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I've seen diceless systems for narrative-focused role playing. But do any diceless combat tactics games exist, possibly based on miniatures? I'm thinking of personal-level combat where a single unit would be a single person, as opposed to grand scale strategy games like Diplomacy.

This question is, of course, ignoring the issue of whether or not a tactics game without dice can be considered a tactics game.

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Hi! You may find better answers for this on boardgames.SE; it's not really on topic for a RPG oriented site. – mxyzplk♦ Aug 3 '12 at 2:38
Sorry for being off topic. I didn't know there was a boardgames.se. – Aaron Aug 3 '12 at 21:20

closed as off topic by aramis, edgerunner, wax eagle, SevenSidedDie, Oblivious Sage Aug 3 '12 at 17:04

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1 Answer

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Ignoring, for the moment, that Miniatures Combat Games are NOT Roleplaying Games (except in some demented minds at GW)...

Little Wars

Little Wars, by HG Wells, is a diceless miniatures combat game, published originally in 1913. (Link is to the Project Gutenberg ebooks of it.) Canonfire is resolved with spring-powered projectile throwing miniature canon. The game is VERY tactical, but also, one of the first purely recreational miniatures rulesets released.

Without the canon, Little Wars is unsatisfying.

Lost Worlds

If the combat desired is one on one, Lost Worlds is your best bet, tho' it is somewhat limited in that you need the correct book for each involved character.

There is, however, a miniatures on map boxed set (which I don't have but have played) that is, in essence, a metagame for determining which minis fight in which order. The combination is completely diceless, using your opponent's move as the primary randomization. Spell users may have to shuffle their deck of spells; I forget, and I don't know where my LW books are.

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Neither of these are roleplaying games... – AceCalhoon Aug 3 '12 at 14:53
And neither fit the criteria: the first isn't personal scale, the second is miniatures combat in name only and not in the way the asker means at all. – SevenSidedDie Aug 3 '12 at 16:59
@SevenSidedDie The individual figures in little wars represent individuals. – aramis Aug 4 '12 at 5:06
@AceCalhoon He's not asking about RPG's. The question is mislocated and needs to be moved. – aramis Aug 4 '12 at 5:07
@aramis So a bad answer is helping how? Jumping on OT questions when the answerer knows better is an easy -1 from me. (Re Little Wars, he's clearly looking for D&D-style, individual, positional tactical combat, but diceless. Heroclix; not massed Napoleonics even if the unit:figure scale is 1:1.) – SevenSidedDie Aug 4 '12 at 7:44
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