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Games and Gaming: Throw the dice away

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    • CommentAuthorEmily Care
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 1
    If Jason Morningstar can do it, why can't we all?

    In The Shab Al Hiri Roach, Jason includes guidelines and suggestions for running the game freeform. Which means taking out the dice and replacing the cards with a gm who takes gives cryptic and unsavoury directives from the Roach. Jonathan and I have been talking about writing freeform games, and one of the first suggestions he made was to make freeform hacks of storygames. He's got one on the burner for Dogs, and I don't know what else.

    So if it's so easy, why are we using dice anyway? If the jeeps can do without them, what is our problem? Seriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide?

    And questions for those who play freeform or diceless, how do you play without them? Why is it that you don't? What makes it possible for a game to work dice free?
    And do you actually use them sometimes too?

    best,
    Emily
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 2
    Why would we? What does getting rid of them provide that we're not getting now?

    I'm not clear on what the motivation is supposed to be for taking a game that's designed to use physical cues (dice, cards, whatever) and taking them away in favor of unstructured drama? Why not just design unstructured-drama scenarios natively? Or - to take a page from the Jeeps - design each scenario as a game-in-itself, with rules tailored to its needs?
    •  
      CommentAuthorMatthijs
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 3
    (I'm stunned and happy to be reading this, here, from you - or just about anyone!).

    I play diceless much of the time - except when I'm trying out U.S. indie games.

    In my current campaign, I use Impro-inspired resolution cards to handle dramatic situations and make them escalate, spin off in new directions, split etc. These are fantastic plot generators. Conflict between players or characters isn't really a point, and especially not a point I want to focus on so much that I want to use specific mechanics for it.

    I recently used an extremely stripped-down PTA variant to brainstorm a novel with a friend. We eliminated all use of budget and cards. We each controlled a protagonist, and took turns framing a scene for each other. We played until we reached conflict, then tossed a coin to see which way it went. The reason for using a randomizer at all was to push the plot in unexpected directions, so we'd end up with fresh ideas.

    What makes it possible for a game to work dice free? I... it's a strange question. And don't take this as just flippancy: What makes it desirable for a role-playing experience to incorporate something as clumsy as dice and numbers? I play without dice because they require thinking about numbers, measuring things, comparing values; also, they tend to be part of larger systems that require tactical thinking etc. These, to me, are all hurdles and speed bumps, prices to pay for getting to cool narrative/dramatic structures.

    But yes, there are things you need. You need a level of trust and confidence, and a lot of role-playing experience doesn't hurt - although I'm not sure you need it. However, you do need basic social skills. You need to be able to listen, to pick up ideas and run with them, to talk in at least a slightly interesting fashion, etc.
    • CommentAuthororklord
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 4
    Dice are completely neutral. Dice have no agenda and cannot be argued to have agenda. You cannot roll a 20 because you know certain rules or you're witty or you read the adventure beforehand or you and the GM are best buddies. You rolled a 20 because that's how the die came up.

    On a personal level, dice are part of my gaming identity. I have shirts with dice on them because that's the visual for a funny gamer t-shirt. I have emotional attachments to certain die types, they make me think certain things (d4s make me think about magic missiles, d20s remind me of past crits, d10s make me think of all the great Vampire games I've run, d6s make me think about Star Wars and more recently, Lacuna and Burning Wheel).

    I have other reasons why I like dice, but I realize that they can easily be shot down since there are other randomizers or procedures that can do the same thing.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 5
    Diceless, cardless, tokenless? Character sheetless? What resources do I have as a player outside of social pressure?

    This is the clincher for me--I get enough pandering and second-guessing implied expectations at work. How is the game moderated? Where do I plug in?
  6.  # 6
    Posted By: Emily Carewhat do dice give that other procedures can't provide?

    Some measure of pleasurable surprise and randomness, of course - often a surprising mechanical outcome pushes things in an unexpected direction. Fitting that square peg ("Wait, I lost?") into a round hole is a lot different than laying out the universe of possibility and making what seems like the strongest choice.

    More later!
  7.  # 7
    It sounds like you are permitting cards here as a randomizer, while in truth, though cards are certainly different than dice, alternate randomizer systems are not quite in the same boat as systems that forgo randomizers.

    Card systems can give you certain benefits... cards can add imagery to your games (a la Everway), can contain rules, or can become tokens possessed by the players that can be utilized later. One thing you need to remember about cards through is they differ from dice principally in that they have "memory". Once a card is pulled, it is out of the deck and can't be played until shuffled back in. If you incorporate rules that downplay this memory aspect (like reshuffling after each draw), then you really aren't doing anything that different from using dice.

    A good use of this "memory" is to emulate "ebb" and "flow" in a situation, and maintain balance. You'll never pull the worst card twice in a row (unless there are multiple worst cards, and even then, your chances are reduced), so you can often predict the flow of events with more certainty.

    I generally avoid "randomless" games, because when running a game, I like the way that uncertainty in actions affects player actions. Instead of merely having the possibilities of "can" or "can't" when it comes to resolving tasks or conflicts, there's also the grey area of "might". Further, after years of play, a lot of players psychologically equate the roll of a dice with action or effort, which is a subtle way to achieve immersion I am loath to dispense with.
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 8
    I just thought of another point. The general tendency within Story Games has been toward (to borrow a phrase) Story Now - the kind of story and the details of how it unfolds are emergent from play as they happen (we might choose a particular game because it provides some constraints, but overly-constrained games lose the place where story happens). One of the ways (Jeep-style) freeform works is a strong shared sense of Story Before: We know what kind of story this is going to be from the outset, and we play towards producing that outcome.

    These are both totally cool ways to get good, affecting, strong story-centered play.

    But they're fundamentally not the same. They scratch different itches.
  9.  # 9
    If you focus on Negotiation, then Beast Hunters can be played completely without dice. That shouldn't come as a surprise, given what you know about my gaming background :)

    In fact, Brand and Mo play it this way most of the time.
    • CommentAuthorkomradebob
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 10
    Weird thoughts:

    1) A table is literally more conducive to dice use since you've got somewhere to roll them easily and everyone can probably see the result easily due to the way table tend to focus everyone's attention inward.

    I think you can see how that creates its own feedback loop wrt to rules development.
    Edited to add
    Okay, that may not actually be that obvious on second thought, but maybe worthy of another thread instead.

    2) Diceless functions just fine, however, it isn't conducive to the creation of sellable products.
    I suppose you could make a book of situation set-ups and suggestions for directions to take ( I've actually seen a kids' co-operative games book like this), but that isn't anything on par with having convoluted formulas and lists of powers.

    Without pages to fill up, there's no need for a book. Without a book, there's no product on the store shelf. Without a product on the store shelf, there's no "footprint" on gamer culture. The tradition is passed orally, rather than in print, which even limits its ability to spread further.

    Matthijs:
    I use a very similar stripped down version of PTA with my daughter for our Floor Games. It works just fine, although I've been meaning to use your improv cards the next time around. I don't suppose anyone has a printable version of cards available in English yet?
    •  
      CommentAuthorGraham
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 11
    Emily, what does "freeform" mean in this context? Freeform as in without written rules? Freeform as in what our European friends do? English freeform?

