Luck of the Dice

[thistlebarrow]

What do you do when you have a run of either “sixes” or “ones”. 

Do you accept the luck of the dice, whatever the consequences?

Or do you “reroll” the second or third to save the game?

When we used to play fun friendly games we would often either ignore a run of good or bad luck, or even play the wargame over again.   We both felt that it was a shame to ruin a good game just because of exceptionally good or bad dice.

However now that we only fight campaign battles we feel we should stick to the dice.   All of these games are battles provided by our PBEM campaign, and I post a full battle report so that the players can follow the progress of their battle.

However we both feel that it is a shame to ruin a good wargame, and that there is no enjoyment in winning under such circumstances.

The game that prompted this post ended after just five moves (out of a potential twelve moves).   During that time one side had rolled five “ones” for morale saving throw.   Being a campaign game that side already had quite a few casualties from previous battles.   As a result the tabletop commander declared a retreat to save the campaign player losing his whole army.

[olicana]

I've been known to ignore dice rolls in demo games, but they are not proper games.

More occasionally we have ignored a single roll that would end a battle early or that would have an instant disastrous outcome on the outcome of a game - such as an Age of Reason battle end on double six before it has really begun. When this has happened the game has counted as having two results, the early end, and then the 'what if that had not happened' end. It is not very satisfactory, but sometimes, when the guys have been looking forward to a game all week, have travelled to play, and some poor schmuck has spent hours setting the game up, it is intolerable for a game to end mid evening.

As you say, rolls should never be changed in campaign battles. One disaster wouldn't normally spoil a campaign and might, perversely, add to it in the long run.

[nathan]

In a recent game a friend of mine had a run of 1s that was around a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of happening.

We usually talk about the implications of things and in this case, and after all the dice were done for the turn, I actually said that I thought the game had shifted to now being about how much of his army he could safely rescue and withdraw from the field of battle rather than trying to win.  He managed a screen with his reserves well enough, but I still manage to capture almost an entire division.

I think the key to enjoying big swings in luck is to redefine the goals of the scenario in response to what happened.  If your main line breaks and you don't think your reserve is enough to turn things around (or if you already committed it or didn't have one ), you can throw in the towel and say "there's no way my side can win" or you can say "okay, now my goal for this game is to save my army from destruction."

I find it really helps at the end of each turn to put into words what you see as happening and what the new situation is.  That way you don't have to save the game, you can just change the objectives to reflect the new situation.

[juergen c. olk]

we always play w/ a good size group ,so if one is lucky there usually is a unlucky fellow. I count on my dice. I will always take the worst troops and then use my blind dumb luck in addition to common sense to see me thru.Some time it works some times it don't. either way it's a game we play every week. So we don't worry about it.