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Dice.

I wouldn't mind cards so much if they were of the standard of, say, Magic.

Trouble is most of them are either shoddy die cuts, or (horror of horrors!) those crappy efforts where the back and front of the cards are printed on separate sheets of paper and you're supposed to stick them together.

Stick those up your jacksie, I say!

Magc8Ball wrote:

WarWizard91 wrote:I inferred dice with my response

You're using the word infer, when you obviously meant imply. I guess some posters will put up with that sort of thing, but frankly, I can't imagine why.

You were sooooo close, but no cigar.

Yeah yeah yeah, implying is what I was doing, inferring is what they were doing. They go together and I mixed them up. Mistakes happen.

kronk wrote:Being a D&D player for years, I've learned to enjoy Dice.

I'm not familiar with the Maulifaux card system.

Do you put the card back in each time you draw one and shuffle it?

Do you keep the discard stack to the side until the draw pile is depleted?

SHORT VERSION:
Each side has a # of models.
Each turn lasts as long as it takes for ALL MODELS on the table to have their activation (it's a UGOIGO system on a model by model basis).
You start each turn with a hand of cards. You flip cards from the top of your deck for certain actions (shooting, spells, combat, damage, etc).
Typically, you can "cheat" each flip by adding to or replacing the flipped card with one from your hand.
Your opponent does the same.
Highest result wins.

At the end of the turn, your discard pile & any cards you don't want in your hand are returned to the deck & reshuffled.
Draw the # of cards needed to have a full hand of cards.
Start the next turn

That help?

Eric

I've really grown to like the card turn mechanic in Warlord. combat, spells, and the like are resolved with d10s but troop activation comes from a deck and certain models and spells can influence the deck order.

I'm going to have to go with dice on this one, if only because they seem more fair in the end if only because it seems a whole lot harder to cheat with the old bucket'o dice than it does with a deck of cards. Card manipulation isn't all that difficult, at least to the degree that'd be necessary.

Also, again, sheer number of numbers needed.

If I were to see cards, what I'd like to see is something like...each player has a deck. Shuffle, draw 7 at the beginning of the game. This makes up a hand that, through the game can be used to varying effects, like a "Lucky Shot" card that makes a hit on an armored vehicle an auto penetration. Thing is though, you've only got 7 or so, and they're reasonably random.

Another idea might be a deck for the table that sits in the middle kind of like...monopoly. You can choose to draw a card at certain times, perhaps during a dice roll, and take the effects. Good effects, bad effects, you roll poorly you have the option to take another gamble to make it less bad. You roll well? You've the option to make it exceptional, at the risk of making it horrible.

Magc8Ball wrote:What I think would be interesting, though, is to integrate card-based effects into a wargame. Something using a Magic-style constructed deck (or a standardized deck like in a Steve Jackson-style card game) to allow players to cause special effects to occur in the game could add an extra dimension to play.

IIRC Uncharted Seas and Firestorm Armada both use this sort of mechanic. Haven't really played either, so can't say for sure tho.

ETA, Decipher's Star Wars CCG had a similar mechanic but a little different. All the cards had a number in the corner and you would draw a card as a random value used in combat resolution. The interesting bit was that the number on each card was not random - powerful cards had low numbers, weak cards had high. (Darth Vader would always be a 1, for example). So if you stacked your deck with rock hard cards it made it harder to get good draw values.

Doomtown had the same basic thing going. Of course, you're playing poker with said cards instead, so you could (in theory) stack your deck so that you always drew 5 of a kind and won virtually any gun fight. Of course, Cheatin'! cards could screw that build over rather nicely...

Malifaux's fate hand is so nice. It's a great way of not penalizing players for taking expensive models the way 40k does at low point counts (a failed roll or two on an expensive model can remove it from the board - the 3 1s in a termie squad phenomena).

If someone is so concerned about cheating, just make a habit of riffle shuffling an opponent's deck twice before cutting it. Very few cheating methods survive two riffles and a cut.

Sadly by RAW you can only cut, not reshuffle, riffle, or anything else.

But obviously only someone who is OCD about their cards, or stacking them would have a problem with that.

I'm not OCD and I still find it hard to let someone else touch my cards . . . But then most people have that with dice tbh

Oshova

Oshova wrote:Sadly by RAW you can only cut, not reshuffle, riffle, or anything else.

