Switch Theme:

Wargame Design Discussion- Dice Bag Activation  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


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.




Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Greetings,

I think we are all familiar with this type of mechanic for unit activation. Essentially, each side has a dice in the bag. One player pulls out a dice/chit and the color determines which side can go next. I think the most "famous" version of this activation method is Bolt Action. However, I have also seen it with Batman, Sword & Spear, and others.

So, why use this method? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the dice bag activation method?

Your thoughts?

Support Blood and Spectacles Publishing:
https://www.patreon.com/Bloodandspectaclespublishing 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

Never heard of this "bag" mechanic. OTOH, if one wanted to have random activation based on the number of units per side, then use a deck of cards, one suited card per unit. Reveal cards and activate units of the appropriate suit.

The key advantage is that cards can be tailored to carry a LOT more information than a chit, even made unit-specific. Plus, there are a wealth of card mechanics, such a Jokers and "burns" to provide a richer system. If each player burns at least 1 card, such that only a fraction of all units are activated per side, then the game does a fair job of modeling uncertain leadership / communications. There's a lot to play with here.

Regardless, there is extra setup in terms of creating the deck at the start of each round, and there is time lost when context switches from player to player. There's more state tracking of activated / non-activated units compared to a the Igo-Ugo "gold standard" of activation.

On the plus side, assuming that sides are "balanced", the card draw activation mechanic does a fair job of trading quality vs quantity. For each "strong" activation, there should be a comparable number of "weak" activations to balance out. And there's a certain ratio of alternation, for those games that need to create the "interactivity" and reaction, where such mechanics wouldn't otherwise be present.

But actual dice in a physical bag? Can't see anybody ever using it. Seems like a bad idea that wouldn't ever get adopted.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/25 23:43:58


   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






One advantage of a chit-drawing mechanic using dice is that you don't need any extra bits. Everyone has dice, surprisingly few gamers I know actually have a deck of cards handy, and they're stingy enough to resent having to buy one specifically for a given game.

If it's combined with a "roll to activate" rule (like Epic Armageddon's inititative roll), then it's combined into one actin - draw a die, roll it. Other than that, it's functionally identical to a simple card draw system. Some people like bags of dice/beads, some like decks of cards.

It also adds an illusion of control to the players - after all, they're the ones drawing the chits, rather than relying on the gods of random chance and a deck of cards. A minor thing, but sometimes that's important.
   
Made in gr
Thermo-Optical Spekter





Greece

Because it is a gimmicky way of activating units and people get attracted by it, it is broadly used in boardgames as a mechanic and it adds randomness in activation, one could have the same effect by representing the unit in cards shuffle them and draw them in order (or to emulate the bolt action mechanism just have a faction card for each unit and choose what unit to activate when the card is drawn).

The real design challenge is how to control the randomness of the draw, Rick Priestly on bolt action/ Antares chooses to not bother at all, in boardgames I have seen several attempts to put some power on the players control of the situation.

I toyed with the idea in the past but never got out of proof of concept stage, the idea was that the units contribute one or more dice that you put in the bag draw them at a fixed amount according to the command structure roll them and assign them to units, the big question was what the dice should have on them, orders, initiative, or both and if different quality dice were used how should they be assigned to the units.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






You do get the same effect with a deck of cards, yes. But then you need a deck of cards.

This method at least leaves the order of activations up to the player. If you assign each unit to a specific card then it's totally random, but in Bolt Action you can at least plan how you want to activate units (even if you then need to revise that plan due to enemy action).
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Cheltenham, UK

What's good about the method is that it continually alters the odds of activation for each player. As one player gets more activations than the other, on each draw the odds of activation shifting to the other improves.

Shifting, self-balancing odds are quite elegant and when you get a dramatic swing - one player getting five activations in a row - it speaks to a compelling narrative about the morale and momentum of the force in question.

It's also an activation method that responds well to more than two players (although so do playing cards).

What's not so good... depends.

