"Are cards really different from dice in general?" Topic

Your typical wargame uses the chance cube called the D6. This makes many wargames -somewhat- luck based by nature.

The shop I work at recently started carrying Malifaux. It uses cards, and sells itself on no longer having to trust the "fickle fate of dice". However, their "Fate Deck" is just a deck of cards (you can use either the 52 card deck or their proprietary cards). Seems just as fickle and chance-based as a set of dice, albeit with the potential for a higher range of numbers depending on what cards it calls for you to use.

Certainly it's different as you can store cards and use them later, allowing you to have a reliable bonus to your card draw, but is it really that different?

M.

With Malifaux, you also get a hand of cards which you can (in a nutshell) use to replace bad draws from the deck. So to some degree you can negate a bad draw if you have a good hand. That's not a whole lot different than a dice-based game that has some sort of reroll mechanism.

I feel you have answered the question yourself … cards allow more variables and more different probabilities than dice. You can use very unusulal dice or a table driven use of several dice probabilities; this allows dice (using normal curves of probailities) and cards (simple percentage and/or saving for later use) to be used in the same game.

The big difference is the effect prior draws have on later draws until the deck is reshuffled. Since the player knows half of the cards taken out the stock in a two-player game, he has enough information to make some predictions about later draws.

I agree with Mulopwepaul. Unless you reshuffle the random draw becomes predictable. I like how Command and Colors handles army command with cards. If a game used cards for CRT I would try it out but the # of draws between resuffles and the size of the deck would influence me playing the game again.

Chris

There are a lot of ways to use cards, so you can get anything from a functional duplicate of dice, to a guaranteed even distribution of results (by working through the whole deck), to a game where card-memory and hand-management entirely dominate over tactics on the table.

Personally I think we should go straight back to 1824 Kriegspiel, with different dice for different types/strengths of attack, and put the results right on the face of the die.

Andrew

As already pointed out, the deck of cards introduces variable probability for a given outcome, and a fixed number of outcomes of a given type. A die has six possibilities and a uniform probability for generating any of the six; although there is good reason to expect a relatively uniform distribution of results over multiple throws, there is no actual physical constraint on generating clusters of similar results. For a card deck that is infrequently shuffled (ie no replacement for some stretch of time), each occurence of an event diminishes the probability that that event will repeat, and the probabilities of other events occurring increase so long as there remain any relevant cards in the deck before a reshuffle occurs. And there is the interesting notion that all events that will occur have been queued in a fixed order until the reshuffle.

In short, they're not the same.

Dice= always random. Unless modified, any result retains the same probability of occurring throughout the game. Dice are therefore completely unpredictable.

Cards= only "perceptually" random; e.g. the order of results is indeed fixed, and the probability of a result occurring is either nil (because it isn't the next card to be drawn) or 100% (because it is)— only the fact that a player does not know the order of cards makes the result appear random. The only "random" element of a card deck occurs during the shuffle. The number of each type of possible event is also fixed, so that events can be assured of happening (not possible with an unmodified die roll), but this also affects the decision making of the player, and if no reshuffling of the deck occurs, then it is entirely possible for a player to "count cards" and make reasonable (even accurate) predictions as to what events will occur when, especially as the draw progresses.

So if you have game elements where you wish to assure that certain things will happen, or that certain things have a very high likelihood of happening, or where the progress is predictable though not necessarily the order, use cards. If you have game elements that you wish to be possible at any point, but that you don't require to happen, and that you want to be impossible to predict, use dice.

Cards are random in that you randomly shuffle them at some point. If the game required that you pulled a card, used it, replaced it into the deck and reshuffled (a lot of work for 1 randome number!) then it would, in effect, be completely random. In games like Malifaux, where multiple cards are drawn and players probably know the distribution of the cards in the deck, a player can count cards and tilt the probabilities of success in his favor.

To answer the question, yes. In most cases cards are different from dice.

While a die only provides a number that you have to reference to a table, a card allows you to put the gameplay info right on it. If it is a lasting effect, the card can be maintained as a reminder.

The whole probability thing can be resolved with some work.

Customized cards can take a bit of work, but provide a better playing aid IMHO.

They are only the same if your use the cards by reshuffling before each draw. Oh, wait that's already been said, more or less, nevermind….

To me it's not an either/or situation. Neither is inherently better in and of itself; however, one may be better than the other for a given purpose in the game. You just have to know what purpose you wish to achieve.

One detail as yet unmentioned is table footprint. Cards, of course, require a place for them to be set, especially if you use the concept of a hand and/or exposed cards that dictate continuing conditions. Dice require space in which to be rolled (and might hit miniatures). Both are minor considerations, but could also affect one's choice.

On the whole, I find that enjoy card driven games less than dice based but they are popular.

I haven't yet played Malifaux, but a few points: 1) each player has his own deck. 2) decks are shuffled at the end of each turn. 3) I don't know how many cards might be drawn during a turn, obviously the more you draw, the more card counting becomes important. This is quite obviously part of the game's tactics (e.g. you've seen a lot of face cards come up from your opponent's deck, so maybe now would be a good time to get aggressive). 4) in some cases, the card's suit is important.

….and I wouldn't call that "card-driven" any more than wargames with dice are "dice-driven". Card-driven to me means using cards with special game effects / events / etc., which is not the case in a game like Malifaux.

