Diceless Hero

[Dust Raven]

Last week, time was running short, tensions were high and the action was coming to a head. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to run the final, dramatic combat diceless. The system I used was fast and loose, off the cuff and entirely improvised... and it worked; my players loved it! I'm currently working on revising it to make it more streamlined integrated with the Hero System mechanics. When I'm done, I'll post what I've got.

 

In the meantime, has anyone else run Hero diceless? What kind of success have you had?

[Vondy]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Last week, time was running short, tensions were high and the action was coming to a head. Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to run the final, dramatic combat diceless. The system I used was fast and loose, off the cuff and entirely improvised... and it worked; my players loved it! I'm currently working on revising it to make it more streamlined integrated with the Hero System mechanics. When I'm done, I'll post what I've got.

 

In the meantime, has anyone else run Hero diceless? What kind of success have you had?

 

I've run an "all standard effect" hero with even the rolls being standard "11." To make it work without being boring I applied a lot of modifiers, and gave bonuses for good descriptions, in-genre decisions, and good role-play. I also hand waved a lot of non-combat stuff (like what information came from background skills and the like). It only works if you have players who are big on description and role-play, enjoy improv description, and who trust eachother (and you). It worked exceptionally well for my PBEM games - which ultimately ended up only using those mechanics if it was a tough call and didn't lead to dramatically inappropriate moments - but it was only half-effective for face to face games. I think that more because having time to write a good description is easier than being on the spot. Some of my players had a hard time thinking that way, while others just ran with it. One thing to keep in mind is that character builds will adapt to whatever system you put into place. In my case it led to a certain predictability/uniformity in character builds, but it also led to more description and role-play because the players didn't have to fret the mechanics of random chance as much.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

As a GM I like dice because they give the players the impression there is some other force at work and I'm not just making it all up on the spot.

 

 

Be aware that in any diceless game the one who will suffer in the long run is the GM, when he doesn't think the player's Shakespearian performance is worth quite as much as the player does, when the villains win, as they sometimes must, and when you've had a rough day and your own descriptions of the action are a bit blah.

 

Players love the freedom initially, but it is hard to displace the feeling in the long run that they are just listening to the GM telling them a story and have in fact trapped themselves in someone else's fantasy with no real power to affect outcomes (even if that is not true).

 

Funny thing, freedom as, indeed, is perception.

[SuperKlaus]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Paging Inquisitors, paging Inquisitors, heresy in thread 51390...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Digital Hero #1 has a sizeable article dealing with this subject.

[Lightning91]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

As much as I know that "role-playing" is the name of the game.... There are some of us who enjoy the tactical and strategic elements of the game, where we have to make the best decision with limited knowledge and then trust to chance.

 

Having the uncertainty of the dice, adds significantly to the tension and drama of combat. But to be fair, I have never actually tried dice less role-playing.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Having the uncertainty of the dice' date=' adds significantly to the tension and drama of combat. But to be fair, I have never actually tried dice less role-playing.[/quote']

 

I tried diceless gaming once, and I absolutely hated it. There was no thrill, no white-knuckled "C'mon, dice, gimme a 3/gimme a 20", no rush as you wait for the dice to stop tumbling ... and, by extension, no 'agony of defeat' as you get an 18/a 1. It wasn't a case of the GM offering up challenges for us to try to overcome with a little skill and a little luck ... it was the GM deciding, at his whim, whether we succeeded or failed. It seems horribly unfair to me.

[Vondy]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I tried diceless gaming once' date=' and I absolutely hated it. There was no thrill, no white-knuckled "C'mon, dice, gimme a 3/gimme a 20", no rush as you wait for the dice to stop tumbling ... and, by extension, no 'agony of defeat' as you get an 18/a 1. It wasn't a case of the GM offering up challenges for us to try to overcome with a little skill and a little luck ... it was the GM deciding, at his whim, whether we succeeded or failed. It seems horribly unfair to me.[/quote']

 

That's not just diceless - its systemless. Its possible to have a system for resolution in place with a minimum of arbitrariness, and still not use any dice.

[CraterMaker]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I've allways been intrigued with diceless systems - the only time I've done it was for a Larp, rock paper scissors, and it.. worked. What sort of diceless system might be appropriate for Hero? How do these thiings work?

 

-CraterMaker

[Sean Waters]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

You can resolve everything dicelessly if you want: still have all the normal modifiers etc, but, as Von-D Man mentioned, assume you always roll an 11.

 

This requires a lot of trust by both players and GM: the players have to assume the GM will set penalties that they can get around with good play and the GM has to assume that the players won't simply sit long enough to get an enormous time bonus on their rolls.

 

One 'half way house' is to still use skill and combat hit rolls but either standardise damage to 3/die or average rolls or relate damage to roll success.

 

Alternatively you 'assume 11' and give the players a certain number of 'Hero Points' at the start of the game they can use to boost rolls: of course they do not know how many they will need for any given roll, so they may waste a few, but that is the beauty of it.

