Now, from the title of this post, you might think I’m talking about Everway or Ember or one of those other goofy roleplaying game that refuse to play as God intended: with dice.Far from it. Instead, I’m suggesting a unique experience for your gaming group that you can do no matter what system you’re using. Whether your roleplaying game is D&D or Dark Heresy or Werewolf: The Forsaken, a diceless game night can be just the thing to breathe new life into your group.
I did this with my group a couple of years back, and my players still look back on it as one of the most interesting sessions we’ve ever had.
Here’s how you set it all up:
- Decide whether you’re going to make this a one-off game or whether you want to integrate it into your regular game. If you integrate it into your regular roleplaying game, I would suggest using characters other than the PCs, as it just makes things simpler.
- Decide the setting. If, for example, you are playing in the Forgotten Realms, you might choose the court in Cormyr, or the community of Shadowdale. In this way, players still feel connected to your ongoing campaign, and the events of the diceless roleplaying night can play themselves out in your regular game over the coming weeks or months.
- Create or identify factions. Each player will be given a character in a faction. Each faction should have its own goals and motivations, some of which will conflict with the other factions. Here again, if you’re set in an existing campaign you need merely pull in relevant factions from the setting.
- Create a timeline. You can do like I did, and have the game take place over a single 24-hour period while representatives of horde and alliance jockey for position over a disputed territory. At several points throughout the day certain things would happen, such as a messenger arriving with the results of a skirmish.
- Create characters, histories and motivations. These don’t have to be elaborate; a couple of paragraphs describing who the character is, why they’re involved in the situation and what they hope to get out of it personally should be enough.
- Formalize the character goals. Choose one or two major goals and three or four minor goals for each character.
- Decide on special tools or resources each character will have at their disposal. This may be a spell, bodyguards, spies, or anything else you think might be useful in helping them achieve their goals.
- Create a handout for each character, as well as a handout that gives generally-known background about the setting, factions and events.
Here is an example of the character handout I used in my diceless roleplaying session:
Garradon Thunderhoof, Tauren.
Garradon engineered these negotiation and both sides have agreed that Garradon will serve as a moderator.
You truly want peace. The tauren have become somewhat disillusioned with the horde, and would like Kalimdor to be a peaceful place once again, much as it was before the arrival of the visitors from the west.
The gruff ways of many of the orcs have bothered the tauren. They trample the sacred burial grounds of the Tauren at Brighton rock as they try to pull more and more resources out of the earth to fight their battles with the alliance. The Tauren would like the orcs to stop.
Recently, the alliance has been pushing its way further and further into Horde territory. The horde has controlled Borshan almost since the orcs landed. Borshan was a territory once controlled by the centaurs, but the orcs helped the tauren to clear out the lands of the beasts. Garradon does not want to give up Borshan.
Special resources: Garradon controls the security of the meeting place, and has a group of 20 tauren who will constantly patrol the grounds and do anything else that Garradon needs them to do.
Primary objectives (1000 XP each)
_____ Negotiate a peace agreement between the alliance and the horde
Secondary Objectives (600 XP each)
_____ Negotiate a cease fire agreement between alliance and horde if you cannot negotiate a peace agreement
_____ Keep the alliance out of Borshan
_____ Negotiate with the orcs for tauren-only control of the Sacred Grounds at Brighton Rock
Next time, we’ll take a look at how I ran my diceless roleplaying game night.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
You forgot one thing. Make sure its something that your players are interested. Talk to them about it first. Do not blind siding them with it one evening. They won’t have fun (if its not their thing), you won’t have fun (because they won’t be into it like you are), and you’ll have spent a lot of time on something that nobody is enjoying.
quick on the trigger finger… sorry. That said it can be one of the more enjoyable evenings to be had in the world of role playing if done correctly and everyone is on board and into it.