Diceless Star Trek?

[AslanC]

Has anyone come up with a diceless system for Star Trek?

I have been giving this some thought of late and it has become something I would like to explore

I was thinking of modfying the SAGA system for it, since it is the most nuts and bolts diceless system I know.

Anyone have any ideas?

[Don Mappin]

I would ask with all seriousness, “why?” What do you gain by going diceless? Do the benefits outweigh the work/alterations you’d have to do, presuming you use Icon as the baseline?

You’re talking about exchanging one resolution mechanic for another, so what is the benefit of doing so? Will it let you tell better stories? Do your players have trouble understanding Icon mechanics?

You mention SAGA, which, in my opinion, is an absolutely horrible system. What does SAGA let you do differently from using dice?

I’d be curious to understand what the benefits are, aside from just doing it for the sake of doing it. “Look! I made diceless Star Trek!”

[AslanC]

One simple reason actually.

For years I ran MSH, classic. Two d10s. One of my players always rolled bad. I am not kidding, this guy went through karam like nobody's business. Two years ago we tried out the SAGA game for fun.

Suddenly he was a different player. He was coming up with ideas and staregies, because with cards in his hand, who could see the possibilities before him.

It was like night and day. I was astonished.

Evenventually we went back to Classic MSH and he went back to rolling low, and try as he might, he never captured the feel of that in control again.

I gave it a lot of thought and I realized Star Trek is a story telling game to me. It is not, "Oh well Captain, guess you rolled a crappy dodge and the Jem Ha'Dar just killed you." I guess I am not a fan of the randomness.

Anywho, it is a thought, and I will plug away at it in silence

Anyone have any ideas?

[StyroFoam Man]

This message has been removed on request by the
poster

[Don Mappin]

Two points:

1) So, instead of rolling bad a player can now draw bad cards? You’re exchanging one probability for another.
2) Courage points.

I see where you’re trying to go with this but as someone who dabbles in statistics and probabilities, exchanging one aspect of randomness (dice) for another (drawing cards) doesn’t have much net affect.

If, however, the difference is knowing your options and what you can do, then you might be onto something. How about having the players roll their dice prior to the session and marking them off as they use them?

I’d point out that you’ve taken a large step in eliminating the drama by doing so, which is a big part of my complaint with the SAGA system. “Oh look! Dramatic moment in the story? No problem, I’ve got cards all served up to handle this.” My favorite is the guy with nothing but crappy cards who, regardless of what he tries to do, is predestined to fail. Talk about your crappy fate.

Then you have the problem of the guys with all the bad cards (or rolls) asking for cheese rolls so they can get rid of them. “Hey, can I make a check to see if I notice what direction north is?” “I try to seduce the teenager standing next to me to get rid of this low card.”

Bah.

[Don Mappin]

Originally posted by AslanC
I gave it a lot of thought and I realized Star Trek is a story telling game to me. It is not, "Oh well Captain, guess you rolled a crappy dodge and the Jem Ha'Dar just killed you."

And here I thought only White Wolf games allowed storytelling, hence the “Storyteller System.” We're allowed to tell stories in our Star Trek games? Neat!

They’re all storytelling at their core, man.

I guess I am not a fan of the randomness.

Sounds like you might be in the wrong hobby, then. Tried LARPing?

We’re heading way off course here and I don’t want to hijack your thread, but if there isn’t any randomness then what’s the point? If there’s no threat of failure, no chance of failing, then success—the story—has no meaning. Sure, RPGs are about telling stories at their core, but their ability to change and be malleable, even beyond what the Narrator has envisioned, is what makes them so special! Who’d want to play in a game where the outcome (the story) is already known? (Rhetorical)

I want to make a story—be it good or bad—not simply watch someone tell theirs.

(Please start a new thread if you want to discuss this point.)

[Phantom]

I'll just add my 2 cents worth.

I know where you are coming from, in my group I was the guy who was famous for low rolls...I probably took the longest to roll up D&D characters because I had to "suicide" them as I rolled them. Try playing Rolemaster with this handicap.

