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.

Hi all,

A friend and I (mainly me though, I'll claim the credit early on ) are looking to create are own wargame. It's probably nothing serious (though you never know!) mainly to mess around with ourselves and to put this awesome idea we have for a setting into context, but we may introduce it to some guys at our club.

The system we've got going though would work best with D10s. It revolves around a lot of +X, -Y modifiers, and obviously with just a D6, +/-1 is a pretty huge difference. Since we mainly play GW games though, D10 is a bit of a foreign concept to us. I know they're used, but how popular (if that's the right word) are they? Are people often put off by having to have dozens of D10s to play, or is it something that wargames actually often have/use and don't mind playing with?

Any help/info you can give is appreciated, thanks!

Here's my take on the subject:

The dice have relatively little to do with a game besides acting as a random number generator. That said, if you want a more accurate spread of numbers you want to roll a single die and add modifiers to the result. If you start rolling things like 2d6, 3d6, etc you start to mess with probability. It's statistically much easier to roll a 7 on 2d6 than a 12, for example. That being said, the type of die doesn't matter as much. It will, however, give you a larger spread of numbers. If a d6 has a 16% chance of rolling a 1, a d10 has a 10% chance and a d20 only has a 5% chance.

I've played games that use d10s and d20s, and mechanically they all work perfectly fine. Veteran games typically won't have a problem embracing a strange die type, but it can be off-putting to new players. I've had people complain that d10s/d20s were just too "weird" for their tastes.

Brushfire is a d10 based system.

As long as you aren't dealing with a odd dice type, as in one that isn't used in a d20 rpg system, you're fine.

 The Shadow wrote:
Hi all,

A friend and I (mainly me though, I'll claim the credit early on ) are looking to create are own wargame. It's probably nothing serious (though you never know!) mainly to mess around with ourselves and to put this awesome idea we have for a setting into context, but we may introduce it to some guys at our club.

The system we've got going though would work best with D10s. It revolves around a lot of +X, -Y modifiers, and obviously with just a D6, +/-1 is a pretty huge difference. Since we mainly play GW games though, D10 is a bit of a foreign concept to us. I know they're used, but how popular (if that's the right word) are they? Are people often put off by having to have dozens of D10s to play, or is it something that wargames actually often have/use and don't mind playing with?

Any help/info you can give is appreciated, thanks!

Good things about non six-sided dice:
You get a greater range of possibilities from just one dice roll. If you want a chance to always fail like GW has fail on a 1, you can still have anywhere from a 2+ to a 10+ armour save. This allows you to better represent the range of skills and likely/unlikely events.
Some D6 systems do this using 2/3/4D6 instead of just one, eg Warmachine. This gives each ability a bell curve, again making the 'rare' event much more interesting/rare/reliable/whatever than just 'get a 6'. However, this can only work if attacks are rolled individually: you can't easily roll more than 1 set of 2D6 at a time. Warhammer kind of does this by instead rolling 30 attacks all together each using a single D6, but it really fails with big single attacks eg Railguns.


Bad things about non six-sided dice:
Harder to acquire for people. These dice are generally only available at tabletop/rpg games stores, and in limited quantities. Anyone can go down to the local dollar store and buy a couple of D6s, or buy a block of 30 D6 from Chessex, but it's comparatively harder and more expensive to get a set of 10 D10's to play with. Even the gaming stores tend to have a RPG gaming set with one of each and then individual dice, rather than sets of one particular size.
More awkward to roll; Some of the larger dice eg D20's get difficult to roll more than 1 at a time.

Other interesting dice mechanics:
Exploding Dice. You may have seen this in Spartan's games. A roll of a 6 is a success, and lets you roll an additional. Ad absurdium. This lets you represent critical hits, chain reactions, rare events, etc.

Adding more dice. Deadzone uses D8's. It uses a system whereby each action has a set chance of success (eg, 4+), and number of successes needed (eg, more successes than your opponent), and instead of using +/- modifiers on the dice roll, a modifier instead gives you an additional dice. So while in a 'standard' fight test you are given 3 dice needing to get 2 4+'s, a combat specialist might be rolling 6 or 7 dice but still fishing for the same number. Deadzone also has exploding dice, but on 8's instead of 6's really tones down the mechanic from the occasional stupidity seen in Spartan Games.

Combative rolls: A player rolls XDY's and adds their Z stat, and compares this to their opponents W stat (plus XDY's)

I don't remember playing a game in which you roll D10s the way in 40K you roll D6s.

