"Why I Hate Buckets O Dice" Topic

In this thread, it is asked, why do people dislike rolling lots of dice?

TMP link

I count myself amongst No Bucket Brigade. There are a few reasons I hate games with buckets of dice:

• Slow: You have to gather, roll, and then check the results of each die. Which is faster, rolling 18 dice looking for 4s or rolling two D6 and adding them? This gets compounded when you roll one bucket to hit, and another to save.
  
• Ugly: Even if you provide box tops or trays, you end up with dice all over the table. With all the effort I put into games to give a great visual experience, it is ruined if your table is covered with dozens of dice.
  
• Damaging: Dice inevitably knock over trees or figures, requiring clean up of formations and forests. This never happens when you roll just 2D6.
  
• Counter-Productive: The more dice you roll, the more average the results. If you roll 30 six-sided dice, and a 4+ is a hit, you should expect 15 hits. I'd have to check the stats but you;d probably expect 14-16 hits 95% of the time. So why not roll a D6: 1-2 equals 14 hits, 3-4 equals 15 hits, 5-6 equals 16 hits. I often convert BOD games to fixed hits with one die of variation.
  

Inevitably I find I either go to fixed casualties (for example, if you hit at 50%, score a hit for every 2 figures, roll for odd figures only).

So, why do you like buckets of dice?

Because I am a simpleton and can't do math worth spit

Plus I am kind of a caveman and like the feel of a mitt'full o' dice

Many dice rolls tend to even out the luck. You dislike that. I like it.

Didja ever see the first part of the play Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead the part where he's (I forget which one) flipping coins? I loved that scene. Used to rehearse it.

Slow: You have to gather, roll, and then check the results of each die. Which is faster, rolling 18 dice looking for 4s or rolling two D6 and adding them?

Yes, I'll grant that it is probably a bit slower.

Ugly: Even if you provide box tops or trays, you end up with dice all over the table.

I really don't find that to be true at all. The dice stay in the trays, not all over the table. If anything it is tidier!

Damaging: Dice inevitably knock over trees or figures, requiring clean up of formations and forests. This never happens when you roll just 2D6.

Another reason for using a tray or container to roll the dice in. Problem solved.

Counter-Productive: The more dice you roll, the more average the results.

As I said in the other thread is this really a bad thing?

1.) It's cathartic. Ever since I used to cast fireballs in D&D I've known the sheer pleasure of cackling maniacally while rattling a huge handful of dice. Plus, it just goes with the phrase "I do to you now the enormous hurt."
Really, can you actually say "MUAH-HA-HA-HA-HA!" while rolling a single d20 and expect anyone to take the threat seriously?

2.) No gaming accessory is easier or cheaper to amass than the d6.

3.) I use a dice tower. Of course, they're no guarantee against my son, The Kinetic Dice Hurler of Doom, who is the only person I know who can ricochet a die OUT of a dice tower… but he'll do that with a single die anyway, so what's the difference?

4.) I think your math is off. There is no guarantee that you'll get any number close to 15 hits, or simply have the number vary by a few fractions. Dice don't work that way, and neither does probability. Each roll is distinct, and has no bearing on the results of another roll. Though increasing the number of dice necessarily increases the odds that you will produce a hit or multiple hits, it guarantees nothing, and it certainly doesn't guarantee that half your dice will produce hits. So the translation you suggest doesn't strike me as entirely valid.

Having said all of the above, I don't mind limited dice systems either. As long as the game is fun, I really don't care that much about the dice.

I love to use a "salvo" of dice……

alea iacta est!

As an old wargamer, my first experiences in wargame design was with matrix comparison charts. And I still feel there is a place for such systems. First set of rules played was TSRs TRICOLOR for napoleonic rules. These used the bucket of dice premise as did other popular quick play rules of the era.

The salvo of dice does reflect one military principle even if by accident. With the low percentage chance to hit for most wartime weapon systems, the tactical realization made it clear that a shooter's ability to render a target ineffective (wound/ kill/ destroy) is based on the amount of firepower placed into a target area.

