This is not to say that I hate any game that uses any sort of dice rolling whatsoever. It's just that I'm the kind of guy who prefers less luck and more strategy in his games. Not everyone thinks this way, so everyone's entitled to their own opinion. Many people are perfectly fine with playing games that have no strategy in them whatsoever (like LCR or Bingo). Others prefer games that have a little strategy mixed in with a bunch of luck (Risk, Yahtzee). Then there are games that start rely more on strategy than dice rolls, though the players are still at the mercy of the dice (The Ares Project, Last Night on Earth). Then come the games that require minimal dice rolling, or where dice doesn't have as much of a "make or break" game component (Twilight Struggle).
[note: I'm not going to pretend to be sympathetic to everyone else's views on board games from this point on; these are my opinions only, and I will be attacking anyone else's opinion/belief on board/card games who I can think of that go against mine; in other words, this will be a biased opinion. Anyone who may be offended by this should probably stop reading right now, though I will be more than happy to respond to critiques and rants on this blog, though I won't reply to those who just rant just for the sake of enticing a personal inflammable tasteless offensive attack out of me with no benefit to the discussion of gaming in general]
The main reason that dice are included in board games (with the exception of Chase) is to provide an element of randomness. After all, just how exciting could a boardgame be without an element of randomness? Imagine trying to play monopoly where you could move however many spaces you wanted (2-12) just by declaring so, not by having the dice decide your fate? Or doing the same in Risk? Yahtzee? That would certainly make those games much more dull than they already are. When inserting an element of randomness as simple as a dice roll in those games, it adds a level of tension, a degree of uncertainty, which makes those who play wonder what the result will be, and whether or not it will be in their favor. This is good, because I don't think anyone wants to play the same board game twice, and what I mean by that is playing two or more games that have the exact same events that lead to the exact same outcome, or something relatively close to that. Thus, randomness is needed to make games exciting, thus more fun.
It must be noted, however, that there are board games where you can do what you want with your pieces in terms of movement and placement without having to roll a dice, or draw a random card/piece. Those are games that I classify as abstract strategy games. Games like Go, Chess, Shogi, Tzaar. Those are games with basically no luck and require nothing but complete strategy to determine the better player. In fact, that's the only way one can say that they have truly bested an opponent, by winning in a game against them that requires no luck of the draw, or of the roll. That said, I believe those types of games are in a whole level of competitiveness on their own, and aren't exactly, well, party games (trying to think of a better term). I won't be discussing abstract strategy games for the rest of this blog.
Anyway, randomness. The problem with a single die roll is that it is completely random. While some may be okay with that, I am not.
When you roll a single die for whatever reason (movement, combat, etc.), it's always completely random. You always hope you get the right roll to gain a position to your benefit, gain the upper hand or victory in combat or resources, etc. For a D6, it's always 1/6; for a D20, 1/20, etc. of getting the number you want. There are a couple of exceptions. First off, those who have a talent for rolling the number they wants just because they are skilled with the flick of their wrist, or have a loaded die.
Secondly, games with die roll modifiers. There are games that change the odds. One of the basic games with such a basic modifier is Risk. The rule is, roll higher than your opponent. Basic, but all it means is that the luckiest player will win. There are other games, however, that mix things up so that rolling better than your opponent doesn't always mean guaranteed victory. For example, Chaos in the Old World has it to where you have a 1/2 chance of getting the roll you want with a D6. A 4-6 would allow you to successfully score a hit on an opponent (s also do something special, but that's beside the point in this case). Then there's Axis & Allies, or Nexus Ops, where certain units have a greater chance of hitting their target than others, and can potential eliminate others before they get a chance to respond in kind with their own attack. In other words, there are dice games which give priorities in addition to modifiers, making some pieces more valuable than others, thus giving strategy in deciding which pieces you will end up building. It all amounts to, "Will I build more units that have a less chance of hitting for cheap, or will I build a couple units that have a better chance of hitting for more, or will I settle for those in between?" Even The Ares Project does this, only at a much more complex and strategic level. Yes, strategic. From a statistical standpoint, strategy should end up very well incorporated with games such as these. Now all you have to do is roll what the game requires you to roll in order to defeat your opponent, not necessarily out-roll your opponent. Thus it becomes less about your luck vs. your opponents luck, and more about how well your luck meshes with what the game requires of you in order to win, though rolling better than you important is still a factor in all of this, just no longer to the extent of games like Risk, which is nothing short of an obsolete combat system.
Such a system of rolling what the game wants you to roll worked well enough to completely incoporate them in just about every co-op board game I have ever seen ( Red November, Arkham Horror). It became almost like a simulated video game. Take in the odds of succeeding according to the rules of the game, and act accordingly. Take whatever action you can that you feel will improve your odds of winning. Usually how things go is, the more variety in your choices, and the more of those choices that are good yet difficult to decide on, the better the game. Board games that make you consider your actions, letting you feel that you can really make decisions that effect the entire game, it's a brilliant feeling that is executed well in some games.
But, there is a problem with all of this. There are times when you have made some good decisions, decisions that you wouldn't take back if you had a do-over, and yet still manage to fail. Happening every once in a while is no problem, as statistically, that's how it's supposed to work. However, there are players whose luck remain bad for too long, or have games where everyone's luck is bad, or all but 1 or 2 player's luck is bad. It's times like this where the statistical system that is supposed to work for these games gets thrown out the window and into the dinosaur park (see the chaos theory explained by Ian Malcolm in the novel Jurassic Park, or even in that brief scene in the movie).
It becomes a problem where you have a 5/6 chance of rolling what you need to roll to succeed in an event, and end up rolling that 1/6 number a lot more than 1 out of 6 times you roll the dice. From a probability standpoint, once you roll that 1/6 bad number, you should have good odds of making some good rolls the next 3-4 times you make a roll, though not necessarily consecutively. Regardless, it is still very possible to roll that bad number again too many times. It can become bad enough to where you feel cheated by the dice, or by the game, or both. Either way, it makes the game not as good as its makers may have hoped it would be. There is no such thing as THE perfect game, but there is close to perfection, and every game maker hopes to achieve that, or else achieve a good income for the effort made into making the game.
That's the problem with dice rolls. It's always possible to have several games where the statistics don't matter, where you either end up doing too good, or too poor, either way making the game experience less satisfying.
[A brief note: there are certain games that use dice rolls for entirely different reasons. Take Magic Realm for example. The "searching" methods, and combat for archers, crossbowmen, and those who use certain magic spells work basically how I stated above (supposed to work a certain way statistically, but can go wrong at any time indefinitely), but it has a mechanism of re-positioning the monsters in the game in combat in such a way using dice rolls that is exceptional from what I've stated above. A roll is made to move them around so that you're not sure if your attack will hit or not, but you are capable of obtaining a weapon or encountering a monster to where you may be guaranteed to score a hit no matter what the roll is. In other words, the randomness in combat for melee attacks in that game is exactly what it should be in my opinion, the perfect blend of randomness and strategy (timing).]
Which is why I eventually came to the realization that dice are probably the worst form of randomness (albeit the easiest) to incorporate into a board game, with very few exceptions. But at some point I eventually found that there are alternatives (aside from video games). For example, Yomi. That is a combat card game that has no dice in it whatsoever. You can still make multiple decisions with each card in hand, and you end up thinking like a poker player (only it's more gratifying and you won't lose money [unless you turn Yomi into a gambling game, you sly ]). The more you play it, the more you start to become acquainted with the fact that it is more strategic than meets the eye.
I must mention that there is such a thing as "luck-of-the-draw", which can devolve into an equivalent or worse form of "luck-of-the-roll". I find this to be the case with games like Cosmic Encounter, where the card numbers are so diverse (see file by HiveGod here) that you mine as well roll a die for combat results. However, there are card games where the statistics don't fall apart. If you draw a bad card, you will know that the next card you draw won't be that card (ignoring games with special cases of reshuffling or certain special abilities, etc.). All the game maker has to do is figure you the best quantity of cards to use, how many different types/values there will be, and incorporate them accordingly. Thus, it is entirely up to the makers in this case to make the games have a "close-to-perfect" game system going. Thus make the game good enough to the point where the gamers won't feel that they lost due to luck, but due to not having the better strategy, or overestimating their draws and not consider the statistics accurately enough.
Thus, cards become the newest and best form of randomness to put into a game, making dice-driven-mechanics take a backseat to card-driven-mechanics.
