Pool vs dice

[gogol]

Hi,

I feel really confused about the game design choice of using a pool of counters to randomize damages.

There is a huge difference in term of game design between using dice vs cards or counters ;

when using a pool like in wings of war, WHAT HAS BEEN DRAWN CANNOT BE DRAWN ANYMORE. it's like telling that you remove the sides from dice each time they are rolled

i really wonder why the designers made this choice

any clue ?

[LGKR]

Hi,

I feel really confused about the game design choice of using a pool of counters to randomize damages.

There is a huge difference in term of game design between using dice vs cards or counters ;

when using a pool like in wings of war, WHAT HAS BEEN DRAWN CANNOT BE DRAWN ANYMORE. it's like telling that you remove the sides from dice each time they are rolled

i really wonder why the designers made this choice

any clue ?

As far as WoW WWI I think the cards act as game timer in a way. As the deck is dwindled down the chance of drawning a more catastophic card increases, that is if they haven't been drawn right away.

[HardRock]

We make note of the damage and re-shuffle the damage cards back in the deck. This keeps all possibilities in play.

Henry

[Oberst Hajj]

Cards were used in WoW to fit in with the feel and visual design of the game. The big draw back of that system was that the decks of cards were expensive to produce. That meant that they had to limit what they could include in each set. In DoW, they went with counters do to the cheaper production cost and to give us players more damage options.

[swarbs]

Also, the damage drawn from cards or counters can be made to custom probabilities by the designer whereas dice cannot. A single die has an even chance of hitting any side, a damage deck can be loaded towards the lower end of the spectrum.

Adding a pair of dice has different probabilities for each outcome, so I suppose you could assign a result of 7 (most common on 2d6) to be the result you want to pop up the most (say 1 damage) and then go from there, but that necessitates including a table in the rule book that needs to be constantly referred back to. I'm glad Wings of War isn't a 'refer to table A-1' sort of game. As someone said above, the easiest option is to put the chit back in the cup (or card back in the deck) after recording the damage result.

[gogol]

you could print D20s or even more faced ones with customized faces.

but anyway i found your answers full of sense ! thx

[FutureEmperor]

In adapting the chip system to a die system i decided a percentile die was the best option. Two d10s (or single d100 if you have one) and then i took the damage chips counted them all out and i found out the odds in 100 of getting that result and then i just mapped these odds (roughly) to the 100 possibilities on the dice. for the special damage for explosions i lowered the odds (from 1/60 in the b chip pool to 1/100) for others i increased the odds (mainly because some odds would be about 3.6 or 1.6 or similar and it'd just be easier to round those that needed it.

And to make things simpler i just rounded out the damage for some of the special counters (so smoke and rudder damage is more equal in each set, though making different numbers for different rolls would be easy, it was just to simplify things when rolling). I also decided to map it out so that rolling lower was more beneficial, it roughly works out that in each group rolling anything higher than an 80 is bad news.

in the end i think i prefer the chips, it just makes things more fun, but i find either way is fine. (also the dice would have to be rolled in secret by each player instead of each player just looking at their chips)

the dice maps i came up with are:

"A"
dice roll on a d100 : damage value
1-26 = 0
27-48 = 1
49-70 = 2
71-80 = 3
81-83 = 4
84-86 = 1 + Left rudder jam
87-89 = 1 + right rudder jam
90-92 = 3 + smoke
93-95 = 3 + engine damage
96-98 = 3 + crew wounded
99 = 2 + fire
100 = explosion

"B"
1-16 = 0
17-24 = 1
25-39 = 2
40-50 = 3
51-60 = 4
61-70 = 5
71-73 = 6
74-76 = 7
77-79 = 8
80-83 = 2 + Left rudder jam
84-87 = 2 + right rudder jam
88-91 = 2 + smoke
92-95 = 5 + engine damage
96-98 = 4 + crew wounded
99 = 3 + fire
100 = explosion

For "C"s
1-41 = 0
42-54 = 3
55-64 = 5
65-71 = 6
72-79 = 8
80-83 = 4 + Left rudder jam
84-87 = 4 + right rudder jam
88-91 = 4 + smoke
92-95 = 4 + engine damage
96-98 = 6 + crew wounded
99 = 6 + fire
100 = explosion

I'd also like to say that i bought this game on a whim recently and so far i have really really enjoyed it, i've already bought all the boosters i can find. great stuff. Quick, easy, detailed but not complex, and already making some great stories... for example when i was first showing this game to my friends and teaching them to play we had 4 turns before we got into range of each other, I'm controlling a Hurricane and The seafire, They both had Bf109s E-3s, in the first phase when we're all in range of one another none of their shots do any damage to my Hurricane (they both shot at it) and my two shots both exploded each of their planes. We decided to ignore that incident and keep playing just so that they could actually learn the game a bit more. but still shared a good laugh at that.

[richard m schwab]

Welcome Steve!

An interesting idea, i will have to give it a try. You need to do the D damage now!:)

Rich

[FutureEmperor]

My FLGS didn't have a copy of fire from the sky. I ordered it but it won't be in till monday. I'll do it asap.

[LeBru]

I had started a new thread about this before seeing this one. Here's a copy of that post:



Has anyone had any luck converting the damage decks into a dice system?