"Everyone's got dice" is only true as long as you're not using custom dice for the dice-bag activation (like BA and GOA). Even if you don't have custom dice, the system does rely on each player having sufficient coloured dice for all the activations they need that are distinctly different to their opponent's.

Overall, though, I'm in no position to throw stones over weird dice (d12s FTW!). There are aspects of specific examples of dice-bag activation that I have issues with, but the concept as a whole is pretty sound and I have no problem with it in itself.

Note regarding playing cards, though:

You can make it easier by not allocating cards to units but just flipping cards and if they're red that means player 1 and if they're black it means player 2. If you have three players, use three suits. If you have four players, use four suits. When you get beyond four players, it doesn't really work to use cards, although dice-bags still work. But five-player games are pretty unusual IME.

Cards also offer the option of delivering particular randomized outcomes based on the face value of the card, not to mention Jokers.

All-in-all I prefer playing cards for that reason, but can see plenty of ways that dice-bag activation could be made more interesting. For example, you could have custom dice with different face values that are added to a roll in that activation, or which have different special effects. You could have wild dice that, when pulled, generate a whole-table effect, like weather or magical interference. You could even use a separate set of wild dice to control a randomized third-party force, like civilians or native wildlife.

R.

   
Made in us
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Houston, TX

In terms of probability, there would be zero difference between using a set number of colored markers in a bag v. the same number of selected cards.

In terms of access, I think saying "most players have dice" is pointless. Standard playing cards are cheap and common enough for this to not be a significant concern and is probably less significant than using non- 6 sided dice. For non dedicated wargamers, I would bet most have only a single color of dice but commonly have a deck of cards.

These methods do introduce a guarantee in terms of activation that dice do not. I would suggest that if the game uses such a method, cards would generally be superior for the reasons mentioned above. Additionally, such a game should probably also use cards for general actions and determination as well to keep consistent mechanics, unless their is some compelling reason to do otherwise.

On that note, chits represent a second system on top of dice, and I don't really care for that as it suggests inconsistency in the design. Why use a totally different method of randomization? If the guarantees are viewed as desirable, why is that not incorporated into the res of the mechanics?

I also am not of fan of using lots of different sided dice generally as most of the time it creates bizarre probabilities that the designers often overlook. And when you start adding custom dice, it does significantly impact accessibility.

-James
 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut






SoCal, USA!

The "need a deck of cards" objection is kinda odd, given the sheer number of decks out there. I would wager that bog standard decks of cards are more common than sets of dice in the average household, and certainly more common than dice bags.

BTW, if we got back to card-driven activation, I think it's instructive to revisit Command and Colors as a good example. C&C is a lovely system, that could just as easily be adapted to TT wargaming vs the dudes on a map hex games we most commonly see.

   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User



England (North West)

 Easy E wrote:
I think we are all familiar with this type of mechanic for unit activation. ........ I have also seen it with ... Sword & Spear....

So, why use this method? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the dice bag activation method?


The dice bag activation in Sword & Spear* is very different from that used in Bolt Action (which most gamers will be more familiar with), so I'll explain how it works. The turn consists of a series of phases. In each phase, seven dice are pulled out of the bag. The player with most dice rolls them and allocates them to his units. Then the other player rolls his dice and allocates them to his units. A unit can only be activated by a dice that equals or exceeds its Discipline rating (3 for high quality units, 4 for average, 5 for poor), and some actions require the dice to exceed the units Discipline. So better quality units are easier to activate and it is harder to activate a unit to carry out a more complicated action. Also a unit can be allocated a double to give it a bonus (as does a six). Units are then activated in the order of the number shown on the dice. These phases continue until all the dice have been drawn. A unit cannot be activated more than once in a turn, and when a unit is activated it does its complete activation (moving, shooting, melee).
This creates a challenging, interesting and often tense resource management and decision making process. Here's what some reviewers have said about the command and control (unit activation) system:
"It is these mechanics that make the game unique and so much fun..... It's only after experiencing the command system in play that you begin to realise just how sophisticated it is. .... Almost every command decision was difficult, and I found myself trying to second-guess (my opponent) at every turn"
"interesting tactical aspects which make the game flow very quickly, yet keep both players engaged in the action"
".......deciding who to allocate your dice to and which dice to give them is absolutely key, and is an excellent way of simulating the friction of combat without getting complicated. You will never be able to do everything you want to do and you have to watch out for what your opponent is doing"
" the crowning glory of this game is the Command and Control system, which takes ideas from games such as Saga and Bolt Action, adds its own twists and produces a result which gives each player plenty to think about during the course of each turn…..... offering a number of challenges and decisions in every phase of play."


