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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Barastrondo" data-source="post: 5086083" data-attributes="member: 3820">Well, I can't speak to the platonic ideal of the storytelling exercise, since I've never really spent time with them, but in a game with strong storytelling influence, dice are great much of the time and not all of the time. Same thing for player freedom to wander: it's great when it provides ideas, and then maybe you throw in some nudges toward a plot hook if the players are spinning their wheels and not really going anywhere. (Or ninjas attack.) Dice are one tool among many, and they work fine. Unless it's a diceless system like Amber, you don't want to avoid dice. What you want to avoid is a mentality where the dice can do no wrong, and therefore calling for a roll is always the best way to handle things. It doesn't quite work out like that. Consider the plot hook that can be found only by a successful Gather Information/Streetwise roll, and failure on said roll doesn't give you a different plot hook, but rather tells you "nothing interesting happens, and you should succeed at a different die roll in order to find something interesting to do." Combat and negotiations, on the other hand, are fine places where failure on a roll can build tension. Missing an attack means that the enemy now has another shot at you. However, playing out a one-sided combat probably doesn't need dice; if failure just prolongs the experience without adding tension, that's undesirable. All things in moderation, really. Most games with a strong storytelling bent run like that.</blockquote>

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