session to session? Is there any other way of getting them? How many Plot Points for the GM do you think would be optimal, same as total of player's pools? In addition to NPC limits on PP spending, what about NPC caps on spending per contest. Mooks would have a zero. Some NPCs would have a limit of 1 per conflict, 3 total. Or something like that. Or is it better for the GM to decide on the spot how many points the NPC can spend at once? Hmmm.

Why the large numbers? Do you just like the finer granularity of attributes? Despite haveing coarse granularity on skills? Why not something like:

Unranked (0 points)
Competent(1 points)
Proficient(3 points)
Masterfull(6 points)
Heroic(9 points)

And only start with 20. Or double those and start with 40. Etc. These are proportionally the same, but in the first example stats would be about one fifth the size.

This would result in more ties (both skill and attribute are the same), a situation which you didn't address. But ties are cool in such a game, IMO. In that case, the one who spends more PP wins. Or, if they spend the same ammount, a tie does occur, which is often cool. Specifically design certain NPC enemies to have the same stats, so that they are exactly matched, and only plot points can tell who wins.

BTW, what do you see as an "Average" stat. The way I was thinking, a person might take 4 proficient level skills and have level 10 in each attribute (using the 100 point system). Does that sort of split sound right? Also, is the 100 point limit intended to make "normal" people, or "heroes". What about other possible point limits?

I would oppose the idea of plot points being used for advancement, unless the theme that you want to create is "learning by failure". When you force players to choose between success in action, and character improvement, this creates an uncomfortable conflict of interest for the player. Basically, I can fail now to become more powerful later. Promotes a more gamist approach to conflicts.

Seventh Sea seems to have this problem as well, until you use the John Wick method, and give out the EXP (luck?) dice like candy. Even then the conflict is just hidden deeper.

With your system I'd have the players keep track of Plot Points spent against them (have them put the GMs tokens spent against them in a separate bowl). Then they can trade these in for improvement. Thus the character that faces the most adversity wins. Which makes the player eager to get into trouble. Which is usually a good thing, IMO.

This is only subtly different, but might have a large motivational effect.

I agree, magic should work the same as anything else. This really needs to be a "Conflict Resolution" system, not task resolution. Something to watch out for, however, is the problem of the one-shot johnny. This sort of resolution can lead to a player taking a character who is a Heroic level magic user, with a really high psyche to back it up. A player with such a character will try to use the same skill to resolve everything. "Oh, I'm being charged by an Elephant? I'll just zap it. Oh, I'm bartering for a scroll? I'll just charm the vendor." Given that you've decided on fairly broad skills, this may be a real problem.

What you need to resolve this is some mechanic that allows the GM to penalize the use of acertain skill in certain situations. For example, you could have another pool for the GM that represents the "unsuitability" of using certain skills in certain situations. If the GM feels that a player is leaning too hard on a particular skill, he can throw in a couple of these on against the character, and explain why the skill won't work as well as it normally would in such a situation. Using too much Melee? The GM throws in PP that represent the enemy in this situation having the high ground.

Just brainstorming, here, but then you could also have a PC pool to counter, shared by the PCs. These can be used by players to describe dramatic turnabouts that give them the advantage. The problem is, that for every one of these that you use, you have to lose a point from your EXP bowl. Or something like that. Or you have to pay it back with interest at some point.

Anyhow, lots of stuff you can do with a system like this.

Mike

One limiter on supernatural powers and such- especialy in a Sword and Sorcery vein- is to simply require the expenditure of 1 plot point for any major use of magical powers- ie anything which is used to resolve conflict. For FX and non-conflict task resolution (doing cool stuff, or doing normal stuff in style) no points should be needed... but to use the forces of your magic to alter Fate... needs a plot point.

Another fix is to have one school of magic for each Attribute. To use a dead-simple elemental magic scheme, Strength governs Earth magic, Agility covers Water magic, Psyche is Air magic, and Wits is Fire magic. Or whatnot. You could do the same thing with Conjuration, Invocation, Summoning, and Enchantment.

Giving players the chance to generate their own Plot Points is a good idea.. the addition of some personality, backstory, or plot hook mechanics might be a good idea.

Say with a personality based system, you select (or make up) 3 Traits. Whenever you can demonstrate these traits in drmatic fashion, you earn some plot points. (Say a Foolhardy character lights off in spontaneous persuit of a thief down a dark tunnel...).

With a Backstory system, each player writes up a hundred word essay on his character's hostory. Whenever a character's backstory can be cleverly woven into the story, the GM can reward this with a plot point.

To take a page from the Buffy RPG, when the GM yoinks the character for some plot developement ("what do you mean my blood is the key to the Hellgate???"), he has to pay for the right in plot points.

Alternatly, you can write up half a dozen Hooks for a character...when one of these is tapped to pump some life into the story you get Plot Points as a reward.

