I have been recently looking through my unpainted minis. Since many are long forgotten projects, I have been viewing rulebooks to see if I am inspired. My biggest unfinished projects are:
Quar. Samurai. Greek. 70YW/ECW. Weird War II. Infinity. Confrontation 3 (fantasy). These all have 50-100 minis to complete.
I'm looking for impetus to get them on the table - so I'm building terrain, sourcing and printing rule-books. While browsing these genres I came across Mortal Gods. Greek skirmish. Mythic expansions. Good reviews. Sounds interesting; then I notice custom dice.
I hate custom dice.
1) "You can do more stuff with custom dice"
Maybe. I can't think of too many examples off the top of my head where I went "Man, I'm glad I'm using these expensive custom dice instead of those damn ordinary d6s."
When I see custom dice, I tend to assume gimmick/laziness/chasing extra profits.
You can do a lot with even the most basic basic d6. You can roll two d6 and create a bell curve. Or you can throw buckets of d6 with a certain number scoring a hit - say 4+. Or what about crits? Maybe a 6+ counts as two hits? Maybe heavier weapons crit on a 5+? Lighter weapons hit on a 3+ but still crit on a 6+? Maybe you can compare the stats - if stats are equal, 4+, if greater /less could be 3+ or 5+? Or you can add a dice roll to a stat and compare to a target number? Or maybe a contested roll using a range of methods where the defender can try out-roll the attacker...
....And that's ignoring the fact that d4, d8, d10, d12 and d20 are readily available thanks to the inexplicable popularity of D&D. Yeah D&D is a clunky, bad RPG. *Bangs sacred cow with stick*
Point is, I tend to regard game designers who need special dice to make their game work as lacking in basic problem solving and mathematics.
2) Symbols or custom dice are not always more intuitive either. Looking at Bloodbowl dice reminded me of how I wished they just had words instead of exclamation mark explosion, explosion, explosion skull, skull and arrow. Which symbols did Block and Dodge effect again? It's be just as easy to have a chart that says:
1 = attacker falls over
2 = both attacker and defender falls over unless either have block
3,4 = defender is pushed back
5 = defender is falls over unless he has dodge
6 = defender falls over
Voila! No special dice required. I just saved you $37. I could memorize what the numbers do just as easily as the explosion or skull symbols or combo thereof.
Card Mechanics - a tricky balancing act
Card mechanics can be thematic (in a cowboy game, for example). Just like pulling Go pebbles from a bag might be a fun way to do samurai initiative...
In the Savage Worlds RPG (I've been looking at it for the baseline of a horror Western skirmish game) cards are simply drawn and randomly assigned to heroes or groups to ensure a completely random activation.
That's kind of a waste. Is using cards even needed? It's using cards for the sake of using cards. Even then, it's kinda cluttering; if you're putting down a card for each mini/squad - where are all these playing cards being put on the table?
And do we really want truly random activation anyway? I prefer controllable risk. Where you are always uncertain, but you can take steps to "massage" the odds in your favour. How could cards play along with this idea of controllable risk?
Maybe each player has a colour (red or black suit) and can choose the mini they activate when their colour comes up. Maybe some cards like Aces or Jokers have an additional effect; boosting stats, allowing re-rolls, or ending the current turn - whatever.
Maybe a poker hand where each player hold 5 cards and plays them to see who activates a mini next. Maybe only some cards (2?) are visible and others (3?) are hidden.
Maybe heroes activate on face cards AND number cards whereas grunts only activate on number cards.
Maybe a player can skip an activation and swap out some/all of his cards.
A strength of cards is the ability to add on extra effects. I.e. activating on a queen of diamonds might be +2 defence, but a queen of spades +2 attack. You can kinda weave interesting events and variables into the cards as it's like rolling 4 uniquely different 13-sided dice.
There's lots more obviously, but if you are going to use cards, make sure you are getting use out of them....but wait:
....on the flip side, even good, 'cool' card mechanic risks becoming the 'whole game' (or the main focus of the game). You don't want to turn your fire-and-maneuver wargame into an abstract Magic clone.
This applies to using cards to resolve combat too.
I kinda like the idea that each player has a deck of cards and thus has the same amount of "luck" i.e. each player has 4 Aces, 4 Kings, 4 Queens etc - that may come out at different times, favouring one or the other; but overall it's not like one player rolling nothing but 6s all game and his opponent rolling nothing but 1s. The total value of each hand is random, yet equivalent overall. Once you've pulled your lowest cards your bad luck is over and things will likely "even out." I like predictable randomness.