* Sword & Spear is a set of ancient & medieval wargames rules. Sword & Spear Fantasy has just been released.
http://polkovnikproductions.freeforums.org/index.php
http://polkovnik.moonfruit.com/sword-spear/

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/28 19:08:55


 
   
Made in us
Incorporating Wet-Blending





Houston, TX

Thank you for the information. I am still not entirely clear how the S&S system works. How do you determine how many dice go into the bag? Is it fourteen? One per unit? Are they colored by side? Seven dice are pulled, so I assume that they are colored, and this is how you determine who pulled more dice.

Based on what I can see, the most activations you could allocate is seven, and allocating doubles gives a bonus but would be fewer net activations. On average, each player would get 3-4 activations, making Poor units a pretty bug gamble. How many units does a player generally have? If activation dice are determined by number of units, this helps makes hordes more viable, but is a bit counter intuitive (bringing more poorly trained troops makes the odds of drawing one of your dice better). OTOH, it also means that loosing units rapidly degrades initiative.

I think this is a good example of rules that are targeting a specific feel well. Here, the rules have a fair amount of uncertainty and require hard decisions on resource allocation. This seems to convey the uncertainties inherent in ancient warfare, limited communication, and how commanders would focus on certain units to achieve effects (while often neglecting others or simply finding the unresponsive/ineffective).

-James
 
   
Made in gb
Fresh-Faced New User



England (North West)

 jmurph wrote:
Thank you for the information. I am still not entirely clear how the S&S system works. How do you determine how many dice go into the bag? Is it fourteen? One per unit? Are they colored by side? Seven dice are pulled, so I assume that they are colored, and this is how you determine who pulled more dice..

One dice per unit. Yes, each side has a different colour.

 jmurph wrote:
Based on what I can see, the most activations you could allocate is seven, and allocating doubles gives a bonus but would be fewer net activations. On average, each player would get 3-4 activations, making Poor units a pretty bug gamble. How many units does a player generally have? .

Each player normally has around 10 - 15 units. The seven dice is per phase, and these phases continue until all the dice have been pulled from the bag.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







I'm not a fan, especially as implemented in BGOA. As the game gets larger for both players, the odds of one player drawing a larger number of dice goes up. When you can combine this with Officers being able to Activate every unit around them, and some units having double activations (including the comedy that is double-activation officers activating double-activation units), and the system itself can easily scale out of control into something not too far-removed from IGOUGO

Personally, I prefer some sort of resource mechanic that you can spend in your turn for consecutive activations, with the cost for said activations slowly incrementing upwards until you hand the initiative to your opponent. Maybe add a bidding system to determine who activates first in the turn. Turn order itself should have minimal randomness.
   
Made in au
Homicidal Veteran Blood Angel Assault Marine




Oz

I dislike the idea of dice (or card activation) due to it's randomness and the potential skew it gives to a player's ability to react to the game. My example is battlemasters (which used card activation). Each unit was equally represented by a card, but the chaos side had more. Due to the nature of the system (only the activating unit could cause damage), it devolved into whoever drew the bulk of their army first would probably lose.

In this case it was a primarily 'melee' oriented game, and the first part of it was spent maneuvering into position. If you could activate and attack instead of activate and just move forwards, you gained an advantage. Not saying the system can't work, only that my experience with random weighted draws to activate wasn't particularly good or fun.

 
   
 
Forum Index » Game Design
Go to: