Using dice for Damage?

[Seiseki]

I read that someone has apparently already made a system for this.
I'm quite interested in this, I've even been considering ordering custom dices.
Because I personally like dices better than cards, and I never play with the explosion cards either.

[Oberst Hajj]

This Excel sheet was created by someone else, I just lifted it from another site :o

[KirkH]

I've created a spreadsheet that uses percentile dice as well, but separates the three rolls; jams, damage, and critical hits. The firer secretly rolls for jams first then the target secretly rolls for damage. If he is hit he then rolls on the critical damage table. Right now my critical hits are the same as the game but I thought of spicing things up by adding some additional possibilities such as pilot hits, damaged guns, fluid leaks resulting in gliding aircraft after some number of turns, etc.

[CappyTom]

I've created a spreadsheet that uses percentile dice as well, but separates the three rolls; jams, damage, and critical hits. The firer secretly rolls for jams first then the target secretly rolls for damage. If he is hit he then rolls on the critical damage table. Right now my critical hits are the same as the game but I thought of spicing things up by adding some additional possibilities such as pilot hits, damaged guns, fluid leaks resulting in gliding aircraft after some number of turns, etc.

Hello, could you send me a copy of that spreadsheet so I could try it out.

Thanks
Tom

[Oberst Hajj]

Tom he has shared it with us in the files section (http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=250).

[CappyTom]

Thanks Col. This site is so big I keep forgetting to look in the files.

Tom

[DAKorps]

At first I thought dice but the cards add a different game mechanism which I think is fun.

The explosion cards are vital Aircraft do not take much damage in a critical area for the thing to DCF (Depart Control Flight, One for the old Air War Players). I look at the Explosion card as a Catastrophic Hit.

Particularly in WWI with highly flammable fuels in un-armoured tanks with absolutely no self selling capability, in canvas and string aircraft often doped with flammable compounds in which the pilots spent a lot of the time covered in engine oil and fuel. All this whilst firing and being fired at.

[KirkH]

I've just never liked using the cards for damage because from a statistical point of view it just isn't right. If you shoot me and get an engine hit, that shouldn't reduce my chances for doing the same to you when I shoot at you next turn. Rolling dice keeps everything possible every time you take a shot. Also, we don't play with the explosion card (except during balloon scenarios) because it's basically just a random game ender.

[SoldierSteve]

You'll have to forgive both my ignorance of war gaming in general and WoW in particular as I am completely new to this but I don't really see what the problem is with the damage cards. The proportion of higher numbers to lower ones seems reasonable and the additional damage adds realism and added interest. I dont really understand how using dice would change that. Wouldn't the fact that any number can be rolled with equal chance make it more unbalanced! Please explain? Thanks.:confused:

[Belis4rius]

I agree with many of the arguments for dice and against cards, but I just love the fun and unscientific element of picking a card and looking at the outcome. It is one of the charms of the game when all the rest of my wargaming uses dice.

[Oberst Hajj]

I agree with many of the arguments for dice and against cards, but I just love the fun and unscientific element of picking a card and looking at the outcome. It is one of the charms of the game when all the rest of my wargaming uses dice.

So very true!

[Grinneth42]

I also really appreciate the randomness of the cards. Not to mention the fun of having an entire stack of 0's when everyone is expecting you to crash at any second!

[krolik]

You'll have to forgive both my ignorance of war gaming in general and WoW in particular as I am completely new to this but I don't really see what the problem is with the damage cards. The proportion of higher numbers to lower ones seems reasonable and the additional damage adds realism and added interest. I dont really understand how using dice would change that. Wouldn't the fact that any number can be rolled with equal chance make it more unbalanced! Please explain? Thanks.:confused:

One of the problems that our group has found with the deck is that it is a reducing set. Each time you draw and keep a card it is not available to the rest of the players. The big example of this is the explode card, once it is drawn, it is out of the deck. Thus all the other players are safe from it. Furthermore, as the deck gets drawn down and the explode card hasn't been drawn yet, your chances are higher of getting that card.:(

We had one game where there was one card left, and it was the explode card.:eek: Everyone fled from the certain doom that awaited the next shot. Thus a very gamey situation developed, in that we all knew what the next card was.

If you are playing a 2 or 4 plane duel scenario, the card draw system works just fine. When one ,or two, planes are eliminated the game is over. But our group tended to fight much larger scenarios, upwards of 6 planes on a side. We, at first, used more than one damage deck, but we still had problems with advance knowledge of the remaining cards, leading to gamey play.

We eventually went to a chip system. We duplicated the damage deck on poker chips, and put them in a bag. When you take damage, you draw the appropriate amount of chips, look at them, record the damage, and return them to the bag. Thus it's as if every time you draw damage, you are drawing from the deck the first time.

Yes it changes the odds a bit, but not in a significant manner. Also I believe that Andrea Angiolino, the designer, based the damage on what is good for a good game, not any real life data. Or at least that is how it seems to me.:D

Also by not retaining the cards/chips there is the chance for cheating, but we haven't had that problem in our group.

[KirkH]

SoldierSteve - Let me provide an example. Let's say there are ten damage cards, one of which is an engine hit and the rest are 0's. If you shoot me and get the engine hit then that means if I then shoot at you the remaining cards are all misses. By using and retaining the damage cards it makes it unfair. The only way to do it fairly would be to pick a damage card, record the results, then return it to the damage deck and reshuffle the deck. That way everybody would have an equal chance of getting any type of damage with any shot. If I get an engine hit on you it shouldn't lessen your chances to do the same to me. Plus, it adds an element of randomness because by using the damage deck your limited to what is in it. If you pick the observer incapacitated card it can't happen again in the game. By rolling dice you can have things happen multiple times, which is far more interesting in my opinion.

[AlgyLacey]

Whenever we draw an explosion card we reshuffle - No fun in knowing you can't do the human torch thing spiralling down towards no-man's land because craig drew it last go.

I have to say I tried the limited ammo rule and drew 0's for all but one 1 JAM

Cards have their disadvantages but frankly I have enough dice and being some kind of dark Jedi our Shamus seems to be able to control dice anyway - who could forget his defense of Moscow in Axis and Allies? - 22 sixes out of 28 rolls.

[SoldierSteve]

Krolic & KirkH

Thanks for the explainations. I understand now what you are getting at. As I have only played against one other person at a time this has not been such a great problem. I do like the idea of the chips and if I ever play in a large group may adopt it. One other way around things that I can see would be for each player to have their own pack of damage cards.

In fairness to the games designers both the Famous Aces and Watch Your Back boxes have 2 - 4 players written on them and Burning Drachens which is the one I have has 1 - 2 Players on it. Perhaps they didn't expect it to take off:D in quite such a way!

[Kiwi_Ace]

ive tried both systems: dice and cards.

CARD VARIATION
there are quite a few variations available even with just cards.
the one i like best is for large groups of planes where you use more than 1 set of damage cards, you stagger the decks so that you do not replace the old deck with the new deck until all cards have been exhausted. this eliminates the problem of having more than one explosion card in the deck at one time.
so my suggestion is if u r playing with more than one damage deck, do not mix them all together, just stagger them.

DICE VARIATION
ive experimented with dice for damage a bit using six-sided dice or d6.
one dice for long range
two dice for short range
i subtract one from each dice so the maximum damage is 5 at long range and 10 at close range (equivalent to the damage cards which go up to 5 damage)

so in summary using the d6 damage system...
Long Range = 1d6-1
Close Range = 2d6-1

i have tested this system a bit and it works fine. there are statistically higher numbers rolled compared to the cards (average damage is 2.5) but it works pretty well and is a fine adaption if you don't have the damage cards on you when u r playing :)

you could go one step further and have a fumble/critical built in to the die rolls as well.
For Example.

at close range...
double six = critical (re-roll 1d6: 1-2 = left rudder damaged, 3-4 = right rudder damaged, 5 = Observer Incappacitated, 6 = Engine Damage)

at close range...
double one = guns jammed

[KirkH]

Another reason I like using dice is it allows you to change other things more easily. As an example, we're thinking of adding a deflection rule that reduces your damage roll if you attack from the side or front of your target. The reason for that is to try and give an advantage to planes with better maneuverability.

Another rule we've adopted that benefits from using dice for damge is that ace pilots get adders to their shooting and subtractions to their attackers when being shot at. The only problem with that rule is that we haven't had a chance to use it yet because we haven't generated any aces to this point.

In a nutshell using the cards limits ones creativity while using dice gives one more options to included added realism when wanted.

[DAKorps]

I have no problem with Dice if you want to use them it’s your game play as you will and I do like Kiwi Ace’s Quick and Dirty D6 system. But surly if returning the cards to the deck after recording the damage can lead to cheating so can rolling dice unless it is up front damage recording that is used. Which is not the way I think the game was designed.

I just like each game to have a different mechanism, I hated the way for a while all Figure gaming seemed to be heading down the DBsomthing route, I play as many Board game as Figure games and it is the different game play that attracts me to new games and rules.

We play with Two damage decks and shuffle when any plane is shot down and it works OK.