But obviously only someone who is OCD about their cards, or stacking them would have a problem with that.

I'm not OCD and I still find it hard to let someone else touch my cards . . . But then most people have that with dice tbh

Oshova

Eh, if someone doesn't let you riffle their cards twice, I'd be a tad skeeved out. Other people touching your cards? Like... what? What are they going to do, give em cooties? Maybe years of magic have inured me to the concept, but I really don't mind someone shuffling my deck of cards (grabbing my cards in the middle of a match is something totally different). Most malifaux players at my shop have at least a passing familiarity with magic, and don't really mind (one guy does, but he's an old-school wargamer, the sort that really gives the hobby a bad name).

I also let anyone help me count dice, especially when I'm playing funsies with orks. Counting 80 dice is not easy!

I don't know why it is, just one of those things lol

Depends how fast you count =p

Oshova

cards dont really offer "randomness"

actually a lot less randomness. you know you have a "high" card in your hand and a low card in your hand. you choose to play whatever best benefits you at this situation. If you consistently draw high or low, then you know how the rest of your draws are going to turn out

not random but offers a different set of tactics and mindgames

*he's smiling, did he just draw a joker?*

Dice for me, better representative of a units capabilities.

Luco wrote:Dice for me, better representative of a units capabilities.

I necessarily think dice or cards are better in general, but this statement isn't really true, especially without any qualifiers. I'm not really sure how "random number between 1 and 6 (or 10 or 20) is a better "representation of a unit's capabilities". It's just a number generation, which can be handled perfectly well by the simplest form of card use (flipping over the top of a deck to get a number).

There are potential card-based interactions that could much better represent a unit: having a deck of cards where certain cards in the deck are designed to be played with a specific unit. For instance, a 40K Card-Based mod could let each player build a deck for their army, and you keep X number in your hand based on some arbitrary number. When you activate a unit, you can play a card that contains a special ability that is specifically designed to represent what that unit is capable of (a Dreadnaught getting to smash through some terrain, a Space Marine Devastator squad getting to split their fire between two different targets, etc. That would be a better representation of a unit's capabilities.

Dice just give you numbers.

If I'm understanding this right, prolly not but if, I think the 66% of hitting a target with marines is better than 'lets pull out a card and see what happens' I don't like special ability cards, its like the dread can't smash through something one minute but can the next. Thats just my preference though.

Both dice and cards detract from what happens on the table-top. Chess wouldn't be improved by the addition of dice or cards.

Nurglitch wrote:Both dice and cards detract from what happens on the table-top. Chess wouldn't be improved by the addition of dice or cards.

No but you could create a new game from the concept of chess, maybe replace the pieces with little plastic figures, replace the 8x8 square board with a 6'x4' gaming board with terrain. Introduce ranges and measuring . . . then add in the dice rolls, multiple 'races' to play as . . . I think I might have to take this to the patent office . . .

Oshova

Or...you could do something original and develop a wargame that doesn't use dice or cards. Not to say it hasn't been tried before, but I don't think it's been done with commercial success. Regardless I think choosing between dice and cards as randomizers is a false dilemma.

Ill go dice. I will admit I dont know how the mechanics of using cards works, but it seems to me it would get cumbersome for games like 40K.

That and I made my own custom dice tower, and I like having all kinds of cool dice.

Luco wrote:If I'm understanding this right, prolly not but if, I think the 66% of hitting a target with marines is better than 'lets pull out a card and see what happens' I don't like special ability cards, its like the dread can't smash through something one minute but can the next. Thats just my preference though.

Well in this case it's "let's both flip a card, I add 5, you add 3, and if I'm beating you I hit (and if I'm beating you by a lot, I hit for better damage flips)."

The only form of 'special ability cards' in malifaux is that if a suit (like hearts, spades, etc.) is flipped for certain models they get triggers.

Nurglitch wrote:Or...you could do something original and develop a wargame that doesn't use dice or cards. Not to say it hasn't been tried before, but I don't think it's been done with commercial success. Regardless I think choosing between dice and cards as randomizers is a false dilemma.

But then what would you use as a randomiser? Or would you leave it straight down to averages (or some other such constant such as in Chess)?

