If there is no random element, it is not a game, but a computation. Go is not a game, chess is not a game, anymore than Tic Tac Toe. While neither Go nor chess have been solved in the general case, for a large number of problems they can be. Totally diceless games are a computation; depending totally on GM decision is just rolling the dice in his head. Computations are made for rules-lawyers, not role-players.
> But not the only one. As readers of uk.games.roleplay will know, I
> recently (skipping) replaced [dice] by Everway > cards.
Using cards is logically equivalent to using dice with linear rolls equal to the number of cards in play. You lose the chance to let the player make his own petition to Humakt or Hermes before rolling, as well as the chance to spread out away from the game table (my first group used the largest lecture halls at college, marking PC and NPC positions on the wallboards). Otherwise, whatever works for you. Mechanics only get in the way when you aren't willing to put enough work into organization, first, or if you will have problems using *any* system.
> The players are no longer saying "I hit the troll". They're describing
> their intent in detail ("I'm ducking under the troll's club and hitting
> it in the leg"), and the implications of the card suggest to the GM how
> well or poorly they fared.
>
> Instead of the sterile dice roll, this method injects human
> interpretation, and encourages role-playing even in crisis. The
> unexpected is still there, but you lose a lot of GM's tables and a lot
> of game mechanics, and add more spontaneity.
If your die rolls are "sterile", it is your fault, not the die's. In my first group, even spirit combat (normally cited as the epitome of sterile) could be filled with drama (especially as we tried things like lassoing characters first, so they we could drag them away from losing combats if they signalled. Signalling let the spirit automatically succeed the next round, so it became a race to pull the body out of the ghost's range before the PC was destroyed). Using *just* rolls will make anything sterile, including falling in love just because your Lustful roll says to, and only declaring that "Squiggy is now in love with Shirley" (or what ever names you use).
> Work on the character background, and their personality, until you know
> them like a friend.
Agreed. My best character was a Rhino rider, when I had to explain why he rode a horse (we already had a Great Troll in the group; a war rhino was ruled overkill by the GM). The result was family history of horror going back to each of his 6 known grandparents (stepgrandparents included), and his mother being eaten by "his" tribe after her having been turned into a herdman (too much effort to turn such a low status member back). Who cares if he died before the game year was out, he was richer than most who lasted for years without getting as much into their backgrounds.
The GM has to enforce filling in the backgrounds, though. It took me an entire week, meeting him every day after dinner, before I came up with enough of a legend (spy jargon sense) to justify it.
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