Advice/Help Chance, randomization, group decision-making, dice etc in RP...

[Julian Spooner]

Hello friends,

I do a lot of roleplaying, mainly 1x1. I'm a very character- and story- driven person, and I love developing elaborate plots with my partners. I often come up with overarching plots and then help partners work their own characters and ideas into them.

But I do sometimes wish I could draw on an element of chance for plot progressions, or have a way that players can choose from multiple options. Otherwise roleplays with two people can be a bit artificial, or run out of steam. And roleplays with a group can become chaotic.

I've seen that there is a dice option on here, which I've never used before. I'd be interested to hear how people use them in story-based roleplays (if they do).

I'd also be interested to hear any other ways people have found to incorporate an element of genuine chance, surprise, randomization or collective decision making into plot-driven roleplays.

 

[Crayons]

I have an RP partner I've been playing with for a few years, and we like to add dice rolls into story-based RP just for the fun and randomness of it. Most of the time we used it for fights. Players would roll a d20 to attack and defend. Attacks would only hit if 10 or over, and the defender would need to roll the same or above to defend successfully. Needless to say this added a lot of unpredicatability and hilarity to all the combat. Sometimes we would casually add modifiers, and the comparative strength of the combatants was taken into account in terms of damage and effects.

But then, we started adding in dice rolls for other things, such as "Does this action make the character more or less popular with onlookers?" "What colour t-shirts are they selling at the merch stall?" "How good is this guy's guitar playing" etc. etc. and it was really fun.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to everyone, because if you're not careful you can find yourself never making any decisions. But it does add a nice element of chance into stories.

Hope this helps in some way!

 

[still watching fma]

This is coming from a new DnD DM, so take it with a grain of salt.

So in DnD, what you are doing at the core of the game is the following:

1. Challenge the world
2. DM decides the challenge difficulty
3. I roll to try and overcome the difficulty

What this translates to can be very simple. In a game on this site I wanted to persuade a drunken shopkeeper that his health potion was too much.

1. I initiated the challenge in character. This means I would in a optimal situation write out his thought process, feelings, and actions like a normal rp post.
2. The DM decides aight, the challenge is 5.
3. DM tells me if I succeed. In this case I did, so I got a discount because my character's persuasion attempt was a success.

This was a very simple scenario. The DM could have given it to me for free. Or if I had failed, he could have made the gnome mad and jacked up the price just for me. This exchange shows the simple variety that could come from using dice to rp. By putting failure on the line, I turned a simple transaction into something that could be an adventure on its own if let's say, the gnome had a condition. Now in your games, what dice can be used for is a mutual agreement on success. Let's say you and your rp partner are running away from a monster that you can't kill. It's barreling down on you. So in the ooc you can discuss what happens next.

Let's say you and your partner now decide that there's a chasm and its muddy from last night's rain. You both decides, we're going to roll 20 sided dice and need a 10 to clear the 20 foot gap safely. Both of you roll. One succeeds and you fail. Now here's where the story takes a turn that neither of you saw coming. Your partner in character tunnel visions, they can only hear their own breathing as they're frantically running. Running and running for what seems to be an eternity. They jump over and just barely make it. IN character they're panting and feel pain in their chest, but something's wrong. Your partner's character doesn't see you. They turn around to find the beast roaring at your partner, while you are nowhere to be seen.

You then can rp falling into a raging river. You rolled a 9, so you trip. You lose momentum and the beast is gaining on you. Rather than being captured, you thrust yourself forward and jump into the chasm and hear there's a river. Dread fills your heart, but being taken by the monster fills you with more dread. So you take the chance and black out.

Discuss in occ. Your partner is now separated from you. And you need to figure out what happens. Roll. Come up with 3 outcomes. create a range for each. then roll to see what happens. Then start the next chapter of your rp by making that story related post.

Notice how in both situations it's our characters and they're challenging the world. This is when you roll. When something is hard enough that you can fail, roll. If it's easy, mundane or inconsequential, don't roll. This is why I love dice in rp. I'm a story guy through and through and maybe a bit of a drama llama. But I like dice because it's a fair and impartial way to mix things up and can in some ways, gamify the rp so it feels like your character is growing in power. Although that requires a system.

 

[Julian Spooner]

Thanks guys this is really helpful! I'm excited for the possibilities.

My boyfriend is trying to convince me to do D&D, I may have to take him up on it.

 

[still watching fma]

Glad I could help. :3

 

[Grey]

I'll just leave this here Tutorial - Dice & You