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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.

Prime example:

Warhammer 40k 7th edition:

Roll to hit, reroll, roll to wound, reroll, roll saves, reroll, roll FnP, remove models. Sometimes individually if you're taking the hits on a character or unique/multiwound model. This, to me, is way too much.

Other extreme - games without rolling, where if you have higher damage stats than their defence, you cause damage, no roll needed. This to me is too detached.

In the middle - D&D, roll to hit, and if successful, roll damage.


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).

My thoughts are:

Roll to hit, roll saves - if you're hit, you're hit. if your armour doesn't save you, it's a fair assumption that the weapon is strong enough to hurt you - natural toughness is included in armour.

Or, even more streamlined - pick a target, target rolls save. Save is determined by weapon strength, firers skill, and defenders armour. EG roll a dice, add your defence. you have to roll higher than strength + skill, and if you fail, you take damage.


Obviously It will depend on immersion - if you are doing 1v1, then having more levels of information about if you hit, where you hit, what the armour is, and so on will be needed, whereas if you're playing with whole armies of tiny models, just removing X bases of dudes is probably the more streamlined way to go.


Let's assume 1000pt 40k game equivalents, size-wise, for a decent comparison. how many dice is too many, and how few too few?

In D&D there are actually two ways of "hitting": weapon attacks and "targeted" spells require a to-hit-roll of the attacker, other spells or effects require a saving-throw of the defender.

This is a nice possiblity of sprinkling player agency into every part of a round. I agree with you that every player should have some agency in every turn (not just his own).

As to the degree of dice-rolling: I think the rerolls simply are too much. The usual to hit/ to wound/ save-sequence works fine, but all these rerolls are what makes it unreasonable.

It also depends on how many dice you are rolling to start with.

I do not mind rolling re-rolls if I am rolling less than 5 dice. If I am rolling 40 dice buckets than I do not want a bunch of re-rolls.

At the minimum, I feel you need an action and a response from the opponent.

Edit: Preferably, the rolls can be done simultaneously as an opposed roll. As a player, I like to roll to try to save my guys as much as you like rolling to kill them.

Sounds like we're on the same page, in general.

I'm contemplating a 40k-eque game (wargame of the same army size & table size) and I'm contemplating ways of speeding it up compared with 40k - the idea that you simply move, then designate a target, and they then roll defence, seems a lot, lot faster to me, and remains engaging for both parties.
I'm thinking skill for moving & stationary, plus weapon strength, vs the defenders defence & cover bonus + roll.

Speeding up the combat is an effort to make turns quicker, meaning that you can get more turns in, so can slow down movement etc and make it easier to change tactics mid game. It's all still conceptual, though.

I think the thing to think about with dice, is to think: What would happen if one player made all their rolls and another player failed all of theirs? Likewise, at what point can the dice destroy a player's sense of agency?

If people start singing Limp Biscuit, there's too much.

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.

I think when discussing proper wargaming rules, you should more or less ignore the companies whose games are aimed at selling models, vs. selling the actual game itself. They're always subpar in comparison to games written solely at game rules, or buy smaller studios who aren't trying to leverage massive quantities of miniatures.

Having said that, I don't mind a lack of interaction if the game is a normal game and not "I shoot your army off the table for 45 minutes while you do nothing...". In most games it's about operating one or two units, and resolving relatively simple attacks. In a WW2 game, if I move my tank and shoot your tank, I'm fine rolling to hit, rolling to penetrate or damage...and that's enough. There isn't a need to have the other player involved unless it's a game with a reaction system. If you do have a game system (ala 40K) where one player is operating their entire army for the better part of an hour - then yes you need to introduce some involvement on the receiving side. A good wargame design would not feature IGOUGO on the scale of 40K, full stop.

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.

In my first published game there are no re-rolls in the game, at all. In my second game there is precisely one card allowing one character to re-roll one dice. That only exists because it vaguely represents something in the game.

Regarding the topic on a broader sense - I've rarely run into a game where I thought the dice rolling was too much (again, excluding 40K, etc.). I do think there are often rolls in a few games that could be combined if the design is clever enough. I'm also a fan of rolling different dice together, like ammo dice, etc. They're used quite cleverly in a number of solid wargames, i.e. "When you fire a weapon, roll an additional red dice, if this dice rolls a '1' the machine gun is out of ammunition and must be reloaded". By rolling it alongside the other dice when shooting it adds an element without adding time.

I find some games, like my current dungeon crawl - it depends on the number of players. With two or more players, my game is solid. With one player, the action dice mechanic becomes a little tiresome when running four heroes. When players are controlling one or two heroes apiece it's far more smooth running.

Aristeia! or Warhammer Underworlds are the best amount of dice rolling in my opinion a single opposed dice roll.

Interesting discussion about rerolls.

 Elbows wrote:
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.

I think when discussing proper wargaming rules, you should more or less ignore the companies whose games are aimed at selling models, vs. selling the actual game itself. They're always subpar in comparison to games written solely at game rules, or buy smaller studios who aren't trying to leverage massive quantities of miniatures.

Having said that, I don't mind a lack of interaction if the game is a normal game and not "I shoot your army off the table for 45 minutes while you do nothing...". In most games it's about operating one or two units, and resolving relatively simple attacks. In a WW2 game, if I move my tank and shoot your tank, I'm fine rolling to hit, rolling to penetrate or damage...and that's enough. There isn't a need to have the other player involved unless it's a game with a reaction system. If you do have a game system (ala 40K) where one player is operating their entire army for the better part of an hour - then yes you need to introduce some involvement on the receiving side. A good wargame design would not feature IGOUGO on the scale of 40K, full stop.

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.

In my first published game there are no re-rolls in the game, at all. In my second game there is precisely one card allowing one character to re-roll one dice. That only exists because it vaguely represents something in the game.

Regarding the topic on a broader sense - I've rarely run into a game where I thought the dice rolling was too much (again, excluding 40K, etc.). I do think there are often rolls in a few games that could be combined if the design is clever enough. I'm also a fan of rolling different dice together, like ammo dice, etc. They're used quite cleverly in a number of solid wargames, i.e. "When you fire a weapon, roll an additional red dice, if this dice rolls a '1' the machine gun is out of ammunition and must be reloaded". By rolling it alongside the other dice when shooting it adds an element without adding time.

I find some games, like my current dungeon crawl - it depends on the number of players. With two or more players, my game is solid. With one player, the action dice mechanic becomes a little tiresome when running four heroes. When players are controlling one or two heroes apiece it's far more smooth running.

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.

I personally prefer rolling a handful of dice and looking for successes as opposed to a single roll die roll for result. I also prefer opposed rolls where I am trying to get more successes than an opponent.

I think of it as D&D d20 vs. Shadowruns 6-10 dice looking for a success target number. I find the first boring and the second much more exciting. Rarely do you get 0 successes in Shadowrun, but you might not get enough to beat the opponent/difficulty. Meanwhile, in D&D it is a simple pass/fail roll with no nuance to it.

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.

Second, though, we also need to acknowledge that for a proportion of gamers - but clearly not all of them - there are competing aesthetic priorities: on the one hand, people clearly love dice. The number of ludicrously successful Kickstarter campaigns doing nothing but producing a range of pretty dice is pretty powerful indication that pretty dice are an attractive element to which players respond. On the other hand, people also love a sense of narrative immersion in their games and few things break narrative immersion than a tabletop covered in dice.

Going back to the OP, then, I think some bloke is right that there must be a statistical sweet spot that represents the "right" number of dice that maximizes the haptic return whilst minimizing the aesthetic interference. My purely personal and unscientific take is that it's "about 5".

This has (almost) nothing to do with good game design, but you could begin a game design process by building mechanics around the roll of an optimally-pleasing number of dice (4-6) so all tests would be taken using the optimal number of dice. To be frank, I've had worse starting points for a game design process.

But the OP goes further than just an optimal number of dice. He posits that there is also an optimal number of times that dice should be rolled to resolve any given query. In his example (40k) he suggests that four rolls per player is too many and I would tend to agree. But the GW argument - well tested in the marketplace, although it's arguable whether that amounts to a test of game design so much as it does a test of good marketing - is that roll to hit, roll to wound, roll to save provides the right balance of statistics and agency. Would you rather roll twice, needing a 4+ on each, or just once needing a 5+? Statistically, we should prefer the 5+ roll (1/3 chance) to the two 4+ rolls (1/4 chance) but psychologically, people have a success bias. It is more psychologically rewarding to observe more successes on the first roll, even if at least half will be lost in the second, than it is to observe more successes overall in a single roll.

So, again, good design (fewer rolls) loses to good psychology (more rolls).

Like our haptic optimum, there must be a psychological optimum number of rolls per interaction that maximizes the experience of "success satisfaction" (and haptic feedback) whilst optimizing speed of play.

I 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.

So my personal opinion, purely based on rough guesses informed by the aesthetic, haptic and psychological experience of dice rolling, suggests that the best experience for players will come from rolling 4-6 dice a little more than twice per interaction.

Now, if you were to come back to good game design, I would look at the work I did on an unsuccessful fantasy skirmish game (which will one day be re-launched when I have a more saleable reputation!) called Skrapyard. Skrapyard is - if I do say so myself - a beautifully designed game and resolves all interactions with a single dice rolled a single time per player per interaction. It's elegant and mathematically quite beautiful (again, if I do say so myself). But it doesn't provide the elements of haptic and psychological feedback to which players unconsciously respond. I would argue that it does provide aesthetic feedback, because the dice rolled was always a d12 and the d12 is, subjectively speaking, the most beautiful of all the Platonic solids.

