"Open License, generic, specialty wargame dice?" Topic

For a long time I've been very interested in using a set of specialty dice for wargaming to make the numbers not so fixated on the traditional D6, while also allowing more interesting results to come up that mix up the gameplay. The concept being to use ideas from boardgames to address certain areas where things have gotten stale in traditional miniature games.

You see this in some current games like Malifaux and some Western games that use cards also count.. Other games like Saga have specialty dice, but make the mistake of specialty dice for every faction instead of one set. Bolt Action/Gates has order dice, which are just tokens disguised as dice, but people liked those enough to buy them.

An example to look at is FFG doing this good acclaim with their Star Wars RPG, although before that it was the Warhammer Fantasy RPG, which got a mixed reception. Now they're releasing a generic version of their "narrative dice" rules that I'm excited to use.

Some not quite released games are experimenting with this as well.

This pertains to wargaming in that, people generally shy away from specialty dice because they don't want to have to buy new dice just for one game. However, the gameplay possibilities opened up by specialty dice are too big to ignore. Imagine making a roll that starts as a simple attack, but in that roll you get both chance to hit, damage, and interesting extra effects based on which icons come up and how many of them? That would speed up gameplay and reduce bookkeeping at the same time, all without charts or multiple step math.

So, what if the community came up with a generic set of dice with associated icons, usable by anyone, and any rules set. People could make generic rules with these dice, or make specific rules.

The dice face counts, colors, and names might need to be standardized to help with establishment, but the usage of them open. So any die manufacturer can use them. This helps solve the problem of people not wanting a set of dice usable only in one game.

Well a D6 is as generic as you can get, having 6 different symbols that can be mixed and matched as required. Just sayin'.

Interesting idea. My personal preference is for a dice score to make a difference to the outcome rather than being the outcome in itself.
You do need to give a warning that your negative comments about other systems are just your opinions rather than anything factual. Words and phrases like "stale", "mistake" "too big to ignore" "shy away" are your opinions only.
Sounds like a good project, with which i wish you every success.

Die are just a means of providing statistical variation. Writing somthing other than that makes no change to its function. I would suspect that a full definition of what the sysbol ment would not be legibly printed on the die face unless it was a very large, too large to be practical. Ergo you would need to refer to a table anyway.

Therfore practicaly I see no actaul gain. Novelty perhaps, money spinning maybe, but nothing else. Changeing the face from standard means if you lose one it has to be replaced by a more expensive one, or you simply write on you exsisting. icon table numbers not sysbols to look up.

To me die are not the raison d'etre of a game just a neccessary evil. Adding unique die does nothing.
A game Stargrunt II, an excellent game in may ways, used(uses its still played) multiple die types to change statistics for range. It was to me personaly, not a gain, it was more hassle and took longer looking for the right die than remebering a change in target number on a standard die.

You asked, so this is my opinion.

QILS already does this. By dividing up the pips into different functional areas using color, you get distributions you can't get with just reading pips off a regular d6. The method, combined with pick the highest value rolled on all dice, provides a asymptotic ceiling on outcomes that avoids many of the "run away" problems with open bonuses.

And you don't need symbols on the dice. If you just want to use generic symbols, equate them to the existing faces.

I could be missing something, but to me, this is beyond silly. Why exactly do I need, or would I want, different symbols? My dice already have a different marking on each side. If I want six possible outcomes, all I need is a D6 and a set of rules which give a different outcome for each number. Everything else is just someone wanting to sell me more dice, and I have plenty, thank you.

Now, I will buy dice to speed up play. I work variants on the old Brent Oman system under which elites roll D12's, line D10's and inferior troops D8's, and I'll color-code a game so every D12 is red, every D10 white and every D8 green. I'll buy dice with logos on the "6" spot--or even the "1" spot--just because they're cute. But the man who tells me I have to buy his dice to play his game has already lost me as a customer And now we have a plan under which I buy dice now to play with games to be designed later.

No, thanks.

I would need to see how this is different from rolling a die?

Commands and Colors use custom dice: certain icons are hots, certain icons are "saves." But you can play the game with a normal D6, you just need a chart. I'll admit the icons save a few seconds here and there by not needing a chart but that hardly seems to open new possibilities.

Perhaps the OP could provide an example that is a new possibility, in concrete terms? I can make "a roll that starts as a simple attack, but in that roll you get both chance to hit, damage, and interesting extra effects based on which icons come up and how many of them" with regular dice.

For example: on a D12 any roll of 6+ is a hit, all 12s are two hits. If you roll triples of any number 6+ that's a critical hit, and triple 12s are a critical with no saving throw allowed.

