I've been reworking a set of gladiator combat rules for sometime. I've always liked the Rock/Paper/Scissors design apparent in many great games, and while it doesn't always make sense to use it does frequently appear in games using tradeoff models such as mobility, strength, defense. Examples are WWII tank battles, jet combat and I believe gladiator combat!
Simply put a non-transitive dice set is one where Die A will beat Die B >50% and Die B will beat Die C >50% and Die C will beat Die A>50%.
Unpossible! You say!
Here look at this:
Die A has sides B, B, D, D, I, I.
Die B has sides A, A, F, F, H, H.
Die C has sides C, C, E, E, G, G.
The higher letter wins.
So how does one use this in a game design? I think it has to do with choice. Weak would be no choice but one fixed option. Better is two options. Ultimate is three options.
Another feature to observe is that A has a result that always wins and B has a result that always loses. One might then apply ideas to these when associating them with a class feature such as unarmed or unarmored would be represented by B. Piercing with A. Versatile with C.
Further modification can be made by determining who wins ties in the case of one die opposed to a similar die. This can be circumstantial. For example an attack from behind beats a tied defense. Or instead of having specific rules for all the possible interactions create conditional states where one warrior has an advantage and can spend it to trump a tie.
Creating the dice is pretty simple as most electronic die rollers have custom dice as an option. Also one could get blank dice and create stickers via a printer easily enough. Finally companies like Chessex can make custom dice. This last bit is expensive but if you are really happy with the system is the most satisfying.