I think the danger of going for real is what is real, there seems to be no effect of wing loading in turns climbs and dives in the rules, and damage doesn’t make any manoeuvre more perilous than any other.

Saying it is more realistic because I have: no cards, use dice, have more factors, etc, is delusional. The game is very unrealistic and the way one calculates damage will not make it realistic.

SPI’s Airwar a game I loved was very complex and was hard to play with: wing position relative to the ground being important, four climb and Four Dive configurations, a throttle with 10 points on a circular track to calculate thrust delay, separate speed and energy values that change depending on the settings above, writing this has reminded me how much I loved it (Slot a Mirage in a maximum performance turn, out turn the Phantom on your tail and tray to cut back in a split-S before he cuts back and your both start scissoring, over the Golan Heights with the ground at at the best part of 10,000':)) , it was a Bit©h to play and it was not realistic.

[KirkH]

Saying it is more realistic because I have: no cards, use dice, have more factors, etc, is delusional. The game is very unrealistic and the way one calculates damage will not make it realistic.

I never said changing from cards to dice makes the game more realistic. It's a simple matter of being fair. Just because you pick the engine damage card first doesn't mean I should have less of a chance to get it when I shoot back. It's simple math.

Also, please take a minute to think before you type insults and call people names. They'll start to think you're delusional.

[LGKR]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v304/lgkr/P1140003.jpg

Here's a a dice option I'm workin on. The player rolls 2 twenty sided dice, one is for possible damage one is for possible special damage. The rudder damage will be handled differently; when a player rolls the rudder damage it means that thier rudder is locked into what ever direction they played on the last movemnt phase of the turn. Still have to test it out though, so we don't know how keeping damage a secret will work. Will keep you posted. :)

[KirkH]

LGKR - I like that idea and tried something similar but couldn't get the percentages to come out the same as the game. Using a 20 sider means the lowest chance one has to get something is 1 in 20 or 5%. The various chances for hits and special damage using the regular damage decks can be less than that. As an example, the explosion occurs on 1 out of 35 cards in the A deck (3%) and 1 out of 44 cards (2.3%) in the B deck so having it happen once onlt 1 time out of 20 opportunites will double the chances of seeing it. That's why I eventually settled on percentile dice. They were the best at retaining the games chances for various things to happen. I do like your idea though as it's simpler than mine.

[LGKR]

KirkH- Your right the explosion may be too frequent. May have to work on that, trying to stick to the kiss principle.

[DAKorps]

Also, please take a minute to think before you type insults and call people names. They'll start to think you're delusional.

I do not think I insulted any one as I did not name or quote any one, I was making reference to the Propensity of all gamers, myself included, to look for the Holy Grail of realism, this is the delusion.

The damage game mechanic is based on chance, not probability, the point I was trying to make is that most if not all the game Mechanic is "unrealistic" but still gives a good game. It's a game of Air-combat not a simulation I just do not think it is worth the bother moving away from the damage cards, as to get sufficient Manoeuvre cards one usually get more than one Damage deck. In this I agree with Belis4rius

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If other players think the game is improved by the use of dice that is their choice its a free world.

I make no criticism of any one I was making critique

Regards

[KirkH]

DAKorps - Your first sentence of "I have no problem with Dice if you want to use them it’s your game play as you will" uses the word "you" three times and sounds very much like a direct response to my message. Regardless if it's directed at me solely or to a group of people, calling people delusional, or any sort of name calling is wrong.

[DAKorps]

DAKorps - Your first sentence of "I have no problem with Dice if you want to use them it’s your game play as you will" uses the word "you" three times and sounds very much like a direct response to my message. Regardless if it's directed at me solely or to a group of people, calling people delusional, or any sort of name calling is wrong.

You are correct I did use "I" that should have been "one" I did use the word "you" again I should have used the word "one".

I will endeavor to be clearer with my use of language in future.

As I said in my last post I did not intend to insult any one if you feel I did insult you then I apologise to you.

[LGKR]

I think if "one' posts on any forum they should grow a thicker skin. Of the many things I've been called on forums, "delusional" would be a welcome insult. : )

[SoldierSteve]

I think if "one' posts on any forum they should grow a thicker skin. Of the many things I've been called on forums, "delusional" would be a welcome insult. : )

Here here. I for one keep coming back to this thread when I see theres a new post hoping to find some new information -not to read about peoples personal mis-understandings. It is a simple fact that when communicating electronically you cannot see peoples facial expressions or hear any emotion in their voices, it is therefore very easy to get the wrong end of the stick when no offence is intended. Keep this in mind and life becomes a lot less stressed. However if you must have a dissagreement about things it would be better for the rest of us if you did it privately rather than in a thread that is attempting to teach us ignorant low lifes how to play a GAME.

