Removing/Reducing Dice in ANOINTED, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Token

Removing/Reducing Dice in ANOINTED, or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Token

May 15, 2023
ttrpg design, anointed, diceless
ANOINTED cover cropped
ANOINTED cover cropped

I had been thinking about the topic of randomness when writing entries for Regions for ANOINTED23, but Spencer Campbell (GilaRPGs, creator of LUMEN/RUNE/etc) wrote two blog posts (with a third on the way) that got me thinking about it. Specifically, I'm wondering if I could/should just remove dice almost entirely from ANOINTED, my GMless or GM'd/group or solo soulslike game in development.

The current situation

In the interest of not assuming people have any idea what I'm talking about (and also to have it in one handy place for later) I'm going to list out the random/non-random parts of the game.

Random

  • Determining memories from a table in chargen and play (though this one's optional, you're allowed to just pick one or make something up, will ignore this as a result, you do kind of need some kind of randomization to roll on tables after all)
  • Attribute checks (the game has 4 attributes, Prowess/Skill/Conviction/Knowledge, which add to a few derived stats, act as weapon/spell prereqs. To do various things, you roll that many dice, FitD/LUMEN style (take the highest, 1-3/4-5/6 fail/partial/success).
    • Disposition checks (you can use a specific kind of Attribute check with custom values for enemy groups to change how you interact with them, like a Skill check to make them Unaware instead of Aggressive if you want to sneak by/ambush them, that sort of thing)
  • Dodge and Parry (you spend Stamina or Focus respectively, roll dice equal to your current Stamina or Focus and take the highest: Parry needs a 6, Dodge needs a 6 but lets you spend more Stamina and reroll on a 4-5). Enemies can Dodge/Parry but it uses a different mechanic (roll under a number).

Not Random

  • Activating weapon/spell abilities just spends Stamina/Focus and an Action. No roll needed. (This is part of why I think it's a good candidate to try this.)
  • Movement.
  • Enemy actions, even in GMless. They're purely based off of distance from a PC.

Attribute/Disposition Checks

This was the thing that got me thinking about it before Spencer's articles: When making areas, I didn't really like how I imagined this would play out given the Souls-ish checkpoint design. I'm growing kind of lukewarm on success/partial/fail design without a good reason for it anyway but especially in the context of a solo game it feels like a weird fit. I'm bad enough at coming up with consequences for games as a GM, coming up with them solo is tough. It also doesn't feel very strategic at all, you either succeed or you don't, which isn't a great feeling of choice.

Instead, I think I want to use a token-based system for it.

  • You have a number of tokens for each Attribute equal to the Attribute's value. They restore upon return to a Sanctuary.
  • Obstacles, opportunities, etc that require something like this to proceed are looking for a certain number of tokens from a specific Attribute or two listed. If you don't have that many, you can't do it.
    • Right now I'm thinking 2, 3, 6, and 10 Tokens as like easy/medium/hard/nasty cutoffs. For example, something you have to climb that's a little tough might be noted Prowess 3, or if you can tough it out just by persistence, Prowess/Conviction 3.
    • This works as-is for solo or single+GM play. For multiple PCs, I think I'll raise those cutoffs by 1 per extra PC (so if you have 4 total, it becomes +3 for 5/6/9/13), but you can split any of them two ways as long as it's an even (or even+1 in the case of an odd number, so like 6/7 for a 13) split.
    • If you have a proper tool to do something - climbing tools for climbing, rope for descending, lockpick for picking locks - halve the number of tokens (round up). This is what makes those 10's more possible before like, endgame stats.
  • You can restore all tokens to one Attribute with a use of Grace (aka not-Estus), so it's harder to block yourself, but you're spending from Health Restoration to do it.

For Disposition, same thing. An encounter currently looks like:

  • Default Defensive, 4-5 Aggressive, 6 Wary

for something where you need to roll a 4-5 when trying to aim for Wary or a 6 to aim for Unaware. Whereas with this it might be:

  • Default Defensive, Aggressive 3, Wary 6

which indicates token costs.

Dodge and Parry

This one's a little trickier. The goal prior to this was to make it feel different than blocking and it needs to maintain that.

I think the play is to introduce a number of Reactions alongside number of Actions. (Right now characters have 2 + Skill Actions per turn, it'd probably be 2 + Skill Actions and the same number of Reactions to start with.)

  • A Dodge Reaction is always available. It negates all Harm* and you move a hex. You always spend 3 Stamina to do it but it takes 1 + Encumbrance Reactions (but you can overspend at no cost as long as you have at least 1 Reaction).
    • Enemy attacks with Slow require 1 fewer Reaction (min of 0). Makes it make more sense for "fat-rollers" to try that against really nasty slow stuff.
    • Enemy Dodge/Parry is probably just "number of times they can do this automatically in a round".
    • That * is because Undodgeable is probably going to be changed to "if you dodge out of the AOE, you're fine, otherwise you take Harm as if you didn't dodge". We're not doing I-frame stuff on tabletop, if you're in the shit you're just in the shit.
  • A Guard Reaction requires a piece of equipment with the Guard ability (shield, etc). It uses 1 Reaction but spends Stamina equal to Harm blocked, or 0 Reactions if it blocks half as much Harm as its Defense.
    • Enemy Guard works as it currently does, no number of reactions tracked, just boosts current defenses/poise.
  • A Parry reaction requires a piece of equipment with the Parry ability (shield with Parry, parrying dagger, etc). It negates Harm and the attacker is staggered. You always spend 5 Focus to do it and it takes 1 Reaction. (At 0 Knowledge, this is all of your Focus. At 5, you can do it twice. It's very powerful but costs a lot.)
    • Spell keyword works as-is.
    • Unwieldy adds 1 spent Reaction to this.

Notes:

  • Dodge/Parry lose the "roll dice equal to current Stamina/Focus" thing but I'm not terribly married to that idea honestly so that's probably fine.
  • This makes Skill a bit better, which is worth keeping an eye on, but also means Skill builds are way more dodgy, which was kind of the intention prior to this anyway.

We'll see how this works! Might mock out what a diceless approach might look like in APOCALYPSE FRAME at some point later, I've got some conversion ideas.

(Read the original on cohost here!)