But is drawing and showing cards quicker or slower, mechanically, than tossing a dice? I suspect usually the latter. Does cards really add anything to the game? Or does it add too much to the game?
I dislike boardgames but my wife loves them. Ironically, I do most of the reviewing and purchasing (and some test playing) as I tend to be able to quickly identify the key mechanics and gauge how it will play (and whether my wife will like it).
I notice many popular board games have simple rules but complex decisions. In Courtesans, you play 3 cards, giving one to an opponent, keeping one, and placing one out on the table in a way to influence the value of your hand. There is only 3 decisions in your turn - simples! - but they have a strong effect and there is quite a lot going on as you meddle with your opponents' plans.
A wargame has decisions too, like: Where do I go? Who do I attack? Who do I avoid? Adding a complete fleshed out card game on top of this risks detracting from those decisions (or giving decision fatigue) and making the card game aspect paramount.
Some boardgames have several things going on - perhaps in Sagrada you need to know what stones to collect AND then arrange them for maximum scoring. Sometimes there are two strategies or areas you are working on to achieve success. Sometimes a boardgame has too much going on and these tend to be those that eat up an entire evening(s) - and not necessarily being more fun or tactical than a shorter game with more basic choices/mechanics.
Too complex a card mechanic (be it for initiative or resolving combats) also risks bogging/slowing a game down by layering card complexity on top of the wargame's innate complexity.
It's kinda dammned if you do, dammned if you don't. If the cards effect little or the purpose could be accomplished by other means - the question is why bother? If the card mechanics are interesting, deep, engaging and strategic they risk taking over or bogging down the game. Cards could add a thematic layer to say a Wild West game, but they straddle a tricky divide.
Note I'm talking ordinary, readily available playing cards here. Custom cards, like custom dice, can just get stuffed. Go play Magic or similar CCG if you want to exchange colourful pieces of cardboard for large amounts of money.
Are the cards actually needed? Or are they just for the sake of a gimmick?
Do the cards add something to the game that the usual dice do not easily allow? (i.e. using the suits to trigger ingame effects, some sort of bluffing or minigame, allowing better luck management etc)
How much time/complexity do the cards add?
Is it pulling too much emphasis from the main combat/maneuver?
Is it a naked cashgrab "custom deck" for $30 each?
While cards do have their applications, I tend to be very skeptical when they appear in a game...
Custom dice are ridiculous as part of a base game. Do you want to sell them as an add-on? Go for it. The best use I've seen was when the game wanted 0-5 as options do they made custom dice with those numbers. Remembering to subtract one off each dice would have been a pain, but even then If day change the mechanic so you can use 1-6.
ReplyDeleteCards are harder. I appreciate games with event decks or customizable combat resolution via cards - when done well. The ability to start with a generic 12 card combat resolution deck and upgrade your force to add extra positive cards, have negative morale effects and fatigue reflected in bad combat resolution cards is cool and I've seen it done well.
Pot your previous post I once played a game where units were activated based on cards, suit and number determined when they activated and have bonuses or restrictions. Failed morale lost or downgraded activation cards and at the end of each turn you discarded one card from your hand and one from your deck. The game ended when both players couldn't order their entire army, but that meant the player to run short first (me, the one time I played) couldn't activate their whole force for the last couple turns.
I usually hate custom dice except in Gaslands, there I like them for the convenience. Anyway, cards... I like them in theory, but they look fugly and have mood breaking designs. Sure, they look ok in a cowboy or pulp game, but in anything else... NO!!! The common designs just don't fit the settings, I will NOT play with THEM!
ReplyDeleteI quite often use micro d6 for tracking hits/wounds etc - a small black one is quite unobtrusive. I'd probably accept a custom dice used for similar purpose.
Delete-eM
Micro d6 for hit/wound tracking are awesome. I have seen people who even integrate a spot into the miniature base where the die could be placed.
DeleteI like custom dice, when the probability of any given result isn't uniform.
ReplyDeleteFor example, if we roll different dice to represent varying skill level, then in a game with a target number of "2", an expert might roll on 0-1-1-2-2-3 while a novice rolls 0-0-0-1-2-3.
Or, if the dice might correspond to different outcomes. For example morale dice might be "hold, hold, ground, retreat, flee, collapse."
But the best is tiny d6 to track wounds / hp
- GG
If you have a fixed target number and want to emulate different experience levels, you could just use different dice (D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, etc., like Star Grunt) instead of custom dice.
DeleteI get that; however, the desired 011223 and 000123 distributions aren't possible from a d4 or d8. Furthermore, they don't provide the same opportunity to tweak "failure" 0s with a truly custom die. That is, the unskilled 000 can immediately present 3 different flavors of failure, from a basic miss to a critfail fumble / stumble.
