this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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Dice are pretty much synonymous with RPGs, but there are a few rare systems that forego them altogether, like Castle Falkenstein.

What are some other systems that don't use dice? Are there any that completely remove luck/random chance on "important player actions"?

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[–] Covok@ttrpg.network 1 points 4 hours ago

Chuubo's Marvelous Wish Granting Engine is an amazing diceless game. It works by having a different view on success/failure. You use your own stats to set your Intention Level and then that get compared to an interpretative chart to determine how well your intention goes. The worst is essentially "you only make yourself happy" and it gets as good as "you satisfy everyone's desires." But, it's worded differently and you can always choose a lower result than what you get if it fits your real goal better.

Eidolon: Become Your Best Self uses a Tarot deck made up of specific cards. Each one has a polarity that determines "full success," "partial success" and "failure" (postive, neutral, and negative, respectively). You draw a number of cards from the deck equal to your relevant stat when making a move and pick your favorite for the scene. You pick two neutral cards to be special by picking them as like your "favorite" and "least favorite" and get a class specific effect when you choose them (and must always choose your least favorite if it comes up). Any unused cards are returned to the Tarot deck, which might sound tedious but the game is designed to not have a ton of checks.

[–] Keilik@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

One of my favorites is Dread, a free horror based TTRPG that uses a jenga tower. It’s a great way to traumatize your friends and I would highly recommend it

[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 week ago

Wyrd Games's Through the Breech uses a deck of standard playing cards with modified suits. You can use normal playing cards with their suit cheat sheet.

It is based on their table top skirmish game Malifaux. Set in a magical world connected to our own through the Breech. It is a Victorian Steampunk horror setting.

[–] coreworlder@feddit.uk 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Amber Diceless which compares stats with GM fiet based on the situation.

Everway which also compares stats but if things are close has the GM interpret a picture card.

DramaSystem which is designed for PvP play and trades tokens for conceding a scene (and multiple tokens can be spent to force another player to conced).

Fiasco which does use dice, but not (as random number generators) to determine outcomes. A player, on their turn, can choose to establish a scene or hand that responsibility off to the rest of the group. Whoever doesn't do that picks if the outcome of the scene is good or bad for that player's character (subject to the availability of good or bad tokens in the pool). Second editor ditches the dice entirely and adds cards instead, I haven't played that version.

For the Queen isn't a traditional RPG. It provides a card deck that asks questions about characters. Figuring out the answers lets everyone learn about all the characters (including their own).

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

oh man I had a blast with a group at a con doing amber diceless long back.

[–] austinfloyd@ttrpg.network 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

In my mind, it very quickly went from something implausible (how would that system work well) to one of my favorites after playing. Still lucky enough to be in a long Amber campaign with an awesome group.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

it plays like diplomacy. a lot of guessing. how does it work long term. do the ranking change each session or something?

[–] austinfloyd@ttrpg.network 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Sorry for the long reply

Running Amber DRPG as a diplomacy focused story is certainly an option, especially if you're doing a throne war campaign. There are certainly other setups beyond this (we started immediately following book 5 as grandchildren of Oberon). While every PC and NPC certainly has their own motivations and schemes, there is no requirements as to how political you need to be (Gerard notoriously hated the petty scheming of his siblings; Benedict doesn't care as long as Amber remains stable).

As for advancement (which I think is what you're alluding to with ranking change): if you're following the book's rules as written, the #1 in each rank for each generation cannot change (Benedict will always lead in warfare). Advancement is also blind, so you will no longer know your stats.

As for why it has run a long time: thankfully, I have a great GM that has crafted a compelling story and wonderful players that agree on the tone of the game and are reliable. It also helps that we started as 100pt characters, so there has been room for growth and development.

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 4 days ago

ok so the #1 is always npc's then? Sorry the diplomacy comment was from the european ww1esque strategy game dipomacy. Its diceless and now that I think of it its not really similar its just the way it plays feel is similar. In amber you guessing peoples relative ranks while in diplomacy your guessing who is going to ally with who. Allies tend to be public for bluff and bluster and secret to mislead. basically you win by having larger forces and forces have to be surrounded to be eliminated and come back based on resources but the way it works you have to leave things alone so people try to get enemies to undercommit or hit them with overwelming force in an area. anyway its hard to explain but the backstabbing and secrecy make it feel similar to me.

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Well, Sea Dracula is pretty unique. Players settle conflicts by having a dance-off.

[–] voik@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 week ago

Amber is a classic example that comes up in these discussions.

Intrepid uses playing cards instead of dice to resolve scenes and combat. For scenes, two people each narrate an outcome, and players vote on the version they prefer using red or black playing cards. A card is then selected and that outcome becomes the truth, so there is still an element of randomness.

In combat, each suit has a specific meaning for the ebb and flow of the battle, jokers change the scene, and the first person to draw the 4th ace wins the fight.

Most of Ben Robbins' don't have a random element at all and conflicts are resolved through procedure. Follow uses two coloured stones/poker chips/tokenswhich are drawn from a bag, similar to Intrepid. He also provides a "finger dice" system for getting dice-like results without using dice. On a signal, every player throws from 0 to 5 fingers, and groups of 5 fingers are eliminated. The remainder is roughly equivalent to a d6 roll.

[–] runner_g@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 week ago

The Quiet Year uses a deck of cards. The goal of the game is to rebuild a community after collapse. 1 campaign takes place over 1 year in game.

Weave was a game where you used an app and special tarot cards to build your characters and run the game, but I think the servers have gone offline, which is a shame. There was little balance to the character building but it was a lot of fun.

[–] eerongal@ttrpg.network 3 points 1 week ago

"His majesty the worm" uses a deck of tarot cards, minor arcana for players and major arcana for the GM. Combat plays as a sort of "poker game"

[–] Ziggurat@jlai.lu 2 points 1 week ago

Nobody talked about Castle Falkenstein which used playing cards instead of dices.

An interesting stuff is that you know your hand, and choose which card to play. So let's say you have an Easy success, A success if you have a good-skill and a guaranteed failure for the scene. How do you manage-it ? It has interesting game-play consequence both tactically and narratively but it stayed pretty uncommon

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 week ago

I mean minds eye uses paper scissor rock but thats still random outside of the win tie rules and such.