The Campaign Builder's Guild

I might have brought this up a long time ago, but I've gotten to thinking about it again and I wanted to get some other opinions on it. FLOW is an intriguing system that the Stalker roleplaying game uses that is completely diceless, but where it differs from a lot of other diceless systems is that it doesn't use any other sort of chance mechanic. Instead, players essentially "pitch" their solutions to the problems that the GM presents them. Every test has a Challenge rating between 2 for the easiest and 30 for the almost-impossible. The GM gives a pitches a score of 1-5 on both Idea and Roleplaying. If the player possesses an applicable Ability, then they add +1 to both scores. If the value of Idea x Roleplaying is higher than that of the Challenge, then they succeed; if it's lower, then they fail.

Combat is handled essentially the same way. Enemies are rated between 2 and 30 for their relative toughness, but this can go up or down based on a number of factors: who has superior numbers, who has the better weapon for the situation, crossfire, surprise, etc. Success means you achieve what you wanted, while failure means you suffer the consequences - which can mean mortal injury in an armed conflict. The book actually gives a pretty good scale for what types of injuries a character can suffer and how debilitating they can be

The Abilities and Attributes presented in the Stalker game fall into the categories of Fitness, Awareness, Intellect, Willpower, Charisma, Learning, Technical, and Zone. Obviously, these can change depending on the sort of game being run, but they're pretty good for any sort of modern or post-apocalyptic game. Every two Abilities that a character has in a given category gives them an Attribute point. Besides giving a rough outline of the character's capabilities, Attributes are most useful as "health" of sorts: they can be burned in exchange for favors, one of the most important of which is not eating shit and dying when you fail. Of course, having burned-off Attributes means that your character is limited in what they can accomplish later. Something I find most interesting is that every Ability also has to have some sort of related Drawback. For example, if your character is skilled with Small Arms, they likely bear the scars (physical or otherwise) of the violence that goes along with this.

Basically, I think this system is neat. It requires a bit of effort from both GM and player, but it also avoids the pitfalls of random chance derailing competent characters' brilliant plan. Unfortunately, I feel like it's also pretty tricky to explain without just having y'all read the book. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on the matter: does this seem like a system you'd like to play with?

I like the idea of abilities being made out of attributes, so you don't just have a score but a list of things you can do, and the idea of abilities being bundled with drawbacks seem pretty cool too and conducive to character depth. However, I'm not at all a fan of the game's resolution mechanic, specifically--

Quote from: RhamnousiaThe GM gives a pitches a score of 1-5 on both Idea and Roleplaying.

Ultimately, this boils down to "you propose an idea and the GM decides if it works or not." There are a bunch of numbers and math and whatnot surrounding it, but, ultimately, that's all it really is, which makes me wonder what all the numbers and math are really for. Of course, in any RPG, the GM always has a great deal of control, but this feels like a step beyond; there is no objective random number generator or meta-points system or anything that can add unpredictability or moderate the amount of control the GM has over the world, and I find this kind of boring and probably disempowering for the player as well. I find it particularly objectionable because so much of success hinges not only on the GM's opinion of the idea, but also the GM's opinion of a player's ability to RP it, which is even more subjective.

^What sparkle said. If the players are comfortable to trust their game master with that degree of arbitration over the game, then why do they need a system to begin with? Why not just go all-out freeform role playing instead? There's no point in spending time on learning and consulting rules when you can get the same end result without them.

(I have not read FLOW so I'm going entirely by what was posted. If I'm making false assumptions here it's probably because I don't know anything first-hand.)

I'm down with this and have been interested in diceless systems for a while. I don't know anything about FLOW in particular, but the concept as I (almost) understand it seems cool.

Folks, this is a rubric, it's not arbitrary. It's a structure for evaluating things so that the evaluation isn't arbitrary. Sounds like it's no more "you propose an idea and the GM decides whether it works or not" than an English class is "you turn in an essay and the teacher decides whether you pass the class or not"; it's trying to formalize the process so both parties know what they're aiming for.

Quote from: Lmns CrnSounds like it's no more "you propose an idea and the GM decides whether it works or not" than an English class is "you turn in an essay and the teacher decides whether you pass the class or not"

That more or less is how it works, even in English class, because your score on your essay is still based on what the teacher thinks of it. Pretty much every student learns how to subtly alter various stylistic choices in their writing to appeal to what a certain teacher is looking for-- or just plain not write essays on certain topics due to the teacher's politics or whatever.

That said, I don't particularly agree with the analogy, because there are more-or-less objective standards as to what a mechanically well-constructed essay in the English language looks like, while no such standards exist for "good RP."

Sorry I haven't responded sooner, I've been away from my computer for a while. The book does actually give rubrics of sorts for evaluating both Idea and Roleplaying. With Roleplaying, 3 is the "baseline" for the group, which is still likely insufferably vague, but at least there's no stated expectation for some Platonic idea of good roleplaying.

Quote from: Idea RubricThe starting value is 1.
If the idea is credible, add +1.
If the required equipment is available, add +1.
If the circumstances and environment can be adjusted
for an advantage (lighting, ergonomics, etc.), add +1.
If the plan benefits from teamwork, add +1.
If the solution is fast, add +1.
If the plan is easy to understand and explain to others, add +1.