It is a principle that applies throughout history.

I don't care either way.

I think extra crispy has got a bit extreme in his examples. Nobody is really talking about rolling 30 dice, but people getting all silly over rolling more than three or so.

Jaz
Http://revolutionaryroads.com – chairman Mao would be proud

The leveling influence of BoD I like.

One of the things I don't love about the straight D10 is the wild swings of fortune.

If you roll 30 six-sided dice, and a 4+ is a hit, you should expect 15 hits. I'd have to check the stats but you;d probably expect 14-16 hits 95% of the time.

That is way out I'm afraid. Dice are much more variable than you think. I've just done a simulation, rolling 30 dice 1000 times, needing 4+ to hit. The expected number of hits is 15, but we get 14-16 hits only 42% of the time. This is nowhere near your figure of 95%. In fact to get to your figure of 95% we have to widen the range to 10-20 hits (i.e we get less than 10 or more than 20 5% of the time). So when rolling 30 dice there is a wide range of outcomes.

My group prefers BoD types of rules. So you had better get to like them. Personally if the game is fun, then one die or 100 shouldnt matter.

However "Forty,…Forty, ……Fourty BLANKING dice!!!!", has entered our gaming groups lore that still gets a laugh going on 20 years later.

1 Silly to roll all those dice when you can obtain same result by rolling 1 or two.

2 I am not a big fan of the buckets of dice philosophy either, just seems overly clunky and primitive.

3 Seems that instead of multiplying you need to add.

4 Just doesn't seem aesthetic for the table, damaging the general visual of the terrain and models.

Just my opinion. Not like I can't sleep because of it.

Even if you provide box tops or trays, you end up with dice all over the table

Why ? Can't you roll a dice into a box lid ? It's not difficult. When we play Saga (which needs buckets of dice) we roll into a box lid on the side of the battlefield. I've never missed the lid, and we never have dice on the battlefield.

Silly to roll all those dice when you can obtain same result by rolling 1 or two.

You might get the same average result but only rolling one or two will give wider swings in outcomes which you might not want. Also the mechanics involved may make more sense and be simpler with buckets of dice. Eg. adding dice for situational advantage, re-rolling misses, etc.

I don't mind buckets of dice games. I not only roll my dice in a box, I keep said box on a desk opposite the game table. My hands aren't very big, so I also use a cup to roll my buckets of dice. I don't always play games with buckets of dice. But I always use the box for die rolls anymore.

I'll play either way. Buckets of dice don't bother me and neither does rolling a couple of d6s or a pair of percentage dice.

I like buckets of dice.Gives me something to do.If you reallythink that more dice evens out the numbers,you have never seen me roll.Talisman will verify this.He cringes when I touch any of his dice,he's afraid that I'll poison them.:)

I like lots of dice, I also like games with one die. Frankly, I don't understand the concern. I rarely need more than 7 dice on a throw and usually four or less. Never played a game needing more. Even with saving throws it never takes us long.

However, a gazillion modifiers and multipliers;, that is my pet peeve. I find that takes forever, and that comes from a family of engineers and actuaries.

I concur with all of the original posting.

I remember playing Flames of War and my opponent rolled 34 dice…

I have a phone app.

When you send in a cavalry charge, it SOUNDS like a cavalry charge!

I just enjoy rolling dice.

I enjoy rolling a handful of dice, but I don't classify a handful as a BOD game. The only BOD game I have played is 40k, which I find annoying from a dice management standpoint.

To attack, count models.. but pay attention to types of models cause they have different target numbers and that some models actually have more than one die per model for the roll and some might not be eligible to roll and… etc etc..

Select enough dice of enough colors to represent models at various target levels (alternative, roll them separately, slowing down the process..)

Find successful rolls for each target level, and pluck them out..

Repeat for wounds
Repeat for saves..

Add in other complications..

All seems burdensome. But I don't know that this is a BOD problem, or, more probably, a fiddly rules problem.. So..

Kokigami – that sounds like a fiddly rules problem.

