Diceless D&D (Almost)

[TornadoCreator]

I have an idea for my upcoming campaign I would like peoples input on.

D&D as it stands is rather dice heavy and the combat being quite miniture reliant means people tend to play it like a tabletop wargame or board game rather than an PnP RPG.

I'd like to try and encourage more actual roleplaying and to do this I've developed a house rule that I'd like some feedback on.

1. Dice are only rolled in combat or during skill challenges, when the character is under stress and must act quickly.

2. Everyone is assumed to take 10 in any standard action and may recieve bonuses as follows:

- A +2 bonus for acting out the action you're doing. ie. Actually speaking in character and actively discussing your problem with the guards rather than just saying "I'm going to try to convince the guard to help me".

- A +2 bonus for using story elements, items, and character knowledge to good effect. Basically anything that makes it clear it's YOUR character doing the talking and not 'generic fantasy wizard 1'.

- A +2 bonus for actively including someone else in the roleplaying. One player talking to the DM in character is good, but when you draw others in and start bouncing of eachother it really raises the immersion.

- A +2 bonus for doing something extraordinary or extremely intelligent that the DM was not expecting. Basically a catch all for those truly inspiring moments in game (this bonus should be given out sparingly).

- A -2 penalty for being bland, boring and spending more time out of character than in character. I don't mind people describing actions, clarifying rules or even the odd OOC joke or comment, but constantly abusing the immersion can ruin the experience I find.

- A -2 penalty for a silly idea, daft move or foolish mistake. Describing how you're fondling your dagger and talking in a gravelly tone whilst threatening the full plate wearing and heavily armoured city guard is not threatening, it's quaint...

But yeah. Those are my ideas. As you can see it would allow us to do skill check with a possible range of 6-18 on the rolls, without ever needing to pick up a die. It would make the players actually talk to eachother in character and respond to NPC as their characters rather than with their dice. So what do people think. Could it work? Does it seem like it might make for a more immersive game or do you feel it could hurt the game.

I have 6 players, 4 of which are confident actor types (although two are new to roleplaying and haven't quite got the balance right, often blundering into things), and I have 2 players who are somewhat passive players who whilst they will act in character require a little coaxing, so I'm hoping this method will bring them into the game. Any ideas and thoughts would be appreciated and I know that for the more stat-focused tactical players this would feel like the game is slowing down so it may not be for everyone, but by all means use this system if you wish.

 

[Arlough]

My only worry would be that actions would become too predictable.
This could lead to the classic "The moderate DC at this level is X and so if I rollplay well, I can get a Y. But Y=X-1, so what is the point?"
Contrast that to "The moderate DC at this level is X, and so that means that if I have a 35% chance to succeed. Well, 35% > 0%, so I will go for it."

Now, the players may not think in the actual numbers, but humans are really good at assembling abstracted information and making decisions based on it.

That said, I do think this looks like a good way to handle all sorts of situations you don't really want to skill-check your way through. I think I am going to try this.

 

[TornadoCreator]

I doubt that's going to be an issue for me, none of my players have played 4th Edition before and only 3 (out of 6) of them are familiar with Forgotten Realms having been in a previous 3rd Edition game that lasted for only a couple of months. They're not the kind of players to think in DC's and Encounter Levels. Becides, it's unlikely that I'd purposely put them up against things they can't succeed on at all unless they're going far off the rails of my planned storyline, that said, I take your criticism on board I can see why some people wouldn't like the system, but it just seems fairer than dice rolling (especially as I have two players who seem to have bad luck with dice roles so dislike dice, one of these guys is an actual statistical improbability rolling well below the average percentage of successful roles in my previous campaign).

 

[Arlough]

I doubt that's going to be an issue for me, none of my players have played 4th Edition before and only 3 (out of 6) of them are familiar with Forgotten Realms having been in a previous 3rd Edition game that lasted for only a couple of months. They're not the kind of players to think in DC's and Encounter Levels. Becides, it's unlikely that I'd purposely put them up against things they can't succeed on at all unless they're going far off the rails of my planned storyline, that said, I take your criticism on board I can see why some people wouldn't like the system, but it just seems fairer than dice rolling (especially as I have two players who seem to have bad luck with dice roles so dislike dice, one of these guys is an actual statistical improbability rolling well below the average percentage of successful roles in my previous campaign).

Don't get me wrong. I think it is a great idea, as evidenced by the fact that I can only come up with one issue, and only a theoretical problem at that.
But, I did want to point it out since that is what we do for each other here.

As it is, I am probably going to adopt this in my games.

Edit: I do think this should be moved to the house rules section, though.

 

[TornadoCreator]

Thank you, I appreciate the support and obviously constructive criticism is always welcome.

 

[Erudite Frog]

D&D evolved from a minatures wargame. Have you considered using a storytelling system instead for your game?

 

[TornadoCreator]

D&D evolved from a minatures wargame. Have you considered using a storytelling system instead for your game?

I run loads of different systems like World Of Darkness, Shadowrun, Warhammer Fantasy, Amber RPG, Cyberpunk 2020 and GURPS but honestly, D&D has a certain feel to it, and as I'm planning on using the Forgotten Realms setting it is by far the easiest.

I'm actually just finishing my World Of Darkness campaign and to keep things fresh we're changing from modern day horror to high fantasy, it's a very different experience. After all, roleplaying gets stale if you play the same thing over and over, it's like Video Games, sure Half Life 2 is fun but sometimes I want to play God Of War, Super Mario Bros. or even Peggle. It's just not fun to keep doing the same thing over and over.

Becides, 4th Edition is REALLY good. It's so very well balanced and elegantly designed. I played a year long campaign of it when the original core rules first came out, the powers and classes are well written and I honestly love it, it adds so much depth to combat that for a more combat heavy swords and sorcery style story, it's much more suited in my opinion than say Exalted or Warhammer, I just don't want it to be JUST combat hense this plan.

 

[TornadoCreator]

The first test session was just to familiarise the players with the system and characters, and was non-combat with simple character interactions and investigation.

They where given and adventurers charter by the Cormyran noble house and given the task of finding more information about an artifact they want retrieved. As it stands, they have managed to get a little information, and have got hold of a scroll and the necessary resources so they can perform a scrying ritual. All in all, they're doing fairly well... We'll be running a full session on Monday and I'll let people know how it goes, the first session was however entirely diceless and went really quite well.

 

[ourchair]

My only worry would be that actions would become too predictable.
This could lead to the classic "The moderate DC at this level is X and so if I rollplay well, I can get a Y. But Y=X-1, so what is the point?"
Contrast that to "The moderate DC at this level is X, and so that means that if I have a 35% chance to succeed. Well, 35% > 0%, so I will go for it."

Now, the players may not think in the actual numbers, but humans are really good at assembling abstracted information and making decisions based on it.

You're absolutely right that it could become predictable, but even then, if 'gaming the bonuses' means that everyone RPs immersively, it's not so bad.

I mean if the heroes 'win' their successes because the players are in character and projecting the personalities forcefully, then those successes are achieved because they are heroes, in the same way that Conan's player wins because he's well, Being Conan not because he stacked eight different situational bonuses.