General Quarters 3 uses D12s, and you roll one die per pair of guns on the ship, so you could have up to seven dice to roll, but not dozens.

Remember you can use D10s to roll percentages. The shooting mechanism in Stars 'N' Bars works like this:

Look up the percentage chance to hit based on firer versus range.
Modify this according to tactical factors such as cover.
Multiply by the number of figures firing.

Example: 16 regular infantry with rifled percussion muskets shoot at a range of six inches giving a percentage chance to hit of 18.
The target is in cover, giving a x 0.5 modifier.
The chance to hit is 0.5 x 18 = 9%.
The total chance to hit is 9 x 16 = 144%.
You score one hit and roll the dice for the 44% chance to score a second hit.

Brushfire, WWX, Wrath of Kings, and Dark Age all use D10s. infinity uses a d20.

I think you're safe going that route. I think were long past the point where people are "afraid" of nonD6

 The Shadow wrote:

A friend and I (mainly me though, I'll claim the credit early on ) are looking to create are own wargame. It's probably nothing serious (though you never know!) mainly to mess around with ourselves and to put this awesome idea we have for a setting into context, but we may introduce it to some guys at our club.

My advice: Don't make a heartbreaker. By that I mean a "my version of 40k if I were in charge" or a "I wish Warhammer Fantasy was like this!" or "Imagine if Infinity had this mechanic!"

Instead look at the types of miniatures you are using and think from scratch how you might like to represent them on the table top. Think about what the players actually do. What is one player doing while another does whatever the rules say? What decision making do the players actually engage in? What's the relationship between the decisions of one player and those of their opponent?

The system we've got going though would work best with D10s. It revolves around a lot of +X, -Y modifiers, and obviously with just a D6, +/-1 is a pretty huge difference. Since we mainly play GW games though, D10 is a bit of a foreign concept to us. I know they're used, but how popular (if that's the right word) are they? Are people often put off by having to have dozens of D10s to play, or is it something that wargames actually often have/use and don't mind playing with?

d10s are pretty widely available. And since you're starting at the club level and just for friends, you can provide the needed d10s for all opponents.

I don't think the dice will be an issue one way or the other. I think the larger experience of the game will determine whether people will like it.

The only way i could see an issue would be if you get d10s are that are not easy to read. Like if they're red and grey and covered with speckles and white numbers and it's hard to immediately see them. This also applied to d6s, but with d10s you have four more numbers that might not have the immediate visual cues people get from pips on a die. So I would get high contrast plain d10s and not fancy transparent, translucent, sparkly or otherwise variegated dice.

Trasvi wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Bad things about non six-sided dice:
Harder to acquire for people. These dice are generally only available at tabletop/rpg games stores, and in limited quantities. Anyone can go down to the local dollar store and buy a couple of D6s, or buy a block of 30 D6 from Chessex, but it's comparatively harder and more expensive to get a set of 10 D10's to play with. Even the gaming stores tend to have a RPG gaming set with one of each and then individual dice, rather than sets of one particular size.
More awkward to roll; Some of the larger dice eg D20's get difficult to roll more than 1 at a time.

d10s are quite easy to get. Chessex sells them in sets of ten.

http://www.thewarstore.com/D10SignatureColors.html

 Cyporiean wrote:
Brushfire is a d10 based system.

As long as you aren't dealing with a odd dice type, as in one that isn't used in a d20 rpg system, you're fine.

To me, anything but a D6 is "odd". Which ones does the rpg system cover then?

But anyway, thanks for the tips/advice guys. To clear a few things up, the game would be using D10s like 40K/Fantasy uses D6s, i.e. you'll roll a D10 to determine whether you hit in combat/shooting etc, but the game is smaller than 40k, with the average unit size being around five models, and ten or twelve being a horde. As such, normally you won't be rolling more than twenty or so dice at a time.

While there is a greater variety of RPG games, the standard sort of dice for RPG often refers to the dice needed to play Dungeons and Dragons, so 1 d4, 1 d6, 1 d8, 2 d10 (for percentiles), 1 d12 and 1 d20.

DSG games uses odd dice types for their game freeblades in addition to the standard dice I just listed, which is why I never picked up then game beyond a starter set and rulebook...

d20 RPGs use d20s to determine basic skill use, then d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s and d12s for the damages of various weapons.

Or at least that's how it is in the d20 Star Wars RPG, which is the only one I've played.

D10s are easy to acquire. I don't think many wargamers would have a problem with them. They tend to be larger, so rolling fistfuls of D10s might be less desirable than fistfuls of D6s.