Anyway, with that said, there are a few board games that have no dice in them whatsoever that I consider to be the best. The first one that I came across, and that I still consider to be the best board game out there (though now out of print), is Starcraft, so long as the Brood Wars expansion is included with it. The combat is entirely card driven, and most of your choices outside of combat are basically unit building and expanding, which is usually for better organizing yourself for combat. Not only that, but the game also is underrated in a regard that games like Dominion are better known for. Deck building. In Starcraft (which for the record pre-dates Dominion by a year) you also get to purchase certain technologies for your units, which get mixed into your initial deck of cards, thus causing your deck to grow the way you want, which in turn can increase your odds of drawing the cards you want (unless you end up making a poor strategic choice, or your opponent outsmarted you, causing you to think of making preparations against him in one way when you should have been doing it in another). Plus, you can also choose times outside of combat when to draw cards, thus getting better odds of getting the cards you want in your hand when you need them. The game also strongly encourages you to diversify the units you build so that you will have the correct cards in your hand. Relying on just 1 unit type makes it less likely that you will have the card for them.
[Ex: multiple marines, and no other unit type, start out with a 27.8% chance of starting with the card they want, which can increase to 35% if they purchase the right technology. Ignoring technology, if you have a marine and a wraith, then you have a roughly 61.1% chance of getting the card you want. Considering that you start out with 8 cards in the game if you play as the Terrans, you could guess at how low the "luck-of-the-draw" factor can be in this game, and how the right deck-building decisions can modify this in you favor, or otherwise]
Then there's Dune. Unlike Starcraft, this game is fully reliant on bluffing. It's like a complex semi co-op poker game, only with a board and pieces, and each player has a card hand limit of 4 (except for one fat bastard who's limit is 8). In this game each player has a max limit of 20 units (which don't all start on the board), start out with certain Treachery cards, some of which are capable of drastically turning the tide in battle, and have 5 leaders who can greatly increase the odds of winning a battle. When combat starts in this game, each player compares the number of units they have against each other (sort of like Risk). Then, each opponent gets a combat wheel (numbered 0-20), where they secretly choose a number from 0 to the number of units they have in that territory (ie if one person has 6 units in the contested territory, they can choose 0,1,2,3,4,5, or 6 on the combat wheel). Then, each player chooses one of their 5 leaders, whom each has a numerical value (1-10, depending on the leader), and secretly uses him/her in the battle. The leader adds their numerical value onto the number chosen on the combat wheel. Then each player can use a treachery card or two to use in the battle, which is capable of killing off the opponent's leader (thus eliminated the value they added to the combat wheel), or defending your own against an opponents attack. The player with the higher number wins the battle and eliminates all opposing units. The catch to all of this, which truly makes this a great bluffing game, is that the number each player chose on the combat wheel is the number of units they must destroy (ie sacrifice) after combat is over. Thus each player must consider a number of things in each battle, mainly of which is, "How much am I willing to sacrifice in order to win?". Don't sacrifice enough and you lose everything. Sacrifice too many and you're at a big disadvantage later on. As for the treachery cards (cards in gaming is the main topic after all), 17/36 chance that you will draw something that can kill/defend a leader. However, if you lose a battle, or even just observe one, you get to see which treachery cards the opponents play on each other. The loser loses all his/her treachery cards used in battle, but the winner keeps theirs. Thus everyone will be that much more knowledgeable in knowing some of the cards one player holds that can be used against them. I'd take this over poker any day.
So those are 2 examples of what can be achieved in board gaming without the use of a dice in the mechanics. If those are just 2 out of the thousands out there, though I believe the majority of board games either rely on dice too much or were just made for the sake of profit more than anything else [ie board game based on a toy/movie/game franchise {My Little Pony, Halo, Pacman}, with some exceptions like those stated above ], imagine some of the others how there could be just as good or better, or worse, depending on your taste in games.
On a last note, don't get me wrong. I do believe dice have a place in "good" board games (anyone who says that Risk or Monopoly or LCR are good games are fully entitled to their opinion, but their opinion is wrong), I just don't believe they should be in the front seat driving the game (like the previously mentioned). It's too random and unpredictable for that or for statistics to put an absolute label on. But it can be fine if given a backseat, such as in portion of Magic Realm for enemy positioning in combat, or in Twilight Struggle where coups and re-alignments are always risky and never certain in their outcome, which is thematically important for that game.
To end this [almost], that is why card-driven-mechanics are better than dice-driven-mechanics in board games when it comes to inserting an element of randomness.
[Personal Note: decided to make this after playing a couple games of The Ares Project. I thought everything about that game was great, the card mechanics, the way each race is unique in how they build, how they operate, and the abilities they have. But when it came down to the actual combat, it was infuriating to see myself lose when having a better army with higher probabilities of hitting than my opponent, along with higher numbers of units, and yet still manage to get my ass handed to me just because of bad rolls. Games like that have brilliant mechanics of building and planning, but it can all come crashing down not because your opponent bested you, but because you got worse rolls than he did. Not saying that stuff like that doesn't happen in real life, but to happen that often on that scale? To some extent, there's something philosophically wrong with that .]
Edit: After discussion in the comments, have narrowed down dice systems into 3 categories:
Dice mechanic 1: Player(s) must roll above/below a certain number, which is either higher/lower than the opponent's (potentially modified) roll, or roll higher/lower than an amount determined by a rule or element of the game.
2. Rolling multiple dice and adding the results together. Believe it or not, the results of this aren't as diverse as option 1. If you roll 1 dice, the options are 1,2,3,4,5,6. 2 dice, then it's 2-12. However, unlike option one, this has a median. The odds of rolling a result of 2 or 12 with 2 dice are 1/36 each. But rolling for a result of 6 is 5/36, rolling for 7 is 6/36, rolling for 8 is 5/36 again, and then it all goes by a bell curve in probabilities. Plus you could potentially have die roll modifiers so that you can increase the min & max.
3. Games where it doesn't matter what you roll as practically any value does something beneficial. While it is a matter of timing of getting what you want with a certain roll, usually the other benefits you gain from other rolls counter-balance what you don't get. Sometimes these games allow you to take another player's roll result(s) and use them as your own. I'd say this is about as strategic as dice games get. For example, Troyes, Alien Frontier.
Dice system 1 is the system I hate the most, the one that I mainly argue against in the blog.
Also, dice do have a place in games. Dice can be good in games. But, if a lot hinges on the result of the die roll to the point where it greatly affects you winning or losing the game, then such a game is best used for thematic narrative purposes (Tales of Arabian Nights, Magic Realm). For competitive games, I argue that there are more variety of good card-based games than a variety good dice-based games (by variety I mean games that are different and not rehashed rip-offs of other games [Star Wars Monopoly, Nintendo Monopoly, etc.]).
Gee, so much text, and all you're saying is "I don't like streaks of particularly good or bad luck"?
What I'm saying is that games that claim to be strategic shouldn't be dice-driven. As for games that aren't strategic, and never had any intention of being strategic, well...have at it 1d6 + 1d6 = (5) + (5) = 10
You reduce dice rolling to "luck", when what it really adds in many games is risk management. The goal is to choose the course of action that gives you the best chance of success.
gexthegecko wrote:
One of the basic games with such a basic modifier is Risk. The rule is, roll higher than your opponent. Basic, but all it means is that the luckiest player will win.
Actually, it means that the player that moves and positions their troops the best will have the best chance of winning. The dice add uncertainty to a 10 vs. 4 battle, and sometimes those 4 troops will prevail, but the guy with 10 will win more often. Dice force you to maximize your odds while making sure you can recover from the chance of failure.
(In Risk, of course, much of the game is in the diplomacy "above the board". But the above argument applies to many, many games with dice-based combat.)
gexthegecko wrote:
From a probability standpoint, once you roll that 1/6 bad number, you should have good odds of making some good rolls the next 3-4 times you make a roll, though not necessarily consecutively.
Probability doesn't work the way you think it does. A bad roll doesn't change the odds of your subsequent rolls at all.
Criticizing the content of your post seems adequate enough. Essentially, you state that cards are better than dice because cards mean by necessity that there are no streaks of only good or only bad luck. But that's only true if three conditions are met:
1) Each player must draw only from their own pile of cards 2) Cards must have only one kind of use 3) All cards must be gone through in the process of one game
The reason why Cosmic Encounter doesn't meet your expectations is not that it has wildly fluctuating effects, but that everybody draws from the same deck and thus it's entirely possible for one player to draw only good and for the other to draw only bad cards. This game doesn't satisfy condition 1).
