So, with most games an element of dice rolling is required. I'm looking for peoples views on the "just right" amount of dice rolling to make the game immersive, but not too bloated.
I think you're asking the wrong question/basing your theories on game design on some flawed premises. Your base premise of " most games an element of dice rolling is required" is incorrect - there are games that eschew dice in favor of playing cards (Malifaux), there are games that eschew dice in favor of card driven resolution (games like Gloomhaven, etc.), there are games that are entirely deterministic in their outcomes (Chess, Diplomacy, etc).
I think the real question you need to ask is: how much RESOLUTION is required, i.e. how many actions/steps/details do you need to cover in resolving an interaction, as opposed to how much of one arbitrary action (dice rolling) should you be doing. You are right to question "how much" of this you should be doing (
40k, as you noted, is horrible in the extent of
RNG based resolution required to resolve what is otherwise a very simple outcome) - but this isn't explicitly because its too much "dice rolling", its because its too much resolution. It would be just as burdensome if it was based on card flips, or on flat stat comparisons, or on shooting rubber bands at your opponents models.
What's important, to me, is that the opponent gets involved - rolling saves, for example, keeps the attention on the game (which is why, as an ork player in 40k, I sometimes am prone to daydream).
This is another hazy/flawed premise and is really only a concern if you assume that a game has to be structured in a way in which one player takes a "complete" turn - i.e.
40k where one player goes through the turn of their entire army - as opposed to a game with alternating activations, random activations, partial activations, variable length bound, reactive actions, or any other number of structures which allow for a rapid and dynamic back and forth between the parties involved where neither player is idle for more than a minute or so at a time.
Even more important though, is that the non-active players involvement be meaningful. Rolling saves is a horrible example to use if you're looking to maintain player engagement, because rolling saves is not an engaging activity and does not offer the player any sort of AGENCY - there are no decisions to be made other than which models you pull out of your unit (if you have a large unit of mostly identical models, this is basically a non-decision), and the player has little to no input or control, and often the outcomes of those minor "decisions" are inconsequential. Things like reactive actions, on the other hand, are a much more meaningful way of maintaining a players attention, because they have to actually make a DECISION and weight trade-offs and consequences in the process.
I think any rules discussion needs to exclude games like Warhammer 40K, which from a game design standpoint are off in a world of their own. No normal wargame would allow or encourage the dice hilarity that 40K makes due with.
This. There are enough "
40k Heartbreakers" out there on the market - I'd wager probably 80% of the big market games that you've heard of out there are based on the
40k "engine" with some tweaks and modifications. There are other better ways to design wargames, the world doesn't need another iteration of the same game.
In general I hate re-rolls, as they invalidate the excitement of the original dice roll...so this should be used incredibly sparingly or not-at-all. It can always end up being an incredibly sour experience when something crazy happens...and then is ignored because Player A decides to re-roll the result.
Agreeing with this as well, its sage advice. Re-rolls are a downer when it comes to the excitement of the game itself, are a time waster that slows down play, and are largely unnecessary as there is often a way to "bake in" the probability distribution generated by the re-roll into first roll. That doesn't mean you should never use a re-roll, just that they should be used sparingly, and ideally only when it makes thematic sense to do so (i.e. "this vehicle can re-roll its armor save because its armor is a dual layer spaced composite, if the round penetrates the first layer of its armor there is a high probability of the second layer stopping it").
I think including 40k is a good idea because it is an outlier, both in its design and its success. I can't help but feel that there's a point where instead of saying it's successful in spite of itself, we have to wonder what it's doing right.
Theres an entire thread on dakka currently discussing that exact topic:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/789060.page
Questioning what its doing right is certainly a valid discussion, but unless your goal is to explicitly "ride the
40k coattails" in the way that games like Flames of War, Bolt Action, and others have by rewriting and tweaking the base
40k engine in order to reach commercial success based on "ease of transition" on the part of consumers, you should exclude
40k from discussion.
First, we need to acknowledge that there is a haptic element to dice rolling that has a broad appeal. The sensation of rolling a number of dice is inherently pleasurable.
Also sage advice - I like dice, I like rolling them - I just disagree with the assertion that dice rolling is required.
would suggest that this is about 2.5: that is, normally two rolls (hit/wound) but with the occasional inclusion of a re-roll (hit/reroll/wound or hit/wound/reroll). I think if every roll allowed a re-roll it would be too many rolls and interfere with the speed of play too much. But occasional re-rolls both optimize success satisfaction and maximize haptic feedback with minimal play flow interruption.
You might be on to something with this - I think Warmachine/Hordes was basically on-the-money with this, and that may have contributed to its brief period of success. For the most part the game resolved around chucking between 2 and 5 dice (you could sometimes go higher, rarely would you roll more than 3) twice, occasionally with a reroll of one or all of those dice (or some other mechanic that triggered the removal of a highest/lowest result).
I think you can discount 40K because it's not successful because of its rules, but because of its history, lore, and models.
IN THEORY. We don't actually know how or why its succesful, and likely never will.
Some years ago I was trying to explain to a non-gaming friend of mine why some players felt more dice meant more luck. On the back of a napkin, literally, he drew a little chart that really helped communicate his point: Rolling more dice doesn't make you more lucky, but it reduces the granularity of the results. Roll one die and it's generally hit or miss. Roll a bunch of dice and fish for hits or misses, and suddenly there's a whole bunch of space for partial results. And that is much less abrasive to players than pinning everything on a roll that will either fail and annoy them, or pass and only be a relief that their planning/emotional investment wasn't wasted.
The same effect can be achieved by adding dice together instead of treating each die as an independent roll (i.e. managing probability distributions) - again referencing Warmachine, you were only ever rolling a few dice, but the results of those dice rolls were far more consistent than what you would get rolling the same number of dice in a game like
40k where each result is independent of the others. I *think* most players are cognizant enough as to how this all works and inherently know how to "play the averages" - in
40k we boil everything down to
MEQ-based points efficiencies and often judge a units worth and performance based on a pretty simple calculation of how many dice you chuck and what the impact of that will be on the most common unit on the battlefield. In Warmachine, instead you're often basing your decision on what number you have a likelihood of rolling equal to or greater than 50+% of the time (i.e. on
2d6 you have a ~58% chance of rolling a 7-12, with the result weighted towards the 7, so most of your decisions boil down to "can I accomplish this resolution by rolling a 7" in the best case, and in the worst case "is it worth performing this action based on the likelihood of me achieving the necessary result?". Add to this the various means of modifying or influencing the roll (modifiers, boosting, etc.) and you have a pretty clear and intuitive system that basically achieves the same thing without requiring you to roll an entire brick of dice at a time.
