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Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






I had a bit of an epiphany today about 40k and the way in which it slows down combat resolution to try and make people enjoy it more, even if they're not successful.

They have introduced (for a long time) rerolling hits and wounds and such to make the attacker feel successful, by landing loads of wounding hits. They also have feel no pain and invulns to make the defender feel good about succeeding at defending against the attack. The net result is that lots of dice are rolled, and both sides feel quite good about how they rolled, and then one side or the other feels good about winning.

The quickest way to determine the results of an attack with dice would be a single roll, but then that leads to feels-bad events where that one dice does or doesn't succeed.

Another type is the attack roll vs defence roll, which is how games like Dystopian Wars work, which works well with exploding dice mechanics as you can get really lucky in either direction - scoring a huge pool of hits with a weak attack or rolling a huge defence with very few defence dice.

40k is probably the most extreme - they need you to feel like to succeeded at hitting so give out lots of shots and rerolls to hit, extra hit mechanics like dakkax3, and so on. Then they need to make you feel successful at wounding and have various extras available there, and weapons skewed to be stronger than targets are tough. Then they have saves, with cover boosts, rerolls, invulns, feel no pains, and so on to make the defender feel successful.


So, I wonder how you all approach this sort of thing? I definitely think there's merit to both sides rolling, as it makes you feel active in attacking & defending. I am less sold on the skew towards success, making it easier to succeed at everything so everyone feels better. Contrary to cold hard logic, people prefer spending time rolling all the dice and having no outcome than just missing and not wasting the time!

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Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I massively prefer the simpler resolution.

To me, dice rolling is nothing but a chore.
I get the same enjoyment out of "1 wound, that's probably 1 dead" as I do "that's 10 wounds, that's probably 1 dead".

But the latter is much more of a chore in picking up handfuls of dice, rolling and rerolling several times.

In fact, the former even feels better. It's quick, it's punchier. Resolving an attack in 40k honestly feels like a chore to the point it's not "nice, 1 kill!" it's "finally, we finished".
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





In Titanomachina attacks cause a fixed amount of damage, adjusted for previous choices made during the game. This is fixed because it's the payoff for making good choices earlier in the game. There's no dice-rolling, but like Chess the uncertainty around what your opponent(s) will actually do provides something of the thrill, and pulling off clever moves gives players a skill-based reward.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/23 13:01:13


 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut







Part of it is that in 40k, one 'attack' equals one roll. So you have 2 attack dice for a rapid-fire Bolter, 20 for a Punisher Cannon, etc. And there's extra granularity over accuracy, armor penetration, etc. While this can work for really small skirmishes, it breaks down at larger scales.

What I ended up deciding to do is something more akin to Warmaster/Kings of War, where for every four models in your unit, you get an opposed attack/defense roll, as a pool of D6s.

If you roll more successes on attack than your opponent rolls on defense, you compare Strength versus Resilience to see how many HP of damage is done to the enemy unit.

Additionally, any 'repeats' in a die-pool (Doubles, triples, and quadruples) refer to secondary criticals, such as 'accurate', 'armor pierce', 'dodge', etc.

So it's just 'one' opposed roll with no rerolls, but with its own room for playing with granularity.
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

This is a good observation Some Bloke. The process is designed so that everyone feels successful no matter the results.

I prefer to be able to take some action as an attacker or defender, so am always a fan of opposed rolls. However, 40K is not just opposed rolls, it is to hit, to wound, and then saves, which is 1 step too many for me.

I am also a big fan of dice pools, but dice pools over 10 is too many. Rolling 90+ dice for 1 boyz mob broke me......

In summary, I actually like ideas of some of the 40K mechanics, just not the execution of them.

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Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





I miss Go to Ground and Pinning. I feel like they went the wrong way with that. It gave the defender some more agency, and the attacker more options. They should have expanded it rather than removing/replacing it.
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

I wouldn't be surprised if Go to Ground gets revived as a command point stratagem.

I think that's a great observation some bloke, rerolls help the attacker feel like their offense went well and FNP make the defender feel like they have a fleeting chance if they're armor save comes up snake eyes. Unfortunately the rerolling and bonus rolls adds a bit of time to the game so many players plow through it as fast as possible, picking up dice and rerolling just to get to the next units action.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

I think a part of the reason for some of these types of mechanics (rerolls, exploding, etc.) is to give players a feeling like they have some means of mitigating "the luck of the dice." Which, to a degree, is a valid concern, since most folks don't like being subject to pure RNG dashing away their chances of success.

These mechanics aren't the only way of doing that; allowing modifiers for situational things based on positioning, etc. is another, but that can sometimes be seen as "too many modifiers to keep track of."

