All y'all motherfuggers better listen up!

[benlehman]

It has come to my attention that most people in RPG theory have little or no knowledge of probability, and thus tend to get into long arguments about dice vs. dicelessness, with Erick Wujcik on one side saying that any randomizer means that the RPG is shit, and dicelessness-with-hidden information is the way to go, and Ron Edwards on the other side saying that role-playing games without chance cannot properly be called role-playing games at all.



Both hidden-information games and random games are the same, probabilistically speaking.

Let's pretend that we're playing a game -- I roll a six sided dice behind my palm, and you try to guess the number it sits on. (this is a boring game, yeah, but it illustrates a point.)

Before you guess, you can associate a probability with any face being up (this probability will be 1-in-6). The point is, even though I've rolled the number and have seen it, it is still random *to you*

Let's play a different game: I set a six-sided die to a particular value, and you guess it without looking.

Before you guess, you can associate a probability with any face being up (this probability may not be the same for every face.) In other words, despite the fact that no die was rolled (I made a decision about the die), the hidden information means that it is still random *to you*

Philosophically, you can argue that there are two different things going on here, but mathematically they are identical.

So, for one, when you play Amber, you are using random numbers all the god-damn time. So stuff it.

So, for two, there is no tangible difference between a diceless-but-hidden-info game and the roll-a-die game. So claiming that they are fundamentally different at a mathematical level is wrong wrong wrong.

In terms of the ephemera and toy quality, of course, they are very different. They *feel* very different. But they really *aren't* very different.

And I hope that shuts you fuckers up.

(P.S. As far as I know, there are no well-played diceless RPG systems that do not include randomness in the form of hidden information, possibly outside GM fiat. Cradle could do it with a few nips and tucks and, I think, still be a fun RPG. So I even disagree with Ron at that level.)

Comments

[marcus-sez-vote.livejournal.com]

You can get to that storytelling point, but still have a system in place, and one that has massive impact on the game while still requiring no dice and little "game time". Here's the system doc written by a mutual friend of benlehman and myself:

"Wane's system is called Unlimited Action. It's a diceless narrative system; the mechanics of the game world themselves are effectively run systemless, while Unlimited Action allows the player to influence the events of the narrative and the direction that the story takes by spending development points. Spent development points are usually recovered between sessions. A player may increase his/her maximum development points through expenditure -- the more actively a player influences the story, the more leeway that player has in the future.

What can be done with development points? Well, almost anything, but to achieve more significant effects (change long-term story arc, alter something that has already happened, flagrantly violate the laws of physics) more DPs will have to be spent. Only sometimes will the exact desired result be achieved; more often, the requested outcome will be worked into the existing narrative somehow. But the player's request, weighted according to DPs spent, is always taken into account.

There's one more aspect to the system. DPs that have been spent need not be recovered in the normal manner; rather, it's possible to "trap" DPs that were used towards an outcome in a category related to that outcome. There are four types of categories; aspects are adjectives, affinities are nouns, paths are adverbs and prepositional phrases, and knacks are verbs. So, for example, suppose that Bernardo had spent three DPs to help his character, Ishmael, evade an incoming hail of bullets. At the end of the session, when he would ordinarily recover those three DPs, he could instead choose to trap one of them in the "Dodge" knack. Or all three of them. Or he could trap two in the "Bullet" affinity and recover the third normally. Or he could trap one in "By running", one in "Quickly", and one in "Distant". On the other hand, it wouldn't make sense for him to trap all three points in the "Noodle" affinity, as noodles just weren't involved in the event.

What's the advantage in trapping DPs? Well, trapped DPs recover much more quickly (at the end of each scene, rather than each session). But they can only be spent toward outcomes related to their name. In most cases, an affinity in "Bullet" could not be used to find food. One last thing about Unlimited Action -- trapped DPs exert a passive influence on the story, as well, even if they are never spent. Especially if they are never spent. Taking an affinity in "Death" means that, one way or another, death will find its way into your character's story. The less often those trapped points are spent, the more noticeably this will be the case.

The nice thing about this system is that, over the course of many sessions, players begin to be defined by the steps they have taken towards changing the story and the ways in which they have influenced it. As they become more closely defined, they become more able to alter specific aspects of the narrative."

I believe he refined this system for another game that he ran.

Be well.

[unrequitedthai.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what point you are making here. Can you clarify?

[marcus-sez-vote.livejournal.com]

I wanted to show you an example of a storytelling system that I enjoyed that not only allows for the GMs overall vision, but that of all the players. The nice thing about the way this game was ran, and a similar game called Arcadia, was that you could use these words at any point in time, even to affect other people's story arcs. My point is that both priorities(GM telling "his" vision, player participation/feeling important to the direction of the game) can be satisfied.

Be well.

[unrequitedthai.livejournal.com]

Okay.

So, the thing is, this isn't the kind of thing that I am saying isn't really a roleplaying game.

I'm objecting to the claim that I am reading in evilmagnus's posts: That an activity where one individual, the GM, has a unitary and unalterable artistic vision ("the image of perfection is that held in the GMs mind and encompasses the game as a whole"), and the players are accessories to that vision, who serve only the purpose of audience and may only contribute in a way that the GM has predicted and accounted for, is in any manner a roleplaying game. It's not! It's a bad way to share fiction.

When you have a system where the players make choices and the system requires those choices to be accounted for (I am assuming here that you have some clear account of how many DPs are required to spend to generate what events, and no one can say, "No, you can't spend those DPs to do that thing that the rules say you can."), that's not what is going on.