What diceless tabletop RPG techniques are there?

Question

I am interested in using a diceless resolution system for my roleplaying, but am not sure what my options are in that vein. I can think of basically two categories of diceless tabletop role-playing systems - systems which eschew any randomisation, and those which randomise by some method other than dice.

Examples

Non-random tabletop systems

One option is of direct comparison of stats or other game statistics without a randomization factor. The obvious example here is Amber DRPG, but I suspect that there are other narrative driven RPGs out there that I don't know about.

Even in Amber, situation resolution it is rarely by direct comparison between stats. Narrative techniques can be used to manoeuvre two characters into a situation which narrows the gap between their ranking, widens it, or brings other stats into the picture - the classic example of course being Corwin relying on his stamina to stretch out conflicts with his siblings such that it becomes a dominant enough factor that he can escape.

Other randomisation techniques

I have seen card-based randomization system. Over the years, I've played quite a few home brew games based on the original SAGA Dragonlance system, which was similar to the SAGA Marvel superhero system.

The basic mechanics were that you had a hand size according to your experience, and for any skill check you would play a card from your hand and replace your card from the draw pile. If you had a card of the right suit as the skill check (a strength card on a strength check) you would also draw a card from the draw pile and add that to your skill check, so a small trump was often worth more than a medium value card not of the correct suit. When you were wounded, you would discard cards to the value of the damage, but those cards wouldn't be replenished - your hand size would be reduced until you were healed. One nice aspect of the system was that it simulated fatigue beautifully, you might start a scene with a spread of high, medium and low cards, but as your high cards were played they would more often than not get replaced by lower value cards, until you were left with a bunch of useless cards and feeling very vulnerable.

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The only other system I've played without dice was Everway which, if I remember correctly, used a combination of these techniques, stats based resolution, card resolution and GM fiat.

What I would be interested in is what other diceless resolution techniques exist, ideally with examples of tabletop diceless resolution methods people have tried and how they found them to play.

Answer 1

If you are willing to look at indie RPGs, there's a lot of non-random systems around. To name a few:

• System DL: if skill is higher than difficulty then it is a success. Obviously there are luck points that allow you to get automatic successes (with a price...).
• Active Exploits: players manage a limited pool of "effort" points.
• No Dice: freeform narrativist, uses a deck of cards for resolution.

Answer 2

Games not yet mentioned:

• Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple uses colored stones pulled out of a bag.

• Dust Devils uses a deck of playing cards and elements of poker.

• FreeMarket uses decks of custom cards.

• Primetime Adventures uses a deck of playing cards.

Answer 3

GUMSHOE isn't fully diceless, but reminds me personally a lot of Marvel SAGA which you cite in the question. It is an investigation ruleset (used in Trails of Cthulhu, Fear Itself, Esoterrorists, and Mutant City Blues) which eschews using dice for finding important clues, instead stats are usually points you spend to get better effects. You do roll for the more "adventurey" skills.

In fact the thing that worries me about GUMSHOE is that I played Marvel SAGA but hated it, it was too easy to get stuck in a place where you had all bad cards and so deliberately didn't do anything, or only tried very innocuous actions to try to clear out the low draws. Diceless but point spend/card draw mechanics can get you into that passive "don't try anything" mode if things go badly because it's so deterministic. I asked a question on this SE about how to prevent that, and "railroad" was the gist of all the answers.

Answer 4

Dread uses a Jenga tower for resolution. There are about a hundred others.

Answer 5

Another well known diceless RPG is Nobilis. I haven't played it but I have read it and the resolution mechanism does come down to who has the most ranks in a category allow characters can essentially overpower their miracles allowing them to do things over their base stat. It's a little tough to get your head around but from what I've read it allows for a lot of interesting roleplay and since everything doesn't come down to dice rolls it encourages very creative descriptions of powers and how they are used.

Answer 6

Castle Falkenstein

This 1994 game was the first steampunk game I'd seen since Space: 1889. It uses cards as a randomizer because Gentlemen of Quality, and Ladies (most certainly!) would never game with dice! This game is a lot of fun. Should be combined with the Comme il Faut expansion.

The Marvel Universe RPG

This early-21st-century superhero game is pure resource management. You have a limited number of tokens you can use to try to meet / beat target numbers when combined with your stats. I have this game, but have never played it.