mostly because the discussion has moved on to maybe using the Wushu/Asmo's Greed systems, which are built around being awarded extra dice for moves by roleplaying well.. Those systems don't really work without dice.
There are ways of playing Wushu diceless. In fact, before the Wushu wiki got hacked, there were at least one or two diceless houserulings but that's not so important.
This is what's important:
I was told to do mind-numbing simplicity, and I attempted just that. And I did so with the assumption that it would be so simple that no major holes would be picked in it and roleplaying would remain centre-stage.
My sentiments are similar.
I came late to this hoping to see spiffy writing and cooperation--a brave new chapter of the Mythos well under way.
What I found was the rules steadily being de-simplified, roleplaying de-emphasized to the point of some prefunctory afterthought, and an aversion to dice that strikes me as odd in light of all the other things people are willing to impose.
But non-automated dicerolls are iffy? True. I guess it drives us back to the real problem: There's more competiveness and distrust between the lot of us than interest in collaborative creation and good sportspersonship. :P
I think the key things I need to say are
1)To my disappointment, Vault War, to the players, seems to be no longer--if it ever was--about the roleplaying. I was interested to know what everyone's plans for their characters and their emotional arcs might be and how these incarnations of our characters might change even more. Maybe I skipped over those parts in my rush to catch up? Someone link me to the posts, if I did.
2)Let's all forget about Wushu for a moment. We can all agree this game is facing a problem. The competitive aspect is completely overshadowing the roleplaying, but the competitive aspect was part of the original point. It's a conundrum.
Vault War has a competitive aspect which is apparently critical enough that it looks as though VW's resurrection or doom lies in making the gaming aspect work. I mean, it's dominated just about all OOC talk.
If we aren't just accepting that the roleplaying aspect is being completely relegated to afterthought flavor text, and we aren't completely jettisoning the conquest aspect into being a separate IC-only thing, then it seems reasonable to somehow connect
invested attempts at roleplaying to rewards of tactical advantage. Whether Wushu, Asmo's Greed, or something else heretofore unmentioned, dice in themselves mean nothing to me and probably anyone else in favor of them.
The thing is finding a solution somehow pleasing to enough people for this thing to limp along.
Until someone proposes something else that seems functionally sound, I'm personally leaning toward Asmo's Greed
or dropping the gaming aspect altogether for some collaborative/semi-collaborative over-arching freeform plot.
The purpose of this post was to clarify my feelings and logic.
My opinion is that fixating on strategy yet complaining about dice seems like trying to have one's cake and eat it too. If dice seem too constraining, then let's go full freeform. If we can't go full freeform because arbitration is necessary... Well, again, trust. No system or refusal of system will remedy that. It begins with the players and unity of purpose.