Christian wrote:

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.

This is big.

Using currency is one way: it makes the decision measured, so give some relief to the issue of responsiblity, and even some suspense since the players don't know if the gm will use it that time or not. But what are the "yes and" or other processes that are being used, that work?

In A Penny for your Thoughts, for each memory you get a suggestion from another player. Then you get to choose which one, based on a gut feeling of which is right. Tension and responsiblity dealt with.

In the Upgrade, you play out a romantic scene and the other players can interrupt with a flash forward or flash back that sheds new light on the current events. They just get to say what happens though, there is no negotiation. But it is surprising, suspenseful.

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.

yes.....

Peter Aronsson wrote

(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.)

I've actually done that, and I can report that it works better than dice. The answers you get is just as random, but people generally contribute a little extra info, often in a vague or fuzzy way, which gets the imagination going more than a 6 or a 9.

(Ryan Macklin has the same experience, I see.)

Con's are great.

Ben Lehman wrote

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.

I prefer playing with adult players rather than with adult rules. No, seriously, I think that mechanics are generally not needed for (the) meaningful (parts) of role-playing. Just because you add Shooting the Moon rules to a (game about a) love triangle, it wont make it less juvenile (not that I think it is juvenile to begin with).

Mark W wrote

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.

I completely agree, but I would say that the exact same is true for non-freeform play too. Random elements don't preclude group think, nor makes it less likely, IMHO.

I'm also curious (although not skeptical) about how you would define meaningful conflict. Care to elaborate?

Also, I don't think I've ever been as surprised in non-freeform games as I have in freeform games. The stuff people come up with is just mind-blowing. But that has nothing to do with begin free or dice or not. That's just good players. Again, I don't see dice bringing something extra here.

Merten wrote

I'm not really interested in playing a game in the mechanical sense. It's not an integral part of role-playing for me.

Jukka, I'm all with you on this one. [And get that game typed-up!]

When you talk about immersion, I see story. I think connecting dots into paths is a basic human thing. We make stories because that's how we experience life. Immersion is artificial.

I'd like to say at this point that far from all Jeepform games are Story Before. That's just one way of doing it. What we generally do do before is talk about what kind of game this is. There is a difference saying "the wife will die of cancer in the end" and "this game is a tragedy". (Ah, Moreno says this too. Great.)

Vincent wrote

don't expect everything that's possible in all of role-playing to be possible in some limited subset of role-playing.

Hear, hear!

Alvin Frewer wrote

Dice are not a crutch that has to be thrown away [...] They are a part of our poetic toolkit.

Absolutely. But I have a feeling that this, being a particularly old tool that's been around, is included automatically in a lot of game designs or games without people thinking about if they are really needed and what purpose they serve.

Moreno wrote

And I felt stupid, mimicking a sword fight. I really wanted some system for resolving it out-of-view.

Yeah, I know. The Jeepers have a saying "drowning on a linoleum floor", for that kind of things. You just feel stupid, as you say. My way of avoiding the shame has been to avoid these situations altogether. The interesting part is what happens after. Cut to it as quickly as you can, and with as little interruption as you can. Or, if possible, develop a form for playing the action scene without is becoming cheesy.

FORM STUFF A recent use of allegoric play was used in the larp "A Nice Evening with the Family" where dance improv was used to simulate sex. The larp dealt a lot with power struggles between men and women, and dance improv is a great way of simulating a power struggle, the suggestive music helping as well. You can really tell from the dance what is happening, and since there is movement, music, light and touch, messing with some real feelings. It was very cool. Plus you got quite sweaty, so that everyone could tell from your hair what had just taken place...

GBSteve wrote

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.

I think you hit the nail on the head here. Or rather, this is how it should be -- killing Orcs to gain XPs without rules and dice seems even more pointless (to me) than playing D&D.

Or more like this: certain types of games really don't benefit from random elements. In these cases, removing them is the right thing to do.

[...] 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 might be persuaded to say that random elements are random (duh) and that the noise people bring into the mix by being different and having different takes on the world is arbitrary. I don't mind surprises when they are "arbitrary but sensible". In my experiences, random things sometimes rule against the wishes of all players, or will otherwise destroy a good story. I generally don't want things to be random, but somewhat aligned with the direction we want to go in.

Modulo that I don't own any anymore, I could use dice e.g., if I got stuck on equally interesting outcomes of a decision. (Left or right?) Frankly, the discussion about dice (or whatever) being "neutral" feels completely alien to me. We're all in it together, and if you have a problem with the GM cheating to give her boyfriend more XP's, your group has a problem. Not freeform.

For me, I believe I (mostly/only?) write the kinds of games that GBSteve was driving at, the one where (I'm putting my words in his mouth here) random elements don't have anything to do with the story and therefore aren't needed. Since my personal belief is that rolling dice and consulting rules etc. break character in a bad way, I immediately opt them when I don't feel randomness has anything to do with the story that my game is about.

I don't have anything religious about using random elements in a jeepform game, as long as they connect with what the game is about. For example, in a game about chance, bring 'em on. But there is also the issue of designing your random elements properly.

If I write a game about loneliness, and for some reason feel the need to use random elements, I'd rather use a system where the player calls a random phone number and if there is no-one there to pick up, or the number is invalid, it is a failure. This feels more like something that has to do with loneliness than flipping a coin (or whatever the statistical chance of succeeding is in this hypothetical system).

I remember early freeform attempts in Sweden back in the early 90's where people were basically taking old games and desgning old school scenarios, and then running them without rules. They were never any good. (I'm guilty of this idiocy more than once.)

Bottom line: For me, it is not so much about being against dice as having absolutely no use for them.

Mark W. wrote:

3. Part of my strong interest in this topic comes from my own experience that "good players" are not enough to reliably get good outcomes. Structure of some sort is very important in order to allow players to usefully converge on a shared agenda for play - otherwise what you often end up with is really good players who are pulling in more than one direction at once.

Agreed. I just had a conversation with Graham via im where I had an insight into this issue wrt Improv.

In improv, they talk about spontaneity and obviousness, which means that you are only working within the confines of what is close to or similar to what people have already introduced. Graham talked about this, how you build on one another. Then it dawned on me. They are training their instincts to be in synch with what the other people around them come up with. We do the same thing with the stuff on our character sheets (narrative cues) and dice. They are just keeping us on the same page. Good free form structures do the same thing.

Tobias wrote:

Modulo that I don't own any anymore, I could use dice e.g., if I got stuck on equally interesting outcomes of a decision. (Left or right?) Frankly, the discussion about dice (or whatever) being "neutral" feels completely alien to me. We're all in it together, and if you have a problem with the GM cheating to give her boyfriend more XP's, your group has a problem. Not freeform.

But power corrupts. And puts pressure on a person even if they have no bias, as in Christian's actual play example. They are still put in a position of potential conflict of interest, even if its only about their preference for an outcome. And if the person's job is to provide adversity, and also to be a neutral referee, there is an inherent conflict there. This may be too jargony.

I don't have anything religious about using random elements in a jeepform game, as long as they connect with what the game is about. For example, in a game about chance, bring 'em on. But there is also the issue of designing your random elements properly.

There's a different relationship with the dice that you are expressing. It is an expressionistic mode. Match the mood of the activity to the tone or theme of the game. That makes great sense. There is a real gain to matching the color, or feeling of a game element to a game. But the functioning of the dice can be about positioning the real people in relationship with one another in a way that brings about strong, powerful story. By helping us collaborate, or by putting us at odds, by asking us to commit fully by giving us the freedom of weighted responses that are not dependent on our social skills or narrational ability.

I've been watching my game group play lately, noticing when the dice come out, how the energy intensifies. We are engaged and excited when we have to make a roll. It makes taut the narrative string. But it doesn't work that way for everyone. Could I get you to play long enough, Tobias, so that the awkwardness would melt away, and you'd come to appreciate the real function that the dice are playing?

Emily, are you interested in talking about how to structure play without dice or resolution mechanics? Or does that happen in another thread?

That sounds like another thread to me.

Posted By: Tobias WrigstadWhen you talk about immersion, I see story. I think connecting dots into paths is a basic human thing. We make stories because that's how we experience life. Immersion is artificial.

This, obviously, is a place where we disagree strongly and we might have to wrestle it out. Humans tend to connect the dots afterwards, not as they come or before.

Also, I think Mike is very much right saying that dice and rules are a safety net that can work as separation layer between player emotions and direct them towards a neutral source. Which is why I don't like them. If I get hurt in the play I want to feel the frustration and if needed, vent it out. However, I also want to be sure beforehand that I'm directing it against a person another player is potraying, not the player itself. Same goes for positive feelings. The difference during the play is minimal (though there is the player control which makes me say that I punch you, rather than punching you), but in general, it's the key social contract issue for me.

