Monday, August 1, 2016

#RPGaDAY 2016 - Day 1: How do you roll?

I know I said I was too busy for #RPGaDAY this year, and I am really, but I'm hoping I can squeeze in some blog posts for it - they are far less time consuming than the videos, and, let's face it, this way you don't have to look at my gormless face every day this month.

So, Day 1 of #RPGaDAY this year poses the following question...

Dice, Diceless, Dice App, how do you prefer to "roll"?


Basically, I've always been a dice person. I've never tried diceless, but would like to, but I find the randomness of some encounters and conflicts actually adds to the drama and action.

I've also tried the dice app route, but that was purely for FFG's Star Wars RPG. It's okay, but sometimes it's just easier to pick up the dice and roll.

I like what they were trying to do with the FFG Star Wars game - the advantages and threats, triumphs and despair, but all too often do we end up with rolls that are "I failed, but I got three advantages", giving the character a chance to regain stress or strain or whatever, or leaving the GM with a struggle to think of what can be gained during their massive failure. It puts a lot of pressure on the GM.

For WILD, I started looking into dice with simple "success or fail" pips on them, then scrapped the dice altogether to go purely card orientated, using the same Tarot decks that were used for character creation to resolve tasks. A simple "value of the card" with a bonus if it's the right suit or court card that relates to the attribute or skill being used.

Major Arcana cards worked just the same, but some divinatory meaning from the card should be incorporated into the result. That spices things up a bit!!

The WILD Tarot deck prototypes. (c) 2014 David F. Chapman


Don't worry, I'll get back to WILD soon. Meanwhile, I'd best get back to my current assignment...

Until next time, stay multiclassy!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Real dice. Always. We used a random number generator that Pete found when we did online rpg which was fine but a nice set of dice is part of the whole atmosphere of RPGs. Mine are too random for their own good but Bragi's blue and yellow percentiles were legend. I now have a blue set with d14, d18, d24 and many others. Never use them though....
Mi!o. XXX