"Rolling dice for movement?" Topic

How do people feel about rolling dice for movement in unit-based games?

It seems to be largely a thing of the past – TSATF are the only rules that come to my mind that are still popular and use dice movement.

It is obviously quicker to have fixed movement rates for units, but diced movement adds a degree of uncertainty that can represent fatigue/loss of control/indecision in the unit.

What are your thoughts?

TSATF is not a "game of the past", I will have you know.
We play it regularly, and have total disdain for the Kool Kids who think there are better games.
As far as I am concerned that is much more "realistic" (whatever that means in gaming terms) than fixed dependable rates.

Chain of Command uses it and does have a small degree of popularity, as do most of the TFL systems.

I agree with John, it does feel more realistic than fixed move distances and do not find it slows down play.

I've seen systems where there is a standard rate for walking, but a dice is rolled to add the "run" rate.

I like the idea, but don't like move d6 inches. Prefer a die plus a fixed number or use of average dice.

Personally, I think it is more realistic. Every unit doesn't step off on cue, and there are plenty of terrain surprises in the real world to encumber movement that are not going to be on any map.

Taking chain of command as an example, infantry have three movement speeds:
1D6 where they are either moving Tactically (taking maximum advantage of cover) or moving and shooting.
2D6 where they are moving normally without firing
3D6 where they are moving fast (and lose cohesion)

Faster they move, the more predictably they move, and I rationalise the variability of the 1D6 movement as them either creeping forward trying to find whatever cover they can being very erratic, or as they stop to shoot.

Chain of Command movement sounds very appropriate for a WW2 game. But what about big-battle games (ancients, medieval, etc) ?

Well I love it. IABSM and Chain of Command both use it. Mind you a few of my gaming pals just hated it. Their idea of game strategy was to have definite knowledge of prefixed gaming parameters, like chess. Messing with that made no sense to them. They needed those guidelines to enable them to effect the best possible plan.

I remember a game of IABSM that best reflects on thoughts on this mechanism. Apologies for its length.

If we take a look at the the situation in my own game the other evening… My British team needed to run from a house across a fairly short distance to a radar building but in clear sight of an enemy MG42.

The distance in game terms was 6 inches. The German MG had already fired at a bren gun team on the second story of the house in this turn and so wasn't in overwatch mode and so according to the rules was not entitled to shoot this turn.

My Real Life Interpretation of This Gaming Situation: The British notice the MG is firing furiously at the top window of the house, its a short distance to the radar and the German MG look distracted with the Bren Team…in reality however the British don't know for sure if the German's do notice them running across and react in time…even if it seems unlikely.

So now the British are left with a choice; do they sprint across or do they cautiously move and hope stealth keeps them out of sight of the MG.

So the dice which are available to the British are rolling 3 d6 if they run full pelt or if they choose stealth 1 d6…

but the result of the total dice is not to be understood just as speed necessarily.

Rather the meaning of what is rolled is a formula that will decide whether the MG reacts to the British movement. It is the uncertain chance of the German MG noticing the British and reacting in time…

That is what this roll is about…not just how fast the British run…

So if the dice roll total results in a number greater than the distance to be moved than that simply means the German did not react to the British movement.

If the dice is lower than the distance it doesnt mean necessarily that the British run slower but it means that

the German's do notice the British and do react to it…

Since theGerman's look distracted and there is no cover they decide to sprint across to the radar instead of using stealth.

But by deciding to run the British are improving their chances of reaching the radar without the German's reacting…but its not certain…who knows if the German's actually keeping an eye on the house door?

But why are we saying that the movement dice roll doesn't necessarily mean actual speed or the strict understanding of distance covered over a certain period of time?

Because as as another advocate of variable movement said to a non-fan : "Methinks you're thinking of fixed/specific time periods for a move…"

And why would that be …why not fixed time periods…

Well I'd imagine when creating a multi-player game that each side moves seperately from each other yet is attempting to simulate simultaneous action then there needs to be a different representation of time…

Otherwise our battles would represent the ridiculous…one side shoots while the other stops everything…then they move while their enemy stands motionless…

So for me the variable movement is a really important mechanism that helps simulate time responses and the various reactions of every element on the table…I think a game can potentially be very exciting with its inclusion…but I think it helps to have a certain non-linear perspective on it.

I use variable movement in my renaissance games. Pikes move 3 + a d6, knights move 6+d6, etc. It doesn't slow the game down at all, and it makes it impossible to judge when the enemy is going to hit you. We also have limited command pips, so a commander can use an extra die when a unit has to get somewhere fast.

We use it over variable terrain,plus a directional roll if in the woods or jungle.

Warpanda, great way of explaining it.

Brother Against Brother uses it as does, in a way, Black Powder, although that's more of a command roll.
I like the variable of a dice roll.
Joe

I use it all the time, and I'm my favourite game designer.

Somebody has to be.

Exactly! And I get along well with myself, and usually understand what I meant when I wrote the rules. Sometimes, anyway.

Anyway, dice movement is a good idea. One variant I'ved used lately, rather than simple 2d6" walk, 3D6" run (etc) is 'roll 3D6, pick higher two' (or lower two) as modifiers for troop type and terrain.

Black Powder, Hail Caesar and Pike and Shotte all use dice to determine how far units can move, although not exactly the way other games do.

I don't think it is a thing of the past at all.

Well, Field of Glory have a variable movement rate for evasive & rout movement.

A great device as you can't be sure if you'll escape or be contacted.

I'd forgotten about Hail Caesar et al – its a good point – units have fixed movement rates, but you dice ("give orders") to see how many increments of the move rate they move.

Grande Armee uses d6+6 and most all my other rules use base + dice…

I still use randomised movement in a number of games. Arguably card driven games also use random movement, but with cards instead of dice.

Field of Battle (Piquet Inc.) uses it but in a slightly different way to most.

Each command has a command rating. When it comes time to move it rolls its command die (typically D8 – D12) Vs D6. Depending on the result, the command gets to move once, twice, or three times, or on a natural roll of 1 not at all. Move rates are typically 6" for infantry so commands can make pretty rapid advances. It means that you can never be sure when the enemy will be upon you – it's built in fog of war – and I love it!

In am a big fan of randomised movement.I prefer a number plus a dice roll so that there is least some minimum movement.

Another method I like is fixed movement in the open but when crossing rough terrain a dice is removed from the fixed movement.

As War Panda explained. Random movement in games like Chain of Command represents the time your troops have to move BEFORE an enemy unit reacts.

In a game with fixed distances you can consistently and reliably avoid being shot in certain cases. Random movement simply adds extra friction.

It works fine in many cases, though sometimes produces weird results.

It does fail in many set up battles of horse and musket periods if introducing wide ranging disparities between neighbouring units that would endeavoutr to "keep in line". Here we set foot into Macladdie's favorite regulating bn.

Desperado uses die rolls for movement too, and it is a lot of fun. Many is the time a gunslinger has attempted to run across a dusty town street only to come up short and get gunned down in the open.

Another way of handling movement is by the use of Command points and a die roll to see how many actions you can get in a turn In Black Powder, for example, a good roll can get you three consecutive movement phases. Other alternatives allow different actions such as moving changing formations etc. You can get as few as one action .The die roll gives it its randomness

I tend to like some unpredictability under different circumstances. In some eras and some armies command and control was varied or controlled by personalities. Other times troops were well trained and under strict supervision so I think known values for movement are more realistic. Just depends. I am intrigued by the reaction tests under in Two Hour Games for example and want to give them a try for the HYW, WotR and ECW eras.

As noted, random movement (to me, anyway) is a way to simulate how far a unit can move before the enemy can react, and not how far the unit can move in a fixed time interval. It can be handled either through randomizing "activations" or "command points" or whatever the game calls them, or by randomizing the move distance directly. I favor the former, since it seems to me to fit conceptually better with the perceived intent, but the end result is effectively the same either way. You certainly don't need BOTH, in my opinion.

At the moment, I'm really digging the way "Of Gods & Mortals" (and I believe also "Drum and Shako – Large Battles," which I don't have) handles this – you roll on N dice to activate your unit, and each success is an action available to that unit, while each failure is a die available to the enemy to roll for their troops to REACT to yours. It's a nice tweak to the basic SoB&H system, and (to my mind) actually makes the initiative turnover mechanism somewhat redundant.

Doug

Vietnam "Men of Company B" Back in 2000 Peter Pig used a variable move system as follows.
It was for 15mm figures.
Normal 6"
Cautious 6" – D6
Rapid 6" + D6
Cautious are better at shooting, acquisition and avoiding booby traps. The opposite is true foe rapid.
This gives expected outcomes of 3", 6" and 9" (roughly).

martin

Terrement, here we measure one and judge the rest nearby. We allow a little leeway to allow the game to flow. We see a bit of distance bending as a good thing if it keeps the game going and troops from being 'stupidly' restricted (because men, unlike war game figures, can bunch or expend, sift through, and generally move about) by abstract game mechanics.

