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Message: <blockquote data-quote="loverdrive" data-source="post: 9760105" data-attributes="member: 7027139">What it says on the tin.The inherent issue I see with dicerolls is that they generate randomness after the fact, and, combined with consequences for failing the roll, it makes rolling low stats a bad idea.A Cutter with 3 Skirmish and 0 Consort is going to avoid ever rolling for Consort unless really hard pressed (which is unlikely, there probably will be someone with better stat around) or it's really low stakes (in which case, who cares anyway). It leads mostly to calcinisation of characters into whatever they are good at. Risk avoidance and all that.So what I'm proposing: cards! And with just a little elbow grease, dice can be painlessly replaced with cards in almost any system.UNO cards are great for it — they are already just numbers. Remove all the picture cards (or numbers that can't happen on the dice you are replacing) , shuffle a couple decks together and voila! At least anything up to D10 is emulated one-to-one, D20 would require some workarounds like playing two cards together.So the advantages:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You can strategize around your hand, consider your next move, weight the utility of leaving high cards for defence vs spending them on actions</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You can play around with simultaneous resolution, to add the component of yomi (reading your opponent) into the game — you can feint an attack and make the opponent waste a high card when a low one would suffice, for instance. I would advise against incorporating suits/colors, unless you make them unequal and orthogonal in effects.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">You now can attempt actions you wouldn't do otherwise. A Cutter can attempt to diffuse the situation instead of always relying on a specialized Face character for social interactions, for one</li> </ol>The way I adapted it to Blades is very simple: whenever the rules tell you to roll dice, play a card from your hand instead. Then, draw a card for each dice you'd normally roll. Then, discard to four.Works like damn clockwork. Made the game much, much deeper than it was before, and added nice texture where PCs do their bread-and-butter expected actions to generate resources, and then spend those resources where it matters.</blockquote>

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