Quote from: Roleplaying Rubric
Poor (1)
The solution was badly presented and does not suit the character's personality, abilities or experiences. It may also break the game or immersion of other players. Perhaps it was just an off moment by the player but they may also have a problem with understanding their character.
Lacking (2)
There is still something missing. Perhaps the solution does not fit the character even if it was well presented. Perhaps it fit but the presentation left you cold and damaged the atmosphere. Either way, the GM is unhappy.
Expected (3)
The solution fits the character and both the situation and the presentation are about what you can expect from the player. Advances the game, upholds the atmosphere and represents the character's actions and personality.
Good (4)
The presentation was clearly better than expected. The player or at least the character made an impression. If roleplaying the solution is difficult for the player because of a complicated conversation or showing emotion, this value is a fitting reward for a good attempt.
Excellent (5)
This one will live on in myth and legend. This does not only fit the character's personality and inclinations but also deepens and develops them. Roleplaying the situation so that the entire team can react and participate is worthy of reward.

To a large degree, I think why I like this system a lot more than sparkletwist does is because I've personally never really had an experience with a bad GM. If I don't agree with the judgement of the person running the game, I typically won't play it, so I'm pretty comfortable with this level of arbitration. And isn't the whole point of the GM screen essentially to keep the players from seeing the objective results of the dice rolls and allowing the GM to fudge it however they want?

You could probably work a dice rolling system into Attributes and Abilities scheme (the book says it's possible if difficult) but I'm not entirely sure how you would do that. The system is fairly punishing of failure - a function of both the gritty horror setting it was designed for and the lack of randomness - so you'd need to have a way to keep things from being too random.

Quote from: RhamnousiaTo a large degree, I think why I like this system a lot more than sparkletwist does is because I've personally never really had an experience with a bad GM. If I don't agree with the judgement of the person running the game, I typically won't play it, so I'm pretty comfortable with this level of arbitration. And isn't the whole point of the GM screen essentially to keep the players from seeing the objective results of the dice rolls and allowing the GM to fudge it however they want?

I don't agree very much with this reasoning. While I personally have had experience with bad GMs, my reaction was to find another GM, not look to the system to try to mitigate the bad GM, nor do I really feel like the system really can do this to any great extent. What a system can do is enforce a certain degree of consistency in rulings, which even good/trusted GMs can have problems with, because everyone makes mistakes.

Anyway, a rubric like the one given helps a little, but it's still largely driven by the GM's feelings and somewhat arbitrary inclinations rather than more-or-less objective criteria. For example, what makes an idea "credible"? Where's the line for "easy to understand," and if the everyone in the group except the GM understands the plan well, should that count? Ideas are also scored on scale of 1-5 but have 7 possible points, which is sort of strange. I guess this is supposed to provide some wiggle room to lead to higher scores in general... but it really seems like they on some level understood their system was pretty vague and ephemeral and put in a significant fudge factor to make sure higher scores were more common; one would be hard-pressed to be in a situation where "the circumstances and environment can be adjusted for an advantage" wasn't the case, for example.

As you've acknowledged, the roleplaying baseline is even more vague. While I think it's perhaps good that there isn't some Platonic ideal of good RP, I think the idea of basing it on "what you can expect from the player" is even worse, because that means there actually different criteria from each player, and players who are consistently good might actually end up being punished for just simply meeting their own high standards... at least according to RAW. Most GMs probably won't do it that way, but all that means is that they realize these rules are badly written. I feel like this particular aspect of the system is even worse than simple GM fiat because at least in the case of simple GM fiat deciding actions you don't have the GM actively scoring players and passing judgement on their RP of every action. The narrativist part of me also doesn't like that because RP is scored as part of resolving the task, that means there is no way to decouple the task resolution from the roleplay and tailor the story to the generated result. There have a been quite a few times in various games where I rolled first and then based my RP on what happened-- this is especially useful in social rolls, where you can say something eloquent if you roll well and put your foot in your mouth if you don't, instead of having to try to justify it retroactively.

Another disadvantage to any system like this one that is basically based on the GM's decision (and only that) is that there's little capability for the GM to be surprised, which is sometimes fun to keep the story fresh for everyone (including the GM) and keep things moving in different directions. Rolling dice of course accomplishes this, because nobody, not even the GM, knows how they're going to come up, but even diceless systems that rely on bidding or meta-points or whatever can accomplish this as well, because the players are driving the spending of points.

As for the bit about the GM screen, this is a question of mentality, but I don't really see that as the point at all, personally. I don't have a gaming group to play in person any more, but if I did, I would only use a GM screen or similar device to keep anyone from accidentally seeing my notes. I don't hide or fudge dice rolls; if something is being determined by my fiat as GM rather than rolled randomly, I'll just be up front about that.

I think I might've misspoken. It's not that I expect the system to mitigate a bad GM, it's that I historically have only played with GMs that I trust and like pretty completely, so I'm comfortable deferring totally to their judgement.

Quote from: RhamnousiaI historically have only played with GMs that I trust and like pretty completely, so I'm comfortable deferring totally to their judgement.

Ghostman already said it:

Quote from: GhostmanIf the players are comfortable to trust their game master with that degree of arbitration over the game, then why do they need a system to begin with? Why not just go all-out freeform role playing instead? There's no point in spending time on learning and consulting rules when you can get the same end result without them.

Where do you want your GM to focus their efforts?
Deciding and arbitrating the success or failure of the PCs' actions, or envisaging and communicating the consequences of that success or failure?
Not that both can't be done simultaneously, but a more traditional system with dice being rolled and so on certainly defines the GM's role as further towards the latter, which is in my opinion no bad thing.
As sparkle already mentioned it also has the added bonus of the GM potentially being surprised by results, which can lead to the on-the-spot invention of even more interesting consequences, made all the more exciting for both players and GM by their unexpected nature.