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Ok so last night I thought of a nice Idea for a space skirmish game after viewing the first episode of Firefly for the first time and I thought that I should use D10's for it to add variety to my games as I am making a wargame as well but with D6's and the odd D20, the problem is that I have never played with a D10 before however I do have a load of them , so I was wondering if anyone could tell me how mechanics usually work with D10's, also if anyone has any experience with these dice please post up what you thought about them and if anyone has played any free games online with D10's can anyone post a link up here.

Cheers to all comments

I'm not really sure what it is you are asking but I will give it a go

d10's work for giving you a little bit more range in outcomes than d6's but not as much as using d20's.

d6's are good for games where there is a lot going on and you just want to simplify things. d10's are good for smaller scale games where there is still a few things going on and you want things to be a bit more realisting/in depth but still want to play quickly. d20's are best for small scale games where there are only one or two things going on at once where you want a much higher focus on an individual models/unit/etc's stats and abilities in relation to those of others.

All IMO.

Erm ... you roll them and then read the number on top. Not sure what you mean. And you don't use dice in online games, but in pen and paper RPGs like Dark Heresy/Deathwatch or Vampire.

Sorry I mean to clarify when I said free games online I meant free games online in a PDF format games that are free and not Illegal that you can download.

What I meant was in terms of how they work was is there any special mechanics that are used in all games that use D10's or is there anything that sets them apart from other games that use D6's and D20's.

Well D10s don't really work much differently to a D6 really, my favorite use of different dice comes from force on force when you always need say a 4+ but roll different dice. obviously you have a 3 in 6 chance of doing that on a D6, but on a D10 you have a 7 in 10 chance, much better.

Also if your looking at combined scores that is where D10s can give you a much greater range. Rolling 2D6 and adding them together gives you 36 possible outcomes. D10 have 100 possible outcomes...

Leading from that the humble D10 also gives you the opportunity to play a percentage type system, first roll being the tens the second the units, basically using 2D10 as a D100

We use the D100 method in a lot of homegrown rules, i like have percentages as targets

If you want to check out an example Google the Fallout SPECIAL D10 system

 happygolucky wrote:
What I meant was in terms of how they work was is there any special mechanics that are used in all games that use D10's or is there anything that sets them apart from other games that use D6's and D20's.

Not in my limited experience (though Salad Fingers does raise the point of percentage based systems, so what do I know? ). They can still have various modifiers added and subtracted like in d6 and d20 systems, depending on how the game system works. Again, as they are part way between d6 and d20, their modifiers tend to also be between those applied to d6 and d20 rolls, as do the stats that the rolls go against.

For example, a d6 game may allow you to have bonuses/penalties of +/-3 to any given roll and have ability/etc stats ranging from about 5-10. A d20 game will tend to commonly have bonuses of +/- 10-20, with stats ranging from 10-30.

So a d10 system may have bonuses/penalties of +/- 5-10, with stats from about 5-20.

Ok thanks for the Info I think im gonna have to have a look at multiple skirmish games that use D10's to get my head around the percentage system, dose anyone know any games/rulebooks that I can download legally online?

The biggest difference is that you can have more detail in your mechanics. For example, in 40k a guardsman is BS 3 and a space marine is BS 4, and there's no room in between. Even though plausibly IG veterans would still not be able to shoot as well as space marine veterans the only (easy) way to represent their higher BS compared to normal guardsmen is to bump them all the way up to BS 4. On the other hand, if you use the same to-hit mechanic with a D10 system the guardsmen might be BS 4, with tactical marines at BS 6. Now you have room to make IG veterans halfway between at BS 5, marine veterans at BS 7, and characters at BS 8+. And the same is true for a lot of other things, 40k's D6 system is forced to compress the scale and have a lot of things with the same stats/penalties/etc, while a D10 (or higher) system could break up some of them into a more diverse range of numbers.

(Yes, technically 40k has a range of 0-10, but the D6 mechanic limits it to a real range of 2-5 in this case.)

D10s are used for two different "mechanics" that set them apart from other dice from time to time.