    It's a confusing term. I hate it, personally.

    Graham
  12.  # 12
    In a formal sense, dice and other randomizers reveal hidden information: until the dice are rolled, no one in the game (including the GM if the game has one) knows the outcome of a check. Thus, they are a means of providing uncertainty and mystery in a (as orklord noted) neutral manner. If you don't mind your uncertainty being provided from a source that has its own agenda and biases, then yes, you can do away with them. If you like what your source of uncertainty is up to, it might be better. If you don't like your source of uncertainty, well...

    (While not random and unbiased, I have a sudden, amusing image of game that provides uncertainty by asking questions of random bystanders and passers-by. Best played in high-traffic areas, of course.)
  13.  # 13
    I thought the OP clearly states that in this instance, it refers to "diceless" play with "other procedures."
    •  
      CommentAuthorGraham
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 14
    Oh, that wasn't clear to me. Anyway, I wondered if, by "freeform", Emily was assuming Nordic freeforming or something. Not trying to quibble.

    Graham
    • CommentAuthorkomradebob
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 15
    Posted By: Graham WOh, that wasn't clear to me. Anyway, I wondered if, by "freeform", Emily was assuming Nordic freeforming or something.


    How different is the Aus/UK "freeform" from the Nordic stuff anyway? I was under the impression that there were a fair number of similarities.
  16.  # 16
    Since she included these questions:

    And questions for those who play freeform or diceless, how do you play without them? Why is it that you don't? What makes it possible for a game to work dice free? And do you actually use them sometimes too?


    I'm assuming that she's open to all kinds of ways to do this :)
    •  
      CommentAuthorBen Lehman
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 17
    Hey, Em: Check out all the value judgements implicit in your statements.

    I don't play games without explicit mechanics (and, let's face it, the issue here is not randomization but explicit mechanics) because I find games without them juvenile and, largely, socially destructive.

    My value judgements are explicit.

    yrs--
    --Ben
    • CommentAuthorEmily Care
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 18
    Ben:

    Seriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide?

    This is what I'm really asking. And the issue is not explicit mechanics, it is randomized resolution mechanics. What do those provide and how do people go without them? Functionally. What are the explicit mechanics that we can use instead?

    Christian: exactly as you said, on both points about what I meant.

    (edited)
    •  
      CommentAuthorHoho
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 19

    The answer's implicit in your question: They provide randomness. Now, what randomness provides, I'm stumped about that one.

    •  
      CommentAuthornoclue
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 20
    I don't want to throw my dice away! Someone stop her. Anyone.
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 21
    Duh. Surprise.

    Notice how again and again, the prerequisite for successful freeform is some variation on "trust", "common understanding", "dramaturgy"... etc. What's the potential pitfall of all that? Groupthink. Forgone conclusions. Lack of meaningful conflict/adversity. Parallel play.

    Randomness provides a place for input that's not subject to that problem. If it is a problem... and it's probably not for all purposes. But it is useful if you want to be genuinely surprised by what happens in play, or if you like the challenge of incorporating perverse input successfully.
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 22
    Oh, and to follow up. I see two potentially strong arguments in favor of freeform.

    1. Technical agenda. This is the "numbers make my head hurt" argument and all its cousins. If technical procedures interfere with your enjoyment of the game, then minimizing them looks like a good idea.

    2. Predictability. This is the inverse of my argument for randomness. If you don't want to have to incorporate perverse input, but instead have a clear shared vision of what you want to see in the game, randomness is the enemy. You want to rely on that shared vision.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 23
    Posted By: Emily CareSeriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide?

    They are contextless constraints through which creativity can flourish. When the dice are rolls/cards are played/tea leaves are read/whatever, you're suddenly given something to work into the game -- like being forced to take a random suggestion from a third party.

    I actually swing the other way when it comes to dice: give the dice more meaning. Seeing how Fred did that in Don't Rest Your Head was a hell of an inspiration for me, and is why I did what I did with the cards for Know Thyself (Edit: which is give them lots of variant meaning at different times of play). I firmly believe in creativity through constraints, and while I can have a lot of fun with games like Polaris or A Penny For My Thoughts (which have system, but one where the constraints come from your fellow players), there is something to us as a group seeing the results of the dice or whatever and having to figure out how they apply.
    • CommentAuthorjzn
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 24
    Dice or other random systems provide the element of a game of chance. Games of chance are inherently exhilirating, and when you combine a game of chance with narration, there's a kind of alchemy. The narrative effects were well described in Jason Morningstar's post.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMerten
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 25
    Posted By: Emily CareAnd questions for those who play freeform or diceless, how do you play without them? Why is it that you don't? What makes it possible for a game to work dice free? And do you actually use them sometimes too?


    Dice, as plastic randomizers, are just that - randomizers which can be used in various different ways; resolving stuff, guiding stuff, acting as resource, whatever. There's nothing inheritently bad or annoying in them, nor in other sorts of randomizers. I don't mind using dices or other randomisers, as long as there's a reason for using them - for me, it's usually using them to resolve a task or just to add suspense.

    The dices, though, are usually connected to a larger set of rules which, especially in the case of Story Games, add structure to the game. They usually present some kind of goal for the game and means for the player to reach that goal. Dices add randomoness or tactics or whatever to that structure. In short, these combined tend to make up the Game -part of the roleplaying game; have a goal, have structure, play in that structure and reach for the goal, possibly using tactics and reacting to stuff as it changes.

    I can do without that; I'm not really intrested in playing a game in the mechanical sense. It's not an integral part of roleplaying for me.

    The other thing that adds to the structure is the Story; now that you mentioned Jeepform, they don't use dices or other randomisers - or even rules as such, to add structure. There is, however, the mentioned Story Before and techniques that keep the structure in place and act to deliver a story.

    I can do without that as well; Story is not the intresting or rewarding part of roleplaying for me. It can be there, it can happen, but the structures that make Story Now or keep events within the agreed Story Before and an artificial hindrance. Less so if they are hidden from the view.

    What that leaves is pretty the unstructured interaction and negotiation within the diegesis (fiction, in-character, whatever). And since the intresting part is to simulate and immerse into a human being, who interacts with other human beings and the fictional world. As that interaction and negotiation is pretty much a built-in mechanic in us humans (that's what we do and what we are), it's pretty easy to get by without the dice, structure or the story. Granted, dice can be used to add suspense or a random factor (usually in physical feats, since when playing tabletop, that's the one thing in human interaction you're missing) and there can be some kind of story (plot, whatever) to move things forward. They are not intergral part, but useful tools.

    That might come out as negative and dissing, but honestly, not trying to be either. And what komradebob said; for publishing roleplaying products, it does suck a lot.
    • CommentAuthorJoe Beason
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 26
    I'm not at all familiar with freeform, but from the discussion it sounds like it's leaving "roleplaying game" behind and entering "improv theater". Why stay rooted in the realm of RPGs at all?
  27.  # 27
    Posted By: Mark W

    Notice how again and again, the prerequisite for successful freeform is some variation on "trust", "common understanding", "dramaturgy"...