I had messed around with it briefly a while back to help those players in our group that only bought minis (and didn't have damage decks). We tried a few different systems, some pretty complicated (not what I wanted), some using percentile dice (was more like using the deck, but the reference chart was a bit much), and finally one that uses a d10 roll for damage and then a second, conditional d10 roll for effects. The last one was much more streamlined (everything was a bit easier to remember without having to go to charts) but the odds of hitting a certain number or effect were further off from pulling from the deck. Of course the other issue was that it's a bit harder to keep things secret, but some sacrifices had to be made I suppose. It looked something like this (for the "A" deck):


1st D10 roll

1 .......... 0 damage + attacker jammed

2 – 3 ..... 0 damage

4 - 5 ..... 1 damage

6 ......... 1 damage + re-roll

7 - 8 .... 2 damage + re-roll

9 - 10 ... 3 damage + re-roll



If 6 or higher, re-roll for effects:

1 .......... attacker jammed

2 - 3 ..... no left turn

4 - 5 ..... no right turn

6 .......... smoke + 1 damage

7 .......... + 2 damage

8 .......... fire

9 .......... pilot injured

10 ........ engine damage


The explosion was left out since the chances of double engine damage and double pilot injury go up a bit, and since our group isn't crazy about explosions to begin with.

Anyways I realize there will never be a perfect transition from decks to dice, but I'm wondering if anyone has any suggestions or has a better system.

Thoughts?

Steve, that's similar to what we had tried with percentile, but it's a lot cleaner. We were going with:


“A” damage deck

1 – 25...0 damage
26 – 31...0 damage, gun jam
32 – 45...1 damage
46 – 48...1 damage, no right turn
49 – 51...1 damage, no left turn
52 – 54...2 damage
55 – 60...2 damage, gun jam
61 – 63...2 damage, no right turn
64 – 66...2 damage, no left turn
67 – 69...2 damage, fire
70 – 78...3 damage
79 – 81...3 damage, dead gunner
82 – 84...3 damage, engine trouble
85 – 90...4 damage
91 – 93...4 damage, smoke
94 – 96...5 damage
97 – 99...5 damage, dead gunner
100...Explosion

“B” damage deck

1 – 30...0 damage
31 – 40...0 damage, gun jam
41 – 52...1 damage
53 – 57...1 damage, gun jam
58 – 59...1 damage, no right turn
60 – 61...1 damage, no left turn
62 – 64...1 damage, dead gunner
65 – 66...1 damage, smoke
67 – 68...1 damage, fire
69 – 78...2 damage
79 – 80...2 damage, no right turn
81 – 82...2 damage, no left turn
83 – 84...2 damage, engine trouble
85 – 86...2 damage, smoke
87 – 88...2 damage, fire
89 – 95...3 damage
96 – 97...3 damage, dead gunner
98 – 99...4 damage
100...explosion

(This is from at least a year or so ago—before dead gunner became injured pilot—we stopped playing WoW for a while and recently picked it up again)

I definitely prefer your percentile chart to ours. I'd still like something a little easier to remember without having to check the chart every time, even if it means throwing off the odds a bit, but we'll certainly give yours a try.

[LeBru]

Sorry I should have specified that this was for WWI. Just noticed the thread is in the WWII section. Guess I'm all over the place today.

[FutureEmperor]

yeah that's the problem with dice is that with the special damage it gets harder to map out the odds. I feel that a percentile die with chart is easiest and i just printed out a few copies keep on hand. though i actually still prefer the chips. the simplified damage is just done so to keep the chart more simple and i ranked it by severity of damage (in my opinion).

but i haven't really tried it out in a game yet.

[LeBru]

Right. Like I said, the reason for trying to come up with a dice system for our group was because few of us have the damage card sets and we needed a way for people to play without them (when the ones that have them aren't around). We have tried playing with the dice charts I posted (and others) and for the most part these worked okay, but we would need to play many more games with them before I would be willing to say they work as intended.

One other nice thing about dice that we've found is that the attackers tend to feel more of a sense of accomplishment when rolling dice versus watching the defender draw cards. But again, the other side of that is the loss of secrecy (though I don't think anyone really went out of their way to keep running damage totals).

In any case, it's one solution to our problem. I'd just like to refine it a bit more. It would be great if we could just buy the damage decks in a booster pack of some sort, but until then we're sorta stuck with this.

[LGKR]

We kicked around the idea of dice. As a joke I made a spinner. It actually worked fairly well. If you have'nt seen the thread check it out.

http://www.wingsofwar.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1822

[mr7q]

Also, the damage drawn from cards or counters can be made to custom probabilities by the designer whereas dice cannot. A single die has an even chance of hitting any side, a damage deck can be loaded towards the lower end of the spectrum.

In addition to this, I really like the card/counter system as it makes record keeping a breeze. No need to keep track of damages (at least until the deck runs out) as it's all there right in front of you. How Wings of War handles extremely complex game elements with a beautiful simplicity is what has me coming back to it. :)

[LeBru]

I saw your spinner Don and thought it was pretty fantastic. Sent pictures to friends even. I may yet make one too, but I don't want to be stuck making them for everyone in our group (they're not a super-motivated, do-your-homework type bunch) so the dice are still on the table for me. :P

Great idea though.

[LGKR]

I saw your spinner Don and thought it was pretty fantastic. Sent pictures to friends even. I may yet make one too, but I don't want to be stuck making them for everyone in our group (they're not a super-motivated, do-your-homework type bunch) so the dice are still on the table for me. :P

Great idea though.

Got ya. I love making this stuff, but the idea of making one for all my league mate is a daunting idea. :D

[Charlie3]

Our group has tried (LGKR flies with me) the cards, the dice options, the spinner, and even toyed with chits, we keep coming back to the cards for easy record keeping, and secrecy. It is a simple game mechanic that may have it's drawbacks but it still works really well. I laugh every time I draw the dreaded explosion card! Over a year ago I was so impressed with how simple this game is and how accurately it simulates things that happened in this type of air combat that I started our local league, and I am still playing!!