19 thoughts on “Does anybody have any thoughts about diceless AW?”

  4. I had this one thought where you could pretty easily make any *W diceless by saying “You get a 7-9 on every roll by default: you can take a miss, and if you do, hold one, and spend that hold for a 10+.” It need a little work (like, +1 forward doesn’t do anything at all?) but I suspect it’s a solid core. (Plus, lots of 7-9s are fun.)

  5. I like that quite a bit, Ben. I’ve been working with lists of around four options, choose equal to your stat, spend tokens to choose more. That way you normally get a 7-9 result (1-3 options from the list) unless you pay. That still keeps the +1 forward in play, but severely reduces the miss results.

  6. Mmmh, we did try to go diceless and have a “7-9 as default” option, when we tried MClless Monsterhearts. We found that the uncertainty correlated to the roll is a really, really powerful story engine. Hard Moves push the story forward like a speeding train, and the result is that the story is really wild and unpredictable. In my humble opinion, if players can pick when to fail and get the 6- result, that part of the Apocalypse Engine really risks deflating.

  8. The major problem I see with making AW diceless is that it would reduce the variety of characters presented by stats. If I’m +2 weird, and you’re +2 hard, and we’re both -1 sharp, whatever mechanic you’re replacing the dice with should latch onto that somehow. I should be good at opening my brain, you should be better at going aggro and we should both have trouble reading people.

  9. Alberto Muti I was considering letting the MC spend tokens to basically lower the stat for that move. I’m not sure if that actually helps with the unpredictability, or just makes it too fiaty.

  10. Well, Nobilis does diceless pretty well: you have a stat, which determines what you can do for free, and how much you have to pay for more powerful effects. Maybe something like that where, for example, a 7-9 costs X tokens and a 10+ costs Y or something, and you add your stat to the amount of tokens you actually spend (so a +2 means you have to spend two less tokens for a given level, a -1 means you have to spend one less). And you get tokens by, I don’t know, Lady Blackbird-style refreshment scenes, or maybe a set number of tokens in addition to whenever you gain XP?

    It does remove uncertainty from the game, but ultimately that’s kind of… necessary, if you’re going diceless? (I am assuming diceless means ‘randomless’ and RPS or cards or such are also off the table).

  13. Yeah. In fact, I think they might take the place of the sex move in this hack, with each playbook having their own “thing,” which really evokes the feel I’m going for.

  14. Wait wait wait, here’s an idea: Everybody’s got some tokens. When you do something that would trigger a roll move, you and the MC each secretly bid tokens, you modify the number you bid by your stat. If you bid more, you lose the tokens you bid, get the 10+ result, and the MC gains a token. If the MC bids more, they lose the tokens they bid, you get the 6- result, and you gain a token. So you can use your +2 stat for easy and cheap success but that’ll amp up the MC’s resources, and it’s unpredictable when the MC is going to break out the pain.

    (On a tie you get a 7-9 and nobody spends tokens, maybe?)

  15. I had to reread that to make sure I had it perfectly… so the number that’s compared to the MC’s bid is you bid modified by your stat, right? I’ve added it to my playtest notes as a possibility. If I playtest with it I’ll have to adjust the playbook stats (not a huge deal, but right now they range from 0 to 3, specifically 3,2,1, and 0) and the move structure  to the standard “Success, Partial Success, Miss” structure, as opposed to the structure I have now (Choose =stat, to avoid bad shit happening (Spoiler alert: some bad shit is probably still going to happen)).

  17. I guess the answer is that it just feels right. It’s another attempt at an old project of mine, sort of my white whale, that has been attempted dicelessly in at least one other incarnation. It may turn out that it’s not the right way to go with it at all, which hopefully I’ll figure out during playtesting.

  18. What about this: choose one Stat to be your best. You always roll 10+ with it. Choose one to be your worst: you always roll 6- with it. All other Stats default for a 7-9 roll.

    If you want, you can spend a token to improve one category (from 6- to 7-9, from 7-9 to 10+). The GM can then spend one token to move you one category back. Keep spending tokens until you are satisfied with the result or you have no more tokens to spend.

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