    Hi Mark,

    Don't games like Primetimes Adventures, Dogs, and more depend on a grasp (whether or intuitive or intellectualized) of what's dramatic and interesting during all those parts of between playing the cards or rolling dice.

    I'm not that familiar with your tastes, but catch me up with what you like. Because meeting the challenge of incorporating perverse input depends on a knowledge of some kind of what's an interesting and/or dramatic response. Right?

    My point: Trust, a sense of the dramatic are vital to any of these games we play. Unless you've built a game with mechanics that actually prevent players from getting in the way of the narrative.

    I'm assuming you're saying that a game needs a mix of the two -- mechanics that introduce the unexpected results and the shared created powers of the players. But maybe not.

    CK
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 28
    Okay, I'm confused. Is the question just about dice and nothing but dice? Cause I've thrown away the dice and played Primetime Adventures and Sons of Liberty and Dissapeared and Nine Worlds. But given the starting example is getting rid of the cards in Roach, that doesn't seem to be the intent...
  29.  # 29
    Posted By: Joshua BishopRobyBut given the starting example is getting rid of the cards in Roach, that doesn't seem to be the intent...

    I've taken to reading that a "there are no inputs into the game outside of the players' ideas and actions."
  30.  # 30
    By the way....

    There's a lot turf stakes being set down for reasons I can't understand. (The games I love are a mix of patches of mechanics and patches of what I'd have to call free form ("Okay, you have the most red cards: Narrate!"). And that means everything from Shock to Burning Wheel, okay?

    But if someone only wants to play with input from other players... Okay, I'm willing to listen and find out more. Right?

    I mean, we've been around this road with everyone on the internet already, right? With everyone claiming we're fascists because some of us choose not to play D&D.

    Look, we neither have to worry about the jack-booted thugs taking away our dice, not having to prove that the way we play is the "mature" way to play and so on. Right? I mean, right?

    CK
    •  
      CommentAuthorMerten
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 31
    Posted By: Joe BeasonI'm not at all familiar with freeform, but from the discussion it sounds like it's leaving "roleplaying game" behind and entering "improv theater". Why stay rooted in the realm of RPGs at all?


    Because there are still ton of useful things that do not come with improv theater (I think - I'm not familiar with it); collaborative creation, structures (like the Jeeps have), techniques that can be used without the dice or other randomizers. You can build a solid foundation for a scenario, which means that the event will not be all improv, and you can guide the event towards something.
    •  
      CommentAuthorHoho
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 32

    I'm not at all familiar with freeform, but from the discussion it sounds like it's leaving "roleplaying game" behind and entering "improv theater". Why stay rooted in the realm of RPGs at all?

    swearing

    fucking labels are not going to advance this discussion.

  33.  # 33
    I came back to dice after many years without for the simple reason that they frequently defied my expectations, and forced me to stretch my thinking in ways that an outcome which "Made sense" did not. I'm happy for my diceless time, and I'll still do it from time to time, but it's now just one more club in the bag.

    -Rob D.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 34
    Posted By: shreyas

    fucking labels are not going to advance this discussion.


    They will as equally as needless outbursts.

    Posted By: Joe Beasonbut from the discussion it sounds like it's leaving "roleplaying game" behind and entering "improv theater".

    I might suggest that, if you haven't already done so, you might want to listen to Paul Tevis & Remi Treuer talk about the ways that improv is and is not like an RPG, which you can find as episodes 97 & 98 of Have Games, Will Travel.
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 35
    Posted By: Christopher Kubasik
    How did the skill set of dramaturgy get lumped in with the mushiness of "common understanding"? Games likePrimetimes Adventures,Dogs, and more depend on a grasp (whether or intuitive or intellectualized) of what's dramatic and interesting during all those parts of between playing the cards or rolling dice.

    I'm not at all suggesting that non-freeform games don't need dramaturgy skills. What else is good scene framing? But freeform makes those techniques carry a load that can be distributed onto other structural elements in less-freeform games.

    And for your second question. My first and greatest love was highly-structured intimate freeform similar to Jeep-style. I found it was really, really not reproducible outside of a specific group of people, and have ended up very fond of strongly-structured formalized story games like Dogs, My Life With Master and Polaris. My secondary like is for games with strong signaling/tuning mechanisms like fan mail, aspects, or Keys but otherwise fairly light and flexible conflict mechanics.
    • CommentAuthorchearns
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 36
    Posted By: Mark WBut [using fortune] is useful if you want to be genuinely surprised by what happens in play, or if you like the challenge of incorporating perverse input successfully.


    In a game of A Penny For My Thoughts, during a segment that only used drama resolution, both of those things, genuine surprise, and incorporating perverse input happened.

    For those unfamiliar with the game, during each memory phase, you recall a small bit of memory (this uses a fortune mechanic), and the other players add to that memory, adding facts about your memory (I'm simplifying, but it's a twenty page document, if you want to know how it really works, I recommend reading it). Those facts are indisputable, pure drama resolution, I say they happened, they happened.

    During someone's second memory phase, their unpleasant memory, the first two questions were clearly leading the memory to be about adultery with the character's best friend's wife. This could easily be an unpleasant memory. Betrayal being unpleasant. I had the last question and there was no way this was going to be something as simple as adultery. So for the final fact of the memory, I declared that there was a dead body in the room. The player who's memory it was replied with a Holy Shit. Surprise. And they were then faced with the challenge of incorporating this corpse into their narrative, a narrative that up until then they thought was going to go in a much different direction.

    So yeah, dice (or any fortune mechanic) can give you those two features, but they aren't the only way to get those two features.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 37
    Posted By: Ryan Macklin
    Posted By: Joshua BishopRobyBut given the starting example is getting rid of the cards in Roach, that doesn't seem to be the intent...

    I've taken to reading that a "there are no inputs into the game outside of the players' ideas and actions."


    Then I'm back to my prior question-- if the only thing I can affect is what I say, what resources do I have that let me get you to play along outside of social pressure, or "being awesome enough to get you to play along" which is just a longer way of saying "social pressure"?

    I mean this as a real question, and one that I believe has answers. Paul's Penny for My Thoughts uses a Yes, and... Mechanic to define situation without dice, and the pennies of the title are more pacing than resolution. But I'm sure there are other possibilities, too.
  38.  # 38
    Posted By: chearnsSo yeah, dice (or any fortune mechanic) can give you those two features, but they aren't the only way to get those two features.

    Certainly not, but unpack the system some.

    The situation generation process operates in a strange way: you may not refute the question you are asked, and this question need not have context to begin with. Example (which will require some knowledge of the game):

    First Q: Did you have to work late that day?
    A: Yes, and I hadn't had a day off in two weeks.
    Second Q: Were you covered in blood?

    The first person established the situation in a way the answering-player couldn't refute. Instead, this person had to work in the suggestion and build upon on. Then the second person comes in and throws out some completely different idea that doesn't build on the first one -- leaving the work to do that up to the answering-player.

    The asking-players are taking on the roll of infinitely-sided dice here. They need no context, and their contributions will not be refuted. Certainly, this is far better for Paul's game that using dice or cards could ever be, but it's not as though the same purpose isn't served.