The major point in all this is I lost about, well can't actually remember a solid number, 2 or 3 characters in about 10 years of gaming. We had extrordinarily low causality rates in our games, and no the various DMs weren't taking it easy on us. Low rolling in a game...So? As long as your group acts like a team and covers each other there shouldn't be a problem. As Don says there is always courage, luck, karma, glory, honour, etc. points to be spent, that is what they are for. Also, studing the "team dynamic" doesn't hurt either. Make sure all the bases are covered.

That said, I have to think (like Don) why you would try this. But I am interested in hearing how it comes out.

[Lockhart]

I've never done it, (didn't really think about it until now), but I would suggest making a custom deck from poker decks, and distilling the suit information into four areas only. For instance if you have 3 or 4 sets of identical cards, you can customize your desired bell curve.

I'd guess that you need Body, Mind, and Soul with the fourth suit being the bad stuff suit. That could yield 6 to 9 core attributes depending on how you subdivide things. I would probably use the attribute scale closer to Dragonlance, there are lots of things about the Marvel game that don't lend themselves to Star Trek.

Oh, and you definately want to use the Edge and Hand Size rules (although you might create a different wound system, or take the one right out of Icon) from Marvel to represent different levels of experience allowing for more flexibility (even when Fate hands you 1s and 2s).

Check out Steve Kenson's page for more ideas. It can be reached from members.aol.com/talonmail/articles.html.

Anyway, good luck

Lockhart

[Dan Gurden]

... Was Diceless...

But more than that, it was totally freeform...

Mike the GM, would come up with a story, and tell it, with us taking our characters through it. We had a character description, and a vague outline of the abilities, both skills and natural abilities, and a free hand to adjust and add to the character as the episodes required...

The thing was, there was no random elements involved in that game, aside from the Players...

And yet Mike managed to add a soundtrack... Using the music to set the tone for us to sub-conciously act a certain way, or as a mental que for himself to change scenes... The best part was, that the systemless application suited trek, its episodic feel, and the knowledge that Starfleet would indeed win out, un-impeeded by a critical failure, if something bad happened it was plot, rather than a PC mess... Nobody died, unless they wanted to be written out, and Starfleet won... Which suits the shows. We watch knowing that Starfleet wins, but its not that they Will win, but rather How they will win... Mind you this was all pre DS9... But only just...

And try as I might, I have NEVER seen that games like again, I have attempted to emulate the system, but to no avail... And all attempts at freeform since just seem pale in comparison. And the application of rules seem far more preferable to the truely freeform. And speaking as someone who lost his FASA character to being sold into Digital Slavery by my fellow crewmates as punishment for missing a session (about when I lost it with FASA...) It was this freeform experience that left me wanting more Trek, and to buy ICON when it was released...

[C5]

Being famous among my group for being the one with critical failures (especially since a SW session where I managed to roll a critical failure every two rolls - I'm not kidding, and it was a real pain), I understand (and praise) what you are trying to do.

However, I'd suggest keeping the ICON system, with applying the automatic success rule more often.
For instance, you can take much more often the skill and species of a character into account when deciding when to impose rolls - like, say, a CMO trying to scan a crew member suffering a minor (ie not plot related ) disease would have no roll to make, but the Security officer would have to.
That way, you can get rid of most of the rolls for non critical tasks, and keep them for dramatic situations.
Alternatively, you can also devise some sort of "average" result for a character; for instance, a character with 3 in a specialization and 2 in the corresponding attribute is considered to roll a 6 for this specialisation. If he wants to score more, he'll have to roll dice to do so - optionally, this could not lead to a lesser result - except for critical scenes.

Sorry, gotta go. Hope my ramblings made sense

[Calcoran]

I can't believe nobody's mentioned Amber Diceless RPG! Played it a while ago, loved it. Mind you, you need a rather good GM who's willing to narrate a <I>lot</I> more than with standard RPGs...
Back on topic. The fact is: I never tried to adapt ADRPG mechanisms to other games. I do use them, but rather in a very informal way, that is, only when I as the GM think it'll help/ease/speed up narrating. For instance, dices are always handy for buying time or when you want to worry your players (specially when the result have in fact absolutely no importance ).

However, I'm pretty sure it'd be rather easy to adapt to Star Trek, be it LUG or Dec.
I guess, since noone mentioned it, that few ever tried ADRPG. The mechanics are rather straightforward:
- 4 characteristics/traits, with values ranging from:
+ human
+ chaos level
+ amber level
+ ranked (number usually between 1 an 200, and more impotantly a (relative) rank)
<I>This part wouldn't translate that well to Trek. In Amber, rank is everything. You are the best sword in Amber, or you aren't, but this means a <B>lot</B>. Moreover, I think Trek needs more than 4 characteristics.</I>
- When a PC tries to accomplish a task, either he is better than the opponent or task's difficulty, in which case he successes in his task, or he isn't, and he fails. Of course, the greater the difference, the greater the success/failure. Pretty straightforward, isn't it? Of course this can be altered quite a bit by roleplay and circumstances .
<I>As a matter of fact, this translates extremely well to many RPGs. A bit like an expanded automatic success rule.</I>

Here is an example of how this could work:
Consider Nog and Sisko in the penultimate DS9 episode (very freely adapted).
S: Stay behind him Lt! <I>(not being of much help there)</I>
N: I'm trying sir, but he's sneaky! <I>(Nog's Shipboard Systems: Flight Control + Intellect is only slightly better than the Breen pilot's)</I>
The Defiant takes a pounding from behind from 2 Jem'Hadar fighters.
S: Lt! Execute defensive maneuver omega 3! <I>(Or whatever. The point is, he is applying his full tactical skill to this)</I>
The Defiant immelmans around and positions itself right behind one of the fighters, booom.
S: Well done Lt! <I>(Nog's just benefited from Sisko's tactical insight, which increased the magin by which his total surpassed the other ship's pilot's)</I>

Similarly, a: "I try to increase the engine's power" from a PC wouldn't yeld as good a result (if any) as a "I try to reroute the power flux through the secondary dampening matrix to compensate for the damage to the primary circuits!" (well, that is, if you like technobable ).

To answer Don's question, the fact is that Diceless has the potential to be just as climactic as "Dicewith", since players often have to strive to describe what they do as well as possible, to find a way to get an edge over their opponent (in the eyes of their GM of course), rather than sometimes just hoping to make good rolls. Needless to say, it requires a very good GM, one who can handle the strain as well as remain fairly objective.

[Lt.Khrys Antos]

Speaking as someone who in our gaming group always manages to roll the worst possible scores EVER, I think that switching from Dice to cards or nothing takes something away from the game.

What I mean is that without even a small chance for failure the game becomes more "sure". Even the chance of a tiny minute failure due to an unfotunate dice roll can make characters go paranoid and do extra to ensure sucess. Of course without dice rolls it also makes for better interaction between GM and PC's since they don't have to wait to see what the dices say.

Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages, I've never seen a diceless game work better than dice oriented games. The Masquerade Vampire with the Rock/Paper/Scissors system really peeved some of our players just because the timing is necessary.

[Anarchy Bob]

Now, don't get me wrong here, i love dice but...

I don't see how removing dice makes player suddenly super gods who achieve everything and never fail. Or that they aren't stressed out.

Let's take this situation: PC has a skill of 4 (whatever diceless scale you are using.) The narrator knows he needs a skill of 3 to attempting something with the alien computer that won't blow out the planet. And a 5 to solve the problem.

But, the player doesn't know that until he attempts.

Mystery, tension and other stuff are still there.

[Calcoran]

As Bob said, making a system Diceless doesn't make a system "more sure", nor does it by any mean eliminate chances of failure.
As in "dicewith" RPGs, players never know for sure what's hidden within the tiny weels and gears of their GM's brain. An engineer PC may know that scanning the surface of a Planet standard difficulty is 3, and that he has a total of 4 for this task, so he can reasonably think that he'll success in scanning it. Now only the GM knows that a cloaked Romulan base is on said planet, and that it requires a 7 to detect it. GM says "You successfully scan the planet for lifeforms, no sign of intelligent life." and smiles. If the player is at all experienced he should go "uh ... how sure am I that my scan really showed everything, exactly ..." ... maybe he'll even consider spending a lot more time doing an extensive scan, which might be enough to reveal the cloaked base. And of course, since the GM needs a lot less to handle dice failures from the PCs, he'll concentrate a bit more on everything that might (plotwise mainly) go wrong when a PC attempts to do something.
One of the only thing we used to be a bit more confident with diceless was when facing long term opponents. If we were better than the opponent at doing something, chances were rather low that things had changed. But then again, it was quite possible that the opponent had spent all his time training for this very opportunity (see "9 princes in Amber", the fight between Eric and Corwin). Similarly, there might be changes in the setting, giving the opponent an additional edge.

