do rpgs have to be about numbers?

mini-article is up front, dev update is further down it's something i've been thinking about a lot lately. i'm not someone who naturally comes up with new game mechanics, i'm much more of a story-focussed person, but one thing i do like to think about is a new type of rpg that moves beyond numbers as the basis of everything. obviously this is pretty hard. we use numbers for a reason. even if people complain about too much maths or keeping track too many stats, it is generally just the easiest method of play to say something like "if you hit this number you pass, if you fall under you don't". i probably don't play enough rpgs for me to feel this way, but i don't think anything truly revolutionary can be done in the world of rpgs until we find a way to move beyond numbers altogether. tbh, replacing numbers on a die with drawing cards or using tokens is still "numbers" to me, because they could still somewhat easily be substituted with just using numbers. i'm generally not satisfied with…