Diceless Mathless Deterministic Game

[silva]

K´s posts on the other thread inspired me and the result is this:

Scenario 1:

1. Player declares intention. ("I want to sneak into the cannibals camp")
2. GM asks for relevant skill. ("sneaking" in this case)
3. If player have it, its a clean success.
4. If he doesnt have it, the GM adds a complication, success at a cost, or offers a hard bargain. ("halfway into the camp your backpack sticks in a bush: do you let it behind, or pull it by force while risking noises and alerting the camp?")


Scenario 2:

1. Player declares intention. (I want to kill him with my knife).
2. GM asks for relevant skill. (Melee or Knife-fighting in this case).
3. a. If the player have it, and the NPC dont have it, its a success. ("you stab him a bunch of times until he is drowning on his own blood. What now ?")
3. b. if the player have it, and the NPC also have it, its a success at a cost, or hard bargain ("You stab him, but he is fast and manage to counter-stab you too. Feel the pain. What now ?")
3. c. If the player dont have it, but the NPC have it, its a failure ("You try to wakwardly stab him but, ouch, the guy is too good for you - he avoids all your attacks, then stab you in the arm and subdue you with the knife on your neck, ready to finish you. - come with me, he says")
3. d. If the player dont have it, and the NPC also dont, its a success at a cost. (see 3. b. above).

Obs: on a fight, the GM should keep the NPC sheet/card hidden, and only show it when the player declares action. This way, the player wont know what he is dealing with.

Voi-lá. A totally diceless mathless deterministic game.

Thoughts ?

[fectin]

Amber diceless.

[zugschef]

Another assworld-thread...

[Mistborn]

Another assworld-thread...

[silva]

Another assworld-thread...

[MGuy]

First thing: How is this better than people just making shit up? As far as I can tell, it is not.

[Kaelik]

First thing: How is this better than people just making shit up? As far as I can tell, it is not.

The one secret question that all *World fans don't want you to ask.

EDIT: Made it sound more like a bad weightloss and/or conspiracy theorist add.

[nockermensch]

Nocker's character for mathless diceless deterministic silva-World game.

Skills:
FIND EXPOSITION (gather information)
ATTACKING WHILE IN THE DEFENSIVE (dodge)
MACGYVERING (sciences, scavengering, magic or whatever "fiddling with stuff" skill is appropriate for the setting)
LOOKING SUAVE (charisma? diplomacy)

Strategy of play:
Use Gather Information again and again until you have the plot figured out and then walk there. Only use Gather Information if you can get an unopposed win, as to avoid mathless diceless deterministic bears. Or just sit at a bar. Since there's a story to be told in silva-World, if you don't find the plot, the plot will find you. MACGYVER away obstacles that prevent you to achieve your goals (again, accept only unopposed checks, otherwise wait).

When foes manifest their interest to attack you, react by ATTACKING WHILE IN THE DEFENSIVE. Describe that you're expertly avoiding the attacks while trying to make them cut themselves with their blades, miscast that spell or fire at their own friends. Having a skill that opposes attacks and describing what you're doing like that should net you Successes with a Cost or Hard Bargains, that you can use to take the enemies from the fight anyway.

You don't actually make LOOKING SUAVE checks. It's just there on your sheet so that you can describe you're doing all this while looking like an absolutely suave badass.

[virgil]

What if your skill is "FLAWLESS VICTORY"?

[nockermensch]

What if your skill is "FLAWLESS VICTORY"?

Since you need to roll an actual skill for whatever you declare, I don't think that would fly in all cases.

Still, it should totally work for a D&D-like-silva-World:

FLAWLESS VICTORY (spellcasting)

[ishy]

What if your skill is "FLAWLESS VICTORY"?

Since you need to roll an actual skill for whatever you declare, I don't think that would fly in all cases.

You just need to be a little creative.
* I want to have a FLAWLESS VICTORY over the cannibals in the cannibals camp.
* I want to FLAWLESS VICTORY him with my knife

[silva]

First thing: How is this better than people just making shit up? As far as I can tell, it is not.

Well, for once, characters would be determined by what skills they had in their character cards, and these skills would determine if they succeed at what they intend or not.

Also, the interplay between GMs cards (or better, the hidden skills present in those NPCs cards) and characters cards would give the game the nuance we see in trad dice-rolling games. Perhaps there should be a move where the player could force the GM to show one of the NPCs skills ?

[MGuy]

Silva. I'm going to take it you gave no thought to this. Here's something simple. I take Stealth. I literally can stealth past any and everything no matter what in the first system. In the second system someone NEEDS stealth in order to counter me using Stealth instead of something that makes sense like perception. I could literally just Magic Tea Party something and that would produce better results.

[Kaelik]

First thing: How is this better than people just making shit up? As far as I can tell, it is not.

Well, for once, characters would be determined by what skills they had in their character cards, and these skills would determine if they succeed at what they intend or not.

Without any kind of rules telling people what kind of skills to have players will naturally try to come up with skills that allow them to do whatever they want with their character and the MC will naturally whine like a shithead about how any skill that lets them do anything is overpowered, and they will compromise on whatever skills everyone in the group agrees are okay.

This will result in people being able to do all the things they would be able to do if they just made shit up, and not being able to do the things they wouldn't be able to do from making shit up.

That isn't even a difference from making shit up.

[Dogbert]

May work for Noir and similar low-tiered genres, won't work for anything else because the hero will fall to the first wave of mooks as there's only so much "success at a cost" you can take in a single encounter.

[nockermensch]

May work for Noir and similar low-tiered genres, won't work for anything else because the hero will fall to the first wave of mooks as there's only so much "success at a cost" you can take in a single encounter.

This is why your equipment list is 2348 priceless and irreplaceable mementos that you bring with you wherever you go.

[Ice9]

Without any kind of rules telling people what kind of skills to have players will naturally try to come up with skills that allow them to do whatever they want with their character and the MC will naturally whine like a shithead about how any skill that lets them do anything is overpowered, and they will compromise on whatever skills everyone in the group agrees are okay.

This will result in people being able to do all the things they would be able to do if they just made shit up, and not being able to do the things they wouldn't be able to do from making shit up.

That isn't even a difference from making shit up.

Why would you have freeform skills in a diceless game? I'd think fixed skills would be the way to go, as in - well, tons of games.

The thing that's more like making shit up is that the majority of important things would probably be the 'complication' result, and it's very undefined. It really needs specified where on the spectrum from "minor inconvenience" to "almost as harsh as failure" that's supposed to lie.

On thing that's missing here is that there are no degrees of skill - the guard either has Perception or he doesn't. You could resolve that by either:
A) Degrees of skill - Journeyman, Master, Legendary or something, having a lower degree than your foe counts as not having it.
B) Skill trees. So Stealth is opposed by Alertness, but Shadow Moves is only opposed by Eagle Eyes. More work than A, but theoretically lets you get fancier with different skills working differently, could be good if skills are the main customization aspect in the game.

[Heisenberg]

May work for Noir and similar low-tiered genres, won't work for anything else because the hero will fall to the first wave of mooks as there's only so much "success at a cost" you can take in a single encounter.

This is why your equipment list is 2348 priceless and irreplaceable mementos that you bring with you wherever you go.

hahahahahaha