"A discussion of dice types and their value" Topic

So once again I consider designing my own set of home rules. This time for using all the 15 mm science fiction stuff I have. I like Tomorrow's War but players seem to have a hard time with the reaction tests and understanding how fluid the game is. Plus I have more stuff than the perhaps the game engine can handle. I tend to want to do games that are large platoon up to small company level. Then there is the argument of do I do alternate activation, IGOUGO, IGOUGO with a failed order causing initiative to swing to the other side (i.e., Warmaster, Lion Rampant). All that is another discussion which I will post later.

One of the things I like about TW is the use of all the various die types to reflect quality of the units in the battle. Elites are going to be D10 or more rarely for the truly scary D12. 4 is the magic number that has to be rolled for a success with opposing dice rolls in play. Of course units with a quality of say D8 (basic trained troops) have about a 50% chance of success while a D10 special forces type will have about a 60% of success. Of course not being a math person the scope might be higher or lower than that.

Regardless, I want to be able to run fun, fast convention games with of course enough elements on the table to keep about six players (perhaps a couple more) fully engaged and enjoying the game. Therefore, rules have to be something that sacrifices some chrome for game play, but gives a plausible outcome and logic, and allows players to understand the basic game mechanics and nuance in short order. If players are understanding the game by the end of turn two I think my job is done. So here are some of my initial thoughts with dice:

Keep the idea of various quality die ranging from D6 up to the rare D12. Keep the idea of 4 being the number for success.

Quality die would be modified up or down if you are trying to hit a soldier who is in cover. Plus in addition to the quality die rolled for shooting, etc. weapons types might have additional quality die to reflect fire power and how lethal certain weapons might be.

For example a trooper who has a quality of D8 is armed with an advanced assault rifle. He would normally roll a D8 and an additional D6. His target is in basic cover so the first quality die drops to a D6.(You can never have worse than a D6) The player now rolls two D6 and rolls a 4 and 6. Both dice roll 4 or better so each counts as a successful hit. However, because the target is in a ruined building (basic cover), he has body armor with a quality of D6 but the cover gives him an additional D6 to roll thus having two chances of saving against the two successful hits if he meets or beats the rolls of the attacker. If the target had been in the open then the player would roll his normal D8 plus the D6 a roll of 7 on the D8 cannot save against that hit.

So how does that sound? Too much? Give up and just go with the conventional D6 and work from there? What are some of the problems you see, benefits?

Thanks

Personally, I much prefer a game to use one type of dice – d6 or d10 – throughout, but in different combinations (eg 2d6 or 3d10) or with a severely limited number (say, not more than five)of appropriate modifiers for situation, troop quality or whatever.

Firstly, having a variety of dice is not cheap, whereas, in extremis, I have improvised d6 by putting ink dots on sugar cubes for a school wargame club meeting (don't be alarmed, I didn't let the kids eat the dice afterwards!).

Secondly, using different dice just wastes time as people consult rules to find which die they need, then try to find it in a box of dice. And if someone accidentally throws the wrong die….

My experience is the opposite of Arthur1815's. I've run many StarGrunt games at conventions, and played many more games of StarGrunt and Dirtside, and have not experienced any of the issues described.

I use color-coded dice, and provide enough dice for the players at convention games. StarGrunt and Dirtside lend themselves to color coding: Elite units get red quality chits and roll d12, so all d12s are red. Veterans get orange quality chits and roll d10, so all d10s are orange, etc.

StarGrunt and Dirtside often require the players to roll against each other, and that's another situation where different dice types come into play.

Well I am not worried about the cheap per se as I have a ton of dice of all types and I would be providing that for the games I run.

I'm not sure I agree that folks have trouble using different types of dice. But there is merit to the keeping it with one die type and use of multiples as in your example.

I feel that having the different die types helps provide a nice element of friction and takes away the need for said tables or looking of rules. In my game you would have a card with the stats for your elements and units and what die they needed. That keeps it simple and ready at hand. No charts. You need a 4 and your troop quality is X and your weapon has X number of additional die modifiers. Normally no more than one except for support weapons, vehicle weapons and of course any type of artillery or off board support.

Chance of success (rolling 4+)

D4 = 25%
D5 = 40%
D6 = 50%
D8 = 62.5%
D10 = 70%
D12 = 75%
D16 = 81.25%
D20 = 85%

Hope that helps a little.

The adding of dice for this and that sounds like it would bog down.

For convention games one thing I do is keep all the grunts the same. So Platoon 1 might be your better troopers and are all D8+D6 for good weapons. Platoon 2 are less motivated and are D6+D6. That way aside from the NCO or LMG man, a player always rolls the same dice every time. Different players might have different troops (so Joe gets the SEAL team rolling a D10 + D6, while Suzie gets the militia rolling a plain D8).

