"Asymmetrical dice and Tarot Cards." Topic

Anyone ever tried using Asymmetrical dice?

By this I mean two things.

1. Rolling two or more dice of different faces (say a 4 sided and an 8 sided) and adding them? Or a six sided and a 12 sided? Gives you some VERY intersting probabilities.

2. Genuinely asymmetrical dice with different sized faces and of irrgular geometric shape.

3. Regular dice (of any configuration) with non linear number sequences, for example 1,2,5,9,13,14. Or something like that.

Or-- other methods. For example now I am working on a set of ancient rules which does not use dice to "toss sticks" – short sections of wood, rounded on one side, flat on the other (scarfed bead molding from Home Depot) with different up or down values making results. That is, non-numerical results.

Different styles of cards for combat results as well. I worked on a game for Renaissance warfare where Tarot cards pulled specified combat results.

The tabletop rpg game FVLMINATA (RPG game set in the Roman Empire that has invented gun powder) uses the Roman Tali dice. Tali dice were the dice the historical Romans used in their dice games. They are 8 sided, and are numbered 1 – 4* twice and two dice are rolled. So you end up with a 2 – 8 spread but the distribution is very strange. Tried it a few times, could never really get used to it though.

*Okay, they were numbered I – IV for the nit pickers.

There is also a RPG called Fortunes Fool, in which a Tarot deck is used for all combat and skill resolution (and character creation). The game get's very interesting in that some cards that get drawn, stay on the table, with their effects always in play until some event makes them go away. For instance the Death card, causes all defences, for both the PCs and the NPCs, to be cut in half, until either someone uses a power to resuffle the deck, or someone DIES. Played it once, had a blast.

Earthdawn's system features abilities that scale up using various dice so that the average result of the dice being rolled equals the current rating. Example: a Step 1 ability rolls d4-2, a Step 26 ability rolls d20d10d8d6.

I'm playing in a campaign of Earthdawn at the moment and, much as I enjoy the setting, I kind of hate the mechanics… I'd prefer something a lot more intuitive/straightforward.

King of the Battlefield uses the result of D8 – D6 for combat/morale rolls.

I did not explain the post well enough. The point is not to dredge up examples of games that have used different faced dice, that's like dredging up who lost the world series in 1923. The point is the different probabilities inherent in the use of different die, and that if anyone has experimented with them. For example, consider the use of two six sided die. The results pattern of rolling them adding the products is symmetirical and regular.

So for the number on the left there are N possible combinations that will yield that result shown on the right.

number results
12 1
11 2
10 3
9 4
8 5
7 6
6 5
5 4
4 3
3 2
1 1

Graph it and you will have a nice regular curve.

On the other hand, if you use an 8 sided die and a four sided die and add the products, the numbers of sums possible is the same, but it yields an entirely different curve.

number results
12 1
11 2
10 3
9 4
8 4
7 4
6 4
5 4
4 3
3 2
2 1

Ok, now vary the number of the die faces more radically (20 and 4) or add THREE dissimilar dice and you get an even wilder pattern of possible results. Just in the example above the percentages of a "2" in the two six sidet is 2.7% while in the other it is 1/(4x8) or 3.1%. On the other hand the result of the sums 5 through 9 has an equal chance of coming up or 12.5%. If these specific numbers are tied, for example to a results chart, the results of 5 through 9 will occer with equal randomness, and so will the conditions implied by the chart. On the other hand if one was to construct the chart discontinuously, that is that the results of 5 through 9 referred to the same result with 12,11,10,2,3,4 each referring to discreet results we would have a much flatter table.

This is only the scratch on the surface. It becomes really interesting when dissimilar results are matched. For example, one side rolls on the 8/4 combination and the other on the 6/6 combination. If these are COMPARED,that is with one side having to beat the other, the same probability of result would be at the very ends (12,11,10,9,5,4,3,2) but in the center the 8/4 would be less likely to roll a 6, at 12.5% than the 6/6 at 13.8% (same for the 9) and 7 at the same 12.5% as opposed to the 6/6 at 16.6% Once again, vary the numbers on the faces of the and you get even more divergent results.

What is intriguing is the non-symmetrical outcomes should two sides be using different combinations of dice.

Even more intribuing is if the numbers on the die are discontinuous. For exampel, 1,2,3,4,5,6 on one 6 sided die and 0,3,5,6,9,9 on one six side for the other. Or, a combination of positive and negative numbers on different die (of whatever configuration!

Similarly, the use of truly a-symmetrical die, that is non regular solids. Now I understand that the physics will limit this to certain close restrictions, but it an be done. I have made such dice and tried to determine probability tables for them, but it became too exhausting (you try making 2,000 test rolls and writing them down).
But it's an interesting thought.

Another different die is the idea of throwing sticks. Assume that the sticks instead of numeric values have conditional results directly applied. For example three red faces up means the enemy unit is wiped out. Two red and one blue means your own is routed. Here again like asymmetrical die, the NUMBER of throwing sticks is open ended. You could have the above result with three sticks rolled, or with four five, or six or any number and if any three of the sticks rolled are red face up… the unit is eliminated. Likewise you can get hard maple trim in almost any shape from Home depot you could use small rectangles with each face a different color, and the number rolled that came up green, red or blue etc., determining what happened. Again working away from the numerical paradigm, you are moving towards the conditional.

Just as an aside, the Tarot card game involved not the numeric values of the cards but the interpreation of the pictures on the faces or the meanings in the guide as stated by each player in his own version and the choice of which version was taken up to the vote of the other players.

The simpler the better. The game should be about the game. Players need to decide if an action is a reasonable risk for the circumstances; this is much harder if one must reverse engineer some whimsical probability scheme first.

I think most of your examples can work and if they somehow tie in to the character of the game that's a neat little feature to make the game unique.

The one thing I'd suspect most players would have an issue with is the non-regular solids. Many players already have problems with (or say they do) regular polyhedral dice. So a strangely shaped die would be worse.

Another issue is if specialized probability testing devices are required for game play, it makes the game less accessible. The retailer has to stock the game plus the cards/dice/sticks, a player has to buy both to play, and you've doubled the supply chain dependencies. Of course, that may be part of your marketing or profit scheme (c.f. CCGs).

1 & 3