IDLE HANDS…
We’ve rolled dice for as long as we can remember. Playing our beloved games and hoping for that great roll. Sometimes fate shines upon us and sometimes it leaves us in a dark cave. The element of chance is incredibly exciting. How could we live without it? Some game developers have said you can. I’ll enter one contestant. Marvel Universe Role-playing Game. I use this example because I have experience with it. In the game you start off with points to put in to your character to flesh out abilities, skills, powers, etc. Pretty standard. Once that is all done, one of your abilities will determine how much energy you have to spend each round or page. Marvel Universe Role-playing Game does not use the standard round but panels and pages like in a comic book. The goal was to give the feel of being in the comic book that you write as you play. Back to the energy pool. The Game-master explains the situation to you. Say you have arrived at an abandoned chemical factory and you are searching for clues to a villain. If you have a power or skill that would allow you to do that then this is the time for energy allocation. Let us say you have 10 energy. You have a 4 in Infra-vision and a 6 in Force Field. You can allocate your points to max out those two powers so if you find something and it triggers and attack, you will be prepared. However, you have no points in movement. Moving will not be something you can do this page. This is just a small example. It seems like it gives you a new experience with great freedom and control. The time I ran it, it seemed clunky and slow. This was years ago. I am considering giving it another chance. The questions is, what do you guys think? Is a dice-less game possible? Are we too rooted in the roll? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
We’ve rolled dice for as long as we can remember. Playing our beloved games and hoping for that great roll. Sometimes fate shines upon us and sometimes it leaves us in a dark cave. The element of chance is incredibly exciting. How could we live without it? Some game developers have said you can. I’ll enter one contestant. Marvel Universe Role-playing Game. I use this example because I have experience with it. In the game you start off with points to put in to your character to flesh out abilities, skills, powers, etc. Pretty standard. Once that is all done, one of your abilities will determine how much energy you have to spend each round or page. Marvel Universe Role-playing Game does not use the standard round but panels and pages like in a comic book. The goal was to give the feel of being in the comic book that you write as you play. Back to the energy pool. The Game-master explains the situation to you. Say you have arrived at an abandoned chemical factory and you are searching for clues to a villain. If you have a power or skill that would allow you to do that then this is the time for energy allocation. Let us say you have 10 energy. You have a 4 in Infra-vision and a 6 in Force Field. You can allocate your points to max out those two powers so if you find something and it triggers and attack, you will be prepared. However, you have no points in movement. Moving will not be something you can do this page. This is just a small example. It seems like it gives you a new experience with great freedom and control. The time I ran it, it seemed clunky and slow. This was years ago. I am considering giving it another chance. The questions is, what do you guys think? Is a dice-less game possible? Are we too rooted in the roll? I’d love to hear your thoughts.