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Design Corner -
Belonging Outside Belonging and the Role of Dice
Why do we use dice in rpgs? Whats the point? Why not just declare what happens and move on?
Today Id like to talk about the main reasons I think we use dice amd how BOB has managed to do most of it with none.
Belonging Outside Belonging and the Role of Dice
Why do we use dice in rpgs? Whats the point? Why not just declare what happens and move on?
Today Id like to talk about the main reasons I think we use dice amd how BOB has managed to do most of it with none.
1) Tension
Neither GM nor player know whats going to come up. Risk followed by surprise, sometimes delighted, sometime full of horror.
2) Pacing
Rise and fall, success and failure. Dice distribute success over time at unexpected times. Great stories need victory and defeat.
Neither GM nor player know whats going to come up. Risk followed by surprise, sometimes delighted, sometime full of horror.
2) Pacing
Rise and fall, success and failure. Dice distribute success over time at unexpected times. Great stories need victory and defeat.
3) Spotlighting
Different people have different success rates based on classes or playbooks. It allows all the players the opportunity to shine at different points in a session.
Different people have different success rates based on classes or playbooks. It allows all the players the opportunity to shine at different points in a session.
Belonging Outside Belonging
What @lackingceremony brilliantly did with Dream Askew/Dream Apart and BOB is figure out a way to do distributed pacing without dice. Every character playbook has 3 types of moves: strong, weak, and normal. Weak moves are negative and give a token.
What @lackingceremony brilliantly did with Dream Askew/Dream Apart and BOB is figure out a way to do distributed pacing without dice. Every character playbook has 3 types of moves: strong, weak, and normal. Weak moves are negative and give a token.
Strong moves are positive and require a token to be used. Normal moves dont use tokens at all. So in order to shine later a character effectively has to fail. You trade the tension from dice to the tension of what will other players do in this scene.
Dream Askew/Dream Apart(the original game using the system) only came out last year and were already seeing a ton of innovation and new games in the space. If you havent tried the system yet its absolutely worth your time.