We play lots of Kings of War and it is seriously buckets of dice. Most units have 10 attacks, and you roll a dice for each one. 30+ attacks is not uncommon.

To streamline things we have dice in 10s by colour. 10 red dice, 10 blue dice, 10 white dice etc. this makes it much quicker to grab10 dice to roll, and its easy to discard a couple when you need slightly fewer dice.

The best thing about BoD is it allows the chance occurrence to happen, but not too often. Last night one of my units managed to miss all 10 of its attacks (on a 4+) that's quite a slim chance about 0.1% if my quick maths is right. You can't get this by having a d6 roll on a CRT. And these moments are fun, because they don't happen very often, but can happen. Most of the time you get fairly mid range results which helps give a reasonable degree of predictability to a game.

I have thought for some time that TMP needs a 'Noddy's guide to probability'.

Distributions
S.Deviations
Expectancies and means

Beggered if I can be bothered to write it though.

One key point with dice is the difference between linear and curved distributions.

1d6 is linear – each result is equally as likely. That is true for any single [non dAV] die and where 2 d10s are used as a d100.

2 [or more] d6 gives a curve, and the more dice used the closer that will be to a perfect gaussian distribution [bell curve]. S – the more dice, the more likely it is that results will conform to the expected outcome.

Military History is full of things that went better or worse than expected – it is the human element and luck.

Having a wider and non-linear distribution of results makes it easier to model that the guard will very probably sweep away the levies – but might not! As it should be in my wargaming world.

Opposed d10s create 100 probabilities. When rolls are modified and restricted between 1 and 10 they create a Bell Curve which will give you the ever so miniscule probability (1%? or whatever) that the Guard will fail as opposed to the most likely outcome that is will succeed.

So you don't need buckets of dice to arrive at the same outcomes and with one die each rolls do not slow the play of the game and keep both gamers involved. Indeed no longer does one player sit and watch the other steamroller him with a series of good rolls. With opposed rolls the defender is as responsible for the outcome as the attacker.

Btw, I dislike buckets of dice because they are messy and slow.

Bob Coggins

So you don't need buckets of dice to arrive at the same outcomes

That rather depends on what the range and frequency of outcomes is.

With opposed rolls the defender is as responsible for the outcome as the attacker.

Agree with you about oppposed rolls that that is not really pertinent to this discussion. You can have opposed rolls using BoD!

Btw, I dislike buckets of dice because they are messy and slow.

Several previous posts have explained why BoD does not need to be messy and not much slower than rolling fewer dice.

The rules I'm working on are BOD. The most I've seen rolled is 20 or so, the usual number 3 to 12, sometimes less.

During the whole game the odds tend to even out, which I rather like. But my dice tend to go in runs – either smoking, average or dreadful. Sometimes you blow the enemy away, sometimes you pray for them to be kind back.

After a long period of playing rules with single die rolls or 2D6, my crew rather likes this.

I have played opposed dice and BOD games. One big disadvantage to the opposed dice system is that players can focus on how badly they are rolling, as in "blah, blah, blah and then I rolled another $%£^& one !!!!"

In BOD games there is more focus on how well your opponent rolls which is not quite such a bad thing IMO.

In all the games I play or have played to any great extent there does not seem to be much variation in the amount of dice that are rolled, it is just are you both rolling one dice over and over again or one of you rolling a bunch then the other rolling a bunch but overall fewer times.

BOD – because its fun. YMMV

Personally I don't mind rolling 10-20 dice, but I wouldn't want to do so in a Roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save type mechanism.
Saga (which I like) often involves this number of dice, sometimes more, and has saving throws. However, there is normally only one or two combats each turn, so the dice rolling doesn't seem excessive.

Major Bumsore,

I most earnestly advocate you run the numbers. Craig and I did from -5,-5 to +5,+5 and everything in between. This allows for 66 separate CRTs without the need to refer to a CRT. Actually the possibility of modifiers greater than +5 or -5 exists but is so rare we didn't bother to work the CRTs up.

A typical old guard in column vs. militia in line for example could well be +2 to -1 modifiers. Thus, the chance to rout the O/G, which routs on 5 hits, is 3% and to disorder, on 4 hits, also 3% conversely the chance of routing a militia unit in line, on 3 hits, is 51% with an additional 10% to disorder, on 2 hits.

It's called a Bell Curve.

Bob Coggins

Major Bumsore,

I most earnestly advocate you run the numbers.

Eh?
I wasn't suggesting that BoD is always better than other methods, just that in some (not all) sets of ranges and outcomes BoD can be just as effective as rolling fewer dice and (apparently, judging by several comments on this thread!) more fun!

In the specific case you cite of opposed D10s I am sure that as you say you can get 66 possible CRTs and those CRTs will have applicability in all sorts of cases. But which of those is the same as (for example) rolling 1D6 per figure for each of 20 figures and needing 5 or 6 for a hit? The range of possible outcomes is 0 – 20 hits. Can one of your CRTs generate that range of results (with similar probabilities) with or without referring to an actual CRT?

BTW, I know all about Bell Curves. It is widely known that you get a smoother Bell Curve the more dice you roll …

A fair few historical battles had extreme results.
These become extremely unlikely in a game using a bucket if dice.

"A fair few historical battles had extreme results.
These become extremely unlikely in a game using a bucket if dice."

Not the way I role!

Rudi the german (and anyone else who cares),
If you love Buckets or salvo of dice then you should say: aleae iactae sunt
Caesar's remark is in the singular – 'the die has been cast'.
Personally, I don't like BoD or approaches which require one to buy numerous different kinds of dice. Give me a single d6 or opposed rolls of d6 or d10 any day…

I disagree with the earlier statement that rolling 30 dice is, effectively, the "extreme" end if the scale. My Warhammer Zombie Pirates deploy (one of their units, about 1/4-1/3 of the army points-wise) in a hundred-strong block. If they are in 10 ranks of 10 models, taking into account the Pirate Queen leading them (who doesn't shoot) and the rules for Volley Fire, they throw 59 dice. More if they are deployed in a wider-but-shallower formation.

The unit benefits from 'Poisoned Attacks' which means any roll of a 6 to hit causes a Wound automaticallg without needing to roll against the target's Toughness. So hits (4+) are good, but Poisoned hits (6) are really good.

Damage from this type of attack is highly dynamic (read: variable) and exciting for both players. People will often crowd around the table to see the results of this kind of roll. Try achieving that with a single D20, or 2D6, or whatever!

I can find buckets of dice tedious (certainly not 'fun', as some have suggested), but variety is good in game styles.

I quite liked Martin Goddard's excuse for all the dice in PBI (it simulates all the bullets flying around most of which miss) …

and so incline towards, say, an A/T round vs a tank might be an opposed die roll with applied modifiers/a claymore vs an infantry squad might be a bucket of dice

But really … if it simple and works it is good. If it is clumsy and doesn't work it is bad

Phil

Different strokes for different folks. Personaly I don't care and will gladly play either.

2 to 7 d6 are not a bucket of dice imo.
Barely a fist full.

I've been mulling this over a lot of late after playing the new version of Square Bashing. I have counted myself as somebody who didn't like 'buckets o dice' but I found rolling a handful (just a handful, mind) and separating the hits from the misses was actually a simple and quick process.

I'm now considering changing a game I'm writing, which already uses three dice for hits but has a lot of dice modifiers, to 'a handful of dice' because I instinctively feel that removing and adding dice instead of calculating all the modifiers might speed things up.

I haven't thought about it until now but I reckon my dislike of too many dice also came from games of Warhammer. As others have noted above, I think my real gripe was not so much the dice themselves but the clunky three-stage hit/wound/save rules process that necessitated so many dice in the first place. Space Hulk and Crossfire both use multiple dice but I find both games are smooth and flow well, so for me I think there is some kind of tipping point at which the number of dice involved becomes silly.

"One key point with dice is the difference between linear and curved distributions."

