I wrote up a diceless resolution system that uses only your hands! It is useful for RPGs played as you tromp through the woods with your kid.
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how fun!
is the reason you do not like the original diceless technique because it is always 50/50? if so, here is a tweak to it: instead of going with even/odd (ie modulo 2), use the last digit (ie modulo 10). for example, you set a difficulty of 7 and tell the player this. you both hide up to ten fingers behind your back and reveal them at the same time. say the player shows 9 fingers and the gm 4. that’s a 3, which is below 7 and therefore a fail. (just remember that 10 is zero, so there are only three rolls that would succeed, not four)
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I toyed with a fixed Target Number but found it too close to pbta dice resolution for my liking; that is to say it depended less on PC investment/energy economy and trended toward favoring the player.
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Hey, I did something similar with my kid! For hard stuff I had her guess between 1-4 down to easy stuff guessing between 1-2. I had to remind her not to just guess 1 every time though haha
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this is super fun to think about.
distance. each player hides and reveals fingers. the result is the absolute value of the difference. let’s say high is good. if the GM is picking randomly, the player is incentivized to pick very high or low. but the GM can also decide to play that game, and then its a mind game / coin toss as to if the result is tiny or huge. or one/both of them can hedge. maybe fun? if you’ve seen Morra, it’s a lot like that.
2d6. each player hides and reveals fingers, but it matters which hands. first add up the left hands, and take the remainder after dividing by 6, and then add 1. that’s one of the d6’s. then the other one is the right hands.
paper, rock, scissors, lizard, spock. pretty obvious and limited. but can be fun, I’ve done this with my kids and we enjoyed it.
the next two are not “fair” at all. but could be a fun way to get kids to do some mental math.
multiply. each player hides and reveals fingers. the result is the last digit of the product.
line. the GM declares a (small-ish) number, call it x. each player hides and reveals fingers. the result is the last digit of ax+b, where a is from the player and b from the GM.
I know BTRC published a system long ago that uses fingers in that fashion. Attacker and defender each divvy up their points for combat and then reveal hands at the same time. I’ve lost the details over time, yet thought it interesting when Porter explained it to me at GenCon.
Uhh, I like that!
There is also a tactical element in choosing how much stamina to spent. With a kid finger counting is propably great fun. I do prefer to carry a die in my purse, but for walking around I might actually try this. Thanks 
Thanks! I’m working on expanding it a bit; adding combat, magic, and a few archetypes/classes.
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I’ve been using a weighted rock paper scissors resolution for years.
It is kind of amazing because the player’s description of their action feeds into whether they succeed or fail and what happens next.
Like if the player was trying to shoot someone from the shadows and the GM imagined that failure would be the wrong person getting killed then a character being sneaky or precise would likely win whereas a character being determined or aggressive would lose. If the GM was imagining a miss that sends the enemies into chaos then the character who is more quick or precise would likely win and a character trying to be creative or determined would lose.
If you are certain that the GM couldn’t possibly have picked a particular flavour of failure you can play around it and have it matter.
10 free copies for the community: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?discountId=98933a6341
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