DeleteCards are great for small reference sheets, stat sheets, when the unit isn't too complicated. I particularly like designing around custom decks, where face cards are characters, and pips are actions or modifiers.
ReplyDelete- GG
Cards are also good for games like Battle Lore (an offshoot of Command & Colors) where they constrain possibilities and enable abilities :)
DeleteBattleLore is my favorite C&C game! It uses cards very well, although the character decks are a bit unwieldy, and I'd be happy if they were slimmed down. I have the Dragons & Monsters sets, and am delighted with how they play.
Delete- GG
Los dados personalizados tienen usos, como ahorrarte mirar una tabla. En juegos como Heroquest o Battlemasters a mí me gustaron, es más la sensación en mesa. Como todo, la cosa es cómo lo uses.
ReplyDeletePodría decir lo mismo de las cartas, pueden crear incertidumbre y faroleo, lectura del rival, interacción, control de eventos, azar...el combate en Magic The Gathering es muy plano y la sorpresa viene de las cartas
Por ejemplo y de forma muy básica, creé un juego de escaramuzas casero donde cada personaje tiene una carta que lo representa con su nombre, iniciativa y dibujo. Cada jugador tiene una mano de cartas formada por las cartas de los personajes de su banda.
Al inicio de turno ambos juegan una carta simultáneamente y se activan los personajes mostrados en orden decreciente de iniciativa. Ambos jugadores continúan hasta haber agotado todas sus cartas, entonces el turno acaba y se recuperan las cartas para otro turno.
Elimina tokens (sabes qué te queda por activar mirando la mano), introduce sorpresa e iniciativa variable haciendo que cada jugador active un personaje por ronda y es visualmente agradable.
Buen artículo.
MM
I am also not a huge fan of custom dice and cards for combat resolution. Reading custom dice results usually takes much longer than reading regular dice where you directly see whether you have reached your target number or not. I also have so many dice at home, from D4 to D20, that I will never have any trouble playing a game with regular dice, but for custom dice, I would need to buy them, which will not be cheap. So, having them in a rule set is often a turn-off for me.
ReplyDeleteRegarding cards, I somehow liked the card system of Malifaux, where you draw a card from a deck to attack and defend. You also have a few cards in your hand, which you could substitute with the card drawn, so you can somehow mitigate bad card draws. As a bonus, you could just play the game with a regular set of cards, which is around 2,50€ in Germany. What I didn´t like was that the characters in the game had special abilities which could only be activated when you played a card of a specific suit. I also don´t like card-based activation or random activation in general, like in Bolt Action. I like to have more control over the actions of my miniatures.
May I ask you why you don´t like board games? I had a very long hardcore board gaming phase where my collection ballooned to more than 300 games, before I got some kind of board game burnout as most games did not produce any memorable moments at all and I was mainly playing some nicely designed spreadsheets (e.g. euro games). Wargames seem to be superior in this regard, as I still remember events from games that happened 30 years ago.
Probably similar to why I don't play RPGs.vNot enough cool toys.
DeleteRPGs = mostly nerdy talking, no cool toys. I like to swoosh around starfighters but pretending I AM Han Solo is a step too far.
Boardgames = only the mechanics, no cool toys. They are too abstract to be engaging. Themes are dumb i.e. collecting mosaics or gems, or matching animals to habitats. LAME! There is more an emphasis on winning and losing. There is usually an optimal way to play you need to 'solve'. I like stories and hate puzzles.
The boardgames with toys still aren't as cool as normal wargames and tend to be expensive or lack the freedom to customize.
Obviously with exceptions, I feel wargames are becoming more boardgame-y and that's BAD.
-eM
I slightly disagree on RPGs. I played a lot of them when I was younger. We had the best time when we were using miniatures for battles, e.g. we had enough cool toys. If you just use theater of mind, they can become boring at some point.
DeleteI completely agree that board games are often too abstract. The theme mostly feels tacked on rather than being integral to the game design. There are few good ones which also produce stories, but they are often very conflict-heavy like Axis & Allies bordering on wargame territory. Some modern boardgames just seem like a vehicle to sell miniatures though, like the Mythic Battles series. The game itself is too much of a puzzle, but the miniatures are awesome. I thought directly that you could use them for “Of Gods and Mortals” or something similar.