An example for criterion 2) is Horus Heresy, where there is a pile of cards you draw from for three different kinds of randomness. This, to me, is entirely unnecessary indeed; this kind of randomness would be better solved with dice, where the probabilities are much easier to understand than with an entirely opaque deck that, ultimately, makes every single effect quite capable of enabling only good or bad luck for either player.
This leaves quite few games - among them Yomi indeed - that come somewhat close to satisfying your "no streaks of good or bad luck" demand. Even those, though, only fully do so when the game goes in a way that meets condition 3) - if one player goes only through half a deck, he can easily draw only cards that are bad for the matchup he's currently playing. So Yomi, too, will not meet your criterions for "good" randomness all the time.
Personally, I love dice, because they introduce unpredictability into my games. I can well understand why people wouldn't want that when they like to have full control over a game, and when they want to have results that are only, exclusively skill-based. Not my world, but sure, why not. However, you go further than "I want rational games of pure skill":
Quote:
Not saying that stuff like that doesn't happen in real life, but to happen that often on that scale?
I'm a big fan of rational thought and causality and determinism. I do, in fact, believe that the world is almost entirely deterministic, barring quantum physics and resulting butterfly effects.
But there are so many causal interconnections between so many entities in our daily lives that the effect of all this micro-causality amounts to so much perceived randomness in the end that I don't understand this comment of yours at all.
Do you say that you can plan for and then know what will happen every minute of every day the very moment you are getting up? If not, what is the fundamental difference between that and rolling dice to see what happens in a game?
This, to me, is entirely unnecessary indeed; this kind of randomness would be better solved with dice, where the probabilities are much easier to understand than with an entirely opaque deck
I very much agree with this. There are certainly many cases where cards are more appropriate randomizers than dice. But if you don't know the distribution of the deck, cards are actually much more random than dice (from the perspective of the players).
Play MEQ, no dice to my shock! I agree about the randomness thing in 1 regard. I almost always play PBEM which means few games stretched over a long time so each game has to count. I won't play games PBEM style that can turn on 1 bad roll no matter how realistic that is. Ancients Deluxe is a great game but if you roll poorly and you only have 1 leader, he dies and game over. Buckets of dice are great, games like Victor in the Pacific, where you roll lots of dice, minimize the randomness of the outcomes while leaving room for some really low probability events. MEQ PBEM style is perfect in that regard, no dice at all although the cards are somewhat random I suppose.
I think the old AH game Afrika Corp always came down to 1 big attack on Tobruk. Better roll well!
United Kingdom Nottingham Ice-choked tower, Mondavia, Nanglangka.
The OP seems to be saying that dice games can't be strategic - this is incorrect.
Also, Guido's citing of Horus Heresy is a great one - a few too many games are replacing dice with inferior card-based systems, sucking the energy, excitement, and appeal out of what could have been decent games.
You reduce dice rolling to "luck", when what it really adds in many games is risk management. The goal is to choose the course of action that gives you the best chance of success.
gexthegecko wrote:
One of the basic games with such a basic modifier is Risk. The rule is, roll higher than your opponent. Basic, but all it means is that the luckiest player will win.
Actually, it means that the player that moves and positions their troops the best will have the best chance of winning. The dice add uncertainty to a 10 vs. 4 battle, and sometimes those 4 troops will prevail, but the guy with 10 will win more often. Dice force you to maximize your odds while making sure you can recover from the chance of failure.
(In Risk, of course, much of the game is in the diplomacy "above the board". But the above argument applies to many, many games with dice-based combat.)
gexthegecko wrote:
From a probability standpoint, once you roll that 1/6 bad number, you should have good odds of making some good rolls the next 3-4 times you make a roll, though not necessarily consecutively.
Probability doesn't work the way you think it does. A bad roll doesn't change the odds of your subsequent rolls at all.
Tell that to my brother who had 40 units and surrounded my friend who only had 15 units (the only 15 units left on the board beside my brother's). In the first turn of that final battle my brother lost 30 so units and my friend lost 1 or 2 units, reinforced and then in the second turn lost another 30 or so units. Needless to say that he quit the game after that.
You reduce dice rolling to "luck", when what it really adds in many games is risk management. The goal is to choose the course of action that gives you the best chance of success.
And I explain why that is flawed. It's impossible to fully manage risk in games with dice because there is always a chance that no matter what modifier you get, even if you have the best chance of success, you could always get a bad roll. Normally there wouldn't be anything wrong with that except that it could potentially happen too often in a single game. Or in multiple games.
With cards, well, just look at the Texas Holdem Poker games on television. Notice how percentages change with each card drawn. THAT is true risk management there. The best part about those games compared to dice rolls is that the percentages could potentially go to 0%, or 100%. While as in the majority of dice games, there is always some percentage that always remains. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that the small 1/20 probabilities do occur more often than statistically predicted in more than one game.
walkie wrote:
gexthegecko wrote:
One of the basic games with such a basic modifier is Risk. The rule is, roll higher than your opponent. Basic, but all it means is that the luckiest player will win.
Actually, it means that the player that moves and positions their troops the best will have the best chance of winning. The dice add uncertainty to a 10 vs. 4 battle, and sometimes those 4 troops will prevail, but the guy with 10 will win more often. Dice force you to maximize your odds while making sure you can recover from the chance of failure.
(In Risk, of course, much of the game is in the diplomacy "above the board". But the above argument applies to many, many games with dice-based combat.)
But you can't deny that the "guy with the 4 troops" (speaking figuratively here) can win too often, which is a game breaker for those looking for a strategic game. If strategy can fall apart that easy in a strategic game, something is wrong, unless that's the exact kind of game you're looking for. Either way, it's not what I would call a "good" strategic game. With that said, "bad" board games can still be enjoyed, just like bad movies (Troll 2, anyone?).
walkie wrote:
gexthegecko wrote:
From a probability standpoint, once you roll that 1/6 bad number, you should have good odds of making some good rolls the next 3-4 times you make a roll, though not necessarily consecutively.
Probability doesn't work the way you think it does. A bad roll doesn't change the odds of your subsequent rolls at all.
A single roll of 1 on a D6 is 1/6 = 16.7% odds. 2 consecutive rolls of 1 on a D6 is 1/36 odds.
I was simplifying it in my blog post. Say you roll a 1, and you don't want to roll another 1 on your second roll, you have a 34/36 = 17/18 (94.4%) chance of not rolling 1 twice consecutively. Say you don't want to roll a 1 at all in 2 consecutive rolls. You would have a 25/36 (59.4%) chance of not rolling a 1. The more rolls you make, the more likely you're going to roll what you don't want, but at the same time you will likely get rolls that you do want. But that's all just a statistical standpoint. Yes, it's true each die roll is a 1/6 of getting one of those 6 numbers, but then, there's chaos theory, among other variables. You may just end up rolling the same bad number 5 times consecutively. That's just not the case with some card-driven games.
You could even try an experiment on this forum, public die rolls. Everyone could participate. Six rolls per post, see how often do we get the dreaded 1 roll (thinking Risk here). The long term experiments are always more interesting than the short term.
But you can't deny that the "guy with the 4 troops" (speaking figuratively here) can win too often, which is a game breaker for those looking for a strategic game.
Ah, but I can and do deny that! I think the guy with 4 troops wins as often as probability predicts, given enough games. Yes, in a small sample, the probability might be skewed. But I suspect that if you play a lot of games and think this happens more often than it should, you are either not estimating the probability correctly or not remembering correctly.
gexthegecko wrote:
I was simplifying it in my blog post. Say you roll a 1, and you don't want to roll another 1 on your second roll, you have a 34/36 = 17/18 (94.4%) chance of not rolling 1 twice consecutively.
This is just wrong. There is a 1/36 chance of rolling two 1's consecutively, but once you've rolled a 1, you have a 1/6 chance of rolling another 1.
Criticizing the content of your post seems adequate enough. Essentially, you state that cards are better than dice because cards mean by necessity that there are no streaks of only good or only bad luck. But that's only true if three conditions are met:
1) Each player must draw only from their own pile of cards 2) Cards must have only one kind of use 3) All cards must be gone through in the process of one game
The reason why Cosmic Encounter doesn't meet your expectations is not that it has wildly fluctuating effects, but that everybody draws from the same deck and thus it's entirely possible for one player to draw only good and for the other to draw only bad cards. This game doesn't satisfy condition 1).
An example for criterion 2) is Horus Heresy, where there is a pile of cards you draw from for three different kinds of randomness. This, to me, is entirely unnecessary indeed; this kind of randomness would be better solved with dice, where the probabilities are much easier to understand than with an entirely opaque deck that, ultimately, makes every single effect quite capable of enabling only good or bad luck for either player.
