I mentioned in the past how despite my enjoyment of games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins I am trying to move away from that style of Bioware morality red blue ending etc.
Here is a new diceless game structure I propose to evolve away from this: I call it 666 MODE, and you can see an illustration of it here (it probably only makes sense if you followed the setting in the game)
>>5396216>>53962181/ Create two story perspectives, I call it the Frame and the Main story. The setup for the Frame can be an intro, with the characters observing or commentating on what is occurring in the Main story.
2/ The Frame / intro should be fairly minimal. Importantly, the Frame should be a bit mysterious, with a HIDDEN THING left unexplained. You could do this by featuring an unexplained unseen item, an unrevealed hidden character, or even the entire location is unknown
3/ In the Main story, run and play through the game as usual. If players manage to link it back to the Frame story / Intro characters, then GREAT! This will make your life easier.
4/ At a critical point in the Main story - break off. DO NOT SHOW THE ENDING / outcome. Instead, switch back to the mysterious Intro Frame, have the characters there comment on the player's progress or what has occurred as a consequence of their choices.
5/ Finally, 666 MODE: using the consequences of player choices from the Main story, and any connections they made back to the mysterious Intro Frame story, create a 1d6 x 1d6 x1d6 table.
The first d6 is various outcomes/endings of the Intro Frame characters and THE HIDDEN THING; the 2nd d6 is a blend zone of peripheral and Main story characters; the 3rd d6 is endings for the player character.
You want a spread of outcomes and endings and possibilities; my preference is to halve it so that for each d6 short snippet ending, 1-3 are vaguely bad, 4-6 vaguely good, but you could also try 1-2 bad, 3-4 weird/surreal/comedy ending, 5-6 good etc in tone, or even make it completely emotionally discontinuous.
6/ Any player can roll 3d6. They can either take the results in order on the 1d6 x 1d6 x1d6 lookup table, or rearrange their rolls to choose their own ending. This makes the only roll meaningful at the end of the game, because you are rolling for an outcome, not a +2 to hit in a long sequence of simulationist rolls etc. Every player gets their own unique ending based on the common consequences of the game.
If this sounds too complicated, you can see my attempt at this in the Epilogue of my quest The LIGHTNING SEA.
>>5396216>>5396218 