What's it like playing a diceless wargame?

[Bolingar]

Some musings on the topic.

[fred]

I’m not sure what you mean by diceless?

Do you literally mean not rolling dice, but using a different method of generating random results (eg TtS or FKaP using cards for this).

Or do you mean rules that do away with chance and use deterministic mechanisms?


If I’m being picky your first photo shows each unit with 3 dice behind them.

[Captain Blood]

Brilliant. That’s what it’s like.
The best games (chess, Diplomacy) are purely tests of skill, guile and strategy, with no random element of luck involved.
The second best games rely on some random element like the turn of cards or the drawing of pieces, combined with skill, guile and strategy.
Almost all miniature wargames alas, are hugely dependent on dice, which vastly and capriciously affect the outcome. Your skill, guile and strategy counts for absolutely nothing if you keep rolling bad dice.
I love playing wargames. I hate rolling dice because I’m very bad at it 
Law of averages would say that can’t possibly be the case, of course - but I’m afraid it really is. Some people seem to be lucky more often than others.
So for me, wargames and board games that dispense with or minimise the use of dice, are my favourites. Unfortunately they’re rare as hens’ teeth. Especially when it comes to tabletop wargaming.

[sultanbev]

"Almost all miniature wargames alas, are hugely dependent on dice, which vastly and capriciously affect the outcome. Your skill, guile and strategy counts for absolutely nothing if you keep rolling bad dice."

I've tried to get round the latter by having rules where low is good in some circumstances, high is good in others. Doesn't seem to work though, the lucky people remain lucky 

[fred]

One of our group is a demon with rolling d6s.

The way we have found to counter this is to use games based on d10s or d20s - his dice rolling bonuses are much diminished. Even better is to play games that use a mix of poly dice - he never manages to pick the right one, so rolling a d8 when a d10 or d12 should be used, makes it hard to hit a high target number!

[Bolingar]

I’m not sure what you mean by diceless?

Do you literally mean not rolling dice, but using a different method of generating random results (eg TtS or FKaP using cards for this).

Or do you mean rules that do away with chance and use deterministic mechanisms?


If I’m being picky your first photo shows each unit with 3 dice behind them.

Without chance and using deterministic mechanisms. Those "dice" are marker cubes that track morale, disorder, shooting hits, etc. One can also use counters.

[Bolingar]

Brilliant. That’s what it’s like.
The best games (chess, Diplomacy) are purely tests of skill, guile and strategy, with no random element of luck involved.
The second best games rely on some random element like the turn of cards or the drawing of pieces, combined with skill, guile and strategy.
Almost all miniature wargames alas, are hugely dependent on dice, which vastly and capriciously affect the outcome. Your skill, guile and strategy counts for absolutely nothing if you keep rolling bad dice.
I love playing wargames. I hate rolling dice because I’m very bad at it 
Law of averages would say that can’t possibly be the case, of course - but I’m afraid it really is. Some people seem to be lucky more often than others.
So for me, wargames and board games that dispense with or minimise the use of dice, are my favourites. Unfortunately they’re rare as hens’ teeth. Especially when it comes to tabletop wargaming.

I'll be honest: dice are fun. It's the gambler's addiction, stacking the odds in your favour but still having that thrill of uncertainty - will I win through? A pure mind game like chess has a different thrill: seeing a winning combination and knowing the game is yours. Each to their own fix.

[carlos marighela]

There needs to be something to represent friction be that dice, cards or pieces of paper drawn from a hat. Battles are not always determined by skill alone.

[Daeothar]

I prefer my games to be mostly relying on the skill and tactical prowess of the players, with a smidge of luck in the form of dice or cards. What rankles me though, is the munchkin type of feat/ability/power combinations that turn a miniatures game into a session of Magic the Gathering.

Whenever a game has the word 'synergy' in its description, I shudder and move on...

[Dubar]

Whenever a game has the word 'synergy' in its description, I shudder and move on...

I include "genre", hate that word!!!

[Codsticker]

I include "genre", hate that word!!!