Pulp Alley does a neat thing where everything needs a 4+, and being better at something means rolling bigger dice and more dice. Heroes and villans roll several D12s and mooks might roll a D6.

RE: Nurglitch

I think you can discount 40K because it's not successful because of its rules, but because of its history, lore, and models. If you introduced that game in a new IP with new models right now, it'd be absolutely middling to unsuccessful. GW has a very successful sales formula, but it has less to do with their rules - which are just part of the sales mechanic.

1) New edition.
2) Slow power creep to attract new sales of X models.
3) Repeat.

The problem with trying to repeat this is that it takes a tremendous amount of resources to do. A starting company or new company could not compete with this. If you look at GW from the early 90's it was slightly different, simply because they weren't the all-conquering power house they are now. GW excels at making a completely "okay" game, just enough to warrant playing it if you really like 40K, the lore, or the models. They've got mediocrity down to a science.

I wouldn't discount 40k as being successful despite its rules. I'd include them as being successful despite its rules because it lends credence to the idea that the rules are good enough where they get the rest of the product off the shelves and onto the table. As you say, they have mediocrity down to a science, and it certainly seems worth knowing.

 precinctomega wrote:

I would argue that it does provide aesthetic feedback, because the dice rolled was always a d12 and the d12 is, subjectively speaking, the most beautiful of all the Platonic solids.

This was a good post, and mirrors sme of my own thoughts.

However, the ode to the d12.....

It made my day. I expected nothing less.

I certainly agree that rolling more dice is more appealing than rolling a single dice, but that rolling hundreds of dice (whilst it is a spectacle, and as an ork player, bucket o' dice was my staple) is too many, especially if a reroll gets involved.

I think an increase in dice for better chances rather than an increase in required value is a better mechanic - EG dystopian wars was 4+ success, 6+ explodes. bigger guns rolled more dice, then opponent rolls defence to reduce, and if the result exceeds your armour, the attack does damage.

Nurglitch wrote:
I wouldn't discount 40k as being successful despite its rules. I'd include them as being successful despite its rules because it lends credence to the idea that the rules are good enough where they get the rest of the product off the shelves and onto the table. As you say, they have mediocrity down to a science, and it certainly seems worth knowing.

I'd agree, but that's about sales, and not rules. Somewhat in the same way no car designer sets out wanting to design a Toyota Camry (the world's most successful but boring car). I think 40K would be worth a study if this was "Game Sales" discussion. I don't think the two necessarily run hand-in-hand. Some of the best rules I've played have been free, a simple passion project by the designer, or a cheap $3 PDF, etc.

Sales are part of the design process as far as a commercial product is concerned, 40k illustrates that IP and aesthetic is what people are attracted to, WHFB illustrated what antiquated rules and design will do to an IP that people are modestly attracted to.

AoS and the redesign of 40k show roughly were GW thinks rules and aesthetics are heading for commercially viable products.

In rough comparisons Warhammer quest VS Black Stone Fortress shows how much stronger 40k IP and Aesthetic is compared to AoS Warhammer Underworlds show how successful the small games format is, though I would like to see how it would compare with a 40k equivalent I think GW learned their lesson with WHQ and BSF to not cannibalize their sales.

I would take a page from table top RPGS. You should only ever roll the dice when the result has a direct impact/consequence. Rolling to hit then to wound then to save then FNP is nonsense.

Roll to damage modified by some kind of comparison factoring in some kind of Str vs Toughness. Roll to save. Issue damage.

 Lance845 wrote:
I would take a page from table top RPGS. You should only ever roll the dice when the result has a direct impact/consequence. Rolling to hit then to wound then to save then FNP is nonsense.

Roll to damage modified by some kind of comparison factoring in some kind of Str vs Toughness. Roll to save. Issue damage.

That's what I'm inclining towards - one roll each. Could be opposed or wound & save, but it involves both players.

My other thought is to have a fixed attack and a defensive roll, so the player who's activating decides what's happening and the other player rolls dice to defend against it.

EG a unit which shoots with a gun does 3 shots at "attack" X, worked out by adding/multiplying strength of gun with skill of user, then defender rolls a dice + "defence" stat to defend against it - if the exceed it, they save. Could be quicker.

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.

Nurglitch wrote:
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.

That's true. If a reduced dice quantity was wanted, though, it could be an option to have a scale of damage rather than a binary system, so you can achieve partial success on a single die. EG the difference between critical hit, hit, skim, miss. (being max damage, damage, suppressed & nothing). So you might fire a missile, fluff your roll and only suppress them instead of blowing them to smithereens.