The first is an old fashioned percentage roll. Roll 2d10, designate one as the 10s place and one as the ones place (or use a special set that is marked as such). Really just an even greater range of numbers, as already mentioned.

The other one that shows up with some regularity is d10 scatter dice. The face of a d10 looks a bit like an arrow, with one corner being more pointy than the others. Roll the d10, the direction of the pointy end is the direction of the scatter, the number showing being the distance...or some variation of.

Just read the books and see the difference? Void was D10 as far as i can remember, the bigger the dice the larger your range and more options in tables, personal i am a d100 kinda guy (not a real D100 those are unwieldy, but 2 D10's one for decimals and one for the digits)

They also make nice directional markers for scatter effects (i.e., where the die is pointing can be used to indicate a random direction).

Another nice thing about D10s is knowing the odds by looking at them. Need to roll a 6 or less? 60%.

Larger dice will also dominate play when constants are low. For example, the diferent in to hit numbers for a fighter and a mage at first level is going to be within a few points. But when that D20 comes out, it is king. D20+1 is not that diferent from D20+3.

On the flip side, the high level barbarian might do D10+24 points of damage with a basterd sword or D12+24 with an greataxe. Not a big deal, you start to look for other things besides just die damage at that point.

 happygolucky wrote:
Ok thanks for the Info I think im gonna have to have a look at multiple skirmish games that use D10's to get my head around the percentage system, dose anyone know any games/rulebooks that I can download legally online?

It's not free, but Brushfire is d10 based.
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/112326/

Seeds of War is d10 based same as my own game. Both are 6mm scale though and not 28mm scale.

Warhammer and Shadowrun are D6 games, D&D and Infinity use D20. There is no general D10 mechanism for games, it is just a die with more options than a D6 and less options than a D20.

I'm coming at this from more of an RPG angle than wargaming, but hopefully it will be useful to you.

Percentile systems were mentioned above, but I'd like to throw in another endorsement. It has a very intuitive method of assessing difficulty. Another popular d10 based system (that I haven't messed with in years) is the Storyteller system from White Wolf. In that, you have attributes and abilities, representing inherent talent and learned skills. You match together one of each for the appropriate test in a situation (for example, Strength + Melee to power through a block vs. Dex + Melee to avoid their defenses and strike a weak spot) and roll that many d10s. Each 7 or higher is a success, and each 10 is an additional success. Typically more successes results in a greater effect, and difficult tasks will subtract some from the total, possibly causing the attempt to fail. Opposed rolls generally subtract the resisting player's successes from the acting player's. Rolling no successes at all can be a botch/critical fail, with the degree of failure determined by the number of 1s rolled.

 Nevelon wrote:
Another nice thing about D10s is knowing the odds by looking at them. Need to roll a 6 or less? 60%.

This is what I consider the important part.

Like a D20 the odds are very easy to work out. Makes balance a lot easier.

A unit of ten guys with a +4 at shooting that need an 8 to hit... you know that about six of them will hit each turn.

The Auld Grump

 Kroothawk wrote:
Warhammer and Shadowrun are D6 games, D&D and Infinity use D20. There is no general D10 mechanism for games, it is just a die with more options than a D6 and less options than a D20.

A lot of White Wolf's games (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, Mummy, etc) used d10 based systems, albeit with Dice Pool mechanics. (So a character might roll 1d10 as a beginner, then 2d10, 3d10, etc. as they get better at a skill.)

As dice pools, you're generally loooking for a number of rolls above a threshhold... So you might only care about the d10s that roll 6-10. Kind of like attacks in 40k, really (where a 'dice pool' is made for all possible attacks, they are rolled against a calculated target numberm and dice exceedingt he target are considered hits).

Several games based on or inspired by Chaosium's BRPG system are percentile based, so use 'd100s' whicha re actually, but not always, handled with 2x d10s. (There's a 'hundred sided die' available, but it is somewhat miserable to use.)

I like d10's in wargames though I'm not a fan of percentile d10's in wargames except possibly in post-game campaign mechanics. As others have no doubt managed, you also get a much smoother probability curve when going with a d10 or d12 rather than 2d6.

