The 'Why' of 'Dice Free'

Dungeons & Dragons was my first official roleplaying game, the red box with two red books and a funny dice set. It remains nowadays the iconic picture of the roleplaying phenomenon: a gang of geeky teenagers tossing odd dices around a paper, moving miniatures on squared maps and adding up their damage bonuses. The games we played at this time were fairly straightforward: enter the dungeon, kill the monsters, grab the loot. The characters were also either straight archetypal or totally off the map's edge, near unreal - even for imaginary characters. The fun was no lesser.

Growing up in age an maturity, the games' focus varied, became elaborated. Characters gained in depths, in equilibrium, in realism. I tried game systems and settings one after the other, went through more characters than I can shake a Wand of Wonder at. With time, my dices gathered more and more dust while my pen and paper got more and more used. The squared paper maps got replaced by my imagination, the damage bonuses by background work and so forth. Game lawyers turned to be my worst nightmares (you know, those who follow the rules by the book). That's what happens when you choose to apply the number one Golden Rule of all roleplaying and storytelling games: The first rule of all rules is to have fun. If another rule comes in the way of fun, change it or ditch it.

Ultimately, the tossing of the dices was... well... tossed aside mostly. In the games now I play, 'scrying the bones' is now only relied upon when the illusion of neutrality is paramount to keep the fun going. What makes the 'meat' of the games is how characters act, react, talk and evolve in their own imaginary universe. Characters have become more valuable than all the gold in a dragon's hoard. The fun is no bigger but it lasts way, way longer. Maybe one day I'll only need the Golden Rule, to go with my imagination.