Okay it's the question I am currently battling in my head.

I am in the midst of designing a roleplaying game without dice and complex mechanics.  It uses tokens and bidding of tokens instead.  Now while I can see the advantages of having it this way (forum and easy chat play for two), I am wondering if it is the right approach.

So the question is to dice or not to dice? and why?

I thought it was well-expressed in HeroQuest. There they said that when we watch movies, a lot of the excitement is not knowing what'll happen next. We don't know because someone else wrote the script. But in an rpg, you're writing the script, so you know what'll happen next. The easiest way to get that uncertainty and the excitement that comes with it is with dice.

To get an equal amount of uncertainty, you'd have to have people given a LOT of tokens. If you have (say) 4 in a session, and are going to be using your abilities 50 times, then you can be certain that your character's performance won't vary by more than +/-4 in any one test of their abilities. Or +/-8 if it's a system where abilities are compared - the foe may have tokens, too.

But if you have (say) 25 tokens in a session, then those 50 tests, there's a lot more uncertainty, a level that you could otherwise get only with dice.

The other possibility is to have several possible strategies, each of which can defeat another, and have people write out what they're doing without seeing anyone else's. That is effectively a randomiser like rock-paper-scissors, and a dF (d6 with two sides +1, two sides -1, and two sides 0). This gives the same effect as rolling dice.

It's easier to use dice, though.

You need to look at your design and ask that question.

What kind of gameplay do you want to achive. One where the uncertainty is balanced by looking at the odds (dice + modifiers), One where the uncertainty stems from trying to outbid/outguess your opponent, or one where you maybe combine both (you bid dice from a finite pool and then roll).

The big point is what purpose is this to achive in your game? Answer that and you will know.

Quote from: Kyle AaronBut if you have (say) 25 tokens in a session, then those 50 tests, there's a lot more uncertainty, a level that you could otherwise get only with dice.

The rate at which the tokens can be replenished will have an effect on that as well, of course. For instance, in MURPG a character's attributes determine how many points from his fixed pool can be spent on an action during any given round, after which at least some of them are immediately regenerated (and you may well have to keep spending those points constantly since they alone decide your degree of success in everything); while in Nobilis a character's attributes determine what he can accomplish during every round even without spending points from the associated pools, which on the other hand are not refreshed automatically at any time during play although there are various ways for the characters to regain their strength if they take the time and effort to do so.

In other words, do the tokens effectively take the place of the attributes, or augment them whenever necessary? Or are these tokens some kind of a narrative currency without any direct connection to the in-character actions?

Okay,

First off I would like to thank you all for giving me such a warm welcome to your forum.  You will probably be seeing quite a bit more of me posting on here, as I am really wanting to get my Utopia RPG off the ground and more than just a half worked idea or abstract idea in my mind.

With that said,

Okay the game as it currently stands works this way...

You start the game with 12 tokens in your token pool.
You have three Attributes Body Mind and Charisma which are rated on a scale from 1 to 10 with 5 being the average.
You have Talents which are rated the same as Attributes.  You may have as many talents as you can afford to create using creation points for your character.

Okay now for the action

A round goes something like this

1 GM Narration
2 Declaration of Action
3 Determination of if there is a conflict.  (if there is a conflict do steps 4 and 5 otherwise go straight to step 6)
4 Bidding of tokens (where your actual bid is equal to the Attribute or Talent being used and the amount you bid from your token pool.
5. winner of the bid gets to declare ONE fact about the outcome of the round.
6. GM resolution/narration.

That's it!

Now I am seeing ways that this could be abused rather easily by unscrupulous players and I am beginning to think that the system as a whole will not satisfy the gamers who are out there.  Am I just crazy or would reworking the entire system to be a bit more traditional and just give in and use dice would work better?

Thank you,

J Ward

Assuming your friends don't mind diceless, it's cool for your group.

Now if this is for a game that will be sold, good luck. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part gamers like dice and voting with their wallets have shown that.

Quote from: McrowNow if this is for a game that will be sold, good luck. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part gamers like dice and voting with their wallets have shown that.

Well thank you for that.  (I honestly mean that)

Even though I am thinking this game is, shall be and forever shall be free, I am wanting to present it as professionally done as possible.  I want it to appeal to the masses.  I guess that with what you have said that it would make sense to use dice, because that is what the market share is wanting.