Actually, there is someone for which the game is more "sure" : The GM . And he's usually pretty happy with this, thank you very much .

[AslanC]

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Two points:

1) So, instead of rolling bad a player can now draw bad cards? You’re exchanging one probability for another.
2) Courage points.

1] Actually since cards run out as you go, there is a better chance of drwing better cards, that the always replenished Die. Blackjack vs Craps my man

2] See my point on karma. Does not help the player feel any better about their involvement.

Originally posted by Don Mappin
I see where you’re trying to go with this but as someone who dabbles in statistics and probabilities, exchanging one aspect of randomness (dice) for another (drawing cards) doesn’t have much net affect.

See above. Dice never run out of 1s///a Deck will...and there is sure to be a 5, 6, 8 or 10 in there too.

Originally posted by Don Mappin
If, however, the difference is knowing your options and what you can do, then you might be onto something. How about having the players roll their dice prior to the session and marking them off as they use them?

I don't think that is very practical to be honest.

Originally posted by Don Mappin
I’d point out that you’ve taken a large step in eliminating the drama by doing so, which is a big part of my complaint with the SAGA system. “Oh look! Dramatic moment in the story? No problem, I’ve got cards all served up to handle this.” My favorite is the guy with nothing but crappy cards who, regardless of what he tries to do, is predestined to fail. Talk about your crappy fate.

I totally disagree with you on the lack of drama. My Marvel SAGA game had plenty of Drama. See I see it as the heroes are supposed to succeed, not the villains. Sure there will be set backs (Doom cards or Dragon cards) but in the end I don't kill PCs or destory ships without dramatically good reason. In the end my players should succeed (unless they are complete tool heads).

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Then you have the problem of the guys with all the bad cards (or rolls) asking for cheese rolls so they can get rid of them. “Hey, can I make a check to see if I notice what direction north is?” “I try to seduce the teenager standing next to me to get rid of this low card.”

Never happens in my games. My players are a bit more mature than that.

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Bah.

Okay Don, you don't like Diceless. Got it. Understood. But can you tell us how you really feel?

Originally posted by Don Mappin
And here I thought only White Wolf games allowed storytelling, hence the “Storyteller System.” We're allowed to tell stories in our Star Trek games? Neat!

They’re all storytelling at their core, man.

Okay now you are just being a smart arse

Originally posted by Don Mappin
Sounds like you might be in the wrong hobby, then. Tried LARPing?

Yes I have and I enjoy it very much. It has its' own strengths and weaknesses, just like Table Top RPGing

Originally posted by Don Mappin
We’re heading way off course here and I don’t want to hijack your thread, but if there isn’t any randomness then what’s the point? If there’s no threat of failure, no chance of failing, then success—the story—has no meaning. Sure, RPGs are about telling stories at their core, but their ability to change and be malleable, even beyond what the Narrator has envisioned, is what makes them so special! Who’d want to play in a game where the outcome (the story) is already known? (Rhetorical)

Well rhetorical or not, there is always a threat. Have you even played SAGA? There are plenty o randoms and variables. But yes, it was designed with the idea that the players are the heroes. Th players are the story. I agree with that. If I want randomness and the mean streets, I will run Cyberpunk.

Originally posted by Don Mappin
I want to make a story—be it good or bad—not simply watch someone tell theirs.

And you can in a diceless game, maybe even one that makes more sense

Originally posted by Don Mappin
(Please start a new thread if you want to discuss this point.)

In all honesty, you have shown without a doubt that youa re opposed to diceless rpging, why would I want to start a thread where we just rehash all of this? No offense intended, it would just seem rather futile.