DonTadow said:
True, I know I've read you say this in other forums, I think I comented on it in dmgenie about how cool it is and how my group would never go for it, but its still cool.
I am interested to know what do people think the "playing of the game" aspect. To me, the dice rolling is the game part of d and d. Its the part thats covered in the rules. Decision making, descriptions and role playing arent covered by the rules.
I want to make sure that the question doesn't mean, "are you really playing dungeons and dragons" but are you playing a game if you do not perform your own mechanics yourself. YOu're
I'm sorry if it came off defensive.
I meant to say that since I was already involved from the quote), I just wanted to actually get involved by contributing. I hope you don't take it as a negative from me. To be honest, I'm just excited that something I said in one thread started another!
And in truth, this is a topic that I enjoy discussing and hearing different viewpoints. I just wanted everyone to understand that although we are "diceless", we aren't "ruleless" or "game-mechanicless". That way we don't get lumped into the wrong categories.
And there's nothing wrong with the way you orginally posted. I think I knew where you were coming from. I just wanted to give everyone a little background on how we even ended up at a place where we considered going diceless. In direct response though, I do think we consider it just as much a game, and perhaps in some ways even more, than we did when we used dice. The benefit of quicker resolution gives the players more time to consider tactical options, and I've noticed the players working together better as a team. Because the players have to put more attention to description and not just look at numbers, it seems like they try to get a little more creative and don't always stick to tried and true tactics that the numbers indicate would yield optimum results. It feels more like a game to me, because the players have to be more creative in their thinking because they can't just rely on the numbers. To put it simply, if my players were football coaches, they wouldn't be making the PAT decision based on a chart. They would make the decision based on intuition, gut, their feeling for chance of success, their estimation of their ability to succeed against their opponent, etc. I think that coaches who just go by the chart are doing less "playing" than the coaches who go by their gut and make the decision "in the moment".
To me, for D&D to feel like a game, it simply needs a mechanical tool in place to replicate chance and statistical probability. That tool is in place with our group. The main difference, I believe, is that players in a diceless system must have a better awareness of their situation and a better sense of teamwork to be successful, because they aren't just looking at numbers and comparing charts. It definitely adds to the feeling of "risky decisions" in our game. Now I am strictly speaking about moments in the game that a character wouldn't have access to the out of game information, and have to decide in the moment what to do. Playing diceless has been the best way we've found to replicate that. Out of combat or time-sensitve situations, my players play with numbers just as much as any other group. If they are planning a skirmish, they do the recon, get the numbers of opponents, and their weapons, magic, etc. and make their battle plans accordingly. But, in the heat of battle, they have to rely on gut instinct, experience, and trust in the other players to come out on top. Our group likes that feel, and that's why we kept the idea around.
