Games minus the Dice

Broken has been a good lesson in design. In the process of trying to make the game mechanics better suit the premise, I have worked through several ideas, each seemingly better than the last. My most recent idea is extraordinarily obvious, yet I didn't think about it--games don't require randomizers to be games.

Think chess, think checkers, think go, think tic tac toe, think hangman. None of those games have any sort of dice or related randomizing device. The game's pleasure, its uncertainty, derives from the other player or players involved.

So, don't make Broken with a randomizer as its engine. Breaking from the standard model of games, don't even set determinate success and failure conditions. Cut the play time down to two hours, one session. The goal of play is to develop the story, with the players moving round robin through the different roles (say, a switch every half hour). The 'goal' of the game is simple: develop the story in an interesting direction given the constraints of the role (steel driver, lawyer, Law, or destined bounder) you currently occupy.

The Law gets the most narrative input, but since the roles rotate, everyone should get a chance in the hotseat. Retain the props (the nails, the stones, the scraps of paper, the strange character records). More to follow.