 

You could come up with a bidding system for opposed rolls and set maximum spends per action.

 

No idea what the right numbers are: never played it that way, but it is an idea

[Vondy]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

You can resolve everything dicelessly if you want: still have all the normal modifiers etc, but, as Von-D Man mentioned, assume you always roll an 11.

 

This requires a lot of trust by both players and GM: the players have to assume the GM will set penalties that they can get around with good play and the GM has to assume that the players won't simply sit long enough to get an enormous time bonus on their rolls.

 

One 'half way house' is to still use skill and combat hit rolls but either standardise damage to 3/die or average rolls or relate damage to roll success.

 

Alternatively you 'assume 11' and give the players a certain number of 'Hero Points' at the start of the game they can use to boost rolls: of course they do not know how many they will need for any given roll, so they may waste a few, but that is the beauty of it.

 

You could come up with a bidding system for opposed rolls and set maximum spends per action.

 

No idea what the right numbers are: never played it that way, but it is an idea

 

One thing I did to make sure it worked was to have one of the players track the modifiers I assigned during a given session, which allowed me to determine what the baselines for things were over a period of time. And, since that was the case, the players had a pretty good idea of what I would assign for common challenges. It had one unseen benefit - if they failed at something they automatically attempted to change the circumstances rather than continue butting their heads up against the wall in hopes of getting lucky - and they learned to try to stack the deck in their favor whenever possible. I was pretty liberal about bonuses for reasonable attempts to leverage the odds, which also inspired them to think ahead. We also had set bonuses for leveraging genre tropes. Personally, with my particuliar group, I saw in improvement in roleplay, though I missed throwing huge wads of dice now and again. And, from my experience, I think I would have added a drama mechanic of some-sort (like the hero points you mention) if we had continued with it (I made an international move - roleplaying group goodbye). Probably an assigned number of drama points at the beginning of the session.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I've allways been intrigued with diceless systems - the only time I've done it was for a Larp' date=' rock paper scissors, and it.. worked. What sort of diceless system might be appropriate for Hero? How do these thiings work?[/quote']See the aforementioned article in Digital Hero #1. :hex:

[Sean Waters]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I think my main concern as a (mainly) GM is that dicelessness sounds like a lot of work for the GM, both in terms of preparation and consistency. Well that and avoiding suspicious of arbitraryness.

 

The problem is that, for instance in combat, players are used to repeating the same actions again and again and sometimes succeeding and sometimes not: the energy blaster is almost always blasting with energy. Maintaining that feeling of uncertainty would need another mechanic IMO, whether it be Hero Points or card cutting or SOMETHING. Moreover a feature of Hero is often trading a reduced chance for increased damage: in a strict system of dicelessness, move throughs will almost always miss, as they generally have a below average chance of success (but a big payoff if they work).

 

One way I got round this in the past was to use pregenerated dice rolls: I had a list of 3d6 roll results, the players described their actions, I did the math and factored in the result, and described the consequences.

 

Worked really well: the dice were there, just not on show and not slowing stuff down with all that rolling. Did the same for damage results.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I tried diceless gaming once' date=' and I absolutely hated it. There was no thrill, no white-knuckled "C'mon, dice, gimme a 3/gimme a 20", no rush as you wait for the dice to stop tumbling ... and, by extension, no 'agony of defeat' as you get an 18/a 1. It wasn't a case of the GM offering up challenges for us to try to overcome with a little skill and a little luck ... it was the GM deciding, at his whim, whether we succeeded or failed. It seems horribly unfair to me.[/quote']

 

Well, what's fair? A guy who's responsibility is entertaining you and maintaining a fun game telling you what happens, or an emotionless, uncaring piece of plastic which doesn't know or care what's fun, entertaining or fair?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Okay, so here's what I got so far. Check all modifiers and if the chance for success is 14- or better, the task succeeds. If the chance of 7-, it fails. If it falls inbetween, I modify the result due to details provided by how the player describes his action and the given circumstances. After this, if the final result still falls in between these, it succeeds if it's 11-, fails is lower. Also, if inbetween 7- and 14-, players may turn in "drama tokens" or whatever I'll end up calling them to modify the roll on a 1/1 basis. I haven't decided on the number of tokens players receive each session, but at the moment I'm hovering around 4. These tokens not only improve the PC's rolls, but can harm the rolls made against them by NPCs, such as attack rolls or Interaction Skill rolls.

 

Damage/Effect is by default Standard Effect, but is modified up or down depending upon the actuall roll needed to succeed. If the character had a 14-, they succeed by a lot and the overal damage/effect is increased, if only by 11-, then base SE. Given some situations, if I deem a roll below 11- but above 7- should still succeed for dramatic purposes or plausable continuity, the effect will be less than SE, or less than average for a Skill Roll.

 

How does this sound for a start?

[zornwil]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Sounds good. One danger is that high OCV characters seem destined to get in more damage.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Sounds good. One danger is that high OCV characters seem destined to get in more damage.

