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All y'all motherfuggers better listen up!
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.)
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.)
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The thing is, the coherent, focused game is less likely to have people on the wrong page. When there's focus, everyone knows from reading the game what they're in for -- and if they're not on the same page, they're going to figure this out pretty damn quick. However, Vampire means entirely different kinds of games to different people, because it's so broad, and it sometimes takes months for people to figure out that there's an expectation clash.
In an attempt to capture market share, most "mainstream" games have cast their net wide -- but this often means not everyone is on the same page without a lot of pregame discussion, and even then it can be problematic because the system ain't really optimized for what people have agreed on.
Yes, a swiss army knife is nice, but do you actually prefer using the screwdriver on it to using a real screwdriver? When it's all you have -- like when in the 1970s all there was was D&D -- it's one thing, but it's another thing when we "have the technology", as others have said.