    Now, to go to games that use dice -- like Dogs in the Vineyard -- I would be hard-pressed to see how this particular system (or the "tell me what it is that I did" in-scene system from APFMT) would work without morphing the game isn't an experience that is only Dogs in the Vineyard in name. I mention this to say: what is it that your dice or your friends are doing to create an experience that none of them expect and that they have to work in together?
    • CommentAuthorEmily Care
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 39
    Posted By: shreyas

    I'm not at all familiar with freeform, but from the discussion it sounds like it's leaving "roleplaying game" behind and entering "improv theater". Why stay rooted in the realm of RPGs at all?

    swearing

    fuckinglabelsare not going to advance this discussion.


    Agreed. We actually have some good descriptions of what we're talking about to go with here. Joe, see this thread on freeform techniques and this blog on improv if you are interested in getting clearer on the types of play.

    Merten: good to have the immersionist perspective represented. It makes me realize what a narrative-ist stance I am coming from. But Finnish larps use mechanics don't they? For combat etc. Or not? I am still learning the real ins and outs here. And your icon speaks volumes. :)

    JBR wrote:
    Cause I've thrown away the dice and played Primetime Adventures and Sons of Liberty and Dissapeared and Nine Worlds.

    If you will, talk about how, specifically, you did.

    Mark, too:
    My first and greatest love was highly-structured intimate freeform similar to Jeep-style.

    You've been holding out!

    Paul's A Penny for Your Thoughts is exactly the kind of thing I'm getting at.
  40.  # 40
    Posted By: Emily CareSeriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide? This is what I'm really asking. And the issue is not explicit mechanics, it is randomized resolution mechanics. What do those provide and how do people go without them? Functionally. What are the explicit mechanics that we can use instead?

    Hi Emily,

    You have created some acrimony! That's interesting in and of itself, although your initial post could be read as a teensy bit inflammatory. I really want to hear from experienced freeformers of every description, addressing the second half of your question. My experience is pretty limited, in that "going diceless" for me has usually been the result of the dice failing to deliver the experience we were after (most recently playing Twilight: 2000).
  41.  # 41
    Mark,

    Thanks for your compact and absolutely informative answer!

    And now I know something about you I never knew before!

    CK
    • CommentAuthorlumpley
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 42
    I think that the fortune component (pulling the memory from the hat) is crucial to the functioning of A Penny for My Thoughts. It's the only thing that makes the non-fortune questions that follow it work.

    Designing a game without randomness is like designing a game for online play, or with no GM, or for single-session play, or for only precisely three players. It's excellent and limiting. Go for it, and don't expect everything that's possible in all of roleplaying to be possible in some limited subset of roleplaying.

    -Vincent
    • CommentAuthorkomradebob
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 43
    Posted By: Joshua BishopRobyThen I'm back to my prior question-- if the only thing I can affect is what I say, what resources do I have that let me get you to play along outside of social pressure, or "being awesome enough to get you to play along" which is just a longer way of saying "social pressure"?


    Isn't that enough? Social Pressure, I mean?

    ['Course, "social pressure" strikes me as having a bunch of negative connotations.]

    I feel terrible for saying this, but Real World social skills are player skills, too. Why would we want to avoid or water that down in games?
    • CommentAuthortimfire
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 44
    IMO, dice contribute 3 things---the first two have already been implied:

    1) They promote variety: Of course we can create surprising situations with negotiation. But we all have preferences and personalities, and over time, we will express those things. In other words, as individuals we are a little bit predictable. By conceding certain decisions to fortune, we are likely to encourage a greater sense of variety, by forcing decisions we may not have made otherwise.

    2) The create a sense of risk: Since noone can predict the outcome, players must evaluate the risk of various choices. This relates to the above. As individuals have certain personalities & preferences, if decisions are left to negotiation or individual fiat, outcomes can either be predicted, or social pressure can be utilized to force certain outcomes.

    3) Fortune changes the nature of play: This will take a bit of explaining, I've written about this in my upcoming article for Push v2. So, "creating" content actually involves a spectrum of activities. On one side is "strict" creation---creating from scratch. On the other is re-imagining or re-interpreting inspirational material.

    By conceding certain creative choices, particularly conflict resolution, to fortune, we shift the focus of play more towards (re-)interpreting, rather than strict creation. Are you following me? In other words, we, as players, are left with the task of interpreting what these outcomes mean for the fiction, rather than trying to make these decisions ourselves. It's a different focus that utilizes slightly different skills. I think this relates to the idea of "emergent" play.

    Note, none of these are value judgments. Whether the above is desirable simply relates to individual preference.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMerten
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 45
    Posted By: Emily CareMerten: good to have the immersionist perspective represented. It makes me realize what a narrative-ist stance I am coming from. But Finnish larps use mechanics don't they? For combat etc. Or not? I am still learning the real ins and outs here. And your icon speaks volumes. :)


    Yeah, they do use some mechanics. For example, see:

    http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1982#Item_2

    and

    http://www.story-games.com/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1284#Item_1

    There's not a whole lot of randomizing (or at all), but both fiat from players and negotiation. Mark pretty much nailed it with Technical Agenda and Predictability, I think. The latter is something akin to that since there's little attention paid to the dramatic and narrative structure, there's little need for randomization that adds to them or drastically changes things.

    I'd hasten to add, though, that I'd love to see subtle use of structure and randomization. Like someone pointed out, "freeform" is good, but it's only one club in the bag and can be mixed with other techiques, as long as they don't step in too harshly and land a blow to the things that players used to "freeform" get out from it.
    • CommentAuthorchearns
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 46
    Uh, Ryan, I don't understand what your statements have to do with my comment regarding how there are other ways to provide surprise and perverse elements other than Fortune mechanics. That in fact you can provide both of those features of Fortune mechanics using well-crafted Drama mechanics. Could you please explain the connection?
    • CommentAuthormarkv
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 47
    like matthijs, I'm not super keen on complex dice system and resource management, even though I see the value in terms of the large amounts of information they can carry and the structure they can add. Creative constraints and randomness and structure are great tools, through dice or otherwise.

    I wonder how much use of dice is from it being a great solution to design goals, and how much is from the 30 plus year legacy/ tradition/ skeletal claws of rpg history- probably a combo, dice being one of the things one would think of first to meet your goals

    in my series of 9 dictator games, one uses dice (2d6). the others use scrabble pieces + an emotional wheel, newspapers, flipped coins + garbled messages, text editing, poker chips, playing cards + sticky notes, lists of objects

    one of my favorite quotes applicable to rpgs is mallarme's 'all thought emits a throw of dice' , from the poem ' a throw of the dice not never will eliminate chance' which I'm typing without thinking they add anything to this discussion - I just like them
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 48
    Posted By: chearnsUh, Ryan, I don't understand what your statements have to do with my comment regarding how there are other ways to provide surprise and perverse elements other than Fortune mechanics. That in fact you can provide both of those features of Fortune mechanics using well-crafted Drama mechanics. Could you please explain the connection?

    In short: seriously analyze how your use of Drama mechanics are like Fortune mechanics (or vice versa), and what shared purpose they serve. It's one thing to say "there are other ways," but what I think is more interesting is to show by breaking them down how they are similar and how they are different.

