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Message: <blockquote data-quote="uzirath" data-source="post: 8002518" data-attributes="member: 8495">I played in a diceless campaign for a few years in the late '90s and early '00s. I don't remember the details of the system very well (it was a small print-run indy called Persona by Kevin Muñoz). I went into it being quite skeptical, worrying about many of the things I've seen in this thread about it being just "storytelling" or a GM railroad. In actual play, though, it was a lot of fun and not all that different from more traditional RPGs. It was a science-fiction campaign where we commanded our own ship. There was some sort of evil psionic mind controller BBEG who we were always dodging. Lots of factions and politics. Lots of weird alien artifacts and lost colonies. In tone, it was like Firefly (which came out just after we ended the campaign due to the GM moving away). I don't remember how conflicts were resolved in detail, but I think it had to do with having basic abilities and then finding ways to gain bonuses or apply other abilities. One thing I remember that we enjoyed was that we could really engage with the environment in interesting ways that weren't necessarily codified in the rules, throwing sand in the opponent's eyes and that sort of thing. It felt very creative in that respect. While there were times when I missed the thrill of the dice, the diceless element did seem to reduce the amount of "slogging" that can happen in dice-driven systems, especially in terms of combat. Combat (whether ship-to-ship or melee) took as long as we needed it too. A tense grand finale took time with lots of back-and-forths. A minor skirmish could be over after a quick description of tactics. You never got into that grind where you needed to whittle down the last HP of the orcs or whatever. (Granted, there are ways to avoid that in diced games too.)I would try diceless again if I had the opportunity. I know many people who loved Amber, though I never had a chance to play.</blockquote>

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