"Dice vs Cards. Which Do feel more in control." Topic

Been playing some To the strongest at the club and today someone said 'I feel more in control/luckier with dice. How do you guys feel?

I don't think you are meant to feel in control. Just the opposite, in fact.

As a gaming device cards are better than dice. Its what Clausewitz said: War is like a game of Poker. Your not-in-control with die is luck based, with cards it is based on not knowing, what your oponent has.

But the big problem is, that cards usually become a game on their own and are not well integrated with miniature play. Ans worst of all, cards too often destroy the aesthetic side of miniature wargaming (by laying on the table).

Your not-in-control with die is luck based, with cards it is based on not knowing, what your opponent has.

??? Cards are luck based too.

It depends on the specifics of the game. Drawing cards and rolling dice is all mostly luck. The cards you draw are random, but like poker you can bluff and sequence how and when you play your cards depending on the game. With dice it becomes a mathematical calculation based on pure probability. Cards vs dice, it all really depends on the rules of the game.

I love dice of course. But the speed of using cards to generate numbers has really won me over. But I do feeling are pretty random

Cards are luck based too.

If that were true, casinos wouldn't care when you counted them.

There is a very significant difference between cards and dice. Any individual roll of a die can produce any possible number on that die. The chance of rolling a 1 and a 6 are the same, no matter how many times you roll the same die.

A deck of cards, however, has an elimination aspect that alters the probabilities from draw to draw. In a standard poker deck of 52 cards (assuming jokers are removed), the chance of any given card being drawn on subsequent draws is altered by the nature of the previous draw.

In both, there are percentages involved, and thus apparent randomness, but with a card deck the percentage changes, and the careful player can adjust their planning and responses based on what cards have already been drawn and thus their knowledge of what remains in the deck.

Even if one reshuffles the deck every time a card is removed, the actual "randomness" of the deck is highly dependent on the effectiveness and number of shuffles made— and most people probably only shuffle a deck three times or less, which is entirely insufficient to break any pattern in the deck. (Studies range from saying 7 to 15(!) shuffles are required to entirely randomize the order of any given deck.)

Well if you can "Count Cards" as they are being drawn and played you can in fact influence your own luck to a certain degree. That is why Casinos use a 6 to 8 deck shoe for Black Jack to make card counting more difficult, but you won't see much more than a single deck used in a wargame.

So for example, if you need high cards for success and you know there are a lot left in the deck because a lot more low cards have been played, you may be more apt to "play the odds" on hitting a successful number. If you need a high card and many have already been played, you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

So basically if you are playing with cards, its like playing Black Jack and you can have at least some information available. With dice, a single D10 has no memory.

Kim

Dice are fine, don't want control I want random endings

In One Hour Skirmish the cards act like dice. I don't feel any greater control with cards as with dice. The only exception is when a joker is drawn it ends the turn. I feel even less control of the game. You're all set to dispose of an enemy unit and the joker comes up followed by the enemy getting initiative and all your plans go in the crapper.

"??? Cards are luck based too."

The sequence might be random but the number of events is bounded. Playing cards is a mix of skill and luck, whereas as throwing dice is just throwing dice.

It depends how they are used of course.

Phil Sabin actually wrote a card based simulation of Napoleonic warfare called Kartenspiel. No luck involved at all, but an awful lot of bluff. I ran it at COW a few years ago.

My dad said, "Dice have no memory."
I own many and I am not convinced.

I do not play Poker or Brag anymore but continue to play Canasta and Cribbage.

It is a personal choice but I don't want to mix miniatures and playing cards on the same table.

Have fun.

There is a very significant difference between cards and dice. Any individual roll of a die can produce any possible number on that die. The chance of rolling a 1 and a 6 are the same, no matter how many times you roll the same die.

You can avoid that by adding the drawn card back into the deck and shuffling after every draw

For me 'Dacebalas' is spot on; "But the big problem is, that cards usually become a game on their own and are not well integrated with miniature play. Ans worst of all, cards too often destroy the aesthetic side of miniature wargaming (by laying on the table).

For folks opposed to cards, I would really suggest you give One Hour Skirmish a try. It uses cards more like 21 than poker.

It's a IGO/UGO game. As I said when the joker comes up the turn ends. When that happens all casualties are determined (recover, wounded, or dead). The decks are reshuffled. A new turn begins and new initiative is determined – this is the only time that a player can get two rounds in a row.

Players draw cards with high card winning. In place of modified the dice roll, you can draw extra cards for thing like cover, higher ROF, and the like.

Thinking more maybe not quite random but as I want odds of %65 and if rolled 100 times should have close to 65 of them under that percent.

I agree with Dagwood.

There is a very significant difference between cards and dice. Any individual roll of a die can produce any possible number on that die. The chance of rolling a 1 and a 6 are the same, no matter how many times you roll the same die.

You can avoid that by adding the drawn card back into the deck and shuffling after every draw.

7 to 15 times after every draw? That's what's needed to truly reintroduce equal probability of outcome into a deck— otherwise, it's a safe bet the previously drawn card is near the middle of the deck, or at least will not be the top card. (See the rest of my response, above.)

Not saying a game can't be great with cards, or that it won't have a strong element of effective randomness and probability, or that either are better or worse than the other, just that cards are not equivalent to dice in randomness. They are not the same. One always involves an established, if unknown, pattern of results; the other has no established pattern. Just the natures of the two.

Personally, I just like rolling dice.

"Pig Wars" for Dark Age skirmish by Tod Kershner is one of my favorite set of rules & is designed to use standard playing cards to resolve move sequence & combat which is fine for private games without a time limit. I adapted it to use polyhedral dice for my convention games with 6 players to keep the action moving.

It all depends how the cards are used. If you just draw them to get random numbers as in To the Strongest, they are not much different to dice (but it is a lot faster drawing 5 cards than rolling 5 dice). But if you have a hand of cards, as in Maurice or Longstreet then it is a different type of mechanism

Cards won't fit in my dice tower

Build your tower on top of the deck shoe!

Cards are quite good for optional, random, colourful events such as:

- Sudden caisson explosion – remove battery to park – available again in 1d6 turns
- Sodden hay stack catches fire – low visibility for all downwind units for (1d6 turns), no shooting over 50 paces.
- Sotten General falls off horse – all units halt and hats off until accompanied off table (1d6 turns).
- Reinforcements delayed (1d6 turns) by travelling circus diversion

I have recently come to really enjoy playing cards as they are used in One Hour Skirmish Wargaming. A clever little system and the draw is full of high drama. I may have grown numb to dice after so many years, but they just don't seem very exciting compared to turning over a card from a deck and getting a result. Playing cards are so ingrained in our culture and seem to give a sense of higher stakes and more emotion than dice. I still use a lot of dice, but am thinking about some home rules to eliminate some of them.