By the way, all the specialty D6 I see are mostly marked in the 1,1,1,2,2,3 scheme (three of one icon, two of the next, one of the third).

I have has people talk about QILS with an unmarked die and a chart. it does slow the play abit, but I inderstand the concern. for me, managing a bunch of charts is no better than sorting out a few dice.

To me, most "speciality dice" are simply a way of getting wargamers to shell out cash for something they don't really need. There are a few exceptions, but they are really few and far between.

One of the reasons Maneouver Group uses D20's is that it allows resolution of multiple factors in one role anyway. Hits on vehicles and the position (turret or hull) is on the same roll. Infantry check suppression and more permanent damage on the same roll. I would not propose a die with the faces marked specially (although it would be possible, but pointless) as we try and keep out costs down for the sake of the players.

Specialty dice, like those from SAGA, add flair to the game.

To me, most "speciality dice" are simply a way of getting wargamers to shell out cash for something they don't really need.

You don't *need* any of it. You don't need miniatures to laboriously paint, when you can use tokens, or chits, or Shapie'd popsicle sticks.

I don't slight manufacturers from tying to put their mark on their game, and make a buck while they're at it. Besides, with even my limited tech abilities, I can snatch some images from the net and print them out on stickers to stick to cheap blank dice. Or regular dice, if you want, it's not like it really matters. It's far less effort than I will put into any of my miniatures.

The 'need' for custom dice is not its own issue, it's just another matter of degree.

Just for the record, I get a LOT of work out of my castings. I expect them to indicate troop type, quality, position, strength formation and often status. All I ask of my dice is that they generate a number in a certain range. Well, except for the scatter dice.

I could see the point--sort of--of marking a blank die so as to reduce the options. I haven't played C&C, but maybe something like two sides marked "save" against four which say "take loss?" But if you sold--I don't know what to call them, "generic custom dice" perhaps?--you'd presumably want a different symbol on each side, so you'd be back to memorizing the meaning of each symbol--not an improvement I can see over regular dice. while missing and game or period flavor you get from something like the SAGA dice.

So, OK, eventually someone is going to sell me some of those WWII dice with unit symbols, which I don't need, but which still call to me. But why do I want custom generics?

"You don't *need* any of it."

Obviously, but some hellishly expensive D6 with some squiggles or odd words on them instead of pips or numbers takes "don't need" to another level in wargaming :)

I must admit that to me custom dice would add nothing to the game. It's just a randomizer. I looked at electronic generators but in the end what would be the gain. Only one I see would be to stop the over zealous idiot throwing them off the table or hitting models. However they don't tend to play me more than once unless they either learn, or more usual give up as my rules are not designed for those that like to gamble rather than think and plan.

my rules are not designed for those that like to gamble rather than think and plan.

So your rules are not designed to reflect the realities of combat? In the real world if you don't do both and account for both in your opponent, you don't win. Even in the case of overwhelming force where your victory is a foregone conclusion, your victory isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion.

QILS uses "specialty dice", which are regular dice, but color coded. If you can remember a handful of things about the game and a couple of specifics of your scenario, then there is nothing to look up. There is no playing the tables and charts instead of strategy and tactics because there are no tables and charts.

You can, of course, design in complexity. For example, if you wanted to have a 20-man platoon where each figure had their own unique stats, you could give each one a different die. Then you would get into the philosophical discussion about whether or not it is "easier" to have a staging area with identification of the dice or a table where you have to look up 20 different rows of numbers multiple times a round.

etotheip,
The real world can throw up really bizare accidents of fate. However while trying to learn how to fight an army (which I an still doing learning after 10 years) such accidents make the game for me useless, This is the advantage of simulation over the real world, you can tailor the model to concentrate on parameters you are interested in. If you cannot fight well without randomness, you will fail horribly when the randomness hit you are not even shure what it was you should have been doing.

The game is complex despite simple rules so the "fog of war" decends sufficently, even more so on longer games, that additional randomness is of no value. Hence too many die does not improve the game. Hence a single die type is sufficent and the interpretations for each use. Very quickly (3 or 4 games in a row) they become second nature. Perhaps for an occational player, specific die may be of use. But that is certainly not my type of game.

Part of commanding a real force is building up an intuitive vice an analytical sense of when to take a high risk/high reward act>on. Part of that comes from understanding risk.

I think we have hit a communication impasse, since you seem to be saying "just the amount of randomness I put in my game, no more, no less". Nothing wrong with that stance. Specialty dice don't really have anything to do with that. In the case of QILS, they allow you to generate a greater variety of distributions without charts. This speeds up the game and simplifies implementation of the mechanics.

As to your other point about fog of war, I believe that is the function of the scenarios not the rules. But that is a different topic.