It might help to just make everyone a D6 in defense, with an added D6 for cover. Maybe an added D12 for bullet proof cover, and that's it.

Using color coded dice (all D6 are white, all D8 are blue, all D10 are red) makes this very easy. Plus if you have to roll the same over and over with an exception, that really helps speed play.

I too prefer one type of die, and one direction – so either high is always good or low is, but not sometimes high sometimes low.

Go with what you want to design really. You can make the sliding die type system work. It works well for Savage Worlds and Pride of Lions.

Benefits are that you can always roll a 1 so a lower die is not always in a hopeless situation Where as 3 D6 vs 2 D6 is almost always going to be a win or a tie for 3 d6.

Problems: This is true for role playing and probably true for wargaming in general. Half the people at the table will be comfortable with the system you suggest. The other half will be mystified as to which die to roll. It will slow the game down at least somewhat. Some will never adapt. One of our players has been playing DnD for a very long time and still has trouble figuring out which damage die to roll. It's just the way it is.

I would NOT move the dice up or down. I would sort dice by color and mark stands or bases accordingly. Worst troops use D6's all of which are green and have a green dot on their stands. Elite troops roll D12's all of which are red and have a red dot on their bases. If the target is behind cover, you need twice as many firing castings per die. If you have a magnificent weapon, you roll twice as many dice. But for a speedy convention game, your dice are immediately identifiable, and the number you need to achieve never changes.

There are, of course, other good ways. But in a convention, go for as much redundancy and simplicity as possible.

I like the idea, but then I like FoF and HW. I use red D6, white D8, blue D10 and green D12.

Instead of dropping dice quality (d8 drops to d6), you might consider simply adding dice.

Roll 1 die for troop quality (d4 = militia to d12 = Spec Ops)
Roll # of dice for weapon quality (1d6 = pistol, 2d8 = assault rifle)
Roll # of dice for special skils (1d6 = sniper, 1d8 = vehicle mounted, etc)

Defender also gets to roll some dice:
1d6 = basic cover, 1d8 = hard cover
1d6 = flak jacket, 1d10 = full body assault armor

No base to hit number, everybody just rolls a bucket of dice. Add up the attacker and defender's dice. If the defender rolls higher, no damage. If the attacker rolls higher, he inflicts hits: 1 hit for higher than defender, but less than double defender's roll; 2 hits for double defender's roll; 3 hits for triple defender's roll, etc.

The modifiers become adding dice instead of adjusting dice types, and no adding/subtracting modifiers. I'll leave the balancing of attack vs defense to you. (But I can probably work something up in Excel to figure odds.)

All good comments all. Jericho, thanks for that die percentage breakdown. That helps immeasurably.

Joker, I think you have the right of it. We have the same issue among our regular game group. No matter how much we play "X" game there is at least that one guy who just never understands. Sometimes that is me. And you point out the main reason I like the sliding scale of dice as yes I have played plenty of games where the unit who rolls D12s will suddenly roll nothing but ones and get hosed by the scrubs. It happens in real life. But as you say some will love whatever I come up with and others will not. I mean look at how many different flavors there are of rules for WW II, Napoleonics, and Ancients. I suppose it is all in how we are hard wired and what we think works. I like butter pecan ice cream but I have some friends who think I am crazy to eat it.

Extra Crispy, I was not intending for low and high rolls to differ. High will always be good and low not so much. It is another reason I like using 4 as the sweet number you need to succeed. I don't like to muddy the waters with plus or minus modifiers and would rather have the quality die be the deciding factor. Does that make sense?

I already try to have color coordinated dice and/or dice. It just makes it easier.

Robert, I think you are right about redundancy and simplicity: however, there also needs to be enough difference or variables along with mechanics that reward being clever or it just becomes about how many dice can you roll. At some point weight of numbers will carry the day or at least I feel it will.

Of course I will need to play test this and see how it pans out. Or just pick a rules set I like and just stick with that. But where is the fun in that.

From personal experience, I've found that unless people are roleplayers, using multiple polyhedrals tends to slow things down.

Not a big factor but it IS noticeable. We saw it even when playing Savage Worlds across multiple groups.

Changing die types for fire and melee up or down is standard for Piquet and Field of Battle family games; not everyone likes that die mechanic, but I certainly do!

You might take a look at Ares by Majestic 12. Though billed as more of a fantasy set I've created mods to do just about any period including sci if. It is an opposed die roll system using various die types. In melee both players typically roll a pair of dice representing combat skill + weapon quality vs combat skill + defense and compare the results. Ranged combat works a bit differently and handles range better than any game system I've played. A really awesome system with a great deal of flexibility. A points system makes it easy to whip up just about anything you can imagine.

mj12games.com/ares (A free demo version can be downloaded)

I believe John Leahy is a fan of the rules and might weigh in on them as well.