'intuitive gameplay' 

[Easy E]

There is a reason Dice or Dice-like games have been around for centuries.  The dopamine hit of "beating the odds".

That said, I have toyed with the idea of a Diceless game, but ultimately it devolves into a game of paper-rock-scissors.  This can be good for some games/genres (Like Nappies or Naval), but not others. 

I am interested in thoughts on how to overcome that Paper-Rock-Scissor factor in the game? 

[Elbows]

While you could easily get into the weeds regarding "chance" in a game (and indeed, real combat), I find you're generally simply shifting the chance of dice, to the chance of something else.

I'm the opposite of many people here.  I don't care about being in absolute control of my fate during a game.  I don't particularly enjoy chess, etc.  Thats' the furthest from what I want in a wargame, generally.  I've long considered "chaos" the third player in any game.  I love random events, weather effects, hesitant commanders, fluke failures, or fluke victories, etc.  To me the game is about surviving the chaos..and also winning.

I don't mean "roll a D6, on a 4+, you win!", but with careful planning you should have a very strong chance of achieving what you want, just not 100%.  I don't care how good my tactical acumen may be in a certain game, I enjoy the chance of flubbing it.  I enjoy the chance of succeeding where I should fail, even if it's a microscopic chance.  In fact the microscopic chance moments are what make gaming great to me.

I don't mind playing a generic arbitrary-style board game every now and then.  In fact I used to have a rather good Napoleonic wargame which was played on a vacuum-formed board consisting of forests/plains/hills, and you moved your units in secret and then used the rock-paper-scissors method to determine which units won, etc.  That's fine and fun on occasion, but I want the chaos.

To me a wargame shines when you can enjoy it...while losing.  When both players are laughing and cheering for the rare moment when you perform a miracle...that's grand.  I cannot put into words how much I don't care about winning, or mastering the art of winning, tournaments, etc.  When I think back to my favourite moments in wargaming...almost all of them came down to a tiny amount of chance that won me the game or lost me the game.  All the moments where we were laughing or cheering, or hurling dice or stomping around...all came down to chance and not 'strategic brilliance', etc.

On the flip side, I think a game can make dice pointless, such as the way GW frequently designs their games.  "Oh your unit rolls 120 dice...hits on 2+, gets to re-roll those 2+, and then wounds on 2+...and then gets to re-roll those failed rolls too?  Why are we rolling dice?"    At that point, yeah, don't even bother rolling.

[Legionnaire]

I'm with Elbows above. I want to have fun, I want to have a laugh, a jeer, a whooo! when I play. I don't do big battles because I find it too difficult to keep tabs of my "120 units of cavalry, 600 footmen, one troll...". I want to have that bit of unpredictability, yes, you can try to stack the odds/ probabilities in your favour, but nothing is a given.

I do enjoy cards mechanics, but I really dislike when people play it to "find the perfect combo" and when they sit there umming and aaahing for ages before actually making their move, considering all their possibilities  . I tend to get bored waiting for my turn at that point.

We have a chap at our club, he's been a member for donks. He's ALWAYS happy to play a game, 9/10 his dice rolling is appalling and he loses the game but he NEVER mopes or complains about it, the next week he's up for another game of some sort. THAT's the type of player I think is the best. Those who actually want to play, it's about having fun. In the grand scheme of everything, what importance is that victory you just had on the table with little metal people/ aliens/ monsters? Really? Were you having fun? Now THAT's something worth considering.

Just my two pence worth.

Regards,

Legionnaire.

[Cory]

The Game of Thrones board game had an interesting mechanic where combat was decided by adding a leader bonus to the unit strength to determine the winner. The trick was that while each player's card number were the same (3 1's, 2 2's, 1 3, 1 4, 1 5) the cards had unique consequences by faction. Once played a card could not be replayed until the player's entire deck had been used up.

I adapted this to a Fantasy game, with a minimal amount of randomness, and it was interesting as many attacks were a ploy to get an opponent to spend a high card as much as to win a combat. It did slow the game down though as it added a whole other level of decision making. Good and bad.