    In shorter: When are you actually using Drama mechanics versus when are you using your friends as Fortune mechanics (but perhaps still calling it Drama mechanics because there are no actual dice or other artifacts).

    In specific: I would consider every time you ask for input from a psychopomp in APFMT to be human-based Fortune.
    •  
      CommentAuthormisuba
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 49
    Posted By: Emily CareSeriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide?


    The rituals of alea.
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 50
    Posted By: Ryan Macklin
    In shorter: When are you actually using Drama mechanics versus when are you using your friends as Fortune mechanics (but perhaps still calling it Drama mechanics because there are no actual dice or other artifacts).

    This kind of thing is why I often differentiate between "structured Drama" and "unstructured Drama" when talking about freeform. I wouldn't say you're necessarily "using your fellow player as a Fortune source" rather than using Drama, but you're definitely using Drama in a structured, ritualized way as opposed to an interactive, socially-mediated way.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 51
    Posted By: Mark WThis kind of thing is why I often differentiate between "structured Drama" and "unstructured Drama" when talking about freeform. I wouldn't say you're necessarily "using your fellow player as a Fortune source" rather than using Drama, but you're definitely using Drama in a structured, ritualized way as opposed to an interactive, socially-mediated way.

    The reason I'm using "Fortune" here is because, in the specific example of Paul's game, context is not a requirement (nor, I think, even a suggestion). It's that lack of context that makes it feel more like Fortune. In my mind, Drama requires context going into that situation rather than taking something and having to create the context for it after the fact.

    Edit: Oh, and the irrefutable nature of what's said, that also adds to feeling like Fortune.
    •  
      CommentAuthorJosh Roby
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 52
    Emily, I was mostly referring to the fact that those games do not use dice. I played them normally. ;)
  53.  # 53
    "Seriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide?"

    The dramatic tension from randomness. Not knowing an outcome, without relying on that outcome to be provided by a person at the table. What does that add? A hell of a lot. Actually, one of the rules of Jeepform is a great pointer for this. "Restrictions foster creativity." Dice, for me, provide restrictions that more often than not, foster creativity. With dice, I can pretty much choose to fail, and sometimes choose to succeed if the mechanics allow a way to bring in overwhelming odds. Depending on the group, they might give it to me either way. But a lot of the time, success or failure (or whatever non-binary result) catches me off guard, or helps direct the story. I might not have wanted to fail, but still did. That happens to characters, and the fun is working within that new limit and finding the compelling story. Because there is one. Had I won, there might have been one there too. Maybe I don't care either way, having the random element adds the restriction of success, failure, non-binary, and feeds my creativity.

    Yeah, sometimes playing without dice is okay. Like in Jeepform, wel a lot of the stories are internally and externally driven. It's a different mode of play, and it doesn't work for everyone and everything. But a lot of the time, most of the time perhaps, dice provide an additional layer that helps foster creative play.

    "What's our problem?" There is no problem. Dice are not a crutch that has to be thrown away any more than the rhyming pattern of a sonnet or the word format of a sestina. They are a part of our poetic toolkit.
    • CommentAuthorMoreno R.
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 54
    Hi!

    Some of the people who answered Emily's question seems to think that "no randomizer"="no structure". For everybody who hasn't still read it, I would strongly suggest reading the Jeepform "Doubt", that you can download in english from here.

    It's a freeform scenario for 4 four people, and there is no randomizer, no "conflict or task resolution". But unstructured? It's one of the most structured games I have ever seen. There is a prep phase where the players in advance decide the setting, some of the characters, and the scene locations and theme. It's reminded me of Primetime Adventures. There are strict rules to follow. But every scene is uninterrupted by "game consiferation". And it's "story now", Mark, not "story before". You play it without knowing how the story will go. I would have been surprised at the beginning from what my character(s) did during the game, if I could have known.

    I think that Vincent, as always, nailed it. Playing without having to "break the scene" to consult a randomizer or a system resolution is a good thing, by itself, but it limit what you can play. I enjoyed very much playing "doubt", but it is a scenario about love. I don't need a randomizer to tell me how to talk.

    In the next convention I played a freeform/larp game with some similar structure, and I enjoyed it until there was a scene with a sword fight. And I felt stupid, mimicking a swordfight. I really wanted some system for resolving it out-of-view.

    Then, I played a game of "Spione", and the story involved car chases, people shot in the head, etc, and the "randomizer" was a deck of cards that you put on the table in a precise way and then you "read" and narrate the events. It was like reading tarots to know what the future would bring to the characters. I would have like it a lot less played freeform.

    One of the Jeep "truth" says that the form (the rules) should be tailored to the story (or to the premise, if you prefere). I agree, and often this mean that having randomizers is better. But not always.

    By the other hand, sometimes I see dice used where "no dice" would be much better, for no other reason than "it's a rpg, we need dice"
    • CommentAuthorAlan
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 55
    As a poet once said when he was asked about a movement towards formless poetry: why play tennis without a net?

    Structure generates challenges that demand greater creativity from the players. Orson Scott Card once said that creativity is two ideas in collision. This is why there are so many "how to be creative" or "how to brainstorm" methods. These are codified systems (aka rules) for puting ideas in collision. Fortune (from dice, cards, whatever) performs an important role in the creativity exercises we call roleplaying games. While the simple interplay of people's ideas does produce some unexpected results, fortune generators are much better at putting unexpecting ideas into collision.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMarhault
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 56
    I recently wrapped up a game of Amber Diceless that shed some light on this issue for me, personally. Here's the problem I had, which killed my enthusiasm, which eventually killed the game.

    I (and I alone) knew the stats of the PCs and NPCs. I (and I alone) framed the scenes, including the likelihood of conflict. Since all conflict in the game is resolved with Karma based attribute comparisons, I essentially had to say what happened all the time. I frame a scene and create a conflict, with full knowledge of who was going to win before I even began. I realized that, without the dice to fall back on, I was the sole author of conflict resolution (save that between PCs), and it was very unsatisfying. I think this is a variant of the Czege principle at work, yes?

    So here's what I need my dice (read Fortune mechanics) for: They provide impartial arbitration for events in the game. There are plenty of things that can do this without fortune, Polaris and Beast Hunters take good stabs at answering this need in non-Fortune based ways. Also, there's a certain thrill of striving for something when the outcome is in doubt, waiting for the dice to fall and tell you what happened.
    •  
      CommentAuthornoclue
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 57
    Emily, inherent in your OP is the assumption that RPing with dice is inferior to freeform RP. That if we could only get the secret sauce of high art, we would all throw away dice and go completely freeform, as if dice are getting in the way of our enjoyment.

    Here's my problem. I like dice. I like them on a visceral, irrational level. I like them in a way that I do not like cards or other randomizers. I like dice. They add to my enjoyment of the game simply by being there and looking shiny and fiddly. I like a good cigar. I like a well cooked piece of steak. I like rolly little pieces of plastic. Why should I look for ways to toss out something I enjoy?