If you want to milk the relationship angle, then your character can have Attachments, and wheneve these relationships come into play they generate plot points.

In fact, combining the above might be quite nice. Say each Trait costs 5 points and each Hook costs 3 points, and each Attachment costs 2. Traits are more expensive because you can potentialy milk them right in the middle of combat (by acting according to your character). Hooks are a bit tougher to milk in combat and are generaly harder to touch. Attachments are even more difficult than Hooks. Regardless, you can't tap any of these more than once per session.

Mike Holmes wrote: Reminds me of a system I read once online where the "plot points" (called luck or karma or something in that game) were gained by intentionally losing when you should have won. So, you'd fail deliberately fail at certain points to ensure success later. Truely karmic.

Anyhow, in your method, do Plot Points accumulate from session to session? Is there any other way of getting them?

How many Plot Points for the GM do you think would be optimal, same as total of player's pools? In addition to NPC limits on PP spending, what about NPC caps on spending per contest.

Why the large numbers? Do you just like the finer granularity of attributes? Despite haveing coarse granularity on skills? Why not something like:

Unranked (0 points)
Competent(1 points)
Proficient(3 points)
Masterfull(6 points)
Heroic(9 points)

BTW, what do you see as an "Average" stat. The way I was thinking, a person might take 4 proficient level skills and have level 10 in each attribute (using the 100 point system). Does that sort of split sound right? Also, is the 100 point limit intended to make "normal" people, or "heroes". What about other possible point limits?

I would oppose the idea of plot points being used for advancement, unless the theme that you want to create is "learning by failure". When you force players to choose between success in action, and character improvement, this creates an uncomfortable conflict of interest for the player.

With your system I'd have the players keep track of Plot Points spent against them (have them put the GMs tokens spent against them in a separate bowl). Then they can trade these in for improvement. Thus the character that faces the most adversity wins. Which makes the player eager to get into trouble. Which is usually a good thing, IMO.

This sort of resolution can lead to a player taking a character who is a Heroic level magic user, with a really high psyche to back it up. A player with such a character will try to use the same skill to resolve everything. "Oh, I'm being charged by an Elephant? I'll just zap it. Oh, I'm bartering for a scroll? I'll just charm the vendor." Given that you've decided on fairly broad skills, this may be a real problem.

What you need to resolve this is some mechanic that allows the GM to penalize the use of acertain skill in certain situations. For example, you could have another pool for the GM that represents the "unsuitability" of using certain skills in certain situations.

Just brainstorming, here, but then you could also have a PC pool to counter, shared by the PCs. These can be used by players to describe dramatic turnabouts that give them the advantage. The problem is, that for every one of these that you use, you have to lose a point from your EXP bowl. Or something like that. Or you have to pay it back with interest at some point.

Bailywolf wrote: To take a page from the Buffy RPG, when the GM yoinks the character for some plot developement ("what do you mean my blood is the key to the Hellgate???"), he has to pay for the right in plot points.

simon_hibbs wrote:

Mike Holmes wrote: Reminds me of a system I read once online where the "plot points" (called luck or karma or something in that game) were gained by intentionally losing when you should have won. So, you'd fail deliberately fail at certain points to ensure success later. Truely karmic.

I can't say I like that very much, it seems to encourage the players to employ very contrived game strategies - similar to 'tick frenzy' in RQ but if anything, worse.

Just brainstorming, here, but then you could also have a PC pool to counter, shared by the PCs. These can be used by players to describe dramatic turnabouts that give them the advantage.

I can see what you're getting at, but I'm not sure if it would work in practice. Too much in-party politics as to how the points should be spent could be damaging.

The game system idea Mike mentioned before might have been this one.... about gaining Karma points by declaring a failure when you would have succeded...
by Paganini
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2593&highlight=mammon

Bob McNamee

Hi Simon,
Your system is pretty similar to something David and I discussed about a year back and is a bit like an enhanced version of The Ladder (q.v. http://www.geocities.com/mithrapolis/ladder.html, the Ladder uses a d6 roll to get from level to level 1= -1 level, 6=+1 level).

The control exerted over the ease of getting from one level to the next, i.e. the supply of plot ploints, would very much govern the feel of the game. For a Cinematic game you'd probably expect lots of points being spent and gained, for a Hard SF game, for example, you might expect most characters to perform within their given parameters.

Star Wars controlled fate points by renewing them if they were spent for Good Heroic reasons, Dying Earth awards them for making people laugh. As suggested in other post, it's a good idea to tie them into rewarding the kind of behaviour you want PC to attempt. This may mean supplying a list of different ways to the GM and making recommendations depending on the type of game being run.

The other variable is the cost for each level. This governs how capable the PCs are at the start and how much progression you allow in the game.