This leaves quite few games - among them Yomi indeed - that come somewhat close to satisfying your "no streaks of good or bad luck" demand. Even those, though, only fully do so when the game goes in a way that meets condition 3) - if one player goes only through half a deck, he can easily draw only cards that are bad for the matchup he's currently playing. So Yomi, too, will not meet your criterions for "good" randomness all the time.
Personally, I love dice, because they introduce unpredictability into my games. I can well understand why people wouldn't want that when they like to have full control over a game, and when they want to have results that are only, exclusively skill-based. Not my world, but sure, why not.
Before I say anything further, great post.
Anyway, that's a pretty good point. The card game philosophy I have in mind only works if each player has their own deck of cards that they draw from, and that each card should be unique, and that each players' deck should be exhausted at least once (preferably more) per game. But you are right in analyzing that that's why I don't like Cosmic Encounter. That is why I believe it's card-driven combat system is flawed and would work just as well, if not better, with dice.
I want to play Horus Heresy, but that's an expensive game that I refuse to buy unless I try it out first. That said, I don't believe I can accurate reply on the game for this discussion. 3 decks, each with different effects on the game. Shall I assume every card in every deck is unique? Shall I also assume that the decks most likely won't be exhausted by the end of the game? Are they drawn by players if they do a certain activity, or are they required to be drawn at certain points? Either way, I could imagine that their randomness could mess things up for a player. Starcraft has something a little similar, it's event deck, which players draw from each time they execute a specific order they lay down earlier, or are unable to make a move due to being blocked by other players. Not all the events in the deck are unique, but there is plenty of diversity, and players can only execute 1 and must discard the rest before moving to another round. I have been in a couple of games where these events gave my opponent an unfair advantage, but on the other hand, he was able to get the cards that gave him that advantage because I was blocking him and allowing him to draw interesting card combinations early on in the game, and I didn't establish a defensive position well enough.
Bottom line, the events in Starcraft are not too powerful, and provide an extra layer of randomness that is just enough to make other players know that they shouldn't be careless with their moves, that they should also take actions to get event cards, and think twice about gaining the upper hand in one round at the expense of giving their opponent more options for gaining the upper hand in the next round(s). So, back to Horus Heresy. It depends on whether or not the players have any control over the 3 decks, and how powerful these cards really are. If the event cards are too powerful, and that's really the only thing most players feel is wrong with that game, it can be fixed by replacing the cards with less powerful ones. Consider it a designer error needing some house rules. Aside from that, how would dice improve upon the event decks of Horus Heresy?
It's true, Yomi has the issue of you getting a bunch of bad cards through the first 3/4s of the deck. But it does have some elements to mix that up. If I recall correctly, 2-4 of a kind allows you to search through the deck to draw Aces, the powerful cards, and reshuffle the deck. And that's not taking into account the character abilities. Thus, there is one exception to your condition 3, having the ability to look through the deck for specific cards if you have met a special condition.
For the record, I thought Yomi was just an ok game, good to play once in a while if someone else brings it, but not enough to want to play every day, or every week. But I can appreciate that it has good mechanics that I believe make it a good game.
haslo wrote:
However, you go further than "I want rational games of pure skill"
I'm a big fan of rational thought and causality and determinism. I do, in fact, believe that the world is almost entirely deterministic, barring quantum physics and resulting butterfly effects.
But there are so many causal interconnections between so many entities in our daily lives that the effect of all this micro-causality amounts to so much perceived randomness in the end that I don't understand this comment of yours at all.
Do you say that you can plan for and then know what will happen every minute of every day the very moment you are getting up? If not, what is the fundamental difference between that and rolling dice to see what happens in a game?
No, I don't know what will happen every minute of every day. But, I do believe everything happens for a reason, that certain events from the beginning of time (assuming that exists) lead up to all the events of the present and on. So you could say I believe in fate. And fate isn't determined by a roll of the dice. Anyone who says otherwise doesn't believe in fate.
I wasn't saying every card game is satisfactory for strategy (as I believe I made clear in the blog post), but that there are some out there that are better than ANY dice-driven strategy game out there simply because it's impossible for a dice-driven strategy game to be the best strategy game ever because a well made card mechanic system can beat any dice mechanic system. Again, this is strictly for strategic gameplay with some randomness thrown in. Anything else then it's either an abstract strategy game or a lighthearted party game.
This, to me, is entirely unnecessary indeed; this kind of randomness would be better solved with dice, where the probabilities are much easier to understand than with an entirely opaque deck
I very much agree with this. There are certainly many cases where cards are more appropriate randomizers than dice. But if you don't know the distribution of the deck, cards are actually much more random than dice (from the perspective of the players).
Wait, hold the phone! Are you saying that cards are better randomizers than dice? That a random card-based system is a better randomizer than a dice-based system in non-strategic games?
I honestly believe that I disagree with this more completely than anything else I’ve ever read here.
If you prefer games without (or with little) randomness, that’s fine. That’s an entirely valid subjective choice. But, and I know I’m not the first to say this here, but, again: probability simply doesn’t work the way you seem to think it does. You are building your whole argument on a series of gross conceptual errors.
One thing in particular, and this is by no means my biggest bone of contention here, but I don’t believe anyone else has pointed this out.
It has been pointed out to you that cards can be far more “random” as you are using the term than dice (in some cases). You said, in one of your replies:
"With cards, well, just look at the Texas Holdem Poker games on television. Notice how percentages change with each card drawn. THAT is true risk management there.”
No. No, no, no.
You understand that those probabilities are calculated by the broadcaster, right? And they can do that because they can see all the players’ cards, right? And the players have no idea what those probabilities really are — much less are they able to manage any risks based on that information — because they can’t see their opponents’s cards, right? All they can do is approximate, based upon their imperfect information and instincts/experience. And the only time they can see the cards (i.e., some one has called an “all in”) occurs precisely at the point where the players lose the ability to manage the risk at all, right? (Even then, they don’t know what cards are out of the deck in folded hands, so their information is still very much imperfect.)
If it were dice rolls, and you knew you had a 55% chance of winning (say), then you could manage that risk as you saw fit, with perfect information.
Finally, you said: "And I think I speak for everyone when I say that the small 1/20 probabilities do occur more often than statistically predicted in more than one game.”
The OP seems to be saying that dice games can't be strategic - this is incorrect.
Also, Guido's citing of Horus Heresy is a great one - a few too many games are replacing dice with inferior card-based systems, sucking the energy, excitement, and appeal out of what could have been decent games.
No, no ,no. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that card-based mechanics are superior to dice-based mechanics in strategy games, though potentially in other board game types as well. Never said dice games can't be strategic.
And, what? You're telling me that there is no tension in a card draw? There isn't a game where players have their eyes on a deck, one person is drawing from it, and everyone is holding their breath wondering if it's a good or bad card, one that will win or lose the game? I find that hard to believe. In fact, I know that's not true. Ever play Arkham Horror? Sure that game is basically dice-based; but the event deck. Holding your breath praying the the event won't be a gateway opening up in some other place that will cause the GOO to awaken and kill everybody?
But you can't deny that the "guy with the 4 troops" (speaking figuratively here) can win too often, which is a game breaker for those looking for a strategic game.
Ah, but I can and do deny that! I think the guy with 4 troops wins as often as probability predicts, given enough games. Yes, in a small sample, the probability might be skewed. But I suspect that if you play a lot of games and think this happens more often than it should, you are either not estimating the probability correctly or not remembering correctly.
You have no right to say that those are the only 2 possible options, that I am not estimating correctly or not remembering correctly. That is closed minded. There is a third choice, that you're wrong. Or even a 4th, that I am a crappy dice roller. Or a fifth, that the opponent can roll the dice better than me. And a bunch of other possibilities that can defy probability projections. Besides, I'm not the only one who not only holds this view, but has had these experiences. Just look at the post by Floating World. I guarantee you that there are others who have similar stories, thus proving that probability can be defied, thus the guy with 4 troops may not win as often as probability predicts.
And for the record, I am and willing to hear other arguments that put my philosophy to the test, to see if I am wrong. I suggest you do the same. That goes for everyone else.
walkie wrote:
gexthegecko wrote:
I was simplifying it in my blog post. Say you roll a 1, and you don't want to roll another 1 on your second roll, you have a 34/36 = 17/18 (94.4%) chance of not rolling 1 twice consecutively.
