Diceless game

>diceless game
>would be 10x better if dice were involved

Why are dice so amazing?

The GM is a human, a fallen creature enslaved to its instincts and perception.

The dice are not human. They are the only wholly impartial arbiter. To use dice in roleplay is to take a glimpse of the unknowableness of fate itself.

The dice are cold.

The dice are heartless.

The dice betray us.

And that's why we love them.

Amber Diceless is good specifically because it avoids dice and forces players to think in a narrativist rather than gamist sense. Dice are a crutch for people who can't handle a story deeper than "We need to kill ten blue goblins in order to make a Blue Pair of Leather Pants."

I wish my DM could do this more often, just ditch the dice sometimes and just for once make something up on his own.

Or people who want to roughly simulate the probability of succeeding any given action and measuring the abilities of a character, which I find helps out RP more than any narrativist construct.

Dice turn a game about thinking into a game about thinking and gambling.

The human brain is partially optimized to get a kick out of gambling.

It's why it can become a genuine addiction (due to the chemicals released during the act) like any number of narcotics or alcohol or whatever else.

humans are predictable beings following what's their best but yearning for god's detachment from necessities

dice are pure heralds of the chaos that spawned this universe and as such are closer to the divinity than man

Yeah, alright fampai, if I wanted to write a novel I'd do it on my own, not during game night.
I've had enough players like you at my table. As much of an annoying killjoy as gamist "rollplayers".
100% chance of "but that's wut muh character would dooooo ;;".

>The dice betray us.

When did you fail that crucial roll, Veeky Forums?

I've done plenty of impromptu RPs with absolutely so rules or a system. I'd just DM whatever came to mind and we'd joke and stuff. Heck, most times when I play with dice we don't end up rolling all that often unless it's a combat scene. Personally, I prefer using dice cause I like taking chances and seeing what happens. It's quite thrilling and I like the sounds they make and all that too. They're fun

>100% chance of "but that's wut muh character would dooooo ;;".
That isn't a bad thing.

It is if the guy has decided that the best idea he's had all day is to play an unlikable asshole in a cooperative game.

Did I say the word "killjoy"? I'm pretty sure I did.
Listen, user, if during a very important and emotional battle, when everyone is ready for their own reason, your character whips out his "traumatized" trait/aspect/flaw falling down to the ground bawling while the party gets wrecked, everyone at the table will glare at you, and for a good reason.

Nah, but if my character has a bunch of drinks afterwords that's fine.

unless you get someone who expects that their character should be capable of much more than other think. I know such person who only plays such diceless/freeform games and I want to drag him into world of dice when he can't come up with stupid explanation why he's character is the best and can do everything

During a simple bout of Jousting. I cried for my love to watch me fight for her honour, but ney thy dice betraythed me and I slipped into a hopeless stupor before being converted to Christianity, convinced only Jesus truly loves me.

How does Amber Diceless decide the outcome of a violent situation when the players and/or GM disagree on what the outcome should be ?

Best attack roll I made against the worst defensive roll I've seen happened when my PC was berserking and attacked another PC because we were out of enemies to attack. I one shotted the other PC.

Amber Diceless mechanic is literally "Whoever sucks up hardest to GM for situational bonuses wins." And since the game is set-up to inevitably incur PvP it leads to total retardation.

The only good diceless game I know that has been a fucking blast has been paranoia

Paranoia just substitutes Jenna for dice as its randomizer. So while it lacks dice it isn't "diceless" in the most abstract sense.

What was the general scenario of your game? My group has a session slated for the near future, I'm pretty pumped.

Since when doesn't Paranoia use dice?

We were all young'ins once. Like, itt bitty young'ins. Some of us managed to even get in on some playground games at some point. Conversation around the lunch table over a sad wedge of bread, ketchup, and cheese that resembles a pizza.

Being young'ins, we all would play pretend. "I'm a knight!" "I'm a jedi!" so on and so forth. And being young boys we would pit our imaginary selves against each other in imaginary battles.

And here's where the dice come in. Inevitably arguments would happen. "I dodged that!" "No you didn't!" "Nuh uh I totally did!" And so on and so forth. In order for there to be excitement, there had to be a possibility of either side winning. And in order for there to be a possibility of either side winning, there had to be chance.

And thus, dice.

/ t h r e a d

I mean, it's also exactly what happens with diceless roleplaying, so...

>In order for there to be excitement, there had to be a possibility of either side winning.
That's why when I with our friends were playing that way the stronger guy/more numerous following won by fighting

It was the standard dystopian-utopian far future with very high technology

The setting itself doesn't matter shit, it depends 100% on how good the GM is putting the players in tension

If the GM is good then you won't have to roll dice or even care about your stats for the whole session, it is mostly interpretation and getting in-character

I see you've been playing Pendragon.

