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Alternatives to dice systems?
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this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2026
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Amber Diceless which compares stats with GM fiet based on the situation.
Everway which also compares stats but if things are close has the GM interpret a picture card.
DramaSystem which is designed for PvP play and trades tokens for conceding a scene (and multiple tokens can be spent to force another player to conced).
Fiasco which does use dice, but not (as random number generators) to determine outcomes. A player, on their turn, can choose to establish a scene or hand that responsibility off to the rest of the group. Whoever doesn't do that picks if the outcome of the scene is good or bad for that player's character (subject to the availability of good or bad tokens in the pool). Second editor ditches the dice entirely and adds cards instead, I haven't played that version.
For the Queen isn't a traditional RPG. It provides a card deck that asks questions about characters. Figuring out the answers lets everyone learn about all the characters (including their own).
oh man I had a blast with a group at a con doing amber diceless long back.
In my mind, it very quickly went from something implausible (how would that system work well) to one of my favorites after playing. Still lucky enough to be in a long Amber campaign with an awesome group.
it plays like diplomacy. a lot of guessing. how does it work long term. do the ranking change each session or something?
Sorry for the long reply
Running Amber DRPG as a diplomacy focused story is certainly an option, especially if you're doing a throne war campaign. There are certainly other setups beyond this (we started immediately following book 5 as grandchildren of Oberon). While every PC and NPC certainly has their own motivations and schemes, there is no requirements as to how political you need to be (Gerard notoriously hated the petty scheming of his siblings; Benedict doesn't care as long as Amber remains stable).
As for advancement (which I think is what you're alluding to with ranking change): if you're following the book's rules as written, the #1 in each rank for each generation cannot change (Benedict will always lead in warfare). Advancement is also blind, so you will no longer know your stats.
As for why it has run a long time: thankfully, I have a great GM that has crafted a compelling story and wonderful players that agree on the tone of the game and are reliable. It also helps that we started as 100pt characters, so there has been room for growth and development.
ok so the #1 is always npc's then? Sorry the diplomacy comment was from the european ww1esque strategy game dipomacy. Its diceless and now that I think of it its not really similar its just the way it plays feel is similar. In amber you guessing peoples relative ranks while in diplomacy your guessing who is going to ally with who. Allies tend to be public for bluff and bluster and secret to mislead. basically you win by having larger forces and forces have to be surrounded to be eliminated and come back based on resources but the way it works you have to leave things alone so people try to get enemies to undercommit or hit them with overwelming force in an area. anyway its hard to explain but the backstabbing and secrecy make it feel similar to me.