The tendency of wargames becoming more like board games is also something that I observe with a heavy dose of skepticism. If you look into current Warhammer 40k tournaments, it feels like they are playing a conflict heavy boardgame instead of a wargame. That´s why I prefer campaigns and scenarios nowadays instead of just the good old open field battle where you beat the crap out of each other for no reason.
I may do a 'for fun' post expanding on this reply on why boardgames suck... as I and my kids were complaining to each other in my office yesterday on this very topic.
DeleteWargames (especially competitive ones) ARE very boardgame-y - they often focus on the aspects of wargames we allege to dislike.
Background: We have hundreds of boardgames; only my wife loves them and I/kids are forced to play them. I support her hobbies like she does mine.... ....but it is with gritted teeth I play the latest Eurojank while my cool mecha beckon, unpainted....
...so I'm quite biased...
-eM
Yeah, as an Indie Designer I hate custom dice or cards because they add to my production costs and add a barrier to entry. IF I was a corporate entity trying to sell games I would LOVE custom decks and dice as additional revenue streams. Cynical, I know.
ReplyDelete***************
Somewhere in my Partially-Started pile I have a Cowboy miniature game that ONLY uses cards for all mechanics.
Each player basically had a deck of cards. This was their pool of actions, and once it was gone, the game was over. You used this deck to do everything from activating, moving, measuring, resolving outcomes, damage, etc. The deck was used to resolve solo-checks and opposed checks.
The whole game was an exercise in managing that deck to get the outcomes you wanted. Never made it past the very rough draft phase for a lot of reasons.
- EF
I like custom dice. Unless it's like SAGA where they are overpriced add ons, most games can include custom dice in the core box (e.g. Star Wars Armada, Shatterpoint, Combat Zone:Red) and what do I care? It comes in the box. It doesn't really make it more expensive.
ReplyDeleteSeems like a silly thing to complain about. "Doing math" is not fun, everything can be simulated with everything (dice, cards, chopsticks, paper folds, etc). Flavor and author vision matters. Gimmicks matter or we would play with wooden blocks instead of detailed models.
Also, let's not pretend we don't have money to spare. We are in an expensive hobby, we can buy those dice. If we cannot, there's always the Super Cheap Wargaming fb group :) (very recommended, by the way)
I have hundreds of d6s, d8s, d10s etc. Misplacing them is of no concern. Losing my only BB block dice is. I'm not sure it's provable either way that custom dice make a box more/equally expensive but it's certainly so in an aftermarket sense. Companies certainly view them as 'value added' given their markup vs 'normal' dice.
DeleteWhile flavour matters, there's a reason games don't use paper folds or chopsticks - dice are quick, reliable, proven and (should be) cheap way to provide RNG. Dice (like rulers) are play aides, not the focal miniatures themselves.
Having money 'available' is not an excuse for a company charging $38 custom dice that do the job of a $2 packet of d6s.
Just because someone can afford a $1000 Apple computer doesn't mean they should be grateful to be forced to buy a $60 unique Apple-brand charging cable when other charging cables are $20.
-eM
Your dice won't get lost if you keep them in the core box they came in ;)
DeleteI agree about the "value added" way some publishers see dice. As long as it's not outrageous, I'm fine with it. To me, it's flavor. Combat Zone has black, yellow, red, green dice of various shapes, and you can simulate them with standard polyhedral dice, but why would you? The ones included feel nicer.
I'm not arguing for Apple prices, but really, I find the price argument the least convincing of all. We spend lots of money on accessories, why is dice where we draw the line? I like dice. I like collecting them and they enhance my wargaming experience.
Another silly argument I often hear: "you should design your wargame to use d6 because that's what people have lying around". Wait, people know how to source minis and rules, but don't know how to buy D&D dice, either from their FLGS or from Amazon/ebay? Really? Is this such a big hurdle in an absolutely niche hobby which is even a smaller niche than D&D, where lots of players do manage to buy their non-d6 dice?
(You haven't made this argument but I wanted to address it because I read it dozens of times, and it never makes any sense to me).
I wouldn't argue against D&D dice because they are very widely available even in normal 'department stores' or videogame shops - we have a company called EBGames ("Gamestop" equivalent = USA?) which is in most malls.
DeleteIf my kids can go shopping with grandma and source the dice by themselves, you can't call them obscure....
-eM
You can find D&D dice at Wal-mart.
DeleteI don't want to spend my money on dice. I want to spend it on miniatures and rules.
"Your dice won't get lost if you keep them in the core box they came in ;)"
Delete....you do realise I have two kids, right?
-eM
> ....you do realise I have two kids, right?
DeleteI have a young daughter who's fascinated by all of daddy's toys (and we play together of course) and I haven't lost a single die :)