The other difference is – if you are playing with a hand of cards that you can choose from , as in Command & Colours, then the cards are driving the game, rather than the figures on the table. I found this an interesting thing the times I played C&C – rather than first looking at my troops , then making tactical decisions, I was first looking at my cards, then seeing how they could be applied to the situation on the table. Whereas in a dice based game, you are using the dice to decide an action after you have already made the tactical decision.

Dice are much more random and versitile. Don't have enough options with a d6? No problem. Use a d10. How many different possibilities do you have by rolling 2 d20s?.

One of my major pet peeves, is drawing a card to "activate" a specific unit, instead of using the parent unit to decide.
For example; I have 3 divisions of 4 brigades each, along with an artillery battery, and the division commander has no say on transmitting orders. I'd rather have a 1 in 3 chance of ordering a specific unit, where the dice roll gives the oppourtunity to a specific divisional general, to move the unit of his choice.

Now imagine a d20 for that roll, where less competent leaders are given fewer numbers, and your best general gets the most. Your Corps commander would also have a very small chance, where he could pick.

Now imagine a d20 for that roll, where less competent leaders are given fewer numbers, and your best general gets the most. Your Corps commander would also have a very small chance, where he could pick.

That's not too much different from Warmaster.

I wrote a long post on the advantages of cards, and my wife dropped something on the keyboard while I was finishing off. and somehow wiped it all. However its ok that I lost 10 minutes work, because "it wasn't important"

In brief
1) Cards can be just as random as dice – just shuffle after each draw.

2) Cards can have any range you like on – you can make a d13 if you want.

3) You can put CRT style results on the card (combine with 2 above -a 60 card deck can be nuanced – factors of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20 and 30). eg, there could be 5 levels – the mods affect which one you read.

4) You can add and remove cards from the deck mid game (ie when reinforcements come on).

5) You can do things like draw 3, pick 1 of your choice.

6) Of course the infamous 'Tea Break' card, so not all units get to move.

The activation cards in TW&T means that the units move in a disjointed way, nor completely under the platoon leaders command. However there are also cards for 'Big Men', NCOs and Officers. It is more beneficial to wait for these to come out, as they give benefits to units they activate, so its not just random out of control of the CinC.

If the cards are suffled each time after a draw then no. If not then the percentage chance is altered each time a card is drawn and the deck not resuffled.

Not a hard mechanic to visualize or calculate.

For me, what cards do is psycologically model reduced choices better than dice. You can get the same result by consulting tables and using dice. You can put factors on cards and change the way they are dealt to get probablities like dice.

But, for me at least, there is a mental difference in looking at a hand of cards in comparison rolling dice and consulting tables – regardless of the result.

The immediacy of my choices is more obvious. "I want to move that brigade there. But I cannot because I don't have the card/but I cannot because I failed my command roll."

The result is the same, but I am more emotionally invested in the card than I can ever be in a sterile dice.

I can hate the cards. I can love the cards. I don't feel that with dice.

1) Cards can be just as random as dice – just shuffle after each draw.

Well, yes. But unless the deck is very small— just a handful of cards— the shuffling process is going to be time consuming, especially if you want a truly randomized deck. I once read that for a 52-card deck, 7 or more shuffles is the recommended amount to truly break up any pattern in the deck. Of course, the thinner the deck, the harder it is to shuffle or to mix up so that no observer can predict the pattern. It's much quicker to just pick up a couple of dice and roll them. A game that requires a reshuffle after each card is drawn should probably go back to a dice and CRT mechanic.

But for the other effects you mentioned, cards are probably the best choice.

Like I said, it comes down to the purpose of the mechanic in the game and the "feel" that is wanted. One of the great things you can do with a card deck is to create the End of Game card. It allows the game to have a built-in but still variable time limit, and can give a "ticking clock" feel— perfect for a suspense, horror, or pulp game. In a pirate board game I created, I used just such a mechanic, with the added factor that whether or not a card is drawn from the deck depends on the players' actions. So what results is that a player who knows he's in position to win begins to do everything he can to trigger the card draws (even at substantial risk to himself), whereas another player in a weaker position may attempt to delay such draws to forestall the inevitable.

Parz, my point was that the re-shuffle after every draw is the only way to make the math factors for a new die roll each time have the same percentage chance to roll a specific result be the same when drawing cards. Yes time consuming but I was dealing with simple math.

I played a 6mm Battle of The Rosebud game at Historicon last week and we used cards instead of dice. Each player had their own deck which kept the jokers in. We drew for initiative (based on the card value)and for combat. The rules to hit and save were based around suites not numbers. It worked well although everyone seemed to reshuffle when they felt like it. I think if a rule saying whenever any player draws a joker everyone must reshuffle (and only then) was instituted it would have worked better. It did keep the dice from murdering the 6mm minis!
Jason

I've seen a number of rules (mostly, it seems, for Western gun-slinger games) that uses playing cards very effectively for initiative, movement, etc. Sure, they could use dice, but the poker cards add GREAT flavor.

One thing you can do with cards you can't do with dice* is have each card represent multiple stats/results of the game. The Stock Car Championship Racing Card Game from McGartlin Motorsport Design does this exceptionally well

(on the other hand, the old AH Blackbeard game, using the same idea, did so rather poorly -- mostly because there weren't enough cards in the deck to give either a good random spread of results, or to prevent you from shuffling them every other turn … and they were not easy to shuffle.)

*Yes, I know the special dice that are used with Descent are an exception to the rule. The difference is, it is far easier and cheaper to make custom cards than custom dice