[Broken] Why narrative over dice?

Okay, so I have talked a little about the tectonic shift that has occurred in the Broken projects as I labored to bring the concept and mechanics more in line with each other. I just want to make an observation about why a more straight-out narrative structure works for the game.

Two comments stuck with me from the Game Chef reviewers. The first was that you should never design a game around the presupposition that you can't trust your players. This motivated my first big revision (namely, throwing out the powers list in favor of a player-driven creation on the fly). It has also motivated my move away from dice altogether--trust that your players will play the game as you describe it and you don't need the dice to regulate them.*

Another reviewer observed that the mechanics were far too weak to support the sort of play promised in the premise. The Broken can break the laws of the universe and the game just didn't show that. Especially in the version submitted to Game Chef, it had a cheesy point system better suited to (and clearly based on) a Storyteller game. How to resolve this? Well, first off, strip away the restrictions placed on the characters by the dice.

The most obvious route seemed to be taking the dice out altogether. I imagine other routes could have done the job--like having players roll *lots* of dice, but most entail building in limits to the players use of those dice that didn't suit the freedom of their characters. Pure narrative lets them deploy their power 'raw.' Instead, I'll build in a bidding system that uses stones (from the Law), nails (from the steel driver), brief legal excerpts (from the lawyer), and character fetish features to determine whether a given player's push can alter the narrative direction of the destined bounder.

The visual depletion of resources also suits the sensibility of the game--a visceral struggle with the universe as opposed to a mathematical equation. It also allows the players to attempt to 'break' each other--deplete their resources so that they cannot oppose the direction they give the story (and how cool would it be for the Broken to 'wear down' the Law itself?).

*Note: This does not mean that any use of dice reflects a distrust of the players. There are plenty of reasons to use dice beyond control. It just turns out that the dice weren't doing much but limiting players in Broken.