Dread also doesn't use dice and is also pretty good.

Populating a map randomly, I roll a goblin fortress, a young green Dragon lair 12 miles southeast and an ancient silver Dragon lair 12 miles northwest. Roll up arrogant for green, lazy for the silver. Green tries to antagonize the gobs, but silver comes along, chases him off and proceeds to squeeze the gobs out by curling up for a nap in the fort. Players see all this occur from the top of their recently-acquired tower and decide to gtfo.

Random rolls can absolutely make the foundations of good story and they scratch that discovery itch for everyone at the table. 'Gamey' doesn't mean a bad story and if you respect the boundaries of who has purview over what, everyone has their own agency and input.

Because nobody is going to accept playing a game where their character only wins or loses due to logical certainty. How are you gonna to keep that fair?

Unless you're literally playing a game of "The GM decides what happens and everyone deals with it" then everyone is going to God-Mod constantly and try to 'win' all the time.

If you don't use dice, then some other random or semi-random component will just substitute for them.

I have been thinking about making a static combat system for tabletop games, but other then that I really don't see diceless games being anything but a gimmick.

How viable would a TT(RP)G be where the only random component is coin flipping?

At its center, that's the core of D&D.

While it uses a d20, the basic math revolves around a roll of 10+ having a desirable outcome and less than 10 being undesirable.

With something as simple as including a second coin flip, we have something along the lines of Easy (two flips, at least 1 success), Medium (One flip, one success), and hard (two flips, both must be successes), which is not too dissimilar to having a relative DC of 5, 10, and 15.

Couple things to consider.

The more swingy a system is, the more it favors the underdog and the less progression it offers.

For example, if you used coin clips then how should a magic +1 sword be implemented? Letting you flip again or flip two coins would be a huge improvement, and if you kept this up and allowed every small increase or upgrade give you additional flips or whatever it would make the game a lot less swingy and a lot less around the original point.

Another way to implement this would be through increased output, but not improved chance. So for example hitting an enemy with a longsword deals 10 damage if you roll heads, and 0 if you roll tails. Maybe an upgraded sword can let you deal minor damage if you roll tails, or just like 11 damage if you roll heads. The odds haven't changed but the output has.

I could see the coin flip thing working for heroic fantasy games and games with less crunchy rules (obviously). Most character progression would be non-numerical in nature unless it was in terms of their output like I said before. So you may get a potion that lets you see in the dark instead of a bonus to your perception stat for instance. Also because of this I see shorter campaigns/one shot campaigns being better, especially if the game features combat and/or saving throws where the characters chance to live or die defends literally on a coin flip.

>You are suddenly accosted by a highwayman
>Roll/toss 41d2

Either chance or cooperation, but cooperation is a lot harder than it seems so dice is a good way to make an easy arbiter for these things.

>For example, if you used coin clips then how should a magic +1 sword be implemented?

All that really needs to be done is metering how often the bonus is applied.

Relatively speaking, that +1 is only changes roughly in 1/20 attacks, because that is the roll where it would have gotten the number just below the one you wanted to roll. Anything lower or higher and the +1 is effectively meaningless.

If you need to get one heads to hit (50%), and allowing a second flip improves your chances by 25%, in an isolated setup, a weapon that provides a virtual +1 bonus would be allowed to confer it's bonus to 1 in 5 attacks. While a bit roundabout, one method of metering this beyond simply counting every attack is figuring out the average number of attacks in a battle (let's say 15), and then providing the player with 3 Extra Flip attacks that he can activate every battle.

Not exactly a moment where i failed but one where statistics were mocking me. So im playing a game and the BBEG is at like 10 hp left and in the initiative im one turn before him so i get the last attack. Its percentile so i have to roll under 50 to hit him and fuck him up.
I roll and get 98. you'd think this would spell disaster BUT i have an ability to reroll a dice roll for a psy point (of which i have 4 max) and 4 dice roll i still havent gotten under 50. I then have to expend like 1/4 of my HP to get another psy point and shoot again and FINALLY i manage to roll under 50 and kill the bastard.

TL:DR i had to roll 6 times before rolling under 50.

Rolling dice provides exercise and a gentle gut massage.
"There is something about the outside of a horse is good for the inside of man."

Altough considering Amber's power level is cosmic-level thats not much of a problem. srls one of the first level spells include "Heart attack" no save you just point at a dude and he ded.

The other user also forgot to mention that in amber when you have to do a quick decision the DM counts down from 5 and you have to say something. There is an ability you can buy to have more time but still.