That said, I would caution you about a system that involves too many situational modifiers. If you use result modifiers, I recommend keeping them simple. Once you have to add +1 for this, +2 for that, +1 for a third thing, -4 for that, +1 for that other thing the game slows down and gets harder to play.

Calculating the proper modifier can become a chore with every roll, and mistakes are easy to make. Plus, it can be a cause of friction in competitive games. Once you have more than a couple of modifiers it becomes inefficient to declare all of them before you roll, so your opponent is left wondering if you are doing things correctly.

There are lots of ways to mitigate this. Skulldread, which I have a soft spot for, simplifies modifiers by attaching modifiers to physical dice, so you pick up your dice and add/subtract dice from what you are holding, which is a handy mechanic for keeping track of modifiers. That's only one example though, but I think it helps to demonstrate some out-of-the-box thinking.

Another thing I like to do in wargame design is arrange it so that players are only ever worried about what the conditions impacting their own model(s). For example range to my target is my problem, my target's cover (or lack thereof) is my target's business. In that example, the attacking model would not include a modifier for cover, but would include a modifier for range.

That eliminates the step of asking the other player what type of cover is applicable.

Like I said, there's lots of ways to simplify/speed up gameplay, and a great way to get ideas is to read a bunch of game rules and play lots of different games. Find out what sort of game you like and what sort of mechanics you dislike.

Old Warzone used D20, it worked well and gave the soldiers a more diverse stats. You could also use 2 D10's to make percentages .

weeble1000 wrote:
D10s are easy to acquire. I don't think many wargamers would have a problem with them. They tend to be larger, so rolling fistfuls of D10s might be less desirable than fistfuls of D6s.

That said, I would caution you about a system that involves too many situational modifiers. If you use result modifiers, I recommend keeping them simple. Once you have to add +1 for this, +2 for that, +1 for a third thing, -4 for that, +1 for that other thing the game slows down and gets harder to play.

Calculating the proper modifier can become a chore with every roll, and mistakes are easy to make. Plus, it can be a cause of friction in competitive games. Once you have more than a couple of modifiers it becomes inefficient to declare all of them before you roll, so your opponent is left wondering if you are doing things correctly.

There are lots of ways to mitigate this. Skulldread, which I have a soft spot for, simplifies modifiers by attaching modifiers to physical dice, so you pick up your dice and add/subtract dice from what you are holding, which is a handy mechanic for keeping track of modifiers. That's only one example though, but I think it helps to demonstrate some out-of-the-box thinking.

Another thing I like to do in wargame design is arrange it so that players are only ever worried about what the conditions impacting their own model(s). For example range to my target is my problem, my target's cover (or lack thereof) is my target's business. In that example, the attacking model would not include a modifier for cover, but would include a modifier for range.

That eliminates the step of asking the other player what type of cover is applicable.

Like I said, there's lots of ways to simplify/speed up gameplay, and a great way to get ideas is to read a bunch of game rules and play lots of different games. Find out what sort of game you like and what sort of mechanics you dislike.

Thanks for the advice, Weeble, that's all very helpful.

Hopefully, there won't be too many modifiers knocking around. The idea is, for example, in combat, you need a 6+ (on a D10) to score a "hit". If applicable, for every point higher your Combat Skill is than your opponent's, you get +1 on your roll. There'll be the other odd modifier, for example, a special ability that grants +1 to hit or something like that, but I think it'll be rare there's ever three or more modifiers on a single die roll.

And that's a good point about the impact on your own models too. Does that mean that, generally, for instance, people prefer having a cover save (like in 40k), rather than have their opponent subtract something from their "to hit" roll, like in Fantasy?

 The Shadow wrote:

Hopefully, there won't be too many modifiers knocking around. The idea is, for example, in combat, you need a 6+ (on a D10) to score a "hit". If applicable, for every point higher your Combat Skill is than your opponent's, you get +1 on your roll. There'll be the other odd modifier, for example, a special ability that grants +1 to hit or something like that, but I think it'll be rare there's ever three or more modifiers on a single die roll.

And that's a good point about the impact on your own models too. Does that mean that, generally, for instance, people prefer having a cover save (like in 40k), rather than have their opponent subtract something from their "to hit" roll, like in Fantasy?

Another way to handle that is with an opposed roll. Rather than taking the step of asking your opponent what the model's value is, doing the mental math to calculate a target number, roll, and add modifiers; you can roll with your modifiers, your target can roll with theirs, and the higher roll wins (attacker/defender wins ties depending on your preference).