I would be interested to try it, I just don't think a 40k style game works with averages or constants. You need that random element to make it more enjoyable, and to make you think more about your moves. Not having a random element in chess doesn't hinder it, as chess is more about playing the player (thinking what move they will make next) than playing the pieces against each other. As all pieces are the same (just move differently) and any piece can take out any other piece.

So erm . . . as usual I've lost my train of thought half way through . . . and as such this probably makes little or no sense. But basically, Chess works well without a randomiser, but much more people play games with randomisers than those without. As randomisers create a much more enjoyable game. Your one remaining Sgt from the squad still stands a chance against a menacing group of heretical enemies, no matter how slim it may seem, there is a chance none-the-less. . . . Or something like that . . .

Oshova

RisingPhoenix wrote:

Luco wrote:If I'm understanding this right, prolly not but if, I think the 66% of hitting a target with marines is better than 'lets pull out a card and see what happens' I don't like special ability cards, its like the dread can't smash through something one minute but can the next. Thats just my preference though.

Well in this case it's "let's both flip a card, I add 5, you add 3, and if I'm beating you I hit (and if I'm beating you by a lot, I hit for better damage flips)."

The only form of 'special ability cards' in malifaux is that if a suit (like hearts, spades, etc.) is flipped for certain models they get triggers.

Touche.

Oshova wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:Or...you could do something original and develop a wargame that doesn't use dice or cards. Not to say it hasn't been tried before, but I don't think it's been done with commercial success. Regardless I think choosing between dice and cards as randomizers is a false dilemma.

But then what would you use as a randomiser? Or would you leave it straight down to averages (or some other such constant such as in Chess)?

Non-random resolution works OK in games that have a higher amount of strategic or tactical thinking required. Diplomacy, for instance (a board game) has no randomizing element whatsoever. A game like Battletech, with lots of damage to burn through on mechs as well as a LOT of maneuvering, would probably work quite well without dice. I'd bet that Warmachine (and minis games with a similar low model count) would work pretty well without a randomizer as well, relying instead simply on special abilities and getting multiple models into base contact, etc.

40K, though, doesn't have very much deep thought involved (especially once you're on the table) and is much more of an excuse to roll lots of dice and look at pretty miniatures. The model counts are simply too high (and the individual model survivability is too low) for it to feasibly work diceless. This is mainly a reflection on its design, though: it's been designed to BE a fairly random game, with small probability tilts here and there (differences in BS, for instance).

I'd be interested in putting together a game, from the ground up, with the intent of it having no randomizers. It might work really well with a space combat game: highly advanced targeting software plus lasers plus fairly cumbersome targets means that if you can see it (and are pointed towards it), you can shoot it. This game would be much more about deception, maneuver, and concentration of forces than just lining up and charging... might be something I'll sketch out over the weekend.

I beg to differ on account of Warmachine. I find that the random element definitely makes it much more enjoyable, and it would be extremely hard to maintain that enjoyment without the random element. Although the majority of my experience is with Hordes (and the use of RAEG!!!) so you're creating points for the Warcaster, and making dice rolls more effective when it comes to damage etc. So obviously this wouldn't happen with the random element, or atleast it would be more complex.

But anywho, I would love to see how your concept comes out =] I'm always up for trying out new games. Maybe that's why I spend so much on the most expensive part of wargaming . . . Starting out with a new game . . .

Oshova

Oshova wrote:I beg to differ on account of Warmachine. I find that the random element definitely makes it much more enjoyable, and it would be extremely hard to maintain that enjoyment without the random element.

Oh, I didn't say it would be FUN, just functional. Warmachine is all about slinging the dice.

Ah good, as long as it's understood that random=fun in around 90% of occassions

Oshova

Oshova wrote:Ah good, as long as it's understood that random=fun in around 90% of occassions

Well, that was kind of my point: "fun" is pretty much defined by the attitudes of the game and the people playing it. If you're just looking to sling some dice and have big dramatic moments, then you want the Random Element to make things even more unpredictable. If you're more interested in an intellectual challenge of tactical prowess, then you want LESS randomness.

Both are "fun", for various values of "fun". On Dakka, sure, 90% is probably a fairly good number, but amongst gamer-types in general I'd guess that it's much lower (though highly variable depending on mood).

I honestly can't think of a game other than Chess that I enjoy that doesn't have a random element. And I don't tend to play games I don't enjoy very often

Oshova