What's it like playing a diceless wargame?

[Thargor]

So Freebooters Fate is a Fantasy Pirate Skirmish game that doesn't use dice, but it does use number cards (1 to 10) for effects.

However, combat (melee and shooting) were decided by body part cards - head, torso, abdomen, legs, right arm, left arm.

The attacker selected a number of cards based on his attack stat, the defender selected a number of cards based on his defence stat.  Any cards that matched were defended successfully, any that weren't defended resulted in a hit.

Select one location that was hit and then do a strength plus number card vs toughness plus number card check, if the attack was higher it caused the difference in damage points.

Now draw the next number card, if it was equal to or lower than the damage caused, it causes a critical hit in the location.

Each body part had 2 stats - critically damaged & undamaged - which related to:

Head = Attacks
Torso - Toughness
Abdomen = Defence
Legs = Movement
Right Arm = ability to use weapon in that hand (stat is the strength of the weapon)
Left Arm = ability to use weapon in that hand (sta is strength of the weapon)

So the element of tactics is not only in deployment, how to achieve your objectives, who to attack with whom, but also in the body part cards you select in the attack.

If you have a musket, you need both arms to use it, so obviously if I attack you I'm going to go for your arms.  You know this, so you'll defend them.  I know this, so won't actually attack your arms, I'll go for somewhere else.  You think I may bluff you, so you defend somewhere other than your arms.

[mikedemana]

Sounds like a lot of steps to resolve a hit or not...

I tend to prefer streamlined and simple over complex, nowadays. And if that means dice, so be it. Especially in light of the fact I tend to roll them poorly... 

Mike Demana

[SteveBurt]

This comes to the crux of it for me.  If they are impossible to calculate how do you put odds on them?  There is insufficient data to do so with any kind of rigour, especially for ancient battles.  I am convinced by the Ops approach as being just as good history as any other wargame.  The execution  needs to be a good game as well and the AARs appear to bear that out.  I would give it a go for sure.

But equally, the factors you assign to the troops in the first place are impossible to calculate.
The truth is, we do not understand all the factors that determine the outcome of combats whether one on one or between a thousand men a side. This is especially true of ancient warfare.
A diceless wargame gives a false impression that we understand what is going on. Dice, judiciously used (not causing wild swings of fortune, but affecting the outcome), model that uncertainty very nicely

[Elbows]

That's likely double true for ancient warfare, indeed.  I've read plenty of books and listen to several ancient warfare based podcasts and the overwhelming take away is that we know almost nothing.  What we do know is derived from people writing stuff 200 years after it happened, often with a heavy bias, and even the remnants of equipment that we have...we base entire uniforms on two discovered samples. 

The one thing I do see consistently, is the previously mentioned chaos.  The endless scheming, the backstabbing, the "failure to show up", the fleeing from the battle for no reason, including one bizarre instance where both commanders thought they were losing the battle and both committed suicide!  The presence of weather, be it simple sun in the eyes, muddy ground, rain, or even lightning strikes during a battle (not doing damage, but inspiring certain religious zeal), dust storms.  Loads of instances where entire units or armies failed to act until it was too late - often to the detriment of their allies, sometimes by mistake, but often due to cowardice or treason.  Lots of bribery, drunken behavior leading to weirdly successful sieges, even petty insults resulting in the successful siege of castle during the Albigensian crusade, .  Besiesging armies so concerned with security that they build vast structures, which were then besieged...by the besieged castle.

During many crusades, crusaders only had to serve 40 days/nights.  How do you model that when they decide to attack on the 38th day and all of those peasants know they're two days from heading home, absolved of their sins?

Warfare has never been simple...never in the history of human existence, and that's why I love a bit of chaos involved. 

[Bolingar]

That's likely double true for ancient warfare, indeed.  I've read plenty of books and listen to several ancient warfare based podcasts and the overwhelming take away is that we know almost nothing.  What we do know is derived from people writing stuff 200 years after it happened, often with a heavy bias, and even the remnants of equipment that we have...we base entire uniforms on two discovered samples. 