If you are seeking to gain an advantage by moving a bit further, it usually means you are exposing yourself to counter action at less range.

Swings and roundabouts, as they say, and it is only a game. Cheating is if you make a pass at my Mrs.

M.Hallam,

TSATF,C&N and their "ancient" variables are far from dead, and my young friend will probably live long past your and my lifetimes.

On to variable die controlled movements. As a "dead" gamer
and an aged veteran, it better represents the challenges faced by fire team,squad and platoon leaders. flat terrain ain't flat. theyse got dips and valleys, muddy and it is hot. i'm tired, haven't eaten, got the runs, SCARED, hate our CO, and just want to get out of here. but the anger at losing friends narrows the eyes.

"sir greg". vehicles…my late father related…now this Europe. they came here broke. we fixed 'em, sometimes made 'em better. they all run, it depends on who is driving it and "how he can handle the 'road' or pastures. and if you don't know how….i will show you…gimme the XXX wheel,

a minimal variation in movement rate is probably realistic, but a bigger thing affecting movement should be the inertia effect, where any percieved threat or terrain difficulty encountered tends to slow troops down, or even stop them.
I think there are many examples of this in real battles.

Like the random movement.

Average dice?

B

QILS has fixed movement, but supports randomized terrain effects. The result is you are confident about moving over open ground, and have variable or fixed movement when crossing hindering terrain, as appropriate.

One of our scifi scenario sets (campaign?) had a nice little weather system that had fixed movement that changed over time in a pseudo-random way.

Anyway, dice movement is a good idea. One variant I'ved used lately, rather than simple 2d6" walk, 3D6" run (etc) is 'roll 3D6, pick higher two' (or lower two) as modifiers for troop type and terrain.

I quite like that, MJS, though I'm not generally a fan of random movement as it can slow down big games. Sometimes, of course, it also stands for random activation … you might not move at all … (or then again, some systems have random activation but if you do move, the rate is standardised) – it's all fine as long as it works smoothly and creates the right amount of uncertainty …

Phil

In Mayhem, all movement values are assigned a die type. You can either roll for movement [where the die result is equal to the distance moved in inches] or take the default. If taking the default, movement is equal to the half the value of the die. So, if a unit of heavy cavalry had a movement of d8 you could either take the default and move 4 inches or roll the die and take a chance.

When moving through difficult terrain, you either pay a value in action points equal to the difficulty value of the terrain to move your default, OR you can roll additional dice equal to the difficulty value of the terrain and take the lowest result.

You can always play it safe but having the ability to roll for movement creates uncertainty and makes it difficult to determine exactly where your opponent will be at any given time and simulates fog of war.

Most all miniature games I know of have some form of variable movement. Fire & Fury doesn't roll for movement directly, but on a 'maneuver table'. The only rules I can think of off hand that don't have some form of variable movement through either command or diced movement is Volley & Bayonet, SHAKO and Crossfire

I think that dicing for movement at small scale skirmish games like Chain of Command make sense, but when you start operating in time scales of half an hour or more, I am not sure that is more 'realistic.'

I actually like the concept of some amount of random movement, or even something like randomized weapon range.

Mainly because it works well in junction with premeasuring in the rules. It adds an extra layer of risk/reward on top of just rolling the due to see if you succeed or fail.

I've been trying to add it to my game, but heavily randomized movement seems to work best in larger scale games where a stand represents more than one man.

I agree with Blutarski. I do like random movement, but the swing of 1d6 is a little too much for me. an average dice (though they seem to be out of favor) or an average dice +1 for infantry is a little more consistent while still being random.

I have fixed movement rates but then throw 2 fate dice to vary the length.

Works well and is quick

craig

While I like chance in a game, and have a particular liking for how Chain of Command does it, I think when talking about 18th and 19th Century warfare, random movement rates, particularly with wide differences in results don't strike me as all that 'realistic' if we are attempting to provide players with commander's concerns.

'March rates' were such a driving concern for them that having a wide range of possible distances for a move doesn't jive with either reported movement or the military men reported concerns and focus.

The random rates [particularly delays] could be caused by any number of things:
Terrain
Command friction
Concern about what was in front of them
Simple SNAFUs
Providential events like a discovered trail or open ground.

