Numberless Mechanics

[Nifara]

So I thought it might be a cool idea to get the creative juices going by posting some ideas of non-numeric resolution mechanics that we can come up with. The more outlandish the better!

I'll start us off:

Musical Contests - All contests are resolved via rap battles or singing competitions.
Eating Contests - The person to eat the most donuts wins (beware the hungry GM).
Color Matching - The winner is the person who can mix paints to most exactly match the shade of color determined by the GM.
Simon Says - The first person to make a mistake playing Simon Says (only do the action stated if "Simon says") loses the contest.
Realism Mode - Actual sword fights, with actual swords. First person to die loses.

What ideas can you come up with?

[Onix]

I don't know if this'll deplete me of ideas or get the creative juices flowing.

Custom cards included in a separate pocketmod. Just cut them out.

fun but very hard and time consuming.
Assign words to difficulties and then use one of those letter d20s to resolve the action. It's a bit of cheating though unless you obfuscate it a bit more. The same could be done with symbols.

Pure narrative authority - "You may narrate what happens next" Would probably work best if players have conflicting sub agendas that will drive the game back and fourth.

Paper Rock Scissors.

Jenga tower? No that's been done.

Run the game Clue like. Each enemy has three elements that the players guess at. They can ask questions to get clues and guess when they think they have it. If they fail, they are knocked out of the scene. Lot of loose ends there, but I like it.

Rhyme the next line. You have to come up with a poetic reply that fits the situation. If the GM can rhyme a line back, you have to rhyme another line. Hope your GM isn't a poet.

[Anastylos]

Maybe I will use tarot cards or some other nonnumerical cards as numerless mechanics.

[Evil Scientist]

[Rob Lang]

Bartering with words only. Like a barter economy where you can't use numbers to agree something. Perhaps putting up things that are facets that are important to your character.

Eg: I'm going to risk "my good health on this action", "well, I'm going to risk my wealth", "I'll risk my family, friends, etc"... Then GM picks person risking the most.

[J.K.Mosher]

Blind draws would work . . . a bag with marbles or poker chips with the majority of them being say black and only a couple being red or white. Player declares an action and draws from a bag. Pull a Black "marble" and you succeed, draw a red one you fail, draw a white partial success.

Can work with cards using card colors and suits, with aces, kings, queens, jacks and jokers being special results. . . attacking a raptor . . . land an hit when you draw a club, draw a king of clubs and you kill it with one hit, draw a heart it chews your arm off.

[Rob Lang]

NICE JK. Like it. Blind draw.

[77IM]

Here are some alternative technologies for quantifying things ("back-door numbers"):

1) Any clear ranking. Like, use a deck of cards with only face cards: Ace beats King, King beats Queen, Queen beats Jack; in the event of a tie, spades beat hearts beat diamonds beat clubs.

Minor/moderate/major works too, or weak/medium/strong/very strong, etc.

2) Re-draws/re-rolls. For example, if your card draw is a failure but you have a Strong or Very Strong ability, you can re-draw. If THAT draw fails, then if it's a Very Strong ability you can re-draw again.

3) For-each. "For each skill you have that applies, you can elect to draw an additional card."

-- 77IM

[Onix]

Many of these are logic rules, if thens. I was going to suggest a system where resolution was based on a set of logical rules but that's pretty generic and it looks like you gents are already exploring that.

You could use a single fudge die. A + is a good result, a - is a bad result with a blank being neutral. Only that doesn't leave much room for character skill. You could use 77IM's re roll mechanic in that case. You'd never add up your rolls, you'd just take the best. If the GM decides you're at a disadvantage you'd roll again and take the worst. If you have a trait that gives you an advantage, and the GM says you've got a disadvantage they negate each other.

Even that's getting awful close to using numbers, although not explicitly.

[Random_Phobosis]

Does voting qualify? Technically you have to count votes, but I wouldn't say identifying majority/minority is "numbers". What do you think?