The one thing I do see consistently, is the previously mentioned chaos.  The endless scheming, the backstabbing, the "failure to show up", the fleeing from the battle for no reason, including one bizarre instance where both commanders thought they were losing the battle and both committed suicide!  The presence of weather, be it simple sun in the eyes, muddy ground, rain, or even lightning strikes during a battle (not doing damage, but inspiring certain religious zeal), dust storms.  Loads of instances where entire units or armies failed to act until it was too late - often to the detriment of their allies, sometimes by mistake, but often due to cowardice or treason.  Lots of bribery, drunken behavior leading to weirdly successful sieges, even petty insults resulting in the successful siege of castle during the Albigensian crusade, .  Besiesging armies so concerned with security that they build vast structures, which were then besieged...by the besieged castle.

During many crusades, crusaders only had to serve 40 days/nights.  How do you model that when they decide to attack on the 38th day and all of those peasants know they're two days from heading home, absolved of their sins?

Warfare has never been simple...never in the history of human existence, and that's why I love a bit of chaos involved.

Looking at the factors that substantially affect the outcome of a battle, they nearly all boil down to fog of war, i.e. one side doesn't know everything about the other side, such as the quality and location of the enemy troops and the enemy's battleplan. None of this is random: once these things become known their effect is constant for the rest of the battle. You don't have an effect that varies widely during the course of a battle. Weather: it rains or it doesn't; at the most doesn't rain initially then it begins to rain and carries on raining for the rest of the battle. An unreliable ally: he joins in the battle or he does not: he doesn't change his mind half a dozen times in the course of the battle. And so on. Pure randomness means arbitrarily variable performance, and that doesn't happen on a real battlefield.

[SteveBurt]

Looking at the factors that substantially affect the outcome of a battle, they nearly all boil down to fog of war, i.e. one side doesn't know everything about the other side, such as the quality and location of the enemy troops and the enemy's battleplan. None of this is random: once these things become known their effect is constant for the rest of the battle. You don't have an effect that varies widely during the course of a battle. Weather: it rains or it doesn't; at the most doesn't rain initially then it begins to rain and carries on raining for the rest of the battle. An unreliable ally: he joins in the battle or he does not: he doesn't change his mind half a dozen times in the course of the battle. And so on. Pure randomness means arbitrarily variable performance, and that doesn't happen on a real battlefield.

Nobody is arguing for pure randomness. A bit of randomness is present in all combat.
It is true that in ancient battle commanders tended not to have a big influence once combat had started. But even then there are many exceptions; Alexander charging in, Caesar seizing a sword and shield, a veteran of the tenth legion wounding Labienus with a javelin, Epaminondas dying.
More importantly, the accounts are so vague that events that may have swung combat between units are often not mentioned; that doesn?t mean they are known in advance, nor that a unit?s performance would always be the same during a given battle. We know from more recent wars that a unit which fought well in one combat could lose heart in a later one in the same battle. That is what dice (or cards) are modelling. Not pure randomness, but variability.
I?ve played diceless games, and the lack of that variability turns them into rather sterile experiences, but more importantly doesn?t seem to reflect accounts of combat.

[Elbows]

Looking at the factors that substantially affect the outcome of a battle, they nearly all boil down to fog of war, i.e. one side doesn't know everything about the other side, such as the quality and location of the enemy troops and the enemy's battleplan. None of this is random: once these things become known their effect is constant for the rest of the battle. You don't have an effect that varies widely during the course of a battle. Weather: it rains or it doesn't; at the most doesn't rain initially then it begins to rain and carries on raining for the rest of the battle. An unreliable ally: he joins in the battle or he does not: he doesn't change his mind half a dozen times in the course of the battle. And so on. Pure randomness means arbitrarily variable performance, and that doesn't happen on a real battlefield.

I feel like you're arguing against something that no one is saying...you seem to weirdly equate dice with "pure random madness!", but no one has said that or supports that as an argument?

PS: Curious how you know what happens on a real battlefield, particularly historical ones?  Even well-read historians admit we know very little about how the battles looked or were fought.  We don't even have a solid idea how Roman legions fought (really), and they're one of the most well-researched periods with the most evidence on hand.

[Bolingar]

I feel like you're arguing against something that no one is saying...you seem to weirdly equate dice with "pure random madness!", but no one has said that or supports that as an argument?

But that's precisely what dice are: they give randomly variable outcomes for things that should be constant. A unit fights well or badly; it doesn't veer between heroic and hopeless in the course of a battle.