    Do I need a rational reason for that enjoyment? I could go into all the rational reasons about how fortune resolution adds uncertainty to the narrative and to outcomes. And I love that about randomizers too. I like being able to push forward a big raise in Dogs and know the other person is gonna have to narrate taking the blow or they're going to have to give. I like rolling in my Father's Gun 2d8 and then getting crap and having to incorporate that in my narrative. Not choosing to. Being forced to by fortune. The constraint adds to my fun.

    So my question is why get rid of them if they ain't broke?
    • CommentAuthorkomradebob
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 58
    Posted By: noclueSo my question is why get rid of them if they ain't broke?

    Why bring dice in in the first instance? (I recall lots of non-gamers asking me this one over the years).
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 59
    Posted By: Moreno R.
    it's "story now", Mark, not "story before". You play it without knowing how the story will go. I would have been surprised at the beginning from what my character(s) did during the game, if I could have known.

    I knew when I used that phrasing that I'd regret it. You're quite correct in detail - particularly if you want to get technical Theory-ish about it. I intended to shorthand a difference in emphasis which is really very much a continuum:

    At one end, stuff like In A Wicked Age, in which virtually everything about the content of the story is indeterminate pre-play.

    Next, stuff like Primetime Adventures, where Issues, the "it's TV" conceit, and the franchise provide some direction for the general shape of story, but the outcomes of scenes are very much up in the air - indeed, relatively random.

    Then you've got the vast middle turf of story-gaming, with structure reinforced by pacing methods (typically a currency flow of some sort) and "gameable" resolution that gives players more control over outcomes. Dogs is archetypal.

    Now you're starting to get into the structure-heavy end of things, with much more nailed down in advance. Games like My Life With Master and With Great Power... live here, with their set story arcs, more or less determinate endgames, and resource-management-dependent conflicts. The narrative arc of these games is pretty consistent instance-to-instance, and even individual character arcs are often pretty "readable" from their initial states (although they can and do surprise you).

    Way out over on the far end, you've got games with predefined characters, set scene agendas, rules tailored to produce specific story events over time... For tabletop, I think of Shab al-Hiri Roach, It Was A Mutual Decision (maybe), Burning Empires.

    Note that none of these actually precludes Story Now in the Forge-y sense. Which is why I shouldn't have munged up the terms.

    My feeling is that scenarios like Doubt substitute heavy structure, defined arcs, and preplay for in-play novelty and freedom for the exact same reasons why a tabletop game might: to allow deeper exploration of the spaces that ARE open within that structure - which are principally the "inner spaces" of character.
    •  
      CommentAuthornoclue
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 60
    Posted By: komradebobWhy bring dice in in the first instance? (I recall lots of non-gamers asking me this one over the years).


    Why smoke a good cigar? Cuz I like it. I enjoy that aspect of the game as much as I enjoy the roleplaying aspect. I'm not sure a game needs further justification then "people enjoy it." Why people enjoy it might be an interesting conversation. But talking about how to get people to stop doing something they enjoy is a little odd to me.
    • CommentAuthorkomradebob
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 61
    Posted By: noclue
    Posted By: komradebobWhy bring dice in in the first instance? (I recall lots of non-gamers asking me this one over the years).


    Why smoke a good cigar? Cuz I like it. I enjoy that aspect of the game as much as I enjoy the roleplaying aspect. I'm not sure a game needs further justification then "people enjoy it." Why people enjoy it might be an interesting conversation. But talking about how to get people to stop doing something they enjoy is a little odd to
    me.


    Now that you mention it, yeah, I guess that is a bit odd.

    Does the conversation work better for you if the thing is rephrased as "Let's make more games for people that don't like dice/randomizers" instead of "Let's git rid of dice"?
    •  
      CommentAuthorHoho
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 62

    noclue, I think the take-away from this discussion is, "Emily's not actually threatening your fun, she's just interested in making things that aren't fun for you."

    Personally, uh, dice annoy me sometimes. Sometimes I think they are beautiful or awesome or useful. I'd like to have more of the dice-or-no-dice design space explored, and I can't do it by myself.

    •  
      CommentAuthornoclue
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 63
    Posted By: komradebobDoes the conversation work better for you if the thing is rephrased as "Let's make more games for people that don't like dice/randomizers" instead of "Let's git rid of dice"?


    Yeah. I'm cool with that. I like games without dice too, so more games in general is always good.
    • CommentAuthorMark W
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 64
    I think there's a vast, wonderful territory in game design to be explored around formally structured games that minimize the use of traditional Fortune. My initial quibble in the thread was with what I thought was Emily's emphasis on "translating" existing story games into a randomless form - which seems to me to be far inferior to designing games natively for the various flavors of "freeform" environments.

    And I share Ben's general intense distrust of socially-mediated unstructured freeform, totally don't empathise with the technically-driven resistance to mechanics that Matthijs and others mention, and have on occasion really geeked out on dice mechanics. (Plus I like the sensory kick of rolling a big handful of shiny colorful solids).
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 65
    Posted By: Moreno R.By the other hand, sometimes I see dice used where "no dice" would be much better, for no other reason than "it's a rpg, we need dice"

    Sure, but don't forget the converse is also true: "let's build a diceless game because I don't like dice/had bad experiences/don't want to pay into the industrial-randomizer complex." But to get back to the original topic...

    Posted By: Emily CareSo if it's so easy, why are we using dice anyway? If the jeeps can do without them, what is our problem? Seriously, what do dice give that other procedures can't provide?

    "Easy" is relative and depends on things outside our control. It is perhaps less easy for me to convince my friends that going diceless is awesome when we all grew up playing GURPS and they've only recently dipped their toes in the indie pool that is is for you, who has helped to fill the pool. It's taken me a year to get them to try Polaris, but they're really digging it now.

    My problem? Now, I've not yet had the pleasure of trying freeform or anything like it, so I don't have much to say on that. Perhaps that's my "problem." However, I am finding my gaming currently to be rather satisfying.

    I've already given my two cents on the third question. Maybe I could turn this around: Emily, what is it about dice (and other similar elements, like cards, roulette wheels, etc.) that you personally find unsatisfactory or lacking (if that is the case) that drives you to explore alternatives?

    I tend to find them unsatisfactory in more traditional games, to be fair. Perhaps we have some similar reasons or underlying ideas, and I'd like to know more because I'm designing in a very different direction lately, which still involves dice/cards/etc.
    • CommentAuthorGB Steve
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 66
    The dice debate is one that used to turn up not infrequently on RPGnet. Anyone who dared to advocate not using dice was usually viewed by the majority as the lowest scum that walks the earth. To me, this says that there's a lot of personal investment in the dice.

    One of the reasons is that the dice act as a proxy for the player of what the character is doing. I roll the dice, he hits the orc. I roll the dice, he jumps the pit. This link is very strong and is surrounded by dice mythology and ritual that, as a mathematician, I find hard to credit. But there's no denying its presence.

    Another reason is that players think that nothing exciting can happen without the random element. This even though, the dice are often only the final adjunct in a chain of circumstance that involved no dice at all. Sure there are stories about the surprise a dice has brought, just as there are about what a player or an NPC did next.