You might also allow that a sufficiently high stat improves the default level of abilities in that stat. Unknown Armies does something along these lines, under easy circumstances the stat governs skill use in that area, defaulting to skill only in 'stressful' situations.

If you are trying to simulate the way learning, skill and basic ability interact, it looks like a pretty good model.

GB Steve wrote: Hi Simon,
Your system is pretty similar to something David and I discussed about a year back and is a bit like an enhanced version of The Ladder

As suggested in other post, it's a good idea to tie them into rewarding the kind of behaviour you want PC to attempt. This may mean supplying a list of different ways to the GM and making recommendations depending on the type of game being run.

You might also allow that a sufficiently high stat improves the default level of abilities in that stat.

Bob,

Nope, not that one. Much older, and not from The Forge at all. Still, Nathan's game does have some interesting points to make about the same idea.

GB Steve wrote: Star Wars controlled fate points by renewing them if they were spent for Good Heroic reasons

Mike Holmes wrote: Simon, that secret skill levels thing is perfect for initial encounters. Afterwards people will have an idea of what the score is, and adjust their bids. Also, secret, simultaneously-revealed bids is good for suspense.

the resolution here would be "Conflict Resolution". Which means there are no "minor" losses that a person can take. Failure in Confict resolution means things like losing the battle.

One would assume that Simon would not make the same mistakes,

and would have the GM empowered enough to make sure that a balance in effectiveness was maintained. There are other ways to limit this as well.

Another idea would be to give players reward plot points that they could only give each other for things that they thought was cool. I've seen this idea in quite a few designs of late. This too could lead to "politics", I suppose. But thinking about it, I think that those politics are what I'm encouraging. As long as the game veers away from the Gamism (specifically player v. player), I don't see these politics as being harmful in this case.

Mike Holmes wrote:

GB Steve wrote: Star Wars controlled fate points by renewing them if they were spent for Good Heroic reasons

I have to comment on this one. I don't like it. That is, in some designs lately, you have points which you spend to do things, and if you do the right things you get them back. Well, from a different perspective this could be stated "You have a pool of effectiveness that dwindles if the GM doesn't like what you're doing." I strongly suspect that these mechanics feel like this a bit in play, which can be uncomfortable for both player and GM (I've seen begging occur). And if a player is good at the genre, he may never get low in this resource, which means that the story may never have down swings.

GB Steve wrote: I've never really had much of the "GM doesn't like what you are doing problem". That only really happens in disfunctional groups.

I just had an epiphany. I was writing some of the ideas we've been discussing into the Word document containing my master writeup, and I started thinking about cards and Plot Points.

Why not forget Plot Points completely, and just use cards?

Each player gets a small stack of playing cards in front of them, shuffled and cut by the players to either side of them. These cards replace plot points. In a contest you choose how many cards to play, face down in front of you. More cards equals more potential advantage points, and therefore a better chance of winning, and getting a better final result. When all cards are down, they are revealed and compared to calculate the final modifiers to the relative levels of success.

rather than rules on how many Plot Points you can have, we have rules on how many cards you may have in you hand, and thus known to you. If you want to play more cards than this, they are face down for you too - a very risky option.

Still brainstorming.


Simon Hibbs

???

I thought that by diceless, that you were actually looking for a "fortuneless" resoluton system.

What's wrong with dice? Assuming you're going to allow in fortune at all?

Confused.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: ???

I thought that by diceless, that you were actually looking for a "fortuneless" resoluton system.

What's wrong with dice? Assuming you're going to allow in fortune at all?

Mike Holmes wrote: Why not instead use positive reinforcement? Have no PP, but just give "bonus dice" to any role that follows genre (or whatever you're trying to incentivize). As in Sorcerer, for example, or a few other games that use such mechanics. This is very similar in effect, really, but psychologically it's much more potent, and has no down side. I see players forget their Plot Points all the time, or feel afraid to lose them, and thus refrain from using them. But if a GM gives out "Bonus Dice" with regularity, the players grab for them on every roll like they were crack cocaine. As then the question is only how many dice do I get.

I am designing a storytelling game called SAGE (Story Advanced Game Engine) that uses diceless combat resolution. I use a point based system, allowing the characters to give away points to get things resolved. Yet Resisted actions are of coarse a problem. Would anyone care to discuss the mechanics of diceless combat resolution?

Our points are called Karma points and a player uses them to do anything from pick a lock to open a door. I do not want anything too complicated in my game, thus I plan (only plan) on using nothing but Karma points. I know that some other games use stats and that would include separating the points. But I want it simple.

Yet how do you do this for combat with NPC's is it a barder system, whoever gives away the highest percentage of points wins, or is it skill plus the addition of points? Do let me know...

I recommended checking out several other diceless games using resource-allocation here. All are well-done, but the latter two would probably be of greater inspiration.