Let me be fair and take the other side. The point of dice is to represent fog of war, we can agree on that. Fog of war for a unit means an imperfect knowledge of its capabilities. So one knows that a spear unit is pretty good against enemy spear and cavalry, but one doesn't know if this spear unit is a bit better or worse than them. Dice throws should slightly modify its overall performance without a single die throw completely upending the unit. This means attrition steps.

I like the way Phil Sabin does it in Legion: it usually takes a few dice throws to score a hit and most units have 2 steps before being destroyed. Furthermore a "spent" unit (has already taken one hit) can transfer a second hit to a friendly adjacent unit. This means a battleline degrades more or less evenly and a line with superior quality troops will almost inevitably defeat an inferior line. But one doesn't know exactly when, or how many superior units might be lost in the process. The randomness can be interpreted as the unit is better than expected (good dice throws) or worse than expected (bad dice throws) but not unreasonably so in either case.

I don't like DBA where a qualitatively superior unit can be destroyed by a single die throw of an inferior unit. There are too few units (12) for that to be absorbed in the general casualty attrition rate - lose 4 units and you lose the game. It's too variable, too random. Not for me - if I'm trying to take it as something approximating to an historical simulation. Fine as a beer and pretzels game.

Are dice as used in Legion better than a deterministic mechanism where you don't know the final outcome as there are too many variables to calculate it? Maybe not. The real reason wargamers like dice is because of the thrill: each time you throw the cubes something should happen, and there's a good chance something important will happen. Hence the popularity of the DBx systems. The less a single die throw has a significant effect the more boring it becomes. In Legion the chances of causing a hit are usually 1 in 3 or 1 in 6. Most dice throws accomplish nothing: attrition takes time and hence is not too drastic and uneven in its effects. But all that useless dice throwing is boring and in consequence Legion never really took off as a wargame. Diceless combat is much quicker to resolve and the thrill is of a different kind: knowing that outcomes depend entirely on your tactical skill. Like chess. Take your pick.

PS: Curious how you know what happens on a real battlefield, particularly historical ones?  Even well-read historians admit we know very little about how the battles looked or were fought.  We don't even have a solid idea how Roman legions fought (really), and they're one of the most well-researched periods with the most evidence on hand.

I've made a study of the topic. Even got a book published on it. I cover the Roman legion in it.

[boneio]

A unit fights well or badly; it doesn't veer between heroic and hopeless in the course of a battle.

.. it does, though? A fighting unit is not a digital system with limited inputs and outputs, it's a body of people, and people are extremely complex. Bodies of people even more so.

A world class tennis play doesn't even play consistently to the same standard during the same match. A large body of people trying to kill each other has a huge number of variables.

Entropy is real, randomness (might be  ) real - diceless wargaming as a principle or idea is hardly in itself a bad thing but the topic of whether the same battle under exactly the same conditions, which is generally acknowledged to be impossible would have the same outcome, is straying into determinism and the philosophy of free will.

Chess isn't a wargame simulation.

Wargames are supposed to represent battles.

Battles have a huge number of unpredictable elements.

You seem to be taking the stance that an omniscient general could extract a perfectly predictable performance from their troops, and that is I feel incompatible with most human philosophy.

I don't think it's necessarily incompatible with a fun wargame! I'm certainly intrigued as to how a more deterministic game could play - but I think the thread has somehow evolved into suggesting that games are either mostly random, or not at all random, and that one or the other is a better representation of war. In truth, no simulation can equate to reality without being reality. It's only a question of what's the most enjoyable ruleset - it's simply silly to suggest that random, pseudo-random, or deterministic, or some mix, is better or worse at being a game of war.

[Belligerentparrot]

.. it does, though? A fighting unit is not a digital system with limited inputs and outputs, it's a body of people, and people are extremely complex. Bodies of people even more so.

A world class tennis play doesn't even play consistently to the same standard during the same match. A large body of people trying to kill each other has a huge number of variables.

This is a great point. Among many possible examples, Red Badge of Courage is a wonderful account of how a unit (and indeed an individual) can see-saw in effectiveness quite dramatically in a short space of time.

