Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Use Chinese characters for all numbers

一
二
三
四
五
六
七
八
九
十

Don't play with retards. Seriously, they won't provide any kind of challenge. Or illiterates, you can just lie to them and tell them you rolled "gooder" on your dice than theirs. Then take their money. And clothes too. I mean, why not? They can't tell the difference between a 6 and a 9.

If this is a problem, for anyone, they shouldn't be allowed to have choking hazards. No dice for them.

d10 systems are superior to d6 systems because you have more variety in your pip choices.

A d6 system is really limited in the percentages it can do. If you are rolling 1/6 your chances are 16%,33%,50%,67%,83% If you are rolling 2d6, you get 36 different outcomes, but you could get 100 different outcomes with 2d10.

This means that rolls are less granular. Why are space marines and IG vets equally good at shooting. Marines have dozens or hundreds of years of highly trained practice. IG vets have a dozen years at most. In a d10 system this can be reflected by giving marines a BS of 7 and IG vets a 6 - where normal IG are 5.

D10 is the highest I would go. D20s take to long to roll and are hard to read. D10s are fast and easy to process -- as anyone who played the old D10 vampire systems can tell you.

6. 9.

Also, the 9's descender should really be arrow straight, where the 6's ascender should curve.

Of course if, if I design it, the the 7 has a reverse curve, and the 6's top doesn't loop so much over, while upper loop of the 8 is smaller to further distinguish the 8 / 6 / 9 / 7 from one another.

I don't know if we should worry about granularity when redesigning 40k yet.

I think the tanks/MC dichotomy is a way bigger problem than whether or not IG Vets and Space Marines have the same Ballistic Skill.
Also I kind of don't want to acquire as many D10s as I have D6s. I just fired 36 shots from a Sororitas unit this weekend, and 36 D10s sounds spikey and awkward!

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I don't know if we should worry about granularity when redesigning 40k yet.

I think the tanks/MC dichotomy is a way bigger problem than whether or not IG Vets and Space Marines have the same Ballistic Skill.
Also I kind of don't want to acquire as many D10s as I have D6s. I just fired 36 shots from a Sororitas unit this weekend, and 36 D10s sounds spikey and awkward!

The problem with 40k at this point in time is definitely not lack of granularity in the D6. That's only a peripheral and subjective problem at best.

I agree with the point that it will take longer to sort out successful dice from unsuccessful ones when changing to D10, but I'd say it's not primarily about pattern recognition (although that of course also plays a part). Pip dice have another feature: the "color density". A "1" in pips is almost white while a "6" is almost black. I'd suggest that the different color density would contribute a lot to sorting dice quickly. (Using a classic white die with black pips in the example.)

But hey, try and see, perhaps it's just as easy after some time?

(Personally, for aesthetic reasons I've always preferred Platonic solids; a D12 is a thing of great beauty.)

a d12 is just a d6.

That's the first time I have ever heard of such an issue and my gaming group played heavily D10 systems.

I think it is more overthinking about a potential issue that is not there.

Virtually all D10 have either a pip or a dash under the number and the orientation is corner is the top.

The dice shown previously were 6 is under 9 is yet another fail safe since it means whatever you see is whatever it is.

 pinkmarine wrote:
I agree with the point that it will take longer to sort out successful dice from unsuccessful ones when changing to D10, but I'd say it's not primarily about pattern recognition (although that of course also plays a part). Pip dice have another feature: the "color density". A "1" in pips is almost white while a "6" is almost black. I'd suggest that the different color density would contribute a lot to sorting dice quickly. (Using a classic white die with black pips in the example.)

Yeah, that probably has something to do with it as well. Possibly also the 90 degree angle on the D6, meaning the number that's pointing upward is more prominent from the side numbers compared to a D10.

Whatever it is, when I roll a big handful of D10 it takes me longer to sort them. If you reduced the number of dice you roll and the frequency you roll them it wouldn't make too much of a difference. But when rolling 30 dice to hit, to wound and then save, it's nice to be able to sort dice in under 3 seconds each time

I actually prefer games that roll large number of dice like 40k does.

(Personally, for aesthetic reasons I've always preferred Platonic solids; a D12 is a thing of great beauty.)

Yeah, if you were wanting to increase the number of sides on a dice I'd probably prefer D12.

