Numberless Mechanics

[Rob Lang]

Welcome 77IM! And what a great first post.

Voting is OK, playing cards is OK. Anything in 77's post is cool. Ranking is OK too.

[occultsearcher]

There was a wargame-ish mechanic. I do not remember it's name. But it was something like this:

"Because my forces are ________(adjective) and ________(adjective), I can ________(action) _________(target)."
Example: "Because my forces are fresh and well-armed, I can attack that village over there."

One can easily implement this to RPGs, I suppose. Where adjectives become player qualities and with (FATE style) predetermined action types.

EDIT
I found the mechanics: The Matrix.
For more info:

[Anastylos]

Thanks for that awesome game. I will try it out.

Just to make sure: Are we allowed to think about the rpgs we want to create and are allowed to make notes already?

[Onix]

[koipond]

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Vocabulary! I don't plan on using this, but it could be a fun (and potentially silly) mechanic to implement. In order to succeed at something, you must sacrifice a word from your vocabulary for the duration of the game and either replace it with gibberish or a "blank" (that is to say, you hold up a blank card or raise your hand or somehow indicate that a word (or multiple words) is/are absent from your statement.

[Evil Scientist]

In such cases, I'm always facing a slight dilemma... On one hand, I'm a sucker for interesting (and maybe even novelty) mechanics. But on the other hand, I don't like my RPGs turning into boardgames or 'party games' (nothing bad about party games or boardgames, though)! Guess I'm somewhat conservative... I love dice. Mechanics that strongly affect the meta-game (e.g. by making you drop words or by making you sing, etc) are not my cup of tea. Though if I change my mindset to "let's play this as a board game!" and forget about RPGs, I can be totally into almost any creative and interesting game!

Any of you guys experiencing such problems?

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Well, some of the examples, especially earlier on, were more "let's think up silly things to get our brains working creatively".

I think you can certainly have numberless mechanics but still have a rewarding roleplaying experience. You might find some interesting reading in ; some of them use numbers, but all of them employ drastic shifts in the gaming paradigm.

[flavour]

I keep thinking about rock paper scissors as a conflict resolution mechanic, but I'm not sure whether it would work out not.

My main worry is things turning into a board game like last year (I feel your pain Evil Scientist), but on the other hand, I'd like at least somewhat novel and balanced mechanics, which board game styled things offer. I guess it will be a bit of a balancing act, ensuring that the any mechanics are used to direct and inform the role-playing, and not replace it.

[Evil Scientist]