I guess scale of the game might be very relevant here. If the game is basically skirmish-level depicting one small moment, how a unit fights should probably be fairly stable. But if the scope of the game is more temporally extended than that, I struggle to see why we should assume stable effectiveness.

[Elbows]

Edited to remove unnecessary argument.

[Bolingar]

.. it does, though? A fighting unit is not a digital system with limited inputs and outputs, it's a body of people, and people are extremely complex. Bodies of people even more so.

A world class tennis play doesn't even play consistently to the same standard during the same match. A large body of people trying to kill each other has a huge number of variables.

I've heard this argument many, many times. A single individual is a complex assembly of causes to which it is impossible to assign deterministic outcomes. Fine. However a large body of individuals sees all those causes average out, leaving the body with an overall efficacity that can be represented by deterministic factors. So a single Spartan hoplite (the example I always use) can be killed a single Athenian hoplite: the Spartan slips on a loose stone at the critical moment, whatever. However a thousand Spartan hoplites will - all else being equal - defeat a thousand Athenian hoplites, every single time. The only variable being how many Spartans are killed before the Athenians inevitably rout.

Entropy is real, randomness (might be  ) real - diceless wargaming as a principle or idea is hardly in itself a bad thing but the topic of whether the same battle under exactly the same conditions, which is generally acknowledged to be impossible would have the same outcome, is straying into determinism and the philosophy of free will.

If the armies are exactly equal, balanced on the edge of a knife, then the outcomes might vary. But if one army has a noticeable advantage over the other, or if one army uses the same better tactics than the other, that army will win, every single time.

Chess isn't a wargame simulation.

I know. Didn't say it was. I said that the thrill from playing chess equates to the thrill of playing a diceless wargame.

Wargames are supposed to represent battles.

Battles have a huge number of unpredictable elements.

Just as unpredictable in a deterministic as in a chance-driven system. How many chess players know the outcome of a game from the outset? Lots of unpredictability. Yes, chess isn't a wargame - you get my point anyway?

You seem to be taking the stance that an omniscient general could extract a perfectly predictable performance from their troops, and that is I feel incompatible with most human philosophy.

No. I'm saying that the unpredictability of a deterministic wargame better simulates fog of war than the unpredictability of most of the popular wargames that use dice.

I don't think it's necessarily incompatible with a fun wargame!

Of course it isn't. That why dice wargames are so popular.

I'm certainly intrigued as to how a more deterministic game could play - but I think the thread has somehow evolved into suggesting that games are either mostly random, or not at all random, and that one or the other is a better representation of war. In truth, no simulation can equate to reality without being reality. It's only a question of what's the most enjoyable ruleset - it's simply silly to suggest that random, pseudo-random, or deterministic, or some mix, is better or worse at being a game of war.

Let's separate enjoyable from historically realistic. Enjoyable: no argument; historically realistic: argument. My growing impression is that wargamers use dice because dice are fun: nothing replaces the thrill of throwing the cube at a critical moment and getting a 6. But it's futile for them to try and justify dice as presenting something historically accurate. They just don't.

Obviously no game simulates reality. Question is which game simulates reality better whilst remaining fun? That's a tricky one to answer.

[Bolingar]

This is a great point. Among many possible examples, Red Badge of Courage is a wonderful account of how a unit (and indeed an individual) can see-saw in effectiveness quite dramatically in a short space of time.

I guess scale of the game might be very relevant here. If the game is basically skirmish-level depicting one small moment, how a unit fights should probably be fairly stable. But if the scope of the game is more temporally extended than that, I struggle to see why we should assume stable effectiveness.

For a skirmisher-level game, where individuals have a significant effect, you'll probably need dice as there's no other manageable way of representing the hugely complex interaction of cause and effect that goes into an individual's performance: an individual sniper takes aim at a target, but an exploding grenade blows up some smoke, obscuring his vision whilst his target moves at the same time, and he misses. Stuff like that can't be simulated by anything deterministic.

[Belligerentparrot]

Also a great point, Bolingar  I agree that at skirmish level, the relevant idea of "how a unit fights" isn't really applicable, because you'll want the ruleset to track much more granular considerations. I hadn't thought that far through my thought - if that makes sense - when I posted earlier.