Posted By: Jonathan WaltonDice Encourage Lazy Design And Play, because everyone knows how to use them, everybody's used to them, and relying on them means sticking with the status quo and not pushing yourself as much as you otherwise might.

I think Lazy is a loaded term. If something makes your job easier, but you don't like it, calling it "lazy" just seems to me to be name-calling.

I can just imagine going to my boss and saying "yeah, we thought we'd use that software generation tool because it would cut our development time from 6 months to 3 months... but we'd decided it would be lazy." He'd laugh me out of his office.

Either a game design's goals are served by dice or they are not. If a designer achieves the result they want, there's no pride in doing it in a more difficult manner if nothing authentic is gained by it.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make "lazy" a judgement, but I see how that's unclear. What I mean is _I_ feel lazy when I reach for dice, because I feel like there are much more interesting ways of building a ruleset or resolving situations in play. I'm not accusing other designers/players of being lazy by sticking with what they know/like and not trying to reinvent the wheel. I just think this particular wheel has done about all it can for me, when it comes to creating interesting play situations, and I'm looking for alternative modes of transportation.

On the flip side Fiat ( player or GM) is a simple, often functional, resolution system. Using it can mean freeing up time and energy to work on other aspects of a given game.

Posted By: Joshua A.C. Newman

Bob, man, that's wrong. GM Fiat is, by definition, unprincipled. Sometimes it might work out fine, but that's because it works find in that particular instance; when it seems functional it's because the group has agreed on a particular functional set of principles. If the GM is making principled decisions — favoring particular agendas over others while certain circumstances favor them, for instance — then it's no longer fiat, but something else. Somethinginteresting.

1) You never addressed Player Fiat, which I also mentioned.

2) Yes, I also think something else is going on, and I also think it's interesting.

Is the difference that you're seeing the difference between the "Power Mad Dictator!!!!" GM Fiat and "The FInal Say after due consideration of alternate views" GM Fiat?

Posted By: Kent

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.

Exactly. Three hundred and sixty degrees of choice/option/possibility for creation is difficult for anyone to handle. Narrow the focus, allow a couple of conditions to apply and unexpected possibilities show up, often for the better.

There's that great story about the knights clip-clopping with coconuts in the Holy Grail: the Pythons would have used horses, but budget restricted their possible choices, forcing them to come up with a much more flavorful choice.

Err, yes? I mean that doesn't make much of a case for randomizer versus non-randomizer, though. I mean, my efforts could be creatively constrained by having to play off a preceding input created by another player, too. Certainly, the budget issue you mentioned in no way that I can see has anything to do with randomizers at all...

Posted By: MatthijsDice can be used in many ways. I like it when they're used as a "third narrator" - players push the story in one direction, GM in another, and dice add a third dimension or force.

Player: "I try to hit the bad guy!" GM: "He hides behind your boyfriend!" Randomizer: "The boyfriend is actually working for the bad guys".

Okay, see, that third one confuses me. How exactly do you get that third option by way of randomizer? I could see a player coming up with that, and then a randomizer landing on it. I'm not clear on how a randomizer could produce/generate it, though.

Posted By: komradebobOkay, see, that third one confuses me. How exactly do you get that third option by way of randomizer? I could see a player coming up with that, and then a randomizer landing on it. I'm not clear on how a randomizer could produce/generate it, though.

Here's two possible ways, involving varying degrees of player input:

- To resolve the situation, the player draws a card. The card says: "Describe how someone you thought was a friend is actually an enemy!"

...or

- The game has a strong focus on relationships. In dramatic situations, a die is rolled for each relationship involved. A 1 indicates a roll on the Change Table; one of the results is "betrayal".

Jonathan Walton wrote: "Making everything GM fiat is pretty common, yeah? Amber Diceless is pretty groundbreaking in some ways, but, when it comes to offering a sophisticated diceless system, it pales in comparison to things like Nobilis, which has MUCH more subtlety, flexibility, and structural/mechanical power (and is strongly informed by Amber and Ars Magicka)."

Hmm. I think that this came up elsewhere a little while ago... Most of the more widely known diceless designs from the Noughties seem to have taken much the same route as Nobilis did in the Nineties: in practice they run on "rollover systems without dice" that mechanically and structurally don't differ to any great degree from their diced counterparts, except (naturally enough) for the reduced element of chance. The emphasis which Amber places on the good judgment of the GM has become something of an exception among those RPGs which resolve conflicts through other means than randomizers.