The relationship between force ratios and outcomes from military operations tends to be logarithmic however, certainly in the post rifled small arms era. ie doubling the odds increases the probability of success by less than double (and also increases absolute attacker losses). Even at 10:1 in post 1939 battalion level attacks there is a roughly a 17% chance of failure.

Neither BoD nor bell curves are a terribly good model of this, although a bell curve around the mean result for a given force ratio works. Sadly you need a crt for that sort of thing. Using e.g. a 2D6 with additive modifiers unfortunately works in the opposite direction, it rapidly produces a dead cert as you pile on the pluses. A linear dice spread is a better model, but also suffes from the 'dead cert' syndrome as you pile on the plusses.

What you actually need to do is reduce the cumulative impact of the plusses, which I have seen in some cases e.g. odds of 3:2 gives a +1, 3:1 a +2, 5:1 a +3 etc so the logarithmic aspect is modelled in the modifiers.

Sorry, bit of a ramble but I think about this stuff a lot and out of context it is just a load of old waffle.

I would commend Professor Phil Sabins 'Simulating War' as a very good introduction to conflict simulation modelling using the tools tabletop and board wargamers have at their disposal.

Even at 10:1 in post 1939 battalion level attacks there is a roughly a 17% chance of failure.

Sounds like 'anything but a 1' to me!

Which is faster, rolling 18 dice looking for 4s or rolling two D6 and adding them?

You answered there:

roll a D6: 1-2 equals 14 hits, 3-4 equals 15 hits, 5-6 equals 16 hits

It means that after rolling the D6, you have to consult charts which probably are not easy to learn (why 14 hits? it's probably different for different units, so more charts)?

I prefer to roll lots of dice, but not too often, and with less charts.

For example, in my rules ("Argad!"), most weapons hit at short range on 5-6, at middle range on a 6. If there are ten shooters, roll ten dice. Result are easy to see and you don't lose time to look at a book.

However, I agree with you that the rules must avoid unnecessary dice rolling.When you have rolled for hits, no need to roll again for savings throws, it should be already included in the hit results.

Buckets of dice is conveniet up to about 10 d6. Any more and it's irksome.

You could improve it by having a large number of steps.

E.G.

roll to shoot or strike in melee…

So maybe veterans need 3+
Average troops 4+
Poor troops 5+
Utter rabble 6+

Then you could pick up the shooters dice and roll to hit for range…3+at short range and4+ medim and 5+long

pick up those that pass and roll to defeat the cover, then to defeat the armor and finally to wound/kill.

But I think BoD are either going to be too much trouble or overly simple – and on a d6 you have very little scope to differentiate – a very few modifiers and you drop off the end and produce autohit/miss results.

Martin Rapier makes a very good point about logarithmic effects. Greater and greater odds do not increase the chances of success in a linear manner.

I prefer 2d6 DRs plus multiple dice roll modifiers and results tables. I have multiple DRs to reach an end result which stops the autohit/miss problem.

I used to have a buddy that played 40k with forty-strong Hormagaunt swarms. He frequently rolled at least a hundred dice. It was…terrible.

The more dice you roll, the more average the results.

You've never seen me roll a bucket of dice.

I'll play either way. Much past 12 or so dice, it does get cumbersome. I quite like that they usually roll somewhere in the middle for results. As RudyNelson says above, it also kind of feels like a volley.

I am currently contemplating a BoD solution for a problem I have: maintaining speed while scaling up the amount of unit combat resolutions.

In my homespun rules project players could be controlling upwards of 30-60 Units in groups of Formations (similar to a Maneuver Element in many games). Typically it would be south of 30 and a player would only have half of those in combat resolution on any given turn at most.

That said, rolling for even 10-12 is 10-12 calculations of modifiers and then die rolls (by both sides) to resolve combat and while it is very fast if you are doing say 3-5, when you are doing more than 10 per player it is far slower than the rest of the game plays.

I'd love to resolve this through buckets of dice simply because I think it would make it faster, but I struggle with normalizing modifiers for individual situations like Combat Ratings, Unit formations, etc.

Cheers,

The Bandit