This is just wrong. There is a 1/36 chance of rolling two 1's consecutively, but once you've rolled a 1, you have a 1/6 chance of rolling another 1.
That's only the case if it isn't a consecutive roll. But we are talking consecutive rolls here. Why wouldn't we? If we roll badly enough times consecutively, we will lose the game. Thus calculating consecutive die rolls is the only way to make an accurate statistical projection, in the case of this argument. Otherwise, saying after I roll a 1, means I will have a 1/6 chance of rolling another 1 at any other non-consecutive point down the line is true, but that isn't any help to a player in the middle of a battle where he could use a bunch of good consecutive rolls now does it?
This, to me, is entirely unnecessary indeed; this kind of randomness would be better solved with dice, where the probabilities are much easier to understand than with an entirely opaque deck
I very much agree with this. There are certainly many cases where cards are more appropriate randomizers than dice. But if you don't know the distribution of the deck, cards are actually much more random than dice (from the perspective of the players).
Wait, hold the phone! Are you saying that cards are better randomizers than dice? That a random card-based system is a better randomizer than a dice-based system in non-strategic games?
I'm saying that dice make it possible to calculate the probabilities of each outcome, while card decks do not, unless you know the distribution of cards ahead of time. This can make card decks seem more random (in the sense of "arbitrary") than dice, because you have no way of estimating your odds of success. In other words, this is an example of how dice can be better.
I think you're misinterpreting my whole agenda, however. I'm not trying to say dice are always better than cards. I think both useful as randomizers in games, and they have different strengths and weaknesses. Some legitimate strengths of cards: they can constrain the randomization to ensure that all values are reached, and they can encode arbitrary probability distributions.
What I am disputing is that dice-as-randomizers somehow make a game less strategic than cards-as-randomizers. I think this is plainly false, and so I argued against some specific points you made that I think are wrong.
I also think that the discussion of bluffing, simultaneous selection, etc. is, in some sense, irrelevant. Cards support these sorts of mechanics since they make it easy to keep your hand a secret, but dice can be used for these too (Liar's Dice, for example). But all of this doesn't really have anything to do with randomization.
EDIT: what are the odds of not rolling a 1 after 12 rolls?
1/6.
*facepalm* Let me rephrase. What are the odds of not rolling a 1 in 12 die rolls?
Yeah, sorry about that, I misread your question at first as "what are the odds *after* not rolling a 1 in 12 rolls". I deleted it about 30 seconds after I posted it and posted the correct response, but it looks like you loaded the page in that 30 seconds...
I honestly believe that I disagree with this more completely than anything else I’ve ever read here.
If you prefer games without (or with little) randomness, that’s fine. That’s an entirely valid subjective choice. But, and I know I’m not the first to say this here, but, again: probability simply doesn’t work the way you seem to think it does. You are building your whole argument on a series of gross conceptual errors.
One thing in particular, and this is by no means my biggest bone of contention here, but I don’t believe anyone else has pointed this out.
It has been pointed out to you that cards can be far more “random” as you are using the term than dice (in some cases). You said, in one of your replies:
"With cards, well, just look at the Texas Holdem Poker games on television. Notice how percentages change with each card drawn. THAT is true risk management there.”
No. No, no, no.
You understand that those probabilities are calculated by the broadcaster, right? And they can do that because they can see all the players’ cards, right? And the players have no idea what those probabilities really are — much less are they able to manage any risks based on that information — because they can’t see their opponents’s cards, right?
And because they know what other possible cards are within the deck. From a player standpoint, assuming they know how to calculate the probabilities, they are doing their own calculations based on the cards they hold, what is laid on the table, and what could remain in the deck. Still a form of risk management.
Greywing wrote:
All they can do is approximate, based upon their imperfect information and instincts/experience. And the only time they can see the cards (i.e., some one has called an “all in”) occurs precisely at the point where the players lose the ability to manage the risk at all, right? (Even then, they don’t know what cards are out of the deck in folded hands, so their information is still very much imperfect.)
But, if they are holding a 2 of clubs and a King of diamonds, they know that no one else, nor the deck, has those cards. While as with dice, doesn't matter what they know or what they do, someone else could still end up rolling something to win no matter how low the probability. Card games are a usually a little more controlled than that. On the other hand, they can also be more out of control than dice-based games, depending on what they're going for, so it's also arguable that cards can accomplish more than dice if used correctly. That's assuming they don't needlessly over-complicate something that would be better and simpler with a dice roll, which I hear may be the case with Horus Heresy.
Greywing wrote:
If it were dice rolls, and you knew you had a 55% chance of winning (say), then you could manage that risk as you saw fit, with perfect information.
Finally, you said: "And I think I speak for everyone when I say that the small 1/20 probabilities do occur more often than statistically predicted in more than one game.”
No sir, you do not.
(BTW, if you’re trolling, you totally got me!)
Not trolling. Trying to inject some philosophical discussion on board gaming, with some statistics thrown in (I'm taking a statistics course, so it's a win-win for me in learning something philosophically and mathematically from you guys).
Ok, so not everyone agrees with that, but they should because it happens. Probably should have stated it more clearly, but it is possible for someone to do better, or more poorly, than any probability could predict; and this happens in some games, not all games, some games.
This, to me, is entirely unnecessary indeed; this kind of randomness would be better solved with dice, where the probabilities are much easier to understand than with an entirely opaque deck
I very much agree with this. There are certainly many cases where cards are more appropriate randomizers than dice. But if you don't know the distribution of the deck, cards are actually much more random than dice (from the perspective of the players).
Wait, hold the phone! Are you saying that cards are better randomizers than dice? That a random card-based system is a better randomizer than a dice-based system in non-strategic games?
I'm saying that dice make it possible to calculate the probabilities of each outcome, while card decks do not, unless you know the distribution of cards ahead of time. This can make card decks seem more random (in the sense of "arbitrary") than dice, because you have no way of estimating your odds of success. In other words, this is an example of how dice can be better.
Unless a game was supposed to have completely random elements, such as a very large event deck with every card in the deck being unique, and that it's impossible for the deck to be fully exhausted. But yeah, depending on how random the game is supposed to be, dice or cards could be better.
walkie wrote:
I think you're misinterpreting my whole agenda, however. I'm not trying to say dice are always better than cards. I think both useful as randomizers in games, and they have different strengths and weaknesses. Some legitimate strengths of cards: they can constrain the randomization to ensure that all values are reached, and they can encode arbitrary probability distributions.
What I am disputing is that dice-as-randomizers somehow make a game less strategic than cards-as-randomizers. I think this is plainly false, and so I argued against some specific points you made that I think are wrong.
So then, tell me of a dice-driven game that is arguable more strategic (in terms of little reliance on luck) than Starcraft the board game. Name one.
walkie wrote:
I also think that the discussion of bluffing, simultaneous selection, etc. is, in some sense, irrelevant. Cards support these sorts of mechanics since they make it easy to keep your hand a secret, but dice can be used for these too (Liar's Dice, for example). But all of this doesn't really have anything to do with randomization.
Liar's Dice. That's a pretty good example. However, I could say that bluffing goes hand in hand with strategic games, don't you think? Take Dune for example. How can you bluff with a dice roll if the dice haven't already been rolled (like in Liar's Dice)? How are dice capable of strategy in that regard? On the other hand, I guess Liar's Dice is a small strike against my argument. In that scenario, bluffing and reading other people is the strategy. I'm curious to know if there are any strategic games that use some dice-rolling mechanic like that, some game that's not meant to be a gambling game (ie something besides Liar's Dice).
EDIT: what are the odds of not rolling a 1 after 12 rolls?
1/6.
*facepalm* Let me rephrase. What are the odds of not rolling a 1 in 12 die rolls?
Yeah, sorry about that, I misread your question at first as "what are the odds *after* not rolling a 1 in 12 rolls". I deleted it about 30 seconds after I posted it and posted the correct response, but it looks like you loaded the page in that 30 seconds...
No, you didn't misread how I originally posted it, I just didn't post it the way I intended it.
Anyway, very low probability of it happening right? And yet it happened. Despite the odds of not rolling a 1 in 12 consecutive die rolls, no 1 was rolled. Situations like that happen all the time in dice-driven games, which means that probability can be defied, which means any extremely well laid plan can fall apart against a poorly laid one because of the die roll results, and, well, there you have it.
Hmm. The odds of not rolling a 1 in twelve consecutive rolls is about 11%. Those are actually pretty decent odds. Yes, it is frustrating when it happens, but if you think the fact that it happens all the time defies probability then you must not understand probability.