 

Indeed: this shifts the balance of costs in favour of DEX in combat as higher DEX will then increase your chance to hit, your defence, and your damage. Skill levels will work similarly.

 

It is not unrealistic, necesarily, but it does modify the precepts of the system, and works for martial artists and speedsters and against most bricks and some energy blasters.

 

Although I do like the idea of the amount by which you succeed having an effect, I'm not sure if it is right for Hero in that form.

 

Of course the spreading rules level the playing field a bit, but you'll need to monitor how it works and be prepared to either allow character re-designs or change the rules as you go.

[Curufea]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

It is s simplification though. A character with a high skill should succeed more often - but a character with a high attribute should have a stronger effect when they succeed.

[dstarfire]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

hmm, diceless hero ... reminds me of non-alcoholic beer: there's no point. One of the central tenets of Hero is that everything is open-ended: the more you spend on a power/skill/etc. the stronger/more reliable it is. Without the dice, that whole concept goes down the drain.

 

If you wanna go diceless, stick with a system that keeps the mechanics/numbers a bit more obscured.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

hmm, diceless hero ... reminds me of non-alcoholic beer: there's no point. One of the central tenets of Hero is that everything is open-ended: the more you spend on a power/skill/etc. the stronger/more reliable it is. Without the dice, that whole concept goes down the drain.

 

If you wanna go diceless, stick with a system that keeps the mechanics/numbers a bit more obscured.

No to derail my own thread, but how does a lack of dice take away from the spend more/get more aspect of Hero? The spend more/get more aspect of Hero completely removes the random roll of character creation. All I'm doing is taking one more step, and removing random rolls from game play as well.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Sounds good. One danger is that high OCV characters seem destined to get in more damage.

 

True. It was something I considered, but wanted to see by how much the brick types get hosed. I'm still not sure. In last night's game, it seemed the brick was really getting hosed. Then again, he did over half the total STUN past defenses against the target even though he only got 3 solid hits in (two grabs and a successful throw of a sky crane).

[John T]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I can also see a system in which the overall degree of success doesn't, in and of itself, increase damage, but the number of "tokens" spent to get or exceed the base level of success do, i.e. how much is a character willing to commit into an attack to do additional damage, if the attack still has a chance of failing.

 

As a slight aside, I've also played games in which cards were used to both generate results entirely (Marvel SAGA), or to supplement die rolls (Bloodshadows/Indiana Jones). Both systems seemed to work quite well. In a nutshell, players and GM were dealt a certain number of cards at the beginning of a session, and could spend them to use their numerical values to modify action attempts, without knowing in advance how many "points" were necessary for success. As each card was spent, a new one was randomly drawn to replace it.

 

And, yes... being the brick in question, at a certain point in the combat I was wondering if I should've been spending all my xp up to that point on CSLs.

 

Admittedly, I did much of the damage to the target... but I couldn't tell that at the time, only that I was virtually unable to hit him. A problem that, in 20/20 hindsight, might have been alleviated with a more detailed description of attack results. But, experimental RPGing; no harm, no foul.

[Dust Raven]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I can also see a system in which the overall degree of success doesn't, in and of itself, increase damage, but the number of "tokens" spent to get or exceed the base level of success do, i.e. how much is a character willing to commit into an attack to do additional damage, if the attack still has a chance of failing.

 

As a slight aside, I've also played games in which cards were used to both generate results entirely (Marvel SAGA), or to supplement die rolls (Bloodshadows/Indiana Jones). Both systems seemed to work quite well. In a nutshell, players and GM were dealt a certain number of cards at the beginning of a session, and could spend them to use their numerical values to modify action attempts, without knowing in advance how many "points" were necessary for success. As each card was spent, a new one was randomly drawn to replace it.

 

And, yes... being the brick in question, at a certain point in the combat I was wondering if I should've been spending all my xp up to that point on CSLs.

 

Admittedly, I did much of the damage to the target... but I couldn't tell that at the time, only that I was virtually unable to hit him. A problem that, in 20/20 hindsight, might have been alleviated with a more detailed description of attack results. But, experimental RPGing; no harm, no foul.

 

I tried describing it well. After that last grab/smash attempt he still wasn't stunned, but had less than 10 STUN left. It's why he was taking a recovery and even risked doing it right there in the middle of everybody. I promise to me more long winded next time though .

[John T]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

I tried describing it well. After that last grab/smash attempt he still wasn't stunned' date=' but had less than 10 STUN left. It's why he was taking a recovery and even risked doing it right there in the middle of everybody. I promise to me more long winded next time though .[/quote']Was that the point at which Whisper put him in the garbage disposal?

[Dust Raven]

Re: Diceless Hero

 

Was that the point at which Whisper put him in the garbage disposal?

Yes, it was at that point. I actually did the math on it later; if Whisper, sans all his other magical power, had rolled average damage, he would have just dropped Tengu to around -10. Had he tried it when Tengu hadn't been knocked around by an angry half demon, he wouldn't even have stunned him.