(It still surprises me to hear some folks call Nob "crunchy", though.)

Dice don't encourage lazy design.

Laziness encourages lazy design.

That lazy designers use dice is no more the fault of the dice than it is role-playing games' fault that a lot of us are fat.

I think if you're scared that you'll be lazy when you use dice, then say you're scared of that. If you don't like dice because they looked at you funny one time or called your mom a cow, then say that.

But encourage lazy design? Meh. I find new things I can do with dice every time I sit down to try to do something new with them. If you want to talk lazy, it's in moving away from dice. I'm much more fascinated by designs which do something new with something familiar, than by designs which achieve something new by using something new. The latter case is just exercising a transitive property of newness. The latter is reinvention. That's hard work.

Posted By: Thomas DWhat the hell is "Jeep" and "Jeepform" anyway?

I think its the sound that frogs make in Sweden

Posted By: Thomas DWhat the hell is "Jeep" and "Jeepform" anyway? Did I miss another secret indie game meeting where it was decided that some games, game styles, or gamers should be named after automobiles? ("Screw you and your SUV games, I'm all about Winnebago.")

This question would have been much more appropriate if Jeepforms weren't discussed in at least five different threads in the last week in this same forum, one of which a Question and Answers thread with one of the authors of Jeepfoms.

So, maybe it would be better if you look around for your answers, before requesting them. Often they are there already, in full view

And remember, google is always your friend. And it's less bothersome than butting in the 110th post in a thread with a question like this.

I freely admit to be really annoyed by the Entitlement of Ignorance, in every field. You don't go in a film festival to see a retrospective on Lars Von Trier and begin to ask everybody "Dogma? ehi, but this guy made movies or bibles? Who is this Lars Von Trier anyway? Did I miss some secret filmaker's meeting where it was decided that some movie would be like religion?". Or at least you don't do it thinking it will get you some "score points" in an identity posturing.

Well, in some fiels, instead, this happen. The "gaming" scene is one. And as you can see, it piss me off. If you (or I, or anybody) don't know something, it would usually be considered courteus to ask in an educated manner. But not here. In the rpg field the meme is "I don't know what you talking about, so stop talking about it because I have the right to avoid knowing it and still be able to undestrand anything you ever say"

Or, if you prefere, "my ignorance give me power over what you can talk about"

Look, it's obvious there's an issue that's important to you here, and this is a perfectly good place for doing so. The fact that an explanation for why someone's question is stupid took more words than an answer might have is par for course in lots of places, and as much as it gobsmacks me, I dig that it's one of the risks of freewheeling discussion.

But since the floor has been opened to the topic of "Opinions about Thomas's question" I feel I'm not stepping too far out of the flow of conversation to say:

"Good question, Thomas. I'm glad you asked it, because I certainly don't know either."

Anyway, on another point, someone raised the question of why other people's actions can't be randomizers for purposes of inspiration, the same way dice are for some. No clue if this is true for everyone, but I'm already paying attention to the other people - using dice does not absolve me of the doing so - but I view them very differently than the abstract, external force which I am capable of viewing dice as. Simple as that.

-Rob D.

Edit: Edited to remove some snark that I'm not actually trying to express. I disagreewith and dislike that sort of post, but I am in no way seeking to be dismissive or insulting to the poster.

Rob wrote:
Anyway, on another point, someone raised the question of why other people's actions can't be randomizers for purposes of inspiration, the same way dice are for some.

Other people's input may be arbitrary, but it will never be random. There is a difference. Both may be adequate, but one cannot simply substitute for the other. Each has it's points.

Posted By: EmilyAnd 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?

Without them (dice), I play to elements of the collaboration already introduced in play, to organic surprises inspired by things on-screen and yet to be revealed, to the suspense of a misstep of choices, to creative energies grown right out of the competency of the Players and to drama that validates risk/reward.

When I don't? Well, it less supports a style that incorporates narrative input seamlessly rather than 'bumping my elbow with system mechanics'. Both dice and not-dice are level playing fields in my experience.

Yes, I also use dice too. When I want something random that isn't tied to the collaboration; something story neutral: example I can think of being weather changes.

You can have my dice when you pry them from my cold dead fingers!

Just kidding