That would require two rolls, but eliminates those steps of calculation, and you already would have to interact with your opponent to get the value.

"X attacks your Y. I rolled an 8."

"I rolled a 6, Y gets hit."

I think The Shadow is going for more of a 40k clone game where you roll a bucket of dice at once, so lining up opposed dice in that situation will be very time consuming.

The Shadow, what were you planning on doing for the turn structure?

 cincydooley wrote:

I think you're safe going that route. I think were long past the point where people are "afraid" of nonD6

I don't think anyone was ever 'afraid' of non-D6s. Games tended to stick with them simply because they were cheaper and more widely available.

As many have said.
if you are going to roll 'bucket fulls of dice',most players prefer to use D6.(easy to roll/read quickly.)
Most game that use D10 or D20 tend to roll much fewer dice.

There is a small amount of backlash against games that don't use D6s. However, in doing the research for my own game, which uses D10s, the people who will be upset the most probably weren't going to buy into any new games anyway.

 insaniak wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

I think you're safe going that route. I think were long past the point where people are "afraid" of nonD6

I don't think anyone was ever 'afraid' of non-D6s. Games tended to stick with them simply because they were cheaper and more widely available.

+1 to this.
There have been several miniatures games I have played in the last 20 years that used d10s over d6s (or used d10s as one of their die types - in addition to d4s, d8s and d12s - and these WEREN'T rpgs.). That they aren't around isn't an indictment of how good or bad they were, more an indictment of the company(s) who incompetently ran them in some cases.

Trasvi wrote:
Other interesting dice mechanics:
Exploding Dice. You may have seen this in Spartan's games. A roll of a 6 is a success, and lets you roll an additional. Ad absurdium. This lets you represent critical hits, chain reactions, rare events, etc.

Adding more dice. Deadzone uses D8's. It uses a system whereby each action has a set chance of success (eg, 4+), and number of successes needed (eg, more successes than your opponent), and instead of using +/- modifiers on the dice roll, a modifier instead gives you an additional dice. So while in a 'standard' fight test you are given 3 dice needing to get 2 4+'s, a combat specialist might be rolling 6 or 7 dice but still fishing for the same number. Deadzone also has exploding dice, but on 8's instead of 6's really tones down the mechanic from the occasional stupidity seen in Spartan Games.

Combative rolls: A player rolls XDY's and adds their Z stat, and compares this to their opponents W stat (plus XDY's)

/One more : various dice, each reflecting a competence level.

Basically, you always try to achieve the same score in order to perform an action (+ modifiers), but use various dice, according to the skill of your character. Games like OPEX (Force on Force too ? ) use this system : basic troops would need a 4+ on a D6, unskilled or desorganized fighters would need the same 4+ on a D4, while elite troops would throw D10. Chuck Norris throws 6D12.

Since it's a modern-era skirmirsh combat system, where the combats are often asymetrical, the forces tend to be pretty homogenous, which means you usually don't have to deal with too many different dice : SAS and angry mobs of civilians usually aren't on the same side.

MERCS uses d10's. I've played other historical systems with d10's. I would say given that any independent sci-fi tabletop game marketed over the internet is likely to be pretty self-selecting in terms of market, that using a dice-type that is only accessible to nerds and geeks isn't likely to be a major problem!

A quick search on ebay shows that in the UK they are going for around 30p each, so online access is no problem. Anyone who thinks playing a game with funny shaped dice is "too weird" would probably be put off by the concept of a tabletop sci-fi wargame in any case!

I had forgotten about MERCS. You roll one die at a time, though.

The key advantage of D10s is the ability to roll a precise 1% percent chance on only two dice.

weeble1000 wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

Hopefully, there won't be too many modifiers knocking around. The idea is, for example, in combat, you need a 6+ (on a D10) to score a "hit". If applicable, for every point higher your Combat Skill is than your opponent's, you get +1 on your roll. There'll be the other odd modifier, for example, a special ability that grants +1 to hit or something like that, but I think it'll be rare there's ever three or more modifiers on a single die roll.

And that's a good point about the impact on your own models too. Does that mean that, generally, for instance, people prefer having a cover save (like in 40k), rather than have their opponent subtract something from their "to hit" roll, like in Fantasy?

Another way to handle that is with an opposed roll. Rather than taking the step of asking your opponent what the model's value is, doing the mental math to calculate a target number, roll, and add modifiers; you can roll with your modifiers, your target can roll with theirs, and the higher roll wins (attacker/defender wins ties depending on your preference).

