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Greetings fellow designers,

For this topic, I am looking for resolution mechanics you have encountered that do not involve traditional dice or card mechanics. I would love to hear the high level overview of how it works, what game you found it in, and if it worked when you played it.


Now, those who know me will find that I think Innovation is over-rated. However, I am never averse to learning more about a mechanic that I can apply for myself.

I have a few, but I will hold onto them in case we need to prime the pump a bit.

Bidding is something that doesn't get used enough. There's all sorts of game-theoretic models that could be used to make amusing ways of resolving stuff like duels or units attacking other units.

 Easy E wrote:
Greetings fellow designers,

For this topic, I am looking for resolution mechanics you have encountered that do not involve traditional dice or card mechanics. I would love to hear the high level overview of how it works, what game you found it in, and if it worked when you played it.


Now, those who know me will find that I think Innovation is over-rated. However, I am never averse to learning more about a mechanic that I can apply for myself.

I have a few, but I will hold onto them in case we need to prime the pump a bit.

While still a kind of normal card mechanic, Moonstone (https://moonstonethegame.com) does a couple neat things.

For "Arcane" abilities (magic, special abilities, ranged attacks), the acting player draws a number of cards from a special deck, and the opponent draws 6 cards. This deck has 3 colors, with values of 1 (x3), 2 (x2), and 3 (x1), and 3 "Catastrophe" cards. Each ability states what color it needs and what the effect is (e.g., X-Blue, heal X). The active player then declares what they are playing and places a card face down. The opponent then has to either accept that call, or say the active player is bluffing, based on what cards they have in their hand. If the active player is bluffing, the opponent replaces the card with one from their hand (usually a Catastrophe if possible). If it was not a bluff, the active player gets to use the ability again, with the remaining cards in their hand if they choose.

For melee combat, each player draws from a different special deck a number of cards equal to their melee skill. There are a bunch of cards available, and several different maneuvers (I can't list them all, but stuff like "High guard" and "Thrust" and so on). Each player picks one and places it face down, then reveal simultaneously. It's kind of a rock-paper-scissors deal, where you deal a different amount of damage based on what your opponent played (e.g., a High Guard vs. a Falling Swing will wind up with no damage to either, but a Thrust v a Rising Attack will cause damage to both). There's a few other modifiers in there, but that's the gist.

Another old game, Alkemy, used a simpler set of combat maneuver cards (I think it only had 3) which you picked in secret as above, but they adjusted the dice roll as I recall.

The old Darksword RPG used a 1-10 Rock-Scissors-Paper system to resolve stuff, with 10 different hand signs and the resulting values for throwing them vs the DM.

Not so much a wargame but the game Ryu involves collecting coloured cubes by exploring. When you explore, you flip a token to determine if you draw 4 or 5 coloured cubes from a bag (which I suppose is a D2, really). If you get 4, you draw them, then take 1, the opponent takes 2 and then you take the last one. If you draw 5, the opponent splits them into 2 piles, and you take one pile, they get the other. the aim is to get combinations of colours to make tiles of a robotic dragon. first person to make all 5 tiles wins.

Not really a wargame mechanic, but it's certainly an alternative to dice and cards!

Longest burp. Works well for anything to do with orcs ;-)

Nurglitch wrote:
Bidding is something that doesn't get used enough. There's all sorts of game-theoretic models that could be used to make amusing ways of resolving stuff like duels or units attacking other units.

Can you tell me more about this?

Bidding is used in Ryu as well, when a white cube is pulled, players bid for the cube - they put as many of their cubes in their hand and then open their hands at the same time, whoever bids the most cubes wins the white cube. all bidded cubes are returned to the bag, winner of white cube gets to make 1 piece of their dragon for free (which is a big deal, making players often bid over the odds for the cube!).

I imagine something similar could be done in a duel game, where you have so many stamina points, and you bid them on your actions to see who prevails. EG if you want to wear someone down, "feint" at the start by doing attacks but bidding low, to tire the opponent out as they bid high to block). I would have players gain stamina through some passive actions, like backing off and so on, but this would have to leave them open to opponents charging etc, so you would have to back off when they are staggered or something to make the most of it.

I think it could be really quite in-depth, actually. One for the list!