Do such mechanics slow down resolution? Absolutely. But sometimes quick resolution with a feeling of being purely dependent on random dice rolls feels worse than it taking a touch longer to resolve something. Finding the right balance is definitely a challenge, though. I kinda like the general limited pool of rerolling as a bit of resource management (CP re-rolls, Blood Bowl's limited re-rolls, Malifaux's cheat mechanic, etc.) as a good middle ground.
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




Think of video games like strategies or RPGs. Does resolution in those require you to perform multiple manual actions, calculations and implementation ?

No, it all happens in the background and if it didn't players would complain about the game wasting their time.

Attempt to achieve the same result with your mechanics and you're good.

Players want to play, not operate the game. To do what they want, not to do what the game tells them they have to do.

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





There is a degree to which analog games do have to expect players to operate the game, which can't be avoided, and players are remarkably tolerant of this requirement. Games like Battletech, Starfleet Battles, and Advanced Squad Leader are/were commercially successful.

I think, at least where Battletech is concerned, players want to know what's going on 'under the hood.' Maybe because tinkering with it is built in. I personally find it tedious, but several million dollars of KS suggests it's not a barrier, and maybe even actively appealing to someone.
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




Or maybe you can ditch the entire concept of dice as an outsider who arbitrarily, post-factum, tells you whether you succeeded or failed, making you passive and thus emotionally divorced from the outcome?

What if we used more pre-randomness in wargames. For example you roll first and then set dice in rows, representing, say, spells (or kung-fu moves!) that your model has in its spell book (fighting style special moves). This would be even cooler with dice with special symbols instead of pips, so that rows of them would look like some magic formulas!

And what if you don't roll symbols that fit any of your formulas? That's where dice manipulation mechanics come in handy. For instance, are you willing to sacrifice your Life Essence to change facing or re-roll some of them?


Oh, oh, oh!!! You know what would be even cooler!? If players could creatively form their own spells/moves. For example "I rolled my dice and I will use these three RNG2 result + these two DMG2 result + this single knockdown effect I rolled to perform an attack with Range 6 that will deal 4 Damage to your sorcerer and knock him down! And now, that he is knocked down and wounded, I will use these 2 dice with..."

Isn't it more satisfying, interesting and filled with agency than dice arbitrarily telling you that the result of your decision is a disappointing failure (for you) and an anti-climactic "nothing happened" (for the narrative)?

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/06/28 07:07:03


 
   
Made in ca
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Yeah, I ditched the dice in Titanomachina. Makes for a much better game, I think.
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




In my post I didn't really talk about going full-deterministic (although it's another option I like, but that's another matter entirely).

My examples were for pre-decision dice/randomness, which is supposed to open options and decision space instead of post-decision dice telling you arbitrarily that your decision didn't matter.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





There's a thing in board game design where you can either have input-randomness or output-randomness, and that you should not have both.

I tried this some years ago and I found input-randomness sucks a lot of tension out of the actual dice-rolling, and gives you all the mental work of combinatorial games with some of the frustration of random resources. However, I think it's a good idea for solo-gaming, and a less good idea when you have an opponent who provides enough input-randomness on their own.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/28 15:01:03


 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

Yeah, I don't really enjoy input randomness much in games.

It's hard to describe the difference, but making my own decision and it not working out is generally less frustrating than just not being allowed to make the decision in the first place.

In terms of balance it's no different either. One game with input randomness I've seen is 'What a Tanker'. It's generally decided by who rolls the right combination of dice to rapid fire off 2-3 shots in a turn first. Meanwhile, they're opponent is stuck just having to drive aimlessly in circles or repeatedly pulling the trigger on a gun he hasn't been able to reload in three turns.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





Imagine if you could play Warhammer 40k in a combinatorial fashion (I've been giving it plenty of thought) though. It was still take a while even if you abstracted it from a model-per-model basis to a unit-by-unit basis. Perhaps longer if your opponent was one of those slow-thinkers; might require the use of a Chess timer.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




For whatever reason, GW is obsessed with action resolution as the core gameplay mechanic. 8th/9th 40k and AOS are about rolling as many dice as possible, as often as possible, because the "fun" is in rolling the dice. Hence the rerolls, stratagems, wizards rolling 2d6 fishing for a target number to cast a spell, and so on. Horribly limiting. Terribly boring. The fewer dice rolls, the better.

I advocate for removing armor saves and heavily restricting invulnerable saves. Roll to hit, roll to wound, done.

Of course, IGOUGO is a great obstacle to Warhammers being decent games. Look at what the AOS team has done in 3.0 in response to complaints about downtime- command abilities you can use in your opponent's turn- because doubling down on what doesn't work is GW's first solution to any problem.

