Hi!
ForgottenLore wrote:
Dice Mechanics
I think primarch and I think fairly similarly about dice mechanics in games, here are some thoughts I had on various ways of using dice and I will add some comments about what he said afterward
There are a few basic ways that games generally handle dice tests,
The GW method (also 1st ed D&D) - cross reference on a table. Take the Strength of the weapon and cross reference with the Toughness of the target to get the # you need to roll.
Advantages: The table doesn't have to follow a strict linear progression, we can skew the numbers at the extremes to make a pseudo bell curve of results, making extremes not as potentially breakable
Disadvantages: Tables tend to be complex and hard to memorize unless they do follow a set pattern, but if they are then why use a full table?
The AT-43 Method (also 2nd ed D&D) - Take the Attacker's stat, subtract the Defender's stat and reference a very simple table to get the target number.
Advantages: Very simple for players to memorize, stats are symmetrical (a 4 Strength is about equal to a 4 toughness)
Disadvantages: No room for skewing the results at the extremes. subtraction can be a little distracting and slow a game down slightly.
Warmahordes method (also 3rd ed D&D) - Instead of subtracting the defender's stat, simply use it as a target number for the attack roll. Attacker's stat +die roll needs to equal or beat the defender's stat
Advantages: Very very simple, requires no memorization or calculations on the part of the players just comparisons
Disadvantages: Stats are not symmetrical, a Strength of 5 is way better than a Toughness of 5, making it difficult to compare units at a glance. Odds are a fixed, linear progression, no room for us to tweak the probabilities
Defense roll method - In addition to the attackers rolling dice and adding their stat, the target unit rolls a die and adds their defense stat, whoever scores highest wins
Advantages: preserves the symmetry between stats while retaining the ease of use
Disadvantages: adds extra dice rolls, slowing the game down, creates weird circumstances like rolling a die to see how well your tank's armor absorbs damage this turn
Fantasy Flight method - use custom dice with unique symbol sets
Advantages - odds can be tailored to the designers wishes, opens a lot of design space. FFG claims they have market research that customers vastly prefer the custom dice. Multiple axis of variability can be included on each die, making it possibly to determine more than one thing with a single roll.
Disadvantages - need to have custom dice manufactured. Players need to purchase specialty dice and may suffer if they loose some. the completely wide open nature of such an option makes designing the system much harder because there can be so many more variables to account for.
Wonderful summary!
Indeed I went with the defense roll method, mainly because I wanted a system free of modifiers and looking up things.
Interestingly it did not occur to me that indeed certain die rolls does make certain concepts variable per turn (like armor absorption). I don't necessarily find it a sticking point since I like to add as much "unknown" to an equation to increase game tension, but I can definitely see how it can be view as an oddity.
Ironically the one I like the most, is the last one you mentioned. The Fantasy Flight Model. I love their games. I thought their WFRP 3rd edition had the best die mechanics for an RPG I had seen in a long time. Although it seems to have offended the sensibilities of traditional RPG'ers I thought that a roll that "told a story" was brilliant mechanics for that type of game.
In more recent times getting custom dice is easier and affordable, but it is still a con.
I would really have the "hots" to design a game with custom dice like that. It makes designing so much easier packing annoying rules into the dice instead of stand alone mechanics.
Quote:
Primarch, obviously, is advocating a defense roll method, where, for any given attack, both players are rolling dice and trying to beat the other. What he is suggesting though isn't really a multi-dice mechanic, it is just 2 single die mechanics being rolled together. not much different from a predator shooting a lascannon and the player rolling both the 2-hit and 2-wound rolls at the same time. As Markonz mentions, that precludes rolling a bunch of attacks simultaneously (ie all 9 attacks from a squadron of 3 tanks, all at once). If I am following Primarch's thoughts properly, his solution to that issue is to combine the overall fire of those 3 tanks into a single roll (correct me if that isn't what your proposing, P). That I don't like. It strikes me as too much abstraction, even for a 6mm scale game. What if those units want to target different targets? you have to recalculate the firepower involved for each attack then, wasting whatever time you save with the dice rolling mechanic. that also reduces the overall spread of your results because each roll has to be able to incorporate not just the variability of a given weapon, but also the variability of the number of weapons being fired (I'm not sure I explained that point adequately. I know what I'm trying to say, but I can't figure out how to say it clearly enough. Hopefully you all are smart enough to decipher it).
I get what your saying.
I'm not happy with the type of abstraction either in melding multi-model rolls into one. But the die rolling can get excessive in very large games.
Needless to say my tests leave me with the feeling that while there is a kernel of something good in the mechanic, it just does not have everything I want in it.
I tinkered with the system for a few years now. On and off. Not satisfied overall to sit done and organize it.
After your reminding me about custom die mechanics, I wonder if that is what I am missing and ultimately want.
A fusion between and defense system and custom die system sounds about where I'd like to be, which is similar to that WFRP game I mentioned since it would be basically constructing a die pool depending on the models characteristics and rolling your custom dice versus the defenders pool of custom dice.
Hmmm... with some Polyversal ideas, I am beginning to see the start of such a system.
Quote:
A modification to P's system that avoids that abstraction would be to return to rolling 2-hit and 2-damage separately and have each attack from a given unit (3 tanks, 10 infantry stands, whatever) be rolled against a single defense roll from the defender. So if 10 stands of Orks (for example) shoot at 3 stands of Space Marines, the Orks roll 10 dice to see how accurate their fire is and the SMs roll 1 die to see how hard they are for that unit of orks to hit them. Each of those 10 dice are then compared individually to the SMs 1 die to see if that specific shot hit. All the ones that hit are then rolled vs a single die to see how well protected the SMs are from those orks. I would thank that such a system would preserve P's desire for simple comparison of results without the need for excessive abstraction.
Another comment I wanted to make, however, comes from X-Wing and SW Armada. X-Wing uses a defense roll mechanic, the attacker rolls attack dice and the defender rolls defense dice and the results are compared, just as P suggests. The thing is, a lot (I mean A LOT) of people complain about how swingy that makes X-Wing. You can have a really good attack roll and end up doing nothing because the other guy had an even better defense roll. One of the most common things I read about Armada is how it FFG learned from X-Wing and removed the randomness of a defense roll. Instead, defense in Armada is handled by tokens that can be spent to apply defensive effects to an attack. Each token can be spent and refreshes at the end of the round, or it can be spent a second time during a round and actually discarded, removing it from the game permanently. Such a system not only reduces the randomness of combat some, but adds a set of decisions that need to be made during a part of the game that, in most wargames, is just a dice rolling fest.
I like some "swingyness" in my mechanics, to account for luck. But I agree too much just makes it a "pure luck no skill" game.
If your ever game to design a game let me know.
Primarch