Chance of success (rolling 4+)

D4 = 25%
D5 = 40%
D6 = 50%
D8 = 62.5%
D10 = 70%
D12 = 75%
D16 = 81.25%
D20 = 85%

Hope that helps a little.

It does. I can understand the attractive aspects to different die types, particularly in an opposed die system.

However, on the other hand, all those odds of success with a die rolls can be recreated other ways within a game system. It is just about the kind of experience you want the players to have.

And of course, whether the odds actually represent anything in the real world, if that is a goal.

A few peronal observations about using multiple die types in a convention game:

• Many walk-up convention players are poor at distinguishing die types. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes, but there are almost always some players who make mistakes with much higher frequency and must be coached and watched, and a few people will clearly never "get it" no matter how much they practice.
  
• There is a significant percentage of "wrong die" rolls in games where the die types switch frequently, even when all the players are good at distinguishing die types. Games using multiple die types flow better if each player has a fixed set or two they roll consistently.
  
• If you do settle on rules that require switching die types a lot (a la Piquet/FOB), it improves game speed to provide each player a complete set of all the dice they will need, a cup to hold them, and a dice tray to roll in. This goes a long way to avoid holding up the game "looking for one more die" every round.
  

- Ix

The way to manage multiple die types is to color code them. All of one type is always the same color. There are enough colors available to represent all the different die types. This allows the GM to assist troublesome players using clear instructions…such as "…hey snapperhead! …roll a red one and a green one!" The convention program must clearly stipulate color blind players must partner with a friend.

I think your goal is quick pickup and low cognitive load during play.

I think using the same die for a given unit type is imperative for this. In a campaign or group, sliding die types is fine. For a con game, "These are my dudes. Those are my dice." will go a long way to making it easy. If each player has their own (same color) dice, I think three die types per player is easy to handle.

While I am not a fan of massive penalty systems, I think a simple penalty/bonus system would work. -1 to the roll for light cover, -2 for heavy, and +1 to the roll for advantage (surprise, bogged unit, etc.). Most payers can handle two or three types of light or heavy cover for a pickup game. You can facilitate this and not lose visual appeal by going with something like vegetation (all the green stuff) is -1 and rocks (the grey terrain bits) are -2, if something like that is applicable.

Golden rule:

Only use ONE type of die modifiers.
Either:
- +/- on the result (and hence target number for a success), well suited for a system that uses a one or two dice for a single roll.
- die type goes up or down (D4 <-> D6 <-> D8 etc) well suited for a system in which troop characteristics are described by die types.
- number of dice goes up or down, well suited for a bucket-of-dice system.

Once you start mixing those modifiers, you get a very confusing system.

Also, I don't understand how it is possible that – after 40+ years of D&D and polyhedral dice in general – people still cannot distinguish a D8 from a D10 from a D12.

I use red D6, white D8, blue D10 and green D12.

I use blue D4, black D6, yellow D8, red D10 and green D12. :-)

This has been a great discussion. However, I may have found my game. My buddy Nazrat had recently purchased and downloaded Nordic Weasel's "Clash on the Fringe", I liked what I saw so will be purchasing the game. However I noticed Weasl's other game for more mass combat "No Stars in Sight."

And I see he likes using D10s. So perhaps this may be the way to go. Still, I like the idea of multiple die types but the arguments about confused players seem pretty valid.

I was for a good while a SG2 player. That game does shift Die up and down. Never had a problem but in the end I am not sure it gained anything. I went for D20 in the end for our own rules as it allows a bit finer granulation and one die is easier, as you only (in our game) need to have at most 1 die per player and one per two players is fine. It does stop the battlefield getting covered in dice,which I hate.

Kallman – "In Sight' is all D6 for combat, mostly because the two combat rolls tend to use either a 5+ or a 6+ and I liked the odds.

With Clash, I wanted more of an old school feel and D10's convert to percentages easy enough :-)

Bought both games and will read them in detail when I have a moment. I like a lot of what I see for both.

Having all the dice of a given size the same colour (and having each size a different colour) is essential if you use multiple dice sizes.
Not generally a fan of the system, but it works well in Congo, which uses d6, d8 and d10 with 5+ always being a success.
So 33%, 50% and 60% chance.

I bought a dozen sets of the Stargrunt colored polyhedrals. Yellow d4, green d6, blue d8, orange d10, and red d12. Don't need but two sets for Stargrunt, but Force on Force needs up to 10 dice of each type per player.

The adding of dice for this and that sounds like it would bog down.

It's faster than counting up modifiers. Grab one die for each dude, plus one die for the SAW and another for the M203. 4+ succeeds, unless beaten/tied by the opponent's roll.