    Another issue is that players are worried about authority. Having no dice is handing over authority to the GM. With many games, and with properly played improv, authority is shared, but besides that players find it hard to trust someone to this degree. Some players obviously, not all players. Part of this stems from the adversarial nature of many roleplaying games in which the GM is aiming to trick or otherwise disadvantage the player characters. Many players take very personally what happens to their characters. Character failure is equated with personal failure, not a roleplaying opportunity. Of course in many games character failure takes you out of the game or kills your character so they perhaps aren't far wrong. And so, having a neutral arbiter of the last part of resolution removes some of this tension - even if the GM can likely stack the odds anyway they please.

    I'm always happy to play a game with no dice, no resolution system at all except trust and no blocking. What dice players perhaps don't realise is that this gives you even more control over your character and their destiny.

    Which brings me to another issue, rewards. In many games, rewards are hard fought for. You roll the dice and take the risks, you've earned those rewards. With no dice, it's hard to know to what extent the rewards have been earned. You could just imagine that you have that Vorpal sword.

    Sure, dice are inherent to many of the factors that provide the enjoyment of the game. If you take away the dice, you're refocussing the game on different factors. It perhaps this that is the most unsettling to the players.
    • CommentAuthorkomradebob
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 67
    Posted By: GB SteveThe dice debate is one that used to turn up not infrequently on RPGnet. Anyone who dared to advocate not using dice was usually viewed by the majority as the lowest scum that walks the earth. To me, this says that there's a lot of personal investment in the dice.


    There's also the issue of self-selection of respondants. I mean, there's a shocking number of vegans that don't appreciate the wonders of my Granddad's recipe for leg of lamb. I suspect the reaction you're talking about comes from a similar place.
    • CommentAuthorptevis
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 68
    Posted By: GB SteveI'm always happy to play a game with no dice, no resolution system at all except trust and no blocking.


    So am I. But I play it very differently than a game that has a resolution system and uses dice. And I enjoy different things about it.
    • CommentAuthorMike Holmes
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 69
    Oooh Steve gets so close...

    First, yes, suspense and random direction are cool, and dice make that happen, given the right system. Ron calls this the "dramatic springboard."

    But I think there's another element to it. The dice can't be blamed. That is, let's say we're playing freeform. And you as GM have some tragedy befall my character... well... it's your fault. Which means that quite literally, I can blame you for what happened. Worse, you and I will both feel that I may have a right to ask you not to do it. To take it back. Even if I don't, there's a personal tension between us that, well, I for one do not want to have.

    Note that this feeling happens... even if I actually liked the negative outcome as dramatic to play. I can still feel like, "By what right did you decide in this particular case to have my character loose... when that other character won in a similar case the other day? I don't mind losing, but... why here and now?"


    If, on the other hand, I've agreed to play by some set of rules, and the dice make that bad event happen, then that tension cannot exist. If my character even dies, and I as a player hate that fact, and it makes me hate the system and never want to play it again, even... at least I cannot hate you, or even question your motives. Because the dice did it (OK, our agreement to use the system), not you.

    In a gamism situation, this sort of thing is absolutely neccessary, because you must have a level playing field. For narrativism, however, it's important, too, because otherwise I might think that you're hijacking my themes, or making negative statements on them with your authority, or... whatever. Dice (or other randomizers), avoid this problem. And we can all accept that the result was a good one if we're using a good system. Even if I can't see why the fallout from this DitV contest is good, I know that it'll be a lot of fun later. Sure, a GM could give this out by fiat, but, again, then I might have questions for you that'll go unanswered.

    Is that difference between us agreeing to the neutral arbitration of the dice, and agreeing to have somebody adjudicate more or less just ritual? Well, sure, but ritual is important.

    Mike
  70.  # 70
    Posted By: Mike HolmesThe dice can't be blamed.


    Fuck yes. I GMed a freeform game once--and in this instance, by freeform I mean Total GM Fiat, via chat, with players who were used to the total character ownership style. Whenever they did something dangerous, I was supposed to decide how that turned out. At the same time, I couldn't just mutilate or kill their characters, right? Because that would be my solitary decision, not theirs. If we had used some fortune in there, I could have said, "If you do this there's a 33% chance you'll get severely hurt," and then they would have been the ones taking the responsibility for the outcome.

    This frustrated me both in the responsibility I had and the suspense it took away.

    ETA: Since people like actual play examples, here's a specific example. So these characters are Ancient Egyptians. The temple at Karnak is under attack by a huge swarm of locusts conjured by the rogue cult of Seth (a perversion of the true Seth believers, really). All three characters barely make it into the shelter of a temple building. But they hear screams for help from the outside. A priest hasn't made it in and is being attacked (and gnawed on) by the locusts. I ask them what they want to do, thinking there's a hard choice to make here. Without hesitation, they charge out to help him. What now? Should I decide they all get severely hurt? I could have, but that would have felt wrong.

    In that moment, I wished for saying: "Sure, you can go out there, and on a 1-2 you'll make it back without damage. 3-4, though, you'll get scratched up, and 5-6 you won't make it back in on your own." It would have taken the load off my shoulders AND introduced tension. Made their choice actually meaningful.
  71.  # 71
    Well said. I think that it's less uncomfortable from the POV of being the player, than from being the GM. I don't want to have to do this adjudication, I want the system to do it for me by agreed upon methods.

    That's not to say that I won't have ANY input... just that I can mete it out with the support of this neutral-feeling arbiter with which the players have agreed to play.

    Mike
    • CommentAuthorDannyK
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 72
    Okay, as a neuroscience geek that games, I'm going to come at this from a different angle. When you use randomizers (dice or cards or whatever), you add some noise to the game. I mean noise in the engineering or the information theory sense here. This turns the game into a stochastic environment, an environment where you can't accurately predict developments just by knowing the current state of things.

    That randomness or flux or noisiness does several things -- for one thing, it can help create a sense of versimilitude, since we live in a chaotic universe. But I think its most important function is to shake things up and allow new patterns to emerge in the course of play. People are very good at detecting patterns. They'll even see patterns when there aren't any. In the mundane world, people spend vast amounts of time looking at data that's very noisy, such as stock market trading on a given day, or basketball players' performance in a certain game, or which table is the "winning" table at a casino on a given night.

    All of these things average out over time into greater trends and tendencies, but people love to interpret every zig and zag of the data and make up theories about why it's happening. The so-called "hot hand" in basketball is a phenomenon that's been repeatedly debunked (in short, players have good days, and good players have more good days), but it's still a staple of sports broadcasting because it's an intuitively appealing explanation for what you're seeing over the course of the game.

    What relevance does this have for RPG's? I think it means that randomizers take advantage of human cognitive biases. This is valuable in at least two ways:

    1) Using randomizers is a way to economize on scarce cognitive resources while still getting usable, or "interesting" content. Fortune-in-the-Middle is a prime example of this. Your archer character tries to shoot his weak opponent and --- [roll, roll, roll] --- fails. Now that the randomizer's given you that bit of information, you can then try to fit that into the pattern of the combat. Maybe he slipped, or the other guy dove behind a rock.

    Can you see how much easier it is for the brain to rationalize a random result than to come up with a complete event out of whole cloth?