Choosing a dice should be based on what kind of a game you are trying to accomplish. It's not an unbreakable rule, but usually the more complex and detailed the rules are, the more room you have for modifiers and the more value their is in using a dice with more numbers on it. If you try to over-complicate a D6 system, you often have to come up with many more rules to create variation. This is shown most commonly in 40k which has myriad special rules because there just isn't that much variation in a D6.

Not that I have anything against D6. My favorite game "Song of Blades and Heroes is D6 based.

As to the topic at hand, I'd take a look at "Mech Attack" It's a good example of a fast-play ruleset that adds just a bit of detail by going with a d10. And makes use of the D10 in several different ways. It's not free, but at 6 bucks, it's a great deal.

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/79303/Armor-Grid%3A-Mech-Attack%21

The size of the dice only determines the range of results if the dice is used in a deterministic way.
Eg roll a dice X or more is success, Y or less is failure.

If we use stats in direct comparison , for example, the stats set the base variation, NOT the size of the dice.

I much prefer to use d10 and d 20 for the ease of percentage calculations though.

Lanrak wrote:
The size of the dice only determines the range of results if the dice is used in a deterministic way.
Eg roll a dice X or more is success, Y or less is failure.

If we use stats in direct comparison , for example, the stats set the base variation, NOT the size of the dice.

I disagree. No matter how the stats vary, for a functional game the variation between the stats compared has to be somewhat near the same as the range of the dice. The exception of course is when one stat is so much greater than the other that no dice is rolled (action is considered impossible) or some other mechanism (exploding dice..) is used to attempt a success, but this is not the norm.

Hi Eilif.
Just because these other mechanics are not used very much doesnt mean they can not be.

Also the range of stats can be much wider, and NOT limited to the range of the dice.(Eg D6 only allows 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+ 6+ with 1 auto pass, 7 auto fail.Many games limit this even further to just 3,4,5 =!)
Which was my main point.

if you have a high powered rifle , it will have varing effects on body armour.But over a set thickness of armour it is totaly innefective.(Eg how real weapons and armour interact.)

Eg if we say the rifle has An Armour Piercing value of 6.
And have a range of body armor with values of 1 to 5.

Subtract the Armour value from the Rifle damage to get the score to beat with a saving throw.
Armour value ..save needed.
1.(6-1=5) 6+
2.(6-2=4) 5+
3.(6-3=3)4+
4.(6-4=2) 3+
5.(6-5=1) 2+

Where as an armoured vehilce (main Battle tank.) Has an Armour value of 12.
6-12=-6.
Roll over -6 on a D6 Auto save!

This simple system gives proportional variation.

I agree the span is restricted by the dice size somewhat.(Each weapon AP value has a range of 5 variable interactions, before Auto save- Auto damage.)
But we can use ranges of characteristic values which are NOT restricted by the size of the dice.
And other mechanics to extend the range the dice roll can cover.(Exploding dice, multiple dice , dice multipliers based specific skill bonuses, etc.)

Didn't Urban War use a D10 system (although it's more of a Necromunda scale of engagement)

Yes it does, quite a good game too.
You can download the QuickStart rules free to have a look at them.

 happygolucky wrote:
Ok so last night I thought of a nice Idea for a space skirmish game after viewing the first episode of Firefly for the first time and I thought that I should use D10's for it to add variety to my games as I am making a wargame as well but with D6's and the odd D20, the problem is that I have never played with a D10 before however I do have a load of them , so I was wondering if anyone could tell me how mechanics usually work with D10's, also if anyone has any experience with these dice please post up what you thought about them and if anyone has played any free games online with D10's can anyone post a link up here.

Cheers to all comments

You can use themsingle or in pairs.
If single, you are rolling a straight up 1- 10, Use it for stats, damage, whatever.

In pairs, you can use them as percentage. 1-100. Use two different colored ones. One for 1's, 1 for the 10's.

Numerous games use them. Twilight: 2000, Chill, Call of Cthuhlu, and Infinity use D 10's.

Ok thanks I will most likely use them in singles as I don't want my skirmish game to be too complex but I will be putting down modifiers .