I share the frustration with bad luck. But it is the nature of randomness and it would defy probability only if the streaks you talk about did not happen.
Anyway, very low probability of it happening right? And yet it happened. Despite the odds of not rolling a 1 in 12 consecutive die rolls, no 1 was rolled. Situations like that happen all the time in dice-driven games, which means that probability can be defied, which means any extremely well laid plan can fall apart against a poorly laid one because of the die roll results, and, well, there you have it.
That is not an example of probability being defied. It's an example of how probability works.
If you have a 99% chance of getting a blurb and you instead get the 1% bleb, that's okay. It'll happen. Sometimes it'll even happen three times in a row! Over a large enough sample size, though, it balances out.
As for the 1/36 chance of rolling a second one discussion earlier, I think you're either confused or I'm misunderstanding you.
Situation 1: You roll a D6 and get a 1. You roll another D6. Your odds of rolling a one are exactly one in six. This one's easy to understand, since each die has six sides and you're not changing that.
Situation 2: You are trying to roll two ones on two dice. You roll one die and it's a 1. (1/6) You roll another die and it's a 1. (1/36) The second die only had a one in six chance of being a 1, but your odds of rolling two ones together are one in thirty-six.
It sounds like you're disagreeing with some or all of this, which is pretty confusing since it's very basic math. I think you're off base on everything you've talked about here, but the root seems to be that you just don't fully comprehend the subject.
Anyway, very low probability of it happening right? And yet it happened. Despite the odds of not rolling a 1 in 12 consecutive die rolls, no 1 was rolled. Situations like that happen all the time in dice-driven games, which means that probability can be defied, which means any extremely well laid plan can fall apart against a poorly laid one because of the die roll results, and, well, there you have it.
The chance of not rolling a 1 in six rolls is (5/6)^6=0.33, I wouldn't call that "very low" - rather, it's every third time you try. It's much higher than the chances Poker players deal with for sure. Situations like that indeed happen all the time, because they are quite probable. They happen all the time with card-based systems, too, given equal probabilities.
Any kind of randomness can make a well laid plan fail against a poorly laid one, that's the entire point of introducing randomness into a game.
gexthegecko wrote:
So then, tell me of a dice-driven game that is arguable more strategic (in terms of little reliance on luck) than Starcraft the board game. Name one.
You could even try an experiment on this forum, public die rolls. Everyone could participate. Six rolls per post, see how often do we get the dreaded 1 roll (thinking Risk here). The long term experiments are always more interesting than the short term.
As experiments for probability theory, certainly. As contributions to this discussion, no. Because what the discussion is about, what you have a problem with, is not probability, but individual events of randomization.
Hmm. The odds of not rolling a 1 in twelve consecutive rolls is about 11%. Those are actually pretty decent odds. Yes, it is frustrating when it happens, but if you think the fact that it happens all the time defies probability then you must not understand probability.
It's also cherry-picking results. You had the same odds of not rolling a 2, or a 3, and various odds of all sorts of other things happening. This is just the specific instance that was picked out as an example. Due to the nature of how dice (or cards etc.) work, you can find a ton of examples of "good" or "bad" luck with any roll or hand drawn or whatever.
I come from a Magic the Gathering background, so I hear this crap in relation to mulligans and bad mana all the time. It does feel good to be able to say "Man, I only had a 2% chance of that specific thing happening." Yeah, but you had a 100% chance of something happening, and about 20 different parts of the game where something had to happen. You can always find "bad luck" to pin the blame on if you try hard enough.
Hmm. The odds of not rolling a 1 in twelve consecutive rolls is about 11%. Those are actually pretty decent odds. Yes, it is frustrating when it happens, but if you think the fact that it happens all the time defies probability then you must not understand probability.
I share the frustration with bad luck. But it is the nature of randomness and it would defy probability only if the streaks you talk about did not happen.
So you're saying that streaks like this should happen every now and again, or very often at sporadic times, because probability dictates these streaks? Interesting. Should see how often these streaks arise in the public die rolls I'm doing, which I encourage any others posting in this forum to do. Be interesting to see if luck can be measured. Still though, that's the main reason why I dislike dice-based games, the streaks that inevitable happen. With card games, streaks are not only less likely but, if the game is made well enough, impossible. Which in turn encourages thinking ahead and timing your plays accordingly.
With card games, streaks are not only less likely but, if the game is made well enough, impossible.
Do you have many examples of games that make streaks impossible? The only one I can think of that has exactly one run of cards for the entire set of probable events is Catan: Event Cards, and even there it's entirely possible to draw all six robbers in a row (though the probability for that is rather low).
The probability for six robbers with cards in a full deck is (6/36)*(5/35)*(4/34)*(3/33)*(2/32)*(1/31) = 5.13×10^-7, compared to a rather high (6/36)^6 = 2.14*10^-5 with dice - the dice one is roughly 200 times as probable, but still only roughly happens every 46000th time you try.
Anyway, very low probability of it happening right? And yet it happened. Despite the odds of not rolling a 1 in 12 consecutive die rolls, no 1 was rolled. Situations like that happen all the time in dice-driven games, which means that probability can be defied, which means any extremely well laid plan can fall apart against a poorly laid one because of the die roll results, and, well, there you have it.
That is not an example of probability being defied. It's an example of how probability works.
If you have a 99% chance of getting a blurb and you instead get the 1% bleb, that's okay. It'll happen. Sometimes it'll even happen three times in a row! Over a large enough sample size, though, it balances out.
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
brilk wrote:
As for the 1/36 chance of rolling a second one discussion earlier, I think you're either confused or I'm misunderstanding you.
Situation 1: You roll a D6 and get a 1. You roll another D6. Your odds of rolling a one are exactly one in six. This one's easy to understand, since each die has six sides and you're not changing that.
Situation 2: You are trying to roll two ones on two dice. You roll one die and it's a 1. (1/6) You roll another die and it's a 1. (1/36) The second die only had a one in six chance of being a 1, but your odds of rolling two ones together are one in thirty-six.
It sounds like you're disagreeing with some or all of this, which is pretty confusing since it's very basic math. I think you're off base on everything you've talked about here, but the root seems to be that you just don't fully comprehend the subject.
Then I'll try to explain myself a little differently.
Rolling a die means I have a 1/6 chance of getting the roll. Say I wanted to roll a . I roll once, I don't get it, so I roll again. I believe this would be considered a consecutive roll on my part because it shouldn't matter if I roll 2 dice at the same time. I could roll 5 dice at the same time, or one dice at a time, it would still be 5 consecutive rolls, right? Just so long as we're counting the back-to-back die results.
Anyway, I want to roll a 6. I have a 1/6 (16.7%) probability of getting it. Ignoring the consecutive roll mathematics I've been doing, say this was my die roll results after 12 rolls:
Now, at that point, you could still say my odds of rolling a 6 on my next roll are 1/6 (assuming that it's wrong to think otherwise for consecutive rolls), but that fact remains that the percentage of rolls of 6s up to that point are 0/12 (0.0%). Let's assume I do eventually roll a six, or even several six's at points after that, but a very large majority of my rolls were the other numbers. After the game, we tally up the number of 6s I've rolled and compare them to all my other die roll results. Let's say it was a game where my percentage of 6's rolled fell well below that 16.7%. In other words, the projected estimate was off by a good margin, and the actual results were, oh let's say, around 4%.
In other words, it's possible to play a game where the probability doesn't balance out. If it's possible to play one game where that's the case, it's possible to play several in a row where that's not the case. Assume you play that game 100 times in a lifetime, and you lose 88 times, and let's assume you're a good player who played against others who were just as good or worse than you. It could happen.
In other words, things don't always balance out. Sometimes they stay terrible too long, or stay good for too long, without balance. The projections for dice rolls don't exactly help in that regard then do they? Thus, as I've stated earlier, can not be the best mechanic to use to make the best strategy games. Now I'm not saying that there aren't dice games that are better than card games, that's not it. I'm say the, inevitably, the best strategy board game in the world, if there is one, will be a non-dice-driven one. Most likely a card-driven one. And if there are dice in the best strategy board games ever, they take a back seat to the card driven mechanics, that they are limited in some way.
So while on the topic of greatest strategy games ever, what are the odds of someone winning Twilight Struggle who has only rolled s the entire game, while his opponent has rolled s the entire game? Doesn't matter how long or short the game is. First thing to consider, it's possible to win the game without rolling a single die, but impossible to win without playing a single card.
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
One game is not a sufficiently large sample size for randomness to balance out. That should be incredibly obvious.
