Pondering Dice, decks, and damage
Although this game and its practitioners pride themselves on forgoing the use of dice, they make for great examples as they are ubiquitous and nearly everyone is familiar with them and their uses in gaming.
What you may not be aware of is how much difference there is between the typical dice and table methods of assigning damage in other gaming systems and the use of cards in WOG.
Using a typical six sided die, we have six possible values, each as likely to occur on the first and each subsequent die roll as any other. As the number of times the die is rolled increases, the number of times each value occurs approaches 16.67%, or 1 in 6 – as you would expect.
When I roll multiple dice, the number of unique values returned changes – still intuitive – for two dice, ranging from 2 to 12; 3 dice, 3 to 18, and so on. But as there are now a number of combinations that can result in a given value, our chance of getting each value between 2 and 12, inclusive, is not the same:
2 - 2.78%
3 - 5.56%
4 - 8.33%
5 - 11.11%
6 - 13.89%
7 - 16.67%
8 - 13.89%
9 - 11.11%
10 - 8.33%
11 - 5.56%
12 - 2.78%
3 dice shifts the distribution even further:
3 - 0.46
4 - 1.39
5 - 2.78
6 - 4.63
7 - 6.94
8 - 9.72
9 - 11.57
10 - 12.50
11 - 12.50
12 - 11.57
13 - 9.72
14 - 6.94
15 - 4.63
16 - 2.78
17 - 1.39
18 - 0.46
We now have a very pronounced classic “bell curve” which heavily favors values in the middle.
Cards used for damage in WOG
The “A” Damage deck has the following cards and values:
Pts of damage - # per deck - Probability
0 - 11 - 31.4%
1 - 7 - 20.0%
2 - 6 - 17.1%
3 - 5 - 14.3%
4 - 3 - 8.6%
5 - 2 - 5.7%
E - 1 - 2.9%
Unlike dice, however, those probabilities only hold for the first draw, as you remove one or two values from the pool with each use – as if you removed pips from a die and could only use the remaining values.
With each subsequent draw, the probability of drawing any particular value increases. If you have been drawing well, the chance of drawing an undesirable value increases, and vice versa, approaching a 100% probability as the number of draws increases, until you run out of cards and reset the process.
If you play with one deck per plane, or per player, then like certain games of chance, the likelihood of drawing a disadvantageous card can be estimated based on the cards already revealed. This then becomes part of the strategy of the game.
If two players share a deck it reduces the effect of counting cards but does not eliminate it.
Increasing the number of decks mixed together will reduce the impact of counting cards as the number of cards to keep track of begins to reduce the effectiveness of a counting strategy.
If what is desired is a truly random chance to obtain a give damage value, only by recording the damage, returning the cards AND reshuffling the deck can you approximate the even distribution of the lowly die roll and remove a card counting strategy from play.
The choice is yours.......how do you prefer to play?
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Originally Posted by LOOP
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