Thank you very much Mcrow!:D

Quote from: J WardWell thank you for that.  (I honestly mean that)

Even though I am thinking this game is, shall be and forever shall be free, I am wanting to present it as professionally done as possible.  I want it to appeal to the masses.  I guess that with what you have said that it would make sense to use dice, because that is what the market share is wanting.

Thank you very much Mcrow!:D

Well, I don't want to discourage anyone from designing a game, no matter how they plan to do it. I'd say if it's free then you've got nothing to lose, so why not try out your idea?

Also, there are diceless games that have done quite well and if done properly yours could do well.

However, like I said, most gamers love dice so a diceless game has to be pretty outstanding to catch the attention of general gaming public.

It also helps cutting down on the "Diceless! ROOOAAARR!!" messages on this board, possibly converting them to the slightly less dangerous "Dice pools? GRRRRR!"

Personally, I'd also avoid phrases like "conflict determination". For a quick and easy game, I'd rather go with slang than that.

Quote from: SosthenesIt also helps cutting down on the "Diceless! ROOOAAARR!!" messages on this board, possibly converting them to the slightly less dangerous "Dice pools? GRRRRR!"

Hey, let's not forget that this is a site with an Amber fan forum...

Quote from: GrimGentHey, let's not forget that this is a site with an Amber fan forum...

Yes, but you on the other hand shouldn't forget that Amber is obviously the _only_ diceless system. Thou shalt have no other dicless systems besides it, as you will NEVER approach the utmost and sacrosanct genius of Eric Wossnamecik.

Oh I am a smiling from ear to ear!:D

I want to say that I applaud the Amber system for all it has done on reviatalizeing the RPG community.  Any game which adds to this type of game is a worthwhile endeavor.

I would like to explain that I am a bit old school myself.  I believe that a game should have a stat and you roll against that stat.  Call me a classic rpg lover, LOL

I guess I played too much GDW Twilight 2000 when I was growing up!

The only reason I have strayed from that and was expirimenting with tokens was because I thought it would make the game more appealing to players.  Make it easier for them.

But I think I have to face this reality of roleplaying games.  You have to learn the rules to play!

Thank you all for this good advice,

Keep it up,

J Ward

Ever feel like you are back in your high school days, and you have gone to class with only your underwear on?

Well I just had one of those moments.

I have come to the conclusion at what I am hearing in this forum, that I am going to use a dice based system.  Now that's not the part which makes me feel like I am only wearing my underwear in public.

I pulled up my handy binder/organizer that holds all my game material and I realize that in the pocket where the dice are I have all the dice under the sun, but have only 2 d6 dice.  

Now this is embarassing.  In my past attempts to create a game I had always used d100 rolls to determine ability rolls so 2d10 were fine for that.  And when I was dealing damage the normal dice were d6 (in multiples).  

Now I had considered for ease of play thanks to the local store near you, of allowing just about anyone to be able to play this wonderful new game I am creating by having it use ONLY d6 dice.

However with only two at my disposal it seemed kind of like I was a bit unprepared.

Where had all my d6 gone?  I mean does the sock monster who lives in the dryer have a cousin that steals your dice?

Well simply put this wouldn't do.

So I packed off to wal-mart and purchased 10 shiny new d6.

I am planning on breaking from my d100 habit and going with maybe a 4d6 system for task rolls for this game.  So I guess I am wondering now what do you think?

I think you should figure out where you want to go, and then figure out how you'll get there, not the other way around.

Figure out what sort of effect you want to see at the game table, and then decide whether or not to use dice, and if so how many and what kind.

For example, when I was designing d4-d4, I decided that I disliked roll under/over systems, because while they had a lot of numbers (3-18, 1-100), they actually didn't give us many different results - just pass, fail, and sometimes terrible failure and awesome pass. It was also that roll over/under gave us that more able people just passed more often, there was no difference between the success of a 99% skill guy and the success of a 10% skill guy. This seemed to me to not be like reality, where your ability is just the level you perform at consistently. So I wanted some kind of ability ladder where people sometimes do better, sometimes do worse, but usually do around their ability. They get a consistent performance, more or less.