I honestly can't figure out how to communicate with you in a way that you'll understand, so I'll just wish you the best. On the plus side, there are still plenty of awesome games out there that don't use dice. Just stay away from Fluxx and similar games if you're sticking with the "less random" cards.
The chance of not rolling a 1 in six rolls is (5/6)^6=0.33, I wouldn't call that "very low" - rather, it's every third time you try. It's much higher than the chances Poker players deal with for sure. Situations like that indeed happen all the time, because they are quite probable. They happen all the time with card-based systems, too, given equal probabilities.
Any kind of randomness can make a well laid plan fail against a poorly laid one, that's the entire point of introducing randomness into a game.
I beg to differ when it comes to strategy games. The entire point of introducing randomness into a game is so that you may end up being forced to change you strategy on the fly, to adapt to a changing situation. That is why I believe randomness should be in a game.
haslo wrote:
gexthegecko wrote:
So then, tell me of a dice-driven game that is arguable more strategic (in terms of little reliance on luck) than Starcraft the board game. Name one.
Concerning what the point of introducing randomness is, there is obviously no answer that applies to all games. Personally, I like randomness that players can adapt to indeed - but whether that's possible has nothing to do with dice or cards and everything to do with where this randomness happens, whether the players can influence their odds and how well the players can adapt to the results within the ruleset of the game. That's an entirely different discussion, though to be honest, a more interesting one.
gexthegecko wrote:
In other words, it's possible to play a game where the probability doesn't balance out. If it's possible to play one game where that's the case, it's possible to play several in a row where that's not the case. Assume you play that game 100 times in a lifetime, and you lose 88 times, and let's assume you're a good player who played against others who were just as good or worse than you. It could happen.
It could happen, but it is very improbable. And it could also happen with cards. The probability of having only 4 sixes in 100 rolls is roughly (and I simulated this with a little program) 0.008%. The probability of having only four sixes in 100 rolls two games in a row is thus 0.000064%. Really, we're talking about probabilities that aren't even worth thinking about any more.
Your entire argument builds on two pillars that I just can't agree with:
* You claim that it's impossible to have streaks of bad luck with cards - I've shown that this is not the case, citing the least luck-dependant cards system I know of * You claim that it is probable to have streaks of bad luck with dice, while it is very improbable - as I've shown with your example
I'll go to bed now, let's see whether you conjure an actual argument out of somewhere until I have a look a these comments the next time
Edited to add the Ruby program listing, I only simulated a million games with 100 rolls because I'm lazy and got 81 with exactly four sixes in the first run that above comment is based on, 68 in the second run. Note that with more dice rolls (and 100 are few) it becomes increasingly improbable to have non-standard distributions of results. This is it:
number_of_four_sixes = 0 (1..1000000).each do |experiment| number_of_sixes = 0 (1..100).each do |roll| number_of_sixes += 1 if rand(6)+1 == 6 end number_of_four_sixes += 1 if number_of_sixes == 4 end puts number_of_four_sixes
With card games, streaks are not only less likely but, if the game is made well enough, impossible.
Do you have many examples of games that make streaks impossible? The only one I can think of that has exactly one run of cards for the entire set of probable events is Catan: Event Cards, and even there it's entirely possible to draw all six robbers in a row (though the probability for that is rather low).
The probability for six robbers with cards in a full deck is (6/36)*(5/35)*(4/34)*(3/33)*(2/32)*(1/31) = 5.13×10^-7, compared to a rather high (6/36)^6 = 2.14*10^-5 with dice - the dice one is roughly 200 times as probable, but still only roughly happens every 46000th time you try.
Ad Astra, Starcraft (it's made in such a way that, unless you have practically your entire deck in your hand, which could potentially happen, or a technology card that can regenerate a certain type of card 1 time, you're not going to be playing the same card twice), Dune (it may be possible to get a streak of the same type of treachery card, but there are only 4 copies max of two types, everything else has only 2 or 1, not counting the 5 useless cards which are easily disposed of), and Dorn (I think).
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
One game is not a sufficiently large sample size for randomness to balance out. That should be incredibly obvious.
But that's my point! If it doesn't balance out like yin yang, then it's imbalanced. If it can become very imbalanced, then it's not good for strategy gaming.
brilk wrote:
I honestly can't figure out how to communicate with you in a way that you'll understand, so I'll just wish you the best. On the plus side, there are still plenty of awesome games out there that don't use dice. Just stay away from Fluxx and similar games if you're sticking with the "less random" cards.
Most of the time, I thought it was the other way around. But anyway yeah, I heard about Fluxx. Thanks for the advice.
Concerning what the point of introducing randomness is, there is obviously no answer that applies to all games. Personally, I like randomness that players can adapt to indeed - but whether that's possible has nothing to do with dice or cards and everything to do with where this randomness happens, whether the players can influence their odds and how well the players can adapt to the results within the ruleset of the game. That's an entirely different discussion, though to be honest, a more interesting one.
Basically, I prefer randomness that can be handled. Not necessarily in the short term, but could be potentially handled. No game breaking randomness. Dice have a high potential for game breaking randomness, certain card games do not.
haslo wrote:
gexthegecko wrote:
In other words, it's possible to play a game where the probability doesn't balance out. If it's possible to play one game where that's the case, it's possible to play several in a row where that's not the case. Assume you play that game 100 times in a lifetime, and you lose 88 times, and let's assume you're a good player who played against others who were just as good or worse than you. It could happen.
It could happen, but it is very improbable. And it could also happen with cards. The probability of having only 4 sixes in 100 rolls is roughly (and I simulated this with a little program) 0.008%. The probability of having only four sixes in 100 rolls two games in a row is thus 0.000064%. Really, we're talking about probabilities that aren't even worth thinking about any more.
Your entire argument builds on two pillars that I just can't agree with:
* You claim that it's impossible to have streaks of bad luck with cards - I've shown that this is not the case, citing the least luck-dependant cards system I know of
You should try those other 3 I previously mentioned, Starcraft, Dune, or Ad Astra. Ad Astra, well, that one is unique because the only thing random about that game is of the 11 potential alien artifact cards you could discover, and the planet placement at the beginning of the game. Other than that, every player holds their entire deck which are played in a certain planning order. Tough to explain, but check that one out. Lowest element of randomness out of all the aforementioned games.
And if I had said that every card game isn't susceptible to bad/good streaks, I apologize. I meant that there are a few that aren't susceptible, while as I believe every dice game is susceptible to these streaks (except for Chase, that's an abstract strategy exception).
haslo wrote:
* You claim that it is probable to have streaks of bad luck with dice, while it is very improbable - as I've shown with your example
Guess I should restate myself. It's only possible, but for some people in some games, probable. Some people are that unlucky/lucky. Look around session reports of games like Risk long enough, and you will find this to be true.
haslo wrote:
I'll go to bed now, let's see whether you conjure an actual argument out of somewhere until I have a look a these comments the next time
Edited to add the Ruby program listing, I only simulated a million games with 100 rolls because I'm lazy and got 81 with exactly four sixes in the first run that above comment is based on, 68 in the second run. Note that with more dice rolls (and 100 are few) it becomes increasingly improbable to have non-standard distributions of results. This is it:
number_of_four_sixes = 0 (1..1000000).each do |experiment| number_of_sixes = 0 (1..100).each do |roll| number_of_sixes += 1 if rand(6)+1 == 6 end number_of_four_sixes += 1 if number_of_sixes == 4 end puts number_of_four_sixes
That emulation I'm seeing when quote/posting doesn't seem to be showing up for me on the forum.
I'm not entirely sure if this provides a counterpoint to your post or not, but I am curious to see your response to something. A few months ago I was talking with a friend of mine about dice rolls in games and he commented that one of the reasons he likes Stone Age is that you can reasonably predict how many resources you are going to get. I thought it the comment was a bit odd given how heavily dice driven the game is. However, after thinking about it, I realized he was correct. There is a nearly wonderful worker placement game called Carson City where the strategy relies on what actions you take, what roles you choose, and where your put your tiles down on the board. But there is a sort of side mechanic where you can fight another player for a spot on the board. The fight is resolved by rolling opposing D6s which are added to the number of guns your player has. What make this aspect of the game extremely frustrating is that all three times I have played the game, the winner was determined by a single die roll. I have to say that when two hour of strategic planning end up getting foiled by a single die roll, it leaves a really bitter taste in one's mouth. And if you want to add a really bizarre twist to the story, in one game it would have been both mine and the other players advantage for me to lose the die roll. I was willing to forfeit the fight, but the rules did not allow me to do so. I ended up winning the die roll but ultimately ending up in a worse position. Going back to Stone Age, yes, you can have bad die rolls in that game that will screw you up, but because you roll so many dice in that game, you often end up with just as many "good luck" rolls as you do "bad luck" rolls. The Law of Large Numbers actually makes the game pretty fair. Out of 20-30 games I have played, only once have I ever felt as though I lost because of die rolls. So between these two games, which is really the more strategic game? Carson City has fewer random factors in it, but those factors have a much larger impact on the game. I really don't know what the right answer to that question is, but what I can say is even though Carson City has more strategic decision than Stone Age, winning Stone Age gives me a more satisfying feel.
