Re: Diceless gaming

From: richard <richard.develyn_at_nwpeople.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 10:15:52 +0100


I'm not trying to impose how much, or what sort, of filtering you do in your game, just an appreciation that we all do it to a different degree and no one collection of filters is better than another.

Trotsky wrote re Diceless Gaming.

> However, throwing out the cultural details, as they would plausibly
> pertain to our characters, removes a lot of the gaming fun and does
> not to me seem a useful filter, assuming you're gaming in a culture
> that lends itself to enjoyable adventure in the first place.

It's a subjective thing. I think you remove cultural filters, and any other sort of filter, as you feel ready to take them on. I don't think you can make a qualitative statement about filters.

re Love on the Titanic.

> But its fun to try, IMO. I'm afraid I don't find this a very
> convincing argument - its really a case of each to their own :-)

The argument I was making was that you cannot "fully" role play your character - and the love on the titanic thing was just to illustrate the difficulty of trying. The point of *that* was to justify why we need filters in the first place.

<<Any achievement in RPGs is suspect - try explaining your latest conquest to
someone not into fantasy gaming and you'll know what I mean.>>

> So? I don't someone else to validate my acheivements to take enjoyment
> from them.

So you cannot say that someone's "achievement" gained through dice rolling is any less than an "achievement" gained without it. My statement was a defense, not an attack.

> Where dice are useful IMO is in quantifying more material
> obstacles, such as picking that lock or climbing that cliff-face.

More than that, I think. There's uncertainty in everything we do.

I want to re-iterate that I'm not saying let's start rolling lots of dice. I'm just saying let's understand clearly what role (sic) they play and what benefits they give us before we go too crazy throwing them out.

Richard

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