Thinking back, this is how having one lascannon or missile in 40k used to be, when it could one-shot a tank, but you had to hit, penetrate and roll well with a single shot. high emotional investment, very easy to just whiff it. didn't feel good.

Something I've enjoyed is Pulp Alley's 4+ system. Everything hits on 4+. What changes is the size and number of dice you get to roll, with mooks and NPCs rolls 1 or 2D6, and Heroes and Villains roll 4D8 or 3D12. Modifiers would include adding or subtracting dice, damage reduces the size of your dice.

Nurglitch wrote:
Something I've enjoyed is Pulp Alley's 4+ system. Everything hits on 4+. What changes is the size and number of dice you get to roll, with mooks and NPCs rolls 1 or 2D6, and Heroes and Villains roll 4D8 or 3D12. Modifiers would include adding or subtracting dice, damage reduces the size of your dice.

Fria Ligan uses something similar in their rpgs.

Stat + Skill + Equipment bonus is a dice pool of d6s. Success on a 6 on any of the dice. Some things (perks or "magic" items) can add "Artifact dice" that are d8 d10 or d12s. On a d8 a 6 or 7 is 1 success and a 8 is 2. On a d10 a 6-7 is 1 success a 8-9 is 2 and a 10 is 3. etc etc...

Yep, dice pools are fine in a skirmish game. The madness occurs when you translate that over to something like 40K (which is basically what they've done). When your 30 models each roll seven attacks...it becomes a bit obnoxious. In a skirmish game, 4-5 dice per model is acceptable, and gives the right "Oh damn, I'm rolling lots of dice!" kind of feel.

 Elbows wrote:
Yep, dice pools are fine in a skirmish game. The madness occurs when you translate that over to something like 40K (which is basically what they've done). When your 30 models each roll seven attacks...it becomes a bit obnoxious. In a skirmish game, 4-5 dice per model is acceptable, and gives the right "Oh damn, I'm rolling lots of dice!" kind of feel.

Apocalypse does a great job of toning that right back. Everything works better at 40k scale when you don't worry about models as much as units.

I have a feeling Apoc is a dry run for 40K 9th Edition.......

At the advent of 5th edition I could have sworn it was a start on introducing Epic Armageddon concepts into 40k. It didn't really work out for 6th & 7th, but I suppose certain parts have made it in.

 some bloke wrote:
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.

Prime example:

Warhammer 40k 7th edition:

Roll to hit, reroll, roll to wound, reroll, roll saves, reroll, roll FnP, remove models. Sometimes individually if you're taking the hits on a character or unique/multiwound model. This, to me, is way too much.

Other extreme - games without rolling, where if you have higher damage stats than their defence, you cause damage, no roll needed. This to me is too detached.

In the middle - D&D, roll to hit, and if successful, roll damage.


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).

My thoughts are:

Roll to hit, roll saves - if you're hit, you're hit. if your armour doesn't save you, it's a fair assumption that the weapon is strong enough to hurt you - natural toughness is included in armour.

Or, even more streamlined - pick a target, target rolls save. Save is determined by weapon strength, firers skill, and defenders armour. EG roll a dice, add your defence. you have to roll higher than strength + skill, and if you fail, you take damage.


Obviously It will depend on immersion - if you are doing 1v1, then having more levels of information about if you hit, where you hit, what the armour is, and so on will be needed, whereas if you're playing with whole armies of tiny models, just removing X bases of dudes is probably the more streamlined way to go.


Let's assume 1000pt 40k game equivalents, size-wise, for a decent comparison. how many dice is too many, and how few too few?

i would sugges you take a look at how infinity the game handdle this. they introduced ARO, a sort of respons that you can do while ur opponent is on the turn..it livens up the gameplay as you dont just afk during opponent turn.

 some bloke wrote:
So, with most games an element of dice rolling is required.

Well, this is a flawed premise in me experience. I play a lot of board games and to be honest, dice seem to be a rarity these days, as they seem to have gathered a negative connotation among many board gamers ("stupid random game for kids!"). Most games I encounter have very few random elements, often limited to setup (randomised elements to improve replayability).

I feel cards are much more popular these days as an in-game randomiser, and even they are often designed in a way that lets players have control over them (Aeon's End, Gloomhaven, Arkham Horror LCG or Res Arcana) by deckbuilidng, drafting or organizing their deck.

I certainly feel dice as output randomness (you make a decision first and then dice tell you whether it was stupid or not) is an outdated design, maybe fitting a simulation but not a game that should put player agency and decisions as its core.

So to answer your question from the beginning ? Try as little as possible IMO. Wherever there's a dice roll in your rules think how you can replace it with an interesting and balanced player decision.