Without the phases, units can simply take an action on their activation. Double move, move-shoot, focus, etc. A proper hit-and-run, tanks/monstrous creatures able to move through enemy infantry with some risk. There is so much untapped potential in these games.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/06/29 18:53:17


 
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




I'm just watching a Company of Heroes review (looking for a solo wargame for myself) and it has a pretty cool combat mechanic :

https://youtu.be/Qx8M5G2XUq8?t=524

I like it a lot and it's a pity I missed my KS window to buy the game :] A quick and interesting decision followed by an almost instantanaous resolution - exactly what I like to see in my wargames.
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Cheltenham, UK

Funnily enough, I discussed this with Gav Thorpe in our interview this week, which will be released as a podcast next Friday (week tomorrow).

We discussed the order of dice rolls being psychologically, rather than mathematically, important in keeping players engaged in the narrative.

My general opinion on this is "fine, but..."

I didn't go into it in the interview (because it was an interview, not a debate, and I have a whole podcast in which to expand upon my design thoughts - and do, routinely), but I agree with the idea that, in general, you get a satisfying narrative arising from the "roll to wound/roll to save" combination. But I also think that this experience is diluted by the addition of more and more rolls (roll to hit + roll to wound; then to save, then FNP, then invul... etc).

In Horizon Wars: Zero Dark, the roll to hit is the roll to wound; and even a totally successful AV check won't automatically save a target from the consequences of being the target of incoming fire.

But it's a skirmish game, so I get to indulge in a bit more granularity than a battle game.

   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I agree, rolls can definitely be satisfying and let players feel like they have some control.
But past a point it gets too much and just becomes a boring chore.
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




 precinctomega wrote:
Funnily enough, I discussed this with Gav Thorpe in our interview this week, which will be released as a podcast next Friday (week tomorrow).

We discussed the order of dice rolls being psychologically, rather than mathematically, important in keeping players engaged in the narrative.

My general opinion on this is "fine, but..."

I didn't go into it in the interview (because it was an interview, not a debate, and I have a whole podcast in which to expand upon my design thoughts - and do, routinely), but I agree with the idea that, in general, you get a satisfying narrative arising from the "roll to wound/roll to save" combination. But I also think that this experience is diluted by the addition of more and more rolls (roll to hit + roll to wound; then to save, then FNP, then invul... etc).

In Horizon Wars: Zero Dark, the roll to hit is the roll to wound; and even a totally successful AV check won't automatically save a target from the consequences of being the target of incoming fire.

But it's a skirmish game, so I get to indulge in a bit more granularity than a battle game.


Wouldn't it be more satisfying to skip rolling saves, and activate a unit of your own instead?
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




I have recently tried out sw:Armada and despite the setting which I find uninteresting I liked how the game works very much.

The resolution involves some dice, but only the attacker rolls one set of them. The defender instead has a set of tokens, depending on the target ship's type. For example smaller ships have more "evade" tokens and larger more "transfer shield power" or "halve damage" tokens.

These tokens can be flipped once to trigger their effect and be refreshed next round or flipped twice (to trigger twice) and lost forever.

One of the attack dice results allows the attacker to stop the defender from using a certain token.

The result is a quick and very interactive resolution where both players have some decisions to make instead of passively watching random numbers being generated. It's also pretty thematic. I think it's an excellent example of what wargame designers should strive for.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/12 07:23:44


 
   
Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

Bloodbowl does a similar thing.

The attacker simply rolls some dice, the number depends on relative strengths of the models involved, and chooses one. If the attacker is weaker the defender may be the one that chooses the dice.

Models then have special rules which affect certain results of the dice. It's quick, it's decisive, and pretty interactive both in model stats and playstyle.
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




I've played Blood Bowl on PS4 and I wouldn't compare these tbh. There seems to be hardly any "choosing" dice, you just check if you rolled the best result and if not, second best and so on. There's little point in choosing worse effect over a better one in BB while choosing to deplete your shields on a certain flank or to halve damage from that ona attack now and to be unable to do so later can have valid arguments for both choices.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





The difference being in Blood Bowl, the board game at least, is that who picks the result depends on the relative strengths of attacker and defender, whereas in Armada the defender gets to modify the attacker's roll.
   
Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

There are also times in Blood Bowl when you want to pick a less optimal result because you have a skill the other player does not. The Both fall down and block skill interaction comes to mind right away. Normally, you do not want to both fall down, unless you have the Block skill.

I maybe misremembering or misunderstanding your point about choosing the best result though Cyel.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/12 17:21:35


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Made in gb
Battleship Captain





Bristol (UK)

I think it is true that the best and worst result is usually fairly clear in Blood Bowl, sometimes you might want to take a push rather than a knock down though, usually if the sidelines are involved.

By similar I was primarily thinking of the fact that it's one roll, from the attacker, that is then modified by defender characteristics (in BB that's principally Dodge, Block, or Sidestep).
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





There's something to be said for the resolution in Chess where you just pop a piece over into a new square.
   
 
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