    2) Besides the obvious, trivially surprising result of "I thought I'd hit him but I didn't," the noisiness enables a much more profound kind of surprise. The SIS is constantly being blurred and reshaped in little ways by the random results, and that allows new patterns to develop. Perhaps the archer character, having unexpected difficulty taking down his target, begins to look different. Perhaps he looks ridiculous, and the player's conception of him shifts from "master archer" to "bully with a bow". Or perhaps the player thinks, "my character hateslooking ridiculous. He's going to get pissed off at the guy who sent him on this mission." Lots of subtle possibilities. You could do the same thing in a diceless game, of course, but someone would have to come up with the idea beforehand. The beauty of the dice is the players are constantly being faced with noisy outcomes that provide fodder for interesting results.

    Long post, curious to see what people think of this perspective.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 73
    Posted By: xenopulseIn that moment, I wished for saying: "Sure, you can go out there, and on a 1-2 you'll make it back without damage. 3-4, though, you'll get scratched up, and 5-6 you won't make it back in on your own." It would have taken the load off my shoulders AND introduced tension. Made their choice actually meaningful.

    Sure, but it's not as though you couldn't do this with a structured-with-currency option. To use Christian's example, you could do, say, "I'm spending one of my Danger points to make this scene dangerous," which is the same level of fiat that a GM uses when saying "hey, I'm calling for a roll here." The player could then decide to say "I'm spending one of my Luck to mitigate the Danger," or decide not to spend that currency then and suffer the consequences.

    You naturally have to add in a compelling reason for both choices in your system, yes, but it has the potential function of divorcing "lack of randomness" with "uncomfortable social responsibility."
    •  
      CommentAuthorLxndr
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 74
    My stance is pretty much halfway between Mike's and DannyK's:

    * The dice can't be blamed, which brings a feeling of neutrality (at the very least, we can blame "everyone" for agreeing to use the set of rules, rather than blaming "Mark" for doing bad things to me). This, to me, is more of a general sense of "why use rules instead of freeform" in part, but does exist.

    * Also, for randomness in particular, it brings in 'noise' in the information theory sense that is more difficult to get from humans alone. This brings in additional input that I'd be unable to get from humans alone. Any roleplaying game (and by game I exclude most freeform exercises, which play without a 'net' and are thus just play without game) that removes randomness should have elements to replace it that bring equivalent value to what I lose by having the random element go away.

    (I love the "noise" of randomness. The Wand of Wonder was my favorite D&D item, and Chaos Magic my favorite thing out of AD&D2's Tome of Magic. Sometimes this "noise" can be achieved through other methods: the most common I've noticed being a sheer number of players or potential choices - see Diplomacy, especially in its early game, for a board-game replacement for randomness that works well; also many LARPS manage to do this by the sheer size of their playgroup)
  75.  # 75
    That's true, Ryan. In that situation it works equally well. The tricky part with resources is that, ultimately, the GM is probably in charge of distributing them, and once they run out, we're back to the same situation. But it would definitely have helped for most of the game.

    Or else, if I have the limited danger resource and that's tied to refreshing the player resources... I guess if that was well-balanced, that could work out. I'll have to think on that.

    P.S.: It would work to alleviate the responsibility, but not bring back the suspense part, of course.
    •  
      CommentAuthoriago
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 76
    I really only find completely freeform input from another human exciting when they're "new people" to me. In groups I already know, I crave the input of a randomizer that does not have patterns I can recognize from previous moments of play.

    To an extent, I also view dice/cards as the restrictions given to me in a creative writing project. I would not have picked those restrictions; so having them forced upon me makes me act and create in unexpected ways -- usually for the better.
  77.  # 77
    Posted By: xenopulseP.S.: It would work to alleviate the responsibility, but not bring back the suspense part, of course.

    Hmm.

    I'm applying some of these ideas to my "randomized playlist"-based RPG (where the playlist is the GM) that I'm tinkering with for Jason's design challenge. It's highly railed and structured, where the situation the beginning of the track presents is about some choice you have to make between you and another player, giving you a few seconds to choose, and then telling you what happens based on your answer. Essentially I'm trying a variant on Prisoner's Dilemma.

    So, it depends on what we mean by "suspense," and how we can channel that otherwise. Let's look at a non-random variant again: instead of calling for a role, you grab either a black bead or a white bead in your hand. You hold your fist out to the player, who doesn't know which you picked. If they pick the same, they "succeed", otherwise they fail. Is that not suspenseful for that person -- at least as suspenseful as rolling dice?

    I'm bringing these ideas up to see what it is about dice that we as individuals desire, and how you can translate that to a purely-human element. I'd like to do the converse as well, to see if there is any fruitful middle-ground, but that question hasn't been answered.
  78.  # 78
    Posted By: Ryan MacklinSo, it depends on what we mean by "suspense," and how we can channel that otherwise. Let's look at a non-random variant again: instead of calling for a role, you grab either a black bead or a white bead in your hand. You hold your fist out to the player, who doesn't know which you picked. If they pick the same, they "succeed", otherwise they fail. Is that not suspenseful for that person -- at least as suspenseful as rolling dice?


    Sure that's suspenseful, but as far as our brains are concerned, that's still random. There's very little difference between that and asking a player to roll a DC11 in d20. The only difference is, the player doesn't know if they're rolling high or low, but they do get to pick the number. The player still has a 50/50 chance of succeeding when it comes down to it.

    Emily said, "it is randomized resolution mechanics," so I wouldn't get too hung up on the term "dice." I am pretty sure we're talking about any system to determine results that's not one or more players deciding based on internal criteria, whether that's a whim or what sounds best for the story or the moment, or debate or whatever.

    Dice, cards, colored stones; these are all "dice" in different guises.
    • CommentAuthorCaesar_X
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007
     # 79
    Posted By: iagoTo an extent, I also view dice/cards as the restrictions given to me in a creative writing project. I would not have picked those restrictions; so having them forced upon me makes me act and create in unexpected ways -- usually for the better.

    There is wisdom here, Fred. I never thought about the connection between something like a writing prompt and a random event in a game.
    •  
      CommentAuthorRyan Macklin
    • CommentTimeSep 14th 2007 edited
     # 80
    Posted By: Alvin FrewerEmily said, "it is randomized resolution mechanics," so I wouldn't get too hung up on the term "dice." I am pretty sure we're talking about any system to determine results that's not one or more players deciding based on internal criteria, whether that's a whim or what sounds best for the story or the moment, or debate or whatever.

    I would hope that reading my previous posts would show that I'm not too hung up on "dice" -- I've said "cards/tea leaves/whatever" enough to get my point across.

    But to the point, the unspoken assumption here is that one can learn the patterns of choice by watching them -- does the GM seem to pull black more often than white, or maybe does he do black-black-white pulls? Does this play tend to pull the opposite of what I last pulled?

    That is the difference between a human-based randomization and a third-party one -- you can better predict the outcome, making the game something perhaps more than it was. But like I said earlier, I'm tinkering a lot with Prisoners Dilemma right now, and in longform that is about learned patterns (though, yes, what I suggested to Christian isn't PD). Furthermore, when you get down to it that level of interaction could have further implications -- maybe a limited number of black & white beads (we see an implementation of this idea in the game Cash 'n Guns).

    In short, just because one instance may seem random doesn't mean it's random in longform.

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