I needed, then, something like 2d10 or d6-d6, to get random results which clustered around one number. I wanted a Performance Ladder which described the results. You know how so many systems have a "difficulty chart"? Well, rather than having a number and then look up the difficulty chart, why not just have the difficulty chart? Instead of (say),

Ability levels 1, 2, and 3

Difficulty chart - GM assigns difficulty
Poor, 1
Okay, 2
Awesome, 3

roll 1d6, if you get 1 subtract 1 from your Ability, if you get 6 add 1, if you get 2-4 no change, then compare to difficulty chart. You cannot go off the chart.

why not take out the numbers entirely? Why not just say?

Ability levels Poor, Okay, Awesome
GM assigns performance required
roll 1d6, if you get 1 drop a level, if you get 6 rise a level, if you get 2-4 no change. You cannot go off the chart.

Then all I needed to do was decide how big the Performance Ladder should be, and how big the random roll in comparison to it. Just three entries seemed not enough, not very exciting - players like a variety of results. Twenty or so was obviously too much. I chose in the end 11 descriptors (like having a rating of 0-10). I didn't want people going off the charts all the time, so d10-d10 (-9 to +9) was too much variation, and also looking at the probabilities, you only had a 27% chance of getting -1 to +1, I wanted things to be more steady than that, so that players could be confident of a reliable performance from their character in their abilities.

In the end, I chose d4-d4 and 11 steps on the ladder, though most abilities would be in the middle 7 steps. So it was in number terms,

9-10, highest performance
2-8, common abilities
0-1, worst performances
variation -3 to +3, with 62.5% of performances between -1 to +1.

What we then got was that the range of human abilities was about half the size of the range of possible human performances, but that character would pretty consistently do as well, slightly worse or slightly better than their ability level. That after all is how we instinctively define someone's ability level in something - how they can consistently perform.

And so on and so forth. It went like that. Decide what effect you want at the game table, and then choose mechanics to suit it. Don't find a mechanic and then speculate about its effect; the number of possible game mechanics is infinite, so it'll get you nowhere.

Figure out where you want to go, and then figure out how you'll get there, not the other way around.

Where do you want to go? What sort of game do you want? What do you want to happen at the game table?

Hi!
  Each has their advantage:

Dice:
Pros:
Uncertainty - Each roll has a randomness to it
Predictability - There is a probability you can guesstimate against
Gamble - Some people have theorized that dice-based games bring out a sort of gambling "feel" to it, throw the dice, some times win it all, some times lose it all
Physicality - Brings the game to the forefront through the physical objects of the dice

Cons
Random - Just because you are good, doesn't mean you will succeed
Meaningless - The dice do not care if a roll is important to the story, the GM or the Player(s). The results don't match the character's efforts
Distracting - Dice can impact immersion (meaning your "connection" to the game world/character, not any other weird definition of "immersion"), suddenly players are doing math and calculating odds instead of thinking about how their character feels or what impact they will have (we've all seen this, when some twink says, "I kill the king")

Diceless:
Pros
Connection - Success/Failure is directly tied to player effort/desire
Control - Since it is less random, you as the designer can have more control over the flow of gameplay
Sociable - The game will force focus on the other players, instead of calculating odds/etc.

Cons
Unrealistic - Diceless can detract from the realism of the game, IF the diceless system cannot account for many and varied actions characters attempt
Predictable - If one or more players "Game" the system, you could end up with a situation where the outcome is too predictable
Distracting - Diceless systems can impact immersion (meaning your "connection" to the game world/character, not any other weird definition of "immersion"), suddenly players are reading other players and maybe not paying as much attention to the plot/characters...

  The point of all that (sorry for the long post) is that there is not right/wrong answer. Many diceless systems have been popular/successful and of course so have dice-based systems. The trick is to decide which supports your genre/game world/design goal better.
  For instance, Dice favor genres/idioms that are attempting to be more "realistic (like modern combat) and diceless supports genres/milieus where the story is key (like comic book style). The real litmus test is to design a game you would love to play and your enthusiasm will come through in the writing/marketing of the game. Design a game that you think other people will like and your lack of connection to the material/demographic will shine through like the light of the sun...
  In the end the best solution (in my mind), is to play different games and takes the bits you like from them (even if you don't like the game as a whole) and weed out the design elements that you do not enjoy (even if you like the game). Filter those experiences through the goals/genre of the game you are making.
  Whatever you decide, good luck man!