Gaming: "Mostly Diceless"
We played Unknown Armies last Thursday. The game system really fits the way I've always liked to play: "Mostly Diceless." I don't mind playing with no dice and I have nothing against games where dice is rolled a lot (Champions is one of my favorite games) but when I GM, I like to have the occasional dice roll. Most actions, even most fights, don't really require dice rolls. If your highly trained Knight meets up with an Orc guarding a Pie that he wants and he decides to fight him instread of offering to buy the Pie, then why bother rolling. The outcome is pretty much a given. The only time a dice roll should be required is when the outcome isn't a given AND it is important to the scenario. Otherwise, don't worry about it.

Of course, when the outcome is very important, it's nice to be able to let the dice fall where they may. I may have said this here before, but I'd like to say it again. As the GM, I want the players to succeed. I want them to live. The dice don't care. This adds a real threat to the game. They might not succeed. (In my games they usually do, but it's not a given. I don't think it should be.)

Unknown Armies seems to support this kind of roleplaying. The basic percentage that a skill is listed at is the chance that a character succeeds in the worst case scenario. Anything less and why require a roll?

Unfortunately, in last Thursday's game, I could tell the GM was not used to putting the dice aside. He had us roll for some pretty mundane things. I've never played with B. as a GM before, but I know he usually GMs a D&D game and it showed. Hopefully, this week he'll be more comfortable.

One of the things I'm really liking about UA is the "sanity" system. UA is a game of modern horror and magic. Like Call of Cthulu, characters will be exposed to all kinds of stress that could possible push someone over the edge. In CoC, Investigators are given sanity points that slowly deplete until the poor sould gets an all-expense paid trip to teh asylum. In UA, they broke the different types of sanity tests in to categories like "Supernatural", "Helplessness" and "Violence." When a character is exposed to these things they may become hardened that type of test or they may start losing points. Becoming harened against something can be almost as dangerous as losing it. A character who becomes very hardened to violence may shoot a hostage to get at the bad guy. The character is so desensitized to violence that they don't feel the wrongness of it anymore. "The girl was dead no matter what, Chief. I had to make sure the guy didn't escape."