What's your opinion on diceless RPGs?

What's your opinion on diceless RPGs?

They can be further divided into RPGs with different random engine and pure-narrative with no element of chance whatsoever.

I've never played one, but I'd like to try Active Exploits sometime. Theres a Sengoku expansion thats really well researched.

Is that supposed to be Amber?

Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. It's basically Amber diceless with revised rules and a more generic setting.

I had a lot of fun with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. rpg.
You should give it a go!

They're cool but I still prefer dice

Never played one. I've heard of Dread, but really I never got the appeal.

Never played one but I'm looking forward to trying Phoenix Dawn Command and Project Dark IF IT EVER GETS RELEASED

Nothing wrong in principle but questionable in practice.

I think element of uncertainty is a necessary form keeping a role-playing game from becoming just a session of improv.

You need some sort of 'hidden variable' at play.

I think there's a big distinction between a DICELESS system and a game that doesn't use dice.

Phoenix Dawn Comand has random chance with the card pull.

Would love to try a diceless system but I have doubts about it

I used to do play by posts on Gamefaqs where I pretended to be Kingdom Hearts characters. That was fun...

>They can be further divided into RPGs with different random engine and pure-narrative with no element of chance whatsoev

Bingo.

Marvel universe did a surprisingly well system with no 'random' chance whatsoever. It was a game of resource management between you and the GM.

I agree about the 'hidden variable' but that variable doesn't need to be chance-based. A system where you and the gm or you and the other players secretly spend limited resources to ensure the success or failure of actions is also workable.

Great if the other players/GM are up for it. I think the main issue is just what I feel like is the "D&D problem", basically good luck playing anything other than D&D/Pathfinder with anybody because next to nobody wants to get out of their comfort zone or bother reading some new rules even if they're only 9 pages long. And this goes doubly so with anything non-traditional.

PACE, a dicless system that is basically a back in force in resource management and power between the players and GM kinda like , was one my first RPGs ever and I had a blast with it. I think it was a very good introductory RPG for everybody involved and it ran super smoothly. It was a rather silly campaign, but one of my favorites. I'd love to play a diceless game again.

I don't like them. Usually the resolution mechanism is something like resource games that has been mentioned in the thread already. That reduces the DM's power to fiat. In my mind, the DM should never be the opponent; not even managing just the opponents; he should manage everything, including the party, though leaving the vast majority of it to the players and to their characters (which is where the dice comes in).

I think what it comes down to is that the advantages of a system over freeform is that a system can add structure to the story to help keep things focusesed and can also help that story evolve in fun and unexpected ways. But there's really nothing about those advantages that really require a randomizer.

I'd like to use Ribbon Drive as an example. It's a system for road drive adventures based around players making playlists. The songs help determine what's going on and give everybody sway over what kinds of themes are in the story. It works perfectly well for what it is is trying to accomplish.

*road trip

How does it play? Got any anecdotes?

Please, list some diceless RPGs besides the ones that were already mentioned. I want to try some good ones eventually.

I assume you mean Stalker rpg.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is the videogame that has nothing to do with Stalker or Roadside Picknick, as it doesn't have rights for it and is thus named obviously differently.

Played a pretty long campaign of Amber and have played some oneshots and short campaigns of other diceless games.

Diceless systems can, obviously, work and be fun, but I do prefer dice. Sometimes It's just good to be able to leave everything to the dice, stand back and just roll to see how things go.
Diceless systems generally feel a lot more intence and can be really tiring, but that also means that the game suffers more if you are tired or otherwise not into the session fully.

Rolling dice is fun. The only rpg without dice I've played is Dread and I liked it, it's great for drinking and playing.