[KirkH]

DAKorps - Accepted. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

[Vidarsson]

Hi there! I've done the damage dice system on my own. Then I check the forum and it appeared that I'm not the only one... :( But here it is: the Damage Dice System Deck A
__________________________________________________________________
1st version with 2d100 (one for damage and 2nd one for special damage)

1st d100_______________________________2nd d100
0 -> 0-30_____________________________0-17 gun jammed, 18-99 nothing
1 -> 31-50_____________________________0-13 left rudder, 14-27 right rudder, 28-99 nothing
2 -> 51-67_____________________________0-32 gun jammed, 33-49 left rudder, 50-66 right rudder, 67-83 fire, 84-99 nothing
3 -> 68-81_____________________________0-19 pilot hit, 20-39 engine, 40-99 nothing
4 -> 82-90_____________________________0-32 smoke, 33-99 nothing
5 -> 91-96_____________________________0-49 pilot hit, 50-99 nothing
explosion -> 97-99

__________________________________________________________________
2nd version with 2d20 (one for damage and 2nd one for special damage)

1st d20______________________________2nd d20
0 -> 1-6______________________________1-4 gun jammed, 5-20 nothing
1 -> 7-10_____________________________1 left rudder, 2 right rudder, 3-20 nothing
2 -> 11-13____________________________1-7 gun jammed, 8-10 left rudder, 11-13 right rudder, 14-16 fire, 17-20 nothing
3 -> 14-16____________________________1-4 pilot hit, 5-8 engine, 9-20 nothing
4 -> 17-19____________________________1-7 smoke, 8-20 nothing
5 -> 19_______________________________1-10 pilot hit, 11-20 nothing
explosion -> 20

You just roll the dice and check the result with the table. I think it works better than cards, but you have to have a worthy and honest opponent who plays without cheating :)

Good luck and please let me know if someone will try this system.

[Flashman]

For me, I thought part of the charm of WoG was that it didn't use dice unlike the 99% of all my other games!

I'll be quite happy to continue using the cards, but each to their own :)

[freebird-52]

I also really appreciate the randomness of the cards. Not to mention the fun of having an entire stack of 0's when everyone is expecting you to crash at any second!


Have to agree here as well...and with Bellis4rius. The look on your opponents face when you have a stack of cards and they ask, "aren't you dead yet?" Is priceless!

[Flashman]

Have to agree here as well...and with Bellis4rius. The look on your opponents face when you have a stack of cards and they ask, "aren't you dead yet?" Is priceless!

I had that yesterday! My opponent had drawn over 10 cards and I was like, "Have you added up right?" :)

[rcboater]

Latecomer to this thread.....

I, too, recognized the limitations of cards, but I also like the idea of a dice-free game. Here's how I dealt with it:

- I made a massive damage deck-- They are easy to make using card stock and a simple template in MS-Word. I use 4-6 decks worth of cards, all mixed together. If I draw a "one of a kind" card, the odds that you will get one go down a little, but there are still at least three of them left. I don't worry about rare (non-explosion) cards distribution-- there's enough bad stuff in there, that even if I draw one bad thing, there's plenty left for you.
- I think that the explosion card should exist, as it is more historically accurate. But I also understand the perceived "unfairness" of it, especially since I play a lot of games with "non gamers" . My solution is to replace the Explosion cards with "Critical Hits" cards. I then use a deck of 32 CH cards, with a variety of flavor text and assorted bad outcomes. There are twice as many CH cards in the jumbo deck as there would have been Explosion cards. But only about a third of the cards in the CH deck are instant death-- the rest are bad things, but not immediately fatal. This also allows me to fine tune the results-- I just recently replaced a couple of death cards with some "serious damage" cards, for example. This also allows me to pull the all the instant death cards out of the CH deck if I want, without changing the gameplay of dramatic critical hits.

[john snelling]

Interesting thread. If it was a dice game some of us would make a deck of cards claiming they do not like dice.

[Kermit]

Actually I also like the dice part of it. Though I've been a gamer for most of my life so that explains most of it.

[Captain Chum]

Interesting thread. If it was a dice game some of us would make a deck of cards claiming they do not like dice.

I agree. I do like the poker chip idea....that seems kind of fun.

[Пилот]

DICE VARIATION
Long Range = 1d6-1
Close Range = 2d6-1

It's a bit cruel, isn't it? Two close bursts, and game over :)