The question is how often and how much these actually delayed troops. [We'd need to know that to some extent if the random events were going to mirror history at all.]

The other issue is double jeopardy. If terrain already slows troops as well as command rolls, what is the further 'randomization' accomplishing? I think chaos for chaos' sake is painting with far too broad a brush concerning history.

Mr. Pumblechook seems to be on the right path IMHO: 1d6 for normal/precontact movement, etc. Let's add "1d6 – 2" for sneaky, stealthy movement.
Never forget: The best laid plans of mice and men go out the window when the shootin' starts.
While we are complicating an already complex subject, allow me to really muddy the waters but good. In a 18thcentury period set of rules, the competency of the officers is a consideration. More importantly is the competency of the n.c.o.'s that should be factored in to the degree of the randomness of movement ("Get your worthless butts moving! Anybody trying to break ranks will answer to me and the lash!". You get the idea,). The more feared the n.c.o.'s the more regular the rate of movement. Can you feel the love?! Another matrix to consult and fold into the playing of the game! WOWSERS!
I've been doing this miniatures wargaming stuff since 1969. What do I know?

For some of my game mechanics, the players roll two D6's for figure activation. A die with an Odd # can be used to move 3 inches, and an Even # can be used to move 6". Dice not used for movement can be used for other actions. Keeps it simple. ;-)

Never forget: The best laid plans of mice and men go out the window when the shootin' starts.

Yep, but are we talking about movement within shootin' range? Would it be different in and out of that range?

While we are complicating an already complex subject, allow me to really muddy the waters but good. In a 18thcentury period set of rules, the competency of the officers is a consideration.

I know that NCOs carried pace measurement sticks, but dicing for competent officers?

Certainly leadership had a lot to do with how well and efficiently a unit moved.

A little late to the party here, but for my two cents, I prefer *not* to roll for movement at all. I will, of course, depending on what we play, but I'm not a fan.

Rolling is essentially random movement -- it slows the game down, especially if you have to roll for every unit, and especially if you have "no move" as an option for the die toss. No offense to those that enjoy this, but the essence, to me, of gaming is in the maneuver.

Two rulesets that emphasize random movement are Black Powder and Hail Caesar. Both, or at least in the games I played that were hosted by others, use 2d6 for movement and either move none, base move, 2x base move, or 3x base move. Worse, if you fail to move a unit, you are done moving all unmoved units for the turn. Even worse that that, boxcars (double sixes) make you move in a random direction (another 1d6 roll).

To wit, in a Hail Caesar game, one player did not move for seven turns out of seven turns played because he couldn't roll an 8 or 9 (forget which) or less on 2d6. Others had a more statistically correct alternating between a drunken rush forward or a sit down for lunch. Other HC games did not have as draconian a result, but suffered from the slows because players couldn't move.

In one Black Powder game, turn 1, my five cavalry units (a brigade) in line formation saw the enemy cavalry ahead across an open field. Brigade move, shaky, but one base move up. So far, so good. Turn 2: blown roll of boxcars, random move -- all units turn 90 degrees to the left and move to the woods on the flank for a dendrology class. So much for the well-trained, professional armies of the 7YW. Other players during the game also had the same nonsense happen. Other BP games also showed that the lurch of tabletop battle.

In Empire, blew three activation rolls. My fine fresh troops sat for four real hours. Time to go home. Good thing the host had a nice library to peruse.

Admittedly, those are the worst three examples I've experienced. I've certainly had more than my share of random results from F&F wildcat strikes, FoG units that decided right turn dance steps were too complicated, and blown counter rolls for WRG/Warrior.

If the turns represented 30 seconds or even a minute, maybe, but as a turn stretches to 10-15-20-30 minutes, the justification of friction becomes less justified -- at least to me. You have to move something. I can buy the base move plus a d6 or d10 inches for something special (force march, 'hero status,' or something like that), but leaving your movement to die rolls only…not really.

I find that unengaged units, especially those not in harm's way, that stop and smell the roses, or lurch about between full speed and snail speed, slow the game without any corresponding benefit. I don't know about your gaming group, but we have enough randomness among us about how to conduct a battle plan that we don't need random movement die rolls. We are the random factor. :)

It may be that I don't game as much as some folks, so that when I'm out a couple times a month on a Friday night, I'd like to game, not have my units waiting around to get in the battle. There's plenty of randomness already with combat, morale, and the aforementioned fellow gamers.