Is there any reason people always suggest D10 instead of D12 for 40k? Is it just because stats are 0 to 10? Coz you could totally make stats go up to 12 instead

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Is there any reason people always suggest D10 instead of D12 for 40k? Is it just because stats are 0 to 10? Coz you could totally make stats go up to 12 instead

My first response would be "habit", but that's said from a background of playing D100-based RPG's (e.g. Rolemaster; in hindsight a terrible system). But I think that as we are accustomed to thinking in 10's, a D10 makes it easy to do fast statistical calculations. Thus, from an aesthetic POV I say: let's go back to Babyloninan mathematics

Well I just had to make a decision to move on and when I settled with a normal movement of 5" out of 4", 5" and 6", the D10 just felt best and I'm using stats which go beyond 10 though this will not conflict with the choice of the D10. Actually it's kind of strange because it's hard to explain why, but 6" just feels to fast for normal infantry and 4" feels very slow - though I'm derailing now.

I can imagine that it's a matter of habit - if used for a while, people will probably get used to look 6s and 9s apart faster than when they began.

 pinkmarine wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Is there any reason people always suggest D10 instead of D12 for 40k? Is it just because stats are 0 to 10? Coz you could totally make stats go up to 12 instead

My first response would be "habit", but that's said from a background of playing D100-based RPG's (e.g. Rolemaster; in hindsight a terrible system). But I think that as we are accustomed to thinking in 10's, a D10 makes it easy to do fast statistical calculations. Thus, from an aesthetic POV I say: let's go back to Babyloninan mathematics

When will people learn that 12 is superior to 10? 12 has 5 proper divisors while 10 only has 3!

I don't understand this... I mean I have literally never met someone who has issues determining if it is a 6 or 9, because all the dice have them underlined.

Maybe it is because I started with RPGs that used D10 all the time so I've been used to reading numbers. I still don't understand how it is that difficult.

I wonder how many people there are who have trouble distinguishing between a 1 and a 7 and whether they are the same people who find the difference between 6 and 9 a bit difficult.

Maybe it's a kind of dyslexia of numbers.

The problem with d6 isn't that it's a d6 - it's that games like 40k reduce it to a d3 most of the time.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I wonder how many people there are who have trouble distinguishing between a 1 and a 7 and whether they are the same people who find the difference between 6 and 9 a bit difficult.

Maybe it's a kind of dyslexia of numbers.

Seriously, go freakin' time yourself. Throw 50 d6 together and then 50 d10s together and get someone to time how long it takes you to announce how many 6s you got in each case.

That's unfair, as most gamers won't have 50d10.

I've never had an issue telling 6 from 9, but most of my experience with d10 is in roleplaying games. White Wolf rpgs had you roll dice pools, but it was never more than 5 or 6 dice. I could see there being an issue when you roll 20 or more dice at once, but then if you want a system with D10s and large dice rolls you've got way bigger problems than telling 6 apart from 9. Ever rolled 20 D10? They're way bigger than D6. And who has 20+ D10 lying around anyway? Most gamers will have five or six at most, and they don't sell D10 in handy little bulk units like D6, so buying up a load more is a whole new investment.

So if you want to work with D10, I think you also need to make sure you're not rolling more than a few dice at once. And in doing that you've already solved the 6 - 9 problem.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I wonder how many people there are who have trouble distinguishing between a 1 and a 7 and whether they are the same people who find the difference between 6 and 9 a bit difficult.

Maybe it's a kind of dyslexia of numbers.

Seriously, go freakin' time yourself. Throw 50 d6 together and then 50 d10s together and get someone to time how long it takes you to announce how many 6s you got in each case.

I doubt there's any statistical significant difference between the two. Depending on the d6's used the d10's can be faster. The annoying part with d6's is those who have a symbol instead of a number that changes based on who made the die. sometimes it's a 6, other times it's a 1.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I wonder how many people there are who have trouble distinguishing between a 1 and a 7 and whether they are the same people who find the difference between 6 and 9 a bit difficult.

Maybe it's a kind of dyslexia of numbers.

Seriously, go freakin' time yourself. Throw 50 d6 together and then 50 d10s together and get someone to time how long it takes you to announce how many 6s you got in each case.

The point of using D10 is that you wouldn't be looking for 6s, you would be looking for 10s, or maybe 9s and 10s.

To be honest it's rare to have to roll 50 of any dice, even in 40K. In my Tyranid army I've got 66 Termagants, I don't think I've ever had to roll more than about 20 or so dice in one go. I don't think I've even got all 66 on to the table at the same time, and even if I had, they would be split into several units.

It might take a bit longer to count the D10, but it just doesn't seem like a really worrying problem that justifies designing and manufacturing a new, custom D10 with a slight difference to the 9 digit.

If people were really worried about the time spent throwing and counting dice in a game they wouldn't play horde armies in 40K. It's a very clumsy game in its combat resolution mechanism.

The completely average bog standard Ork unit will throw 40 dice shooting and 80 on the charge, so I need to be able to process as many dice as I can cup in both hands. That's less than 80, obviously, I admit.

You will be able to commission some custom D10s for your Ork units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
You will be able to commission some custom D10s for your Ork units.

