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.

I am at an impasse as to "resolution" for my main project, having grown up mostly with 40k's hit/wound/save structure. However, I am at a point in life where massive diebuckets don't do much for me.

I was curious about systems that "resolve fast" by scale (meaning no Warmahordes), don't explode in dice, and ideally don't use dice besides the D20. I've looked at Malifaux's card-system, and have alternately considered dominoes, symbolic dice (akin to SAGA), or other similar means to permute the gameflow.

Are there any notable sysyems out there that "feel fast" and don't explode too much?

There are plenty of games which don't use heaps of dice. One thing to keep in mind: you have games, and you have sales. Small time games publishers are interested in their rules....companies like GW are interested in sales. All of GW's rules have one goal: be good enough to generate more sales of a product.

GW would ideally want you to play with the most models possible. However to increase the size of a normal game of 40K, you'd need to be able to fit the game within the confines of 2-3 hours....so more models in less time = more death. More death = more buckets of dice.

If you're creating rules to generate a fun gaming experience, rather than push model lines, you can tone back the ridiculous numbers of casualties in games like 40K. Look at some historical wargames for instance. You might have two squads of infantry shoot it out all game, pinning each other, inflicting minor or major casualties, etc. Because those rules are about representing a conflict instead of selling you the most models they can.

What scale of a game are you working on? Is it a mass battle game? What mechanics are involved in your resolution? Icon-dice can be great for this. Morale or explosion markers (i.e. weapons generate markers and markers are calculated at some point to determine casualties or battlefield conditions). Is your game about killing units, or breaking their morale/forcing them to retreat?

Another mechanic I thoroughly enjoy is the good ole damage deck. An example, let's say "My squad has Firepower 5, and they target your unit in the building. It's in cover so it reduces my firepower by one...so I'm Firepower 4. I roll four dice, for every six I roll, you draw a damage card."

You get lucky and roll a 4, 2,6,6. Your opponent draws two damage cards. These can be either secret or revealed (secret can be fun, but is harder to design). This damage deck might be generic or aimed at infantry units. The damage deck can contain dozens of results. "Your sergeant's head is blown off, reduce morale", or "One trooper is slain", or "your unit must retreat due to heavy fire", etc. etc. etc.

If you want to use D20s, you can do the same thing. Apply a gunnery skill or spotting skill (or both), and then add modifiers for cover. For every successful hit (make it a bit difficult) you draw a card, etc.

D20 is great because you can have a vast gulf in skill, which can remove the need for special rules. Not that games like 40K have so many special rules because they're limited by the use of a D6 in many instances.

While not super...modern? There is also the idea of a generic damage chart. D20 would also give you some good room here. Perhaps you roll a D20, add your units Marksmanship, reduce the total by '6' or whatever for an enemy unit in cover, then match the result on the D20 table. If you roll hot the table might say "enemy unit destroyed", or "enemy unit loses half models and withdraws" etc. You can convert entire squads and weapons into single dice rolls if needed.

Probably "whfb 6th" or "4th ed 40k" scale, maybe 50-pts of warmahordes pre-colossals.

My initial stab at things was to make it so the unit had an attack "range" ranging from 3-18. For example, a unit of swordsmen had attack 8-13. You would roll 3d6 and sum the result up, aiming to get "inside" the range. So rolling less than an 8, or greater than a 13 would miss. If the roll succeded, you would take the "middle" die value to determine the number of hits. Rolling certain subranges could trigger criticals, while an advantage/disadvantage would let you/your opponent roll an extra die/discard one.

However, it sort of fell apart when I tried to add AOE effects to the rules, so there was that.

That's just part of the process. I can't count the number of "oh that's be so cool!" mechanics I've had...and then realized they broke immediately in the game. :(

Without any knowledge of your system’s goals, it’s hard to imagine what kind of randomizers would be useful, or if rng are needed at all.

The video game Banner Saga (1,2, and 3) use a combat system where you deal damage equal to your remaining hitpoints, less your opponent’s armour. So if you have 25 health, and your opponent has 20 armour, you deal 5 points of damage and your opponent now deals less damage back to you.

You can also break armour, instead of attacking health. This is typically better early on, so your attacks deal more damage later on, but the game is surprisingly deep with alternate abilities, spells, and the like, but there is almost no randomness. And the story is amazing.

You could give each unit a “damage chart” where a unit of 20 spearmen roll a d20, plus 5 at full strength, minus 1 for each casualty. Straight d20 at 15 dudes, d20 minus 5 at 10 dudes, d20 minus 14 with one guy remaining.

Opponent’s armour would subtract from the result. So 20 spearmen attack boys with sword and board, and light armour. D20 +5 (unit size) - 2 (LA + shield).

This result references the spearmen’s damage table.

Less than 1, 1 damage
1-5, 2 damage
6-12, 3 damage
13-20, 4 damage
21 or higher, 5 damage

Big scary monsters could have damage tables that start high, and get higher.

A catapult may have 5 or less, no damage (miss), 6-9, 5 damage (edge of target / shrapnel) 10 or more, 15 damage (direct hit).

At that point, you could probably return to a 3d6 model, as you’re resolving an entire unit’s effect in one “shot”. With 50 models, you’d probably only make a half-dozen rolls per turn. If you’d like the units to produce bell-curve damage results.

But that only works if you’re looking at unit by unit damage, rather than model by model. Each model contributes to the d20 modifier (potentially, could be every 2, 3, 5 models if you like) so keeping alive keeps you strong, while allowing for highly granular damage.

Single model / multi wound models might have a degrading attack value, similar to units (ie the dragon rolls d20 + 10, -1 per damage taken).

You wind up with a lot of charts to reference, but if each unit has a card then you just have to roll, apply the modifier, and then reference the chart.

Whatever you make will have to reflect the things which make a unit dangerous:

Numbers
Skill
Strength (could be weapon-related)

IE how many there are, how good they are, and how much damage they can output. 5 skilled guys with scalpels will probably come off worse to 10 basic guys with tesla-chainsaw-spears.

I would make Close Combat mechanics compare the amounts in 2 squads, along with their skill, to determine their required roll.

EG Squad A with 20 models vs Squad B with 15 models, Squad A has D20 + skill + 5, squad B has D20 + Skill - 5. Anything over 15 is a success, EG Squad A rolls a 10, +3 (skill) + 5, = 18. means 3 successes. Then the strength of the weapons is the amount of damage dealt per success. EG if they have S2 weapons, they deal 6 damage.

Meanwhile squad B rolls an 18, +3 skill, - 5, so scores 6 success with tesla-chainsaw-spears (S4) and cause 24 wounds.

Then for shooting, it would be based entirely on the attacking units strength. The targeted unit might be able to roll a D20, subtract their size and immunise this many models from harm, at a penalty to their movement next turn.