Roleplaying in-game decisions based on dice rolls (SPOILERS)

Lemernis

Just to spice things up, I've been toying with the idea of playing the game in such a way that for certain things that I normally do by rote, instead I will roll the dice.

I don't want to get too carried away. Some things will still follow my character concept and alignment. If I'm Good I won't do evil things, etc. And I may have an idea of what type of person the characer is. For example, I may know from the outset that my character will take Imoen along when she asks to join.

But perhaps not. And if that is something that I feel can be left to the Fates, I will toss a coin. Or I'll place a deck of cards next to me and if the next card I turn over is a red suit then yes, or a black suit then no.* Likewise I could roll a d20 and if the result is 1-9 then no, 10-20 then yes. Whatever the mechanism for yes or no.

So the list of things that come to mind for what Fate may decide:

• Do I go wilderness exploring?
• What general direction to travel when exploring the wilderness? Roll a d4. 1= N, 2=E, 3=S, 4=W.
• Do I initiate conversation with a joinable NPC?
• The joinable NPCs I speak with. Do I take their quests? If yes, if the party is full, who will be dropped? Maybe then roll a d6, excluding 1 as self (reroll then), and the other numbers are the order in which I added the respective NPCs (eg, if Imoen is along and I roll a 2, she gets dropped).
• Home base: After visiting each new inn that could be a potential base location, do I want to stay here instead?

Now, plotline quests have to be completed. So I will take the Nashkel mines quest, etc. But how I get there is something that could be far from ordinary.

As I said, I can be selective about what things I do this for. But that's the general idea.

Playing this way, what sorts of things do you think you might let the dice decide for you?






* To really go wild with this I may try it using Tarot cards. But that's a little more complicated idea to be developed in another thread, perhaps.

Troodon80

Could be interesting. For the directional based roll, you would have to re-roll if it turned out that you were at the edge of the map and couldn't go (n) direction. Also ignoring rolls when it comes to Cloakwood, since there's only really one way of getting through that.

You could also do a roll to let someone go; that could depend on a bonus for being good or evil - d6, one for each of the alignments, roll over (n) to commit an action. There are a couple places where you can either kill someone or let them go. For example, there's a bandit that you can allow to leave in Cloakwood, and I generally do so - but then again, bandits = evil, and evil must be vanquished .

Interesting concept, though. I might try that on my next run.

Delvarian

It's overly complicated, and I love that about it

Lemernis

Well, remember that you can always decide what's in-character as you imagine your PC. You might only leave a handful of decisions up to Fate. And at least as I'll be playing it, you can take what you learn into account. (Unless the PC has really low Wisdom.)

But I'm actually really intrigued by where this will take me if I do it often, and what sorts of adjustments it will force. At various points I may not have a healer, thief, wizard, etc.

If I roleplay this assiduously, and don't use meta-knowledge, embarking on the first dungeon crawl if the party lacks a thief will definitely be a learning experience. But after that I will know better than to descend into a dungeon without a thief. Etc. (I could also choose to turn around and abandon the crawl, I guess.)

Anduin

I like this idea... I would have to use it when your character does not know where to go (even if you do...) I would roll a d4 for direction, but modify it if I found a sign in game that gave the directions. I just found a sign saying south to Beregost, so I would give the option for him to go without rolling.

Is it a myth you can get the game to roll a dice for you?

Lemernis

@Anduin Not sure about whether the game can do that, but there's a dice roller here at WotC.

Sniiiimon

I like it! It's an interesting idea, but I can't help but think about Gary Gygax's cameo on Futurama.

"Greetings, it's a..." *rolls a pair of dices and looks over the result* "...PLEASURE to meet you!"

Rest in peace, Mr. Gygax.

Anduin

@lemernis Nice! Quicker than the old fashioned method... Although I do have a vast collection of dice from my Games workshop days.

I am almost certain you can get BG to roll for you, using a cluaconsole command. Although that webpage on WotC makes it entirely redundant (unless you play full screen)

Lemernis

I'm torn now between trying this for my next game (keeping a very terse diary of it) and the game I had already planned to dual-class all of the NPCs.