There's a dyslexia font out there that weights the bottom of letters and numerals so that dyslexics can't 'flip' the numbers. Also very readable for regular people.

I am going to lend another vote to not an issue. Most dice use a line or something to designate. Never seen it be an issue.

As to slowing down buckets o' dice counting slightly, I think the problem there is the bucket o' dice and failing to scale properly and take into account that the more dice you roll, the less you really need to roll dice (as you approach a normal distribution). Unless, of course, it is an intended feature.

GW probably never thought, "Hmmm, there must be thousands of people who like rolling lots of dice. We'll make a game that makes you roll lots of dice, then we'll get a lot of customers. Ha ha ProfiTTT!!"

GW chose the D6 because everyone has them lying around in old Monopoly boxes and so on, unlike weirdo RPG dice that only geeks have. The purpose of the game was to sell figures, not dice.

The To Hit, To Wound, To Save system is a conceptually simple though mechanically clunky way of providing more variation between different units and saving the user from mental arithmetic. It has the side effect of making you roll lots of dice.

People who dislike rolling lots of dice are not strongly attracted to such a system, while people who do like rolling lots of dice love it.

I've seen people say they like rolling lots of dice. I've never seen people say it is the main reason they like WHFB, AoS or 40K. It's usually the fluff or the models that catch people's attention.

 jmurph wrote:
As to slowing down buckets o' dice counting slightly, I think the problem there is the bucket o' dice

This.

 jmurph wrote:
I am going to lend another vote to not an issue. Most dice use a line or something to designate. Never seen it be an issue.

As to slowing down buckets o' dice counting slightly, I think the problem there is the bucket o' dice and failing to scale properly and take into account that the more dice you roll, the less you really need to roll dice (as you approach a normal distribution). Unless, of course, it is an intended feature.

That's partly why I like lots of dice. Over the course of a game you're less likely to be swayed by bad luck if there's a lot of rolls between the start of a game and the end of a game.

I always hate it when games come down to a couple of important dice rolls instead of a long slog, it makes me feel like why the feth am I playing a wargame when I could have just rolled a couple of dice to decide the outcome.

Typically at least, if you have a lot of rolls with a very low chance of success, you'll still have a high variability and high luck-factor as if you'd had less dice but a higher chance of success.

Though the large numbers of dice have gotten a little out of hand in 40k. It used to be that not every unit rolled large numbers of dice and that gave you some contrast between units. Now it seems almost everything is rolling either a large number of dice or an even larger number of dice, it's somewhat watered down the thrill of dumping 40 dice on the table when you and your opponent both have several units capable of doing so.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point of using D10 is that you wouldn't be looking for 6s, you would be looking for 10s, or maybe 9s and 10s.

Sure, but the issue is that in order to know if you’ve rolled a 9, you have to be able to tell the 9 from the 6. I don’t think it’s a huge problem, and there’s bigger problems with large dice pools and D10s, but it is what it is.

To be honest it's rare to have to roll 50 of any dice, even in 40K. In my Tyranid army I've got 66 Termagants, I don't think I've ever had to roll more than about 20 or so dice in one go. I don't think I've even got all 66 on to the table at the same time, and even if I had, they would be split into several units.

20 Orks with 2 attacks and an extra attack for charging meant 60 possible attacks. It wasn’t always possible to get all 20 orks in but it happened often enough. That may be totally different now, as I stopped playing 40K in 5th ed, but back then it was common.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The To Hit, To Wound, To Save system is a conceptually simple though mechanically clunky way of providing more variation between different units and saving the user from mental arithmetic. It has the side effect of making you roll lots of dice.

I think your post summed up the issue nicely, but just on this one as a nitpick – it isn’t hitting, wounding and saving that creates the ‘bucket of dice’ issue, but the idea that each model gets its own attack, and sometimes gets two, three or four attacks each. This issue has gotten worse over time as GW has increased the number of models with multiple attacks, and has lowered the points cost of many units to increase the average size of armies.

Hitting, wounding and saving then exacerbates that problem by making you roll that bucket of dice three times, but in itself it isn't the issue.

To be sure, rolling for every individual model is the real kicker.

Whenever I've proposed ways of reducing the amount of dice rolling plenty of people have said they like it.

For example, AoS could be reduced to rolling a D6 per attack, with a 6 being a hit. No To Wound, or To Save at all. If that is too extreme, it could be reduced to To Hit, To Save, dropping To Wound.

Another option which keeps the current system is to assume that 12 rolls on a 4+ to hit will generate 6 successes, and not to bother rolling the dice. This calculation can be done for different combinations of target number of number of dice, and tabulated into a simple look up table. 16 rolls for 4+ becomes 7 hits and 2 dice to roll.