That would require two rolls, but eliminates those steps of calculation, and you already would have to interact with your opponent to get the value.

"X attacks your Y. I rolled an 8."

"I rolled a 6, Y gets hit."

That was something I considered, but from my experience of LotR, it personally think gets a bit annoying with combats essentially descending into a roll-off. The thing that really annoys me is the fight system, but that's another story...

frozenwastes wrote:I think The Shadow is going for more of a 40k clone game where you roll a bucket of dice at once, so lining up opposed dice in that situation will be very time consuming.

The Shadow, what were you planning on doing for the turn structure?

I wouldn't say "bucketful", perhaps "handful". Like I said, as with 40k, there'll be many models rolling two or three dice when shooting/fighting but as the game is pretty small, there won't be many models doing this at any one time. In 40k, I can quite easily get twenty orks into combat, each having four attacks each. In my game, unit sizes will very rarely surpass ten, with the norm being five or six, which works out as a maximum of twenty dice in the vast majority of cases.

As for the turn structure, it goes Move, Shoot, Combat. Both players fight in the combat phase like in 40k/WHFB and the actually movement into assault (charging) is done in the Move phase, just like in WHFB.

Litcheur wrote: /One more : various dice, each reflecting a competence level.

Basically, you always try to achieve the same score in order to perform an action (+ modifiers), but use various dice, according to the skill of your character. Games like OPEX (Force on Force too ? ) use this system : basic troops would need a 4+ on a D6, unskilled or desorganized fighters would need the same 4+ on a D4, while elite troops would throw D10. Chuck Norris throws 6D12.
.

This is similar to what I plan to do. For example, in combat, to score a hit, you need a 6+ on a D10, but for every point your combat skill is higher than the model you are attacking, you add +1. That's by far the most common modifier, but certain weapons/rules may add or subtract one as well. The reason why I want to convert to D10 is that, were I to do this with D6, and have a hit needing a 4+, everyone would get to 2s and 6s far to quickly. So if your Combat Skill is five higher than your opponent's, you still only have the same chance to hit as someone who's Combat Skill is only two higher.

Another note: A D20 might be tough for a lot of players to handle on a battlefield with the cocked dice factor. D10s I think would be fine, though, since they tend to read fairly decisively.

 slowthar wrote:
Another note: A D20 might be tough for a lot of players to handle on a battlefield with the cocked dice factor. D10s I think would be fine, though, since they tend to read fairly decisively.

Haven't had the problem once playing Infinity.

Any way you slice it, if you are using dice as a randomizer to resolve combat, the combat results in a roll off.

It's all just a network of probabilities. But, I understand your point. The "feel" of a system is important.

For myself, I prefer the feel of opposed rolls instead of variable target numbers. In my opinion, the less 'work' a player has to do before a roll, the better. Mental effort should be spent on tactics and immersion. Rolling is a mostly a biomechanical process. Grab the dice and roll. The less you have to do beyond that, the better, and the more consistent the mental tasks are, the more easily they are compartmentalized.

For example, in Force on Force, all you need to remember is what die to roll and that any number above 4 is a success. A set of custom dice with two symbols instead of numbers would be even better.

If you can play a game drunk, or while watching a movie, or while keeping track of a toddler, it's a good system in my view. You may not be able to play it well, mind, but if you can manage the system without making errors, that's a winner.

If you get a few drinks in you and suddenly playing the game becomes a chore, the system is too complicated.

Good point, Weeble, though I don't think the system is that complicated. Yes it's more work than picking up a certain die and rolling, but, at the end of the day, it's only simple addition/subtraction, and, as I said, there'll rarely be more than two modifiers on the roll.

We'll flesh it out a bit and have some test games, see if it does do our heads in or not!

RT days, GW used D100 tables consistently for the games, after effects, army building, etc. Weapons used the D 10 for damage, as well.


MMMMM....... D100 tables

 The Shadow wrote:
Good point, Weeble, though I don't think the system is that complicated. Yes it's more work than picking up a certain die and rolling, but, at the end of the day, it's only simple addition/subtraction, and, as I said, there'll rarely be more than two modifiers on the roll.

We'll flesh it out a bit and have some test games, see if it does do our heads in or not!

You'd be surprised what a difference a few seemingly minuscule steps makes. Bear in mind that I am not saying a system with target number modifiers is unplayable or non-functional. But for me personally, reducing those steps to the barest minimum necessary to sustain the game is always a goal.