I'm not sure about the claim that over a large body of individuals things average out, but even if that isn't true I can see why a ruleset might want to abstract away the resulting complexity.

For what it is worth, even though I do like dice (it is, as you say, fun), I've never liked "a 1 is always a failure" type rules. Sometimes, as you say, the outcome just isn't in doubt: *that* gun is never going to hurt *that* tank; *that* troop type is never going to beat *this* troop type etc.

[boneio]

EDIT:
I should have read the previous page - everything I've argued in my post has already been said on the previous page, we've gone in a circle  Suffice it to say I think it's self-evidently untrue to suggest that deterministic gaming is more realistic than games with at least an element of random modelling. This is quite simply a debate about simulation vs reality and how complex a simulation can be made. We cannot simulate battles anything like accurately enough to the real thing, without actually going and recreating it - not yet anyway, with current computational capabilities (and lack of understanding of what the history actually was, which won't change until the time machine!). Certainly not on the tabletop.

However a thousand Spartan hoplites will - all else being equal - defeat a thousand Athenian hoplites, every single time. The only variable being how many Spartans are killed before the Athenians inevitably rout.
If the armies are exactly equal, balanced on the edge of a knife, then the outcomes might vary. But if one army has a noticeable advantage over the other, or if one army uses the same better tactics than the other, that army will win, every single time.

I fundamentally disagree with this - people, weather, circumstances, equipment, etc, many things make up an army. An army is not a precisely controlled set of statistics. It's a loosely conglomerated group of variables.

I think you have missed my point - there is either randomness in life, or there is not. If there is, then no battle, no matter how huge the numbers involved and how much historical data there is to draw on, will always have exactly the same result. Nothing in life is truly deterministic and therefore a deterministic wargame can't be more 'accurate' (in and of that being the definition), than one with some random elements.
If there is not, then everything is predetermined and simply unknown yet which is philosophically depressing - but even if true that doesn't mean we have sufficient data to model battles with anything like statistical certainty.

I'm sure you want me to say that chess is not unpredictable, the person playing chess is unpredictable - which of course I agree with.

The general ordering his troops in the analogy is not playing chess - they are ordering other groups of people to carry out actions which they may or may not interpret differently, may or may not find a random sinkhole on the battlefield, may or may not spot a bad omen while moving to their next position and so on.

The general does not have deterministic control of the battlefield. They are not omniscient. A deterministic wargame is less realistic because of that.

For a skirmisher-level game, where individuals have a significant effect, you'll probably need dice as there's no other manageable way of representing the hugely complex interaction of cause and effect that goes into an individual's performance: an individual sniper takes aim at a target, but an exploding grenade blows up some smoke, obscuring his vision whilst his target moves at the same time, and he misses.

The general orders the cavalry reserve to engage; a gust of wind blows the flag the wrong way; the cavalry takes to the wrong flank. Stuff like that can't be simulated by anything deterministic.

There are no battles in history where both sides had full, precise, omniscient knowledge of what would happen when they took each specific action. That's a fantasy.

There were of course battles where one side had such a huge advantage that the conclusion was foregone, sure - but we wouldn't play those because what's the point? Unless there's the chance the luck could go our way... but in a deterministic system such a battle could only be won by the underdog if the player with advantage deliberately squandered it entirely. Again, why bother?

I've never liked "a 1 is always a failure" type rules. Sometimes, as you say, the outcome just isn't in doubt: *that* gun is never going to hurt *that* tank; *that* troop type is never going to beat *this* troop type etc.

I agree, some situations don't need any randomness modelling in. BB gun vs Tiger - fail.
In contrast any simulation that tries to model exactly when tank A will knock out tank B, is only 'accurate' if it extremely closely approaches reality i.e. actually run the tanks, man them, fire training rounds etc. Everything else is far too complex and therefore either needs some manner of randomly weighted resolution mechanic, or is painfully unrealistic because it requires suspension of disbelief; they always get a knock-out if under X range and from Y angle for instance, everything else is a fail. Works as a game but absolutely isn't more realistic than dice, cards, whatever.

Framing the discussion in a context of units of fighting men doesn't change this, it just shifts the probabilities and at best moves the focus to what unknowns the general has or hasn't got in view. Which comes back to - we can't simulate that, it needs some randomness.[/s]