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owever, there are card games where the statistics don't fall apart. If you draw a bad card, you will know that the next card you draw won't be that card.
I think you have a huge flaw here. Yes, the are card games where the statistics don't fall apart, but just as with dice, there are card games where the statistics do fall apart. For example, you can play Catan with a deck of cards instead of dice. On the surface this sound good because you know that resources production is going to be proportionally distributed. However, if the cards are shuffled so that one player gets half of the sevens, he is going to be in a better position because he will get more steals. In fact, because of conditional probability, we know that if one player draws a 7 that the next player is less likely to do so. So dice are actually more likely to give you a more fair distribution of robbers than the deck does.
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that is why card-driven-mechanics are better than dice-driven-mechanics in board games when it comes to inserting an element of randomness
Generally speaking, I would tend to agree with this statement, but I don't think it is an absolute. Again, see the Catan reference above. You also have to look at a game like Macao which, really, I think is a huge monkey wrench for nearly everything in your post. In order to succeed at Macao, you need to create certain color patterns to get your cards built. If you were to use a deck of six cards without replacement, you can end up in situations where certain color combination would become impossible.
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So those are 2 examples of what can be achieved in board gaming without the use of a dice in the mechanics.... imagine some of the others how there could be just as good or better, or worse, depending on your taste in games.
Yeah, but I just gave two example sof how switching from dice cards to cards could actually make a game worse. I can easily imagine how Stone Age could be made worse with cards. Suppose you have a deck of cards with numbers 1 to 6 (or one to anything, really) If the first player who draws for resources gets all ones, you automatically know that the second player will get a better draw unless you introduce a replacing mechanism. Of course, if you are going to replace cards once they are put into the deck, you might as well go back to dice. The converse to this would be a game like Oregon. That
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What I'm saying is that games that claim to be strategic shouldn't be dice-driven
Once again, you have to play Macao. The game is largely dice driven, but you absolutely cannot win that game without proper planning.
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It's impossible to fully manage risk in games with dice because there is always a chance that no matter what modifier you get, even if you have the best chance of success, you could always get a bad roll.
But you haven't actually justified how this is BETTER. You can just as easily end up in situations where, because certain cards are gone, a certain outcome is absolutely impossible. Being completely locked out of certain outcomes is not necessarily more strategic. It really depends on the design of the game in question.
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So then, tell me of a dice-driven game that is arguable more strategic (in terms of little reliance on luck) than Starcraft the board game. Name one.
Admittedly, I've not played Starcraft, so its not entirely a fair test, but once again, I would put Macao up as the contender. I browsed a few reviews of Starcraft and it sounds as though it plays similarly to Chaos in the Old World and/or Combat Commander, so I will have to make my comments based on those games.
The real problem with this test I think involves the type of games you are looking at. If you want to talk about area control / combat games, I would easily concede the point that card draws are more likely to produce even distributions than dice rolls. So if the only point you are trying to make is that the outcome of your battles are more "fair" then I, and most people, will probably agree with you. However, the truly substaintal quibble I would have here is that these type of games are not card driven. They are tactics driven. Sure, some bad die rolls (or card draws) can ruin an excellent battle plan, but it isn't like any one army can attack another army at will. There are tons of other considerations. They have be within a certain range; they will have different strengths/weaknesses; if the game has such mechanics, battle conditions or victory conditions will change your decision as to when you might attack. Over a period of multiple plays, the player who is the better tactician will win. The cards/dice are not the core mechanism - unit movement/selection are the core mechanisms.
The other issue has to do with what we think of as strategy games. When I look at the games you've rated, I see very few euro games on the list. Your idea of strategy games seems to focus on either area control games or abstract games. My mind goes to worker placement or economic games like Caylus or Powergrid or Pillars of the Earth. Now, neither of us are "wrong" in perceptions, but I think the different points of view are relevant to the argument you are trying to make. For example, lets suppose that somebody were to devise a way in Powergrid such that the inputs and outputs of each factory were randomized via a die roll, and then an appropriate formula were used to balance the base cost of the factory. (Granted, this would be convoluted and impractical to actually implement, but just assume it could be done.) In my mind, this would actually produce a better game than having plants pulled from the deck. It would be possible for two players to own the same power plant; certain plants might never appear in a given game; new plants could be rolled that are not in the deck. Such a system would change the supply/demand curve for the resources, which you will have to account for when you bid on each plant. However, unlike with, say, a combat game, such a change would not adversely affect any single player because the information is open to all players before each auction begins. Players have an opportunity to adjust their strategy to the randomness instead of, as in a war games, having to accept the immediate consequences of a bad roll. I think you are too accustomed to playing games where the latter is true instead of the former. In the former situation, die rolls can actually add more variety and opportunity to a strategy game than a preconstructed deck would.
This is exactly why I think Macao really blows a hole in all of your arguements. All players works with the same die rolls and are allowed to react to the dice. Sure, you can get rolls that help one player more than the other, but the resources you acquire from the dice have multiple uses, so you're never completely screwed. In fact, Macao also has a deck of cards and my experience with the game is that card draft will mess people up much more frequently than die rolls will.
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probability can be defied, which means any extremely well laid plan can fall apart against a poorly laid one because of the die roll results, and, well, there you have it.
I know I already made this point above, but it bears repeating. I've seen extremely well laid plans fall apart because of poor card draft and, well, there you have it. You still haven't proven your point. Again, I think it has to do with the games you are used to playing. If I've read the gameplay of Starcraft correctly, the randomness of the card pull happens before you even declare combat, so you adjust your strategy after the random happens. Unless you cite a combat game where you rolled your dice ahead of time and then choose which battle to play your ones and when to play your sixes, I'm not convinced that you are making a fair comparison.
I appreciate dice in games precisely because I know what my odds are when I make a roll. I know I have a 1/6 chance to roll a 1 on a D6 and I know that I have a 1/36 chance to roll snake eyes on a 2D6. That's true every single time I pick up them bones, and I don't have to waste any brainpower trying to remember what happened three rolls previously.
However, that is not the case in card driven games. Card driven games introduce a memory element which I don't find nearly as enjoyable. The most basic example would be a deck with six cards numbered 1 through 6. If I don't pull a 1 the first time, the next time I have a 1/5 chance to pull a 1. Obviously I should be able to remember something that simple, but it introduces another element in the calculations for the game. In more complex games, it could be a huge advantage to know what is in the deck -- which may or may not be desirable...but since I don't like strong memory elements in my games, its not.
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
One game is not a sufficiently large sample size for randomness to balance out. That should be incredibly obvious.
But that's my point! If it doesn't balance out like yin yang, then it's imbalanced. If it can become very imbalanced, then it's not good for strategy gaming.
Bad luck streaks among poker players are legendary. In any game with random elements it is possible to go on lengthy low probability runs, both good and bad. Heck, if you decide to start playing Chess 960 you can go on a bad luck streak that would drive you crazy.
And I should add that you are picking on a really swingy example of dice based games, Risk is a luck heavy game period. Even if you replaced the dice mechanism with a card draw mechanism, its still going to be an extremely swingy game....at least unless you change the game to the point of being unrecognizable.
And actually, I think a simple elegant "fix" for the swingyness of Risk would be to just roll the number of dice equal to the number of armies that you have instead of limiting the offence to three dice and the defense to two dice. So when you've got a horde of 40 armies entering a country with 2 soldiers you'd roll forty dice against their two. Of course there is a chance that the lone holdouts could last forever, just rolling 6's twenty times in a row, but the odds are much lower than with the rules as written. There's a good chance that game might not be nearly as "fun" but I'd say this simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
It's impossible to fully manage risk in games with dice because there is always a chance that no matter what modifier you get, even if you have the best chance of success, you could always get a bad roll.
But you haven't actually justified how this is BETTER. You can just as easily end up in situations where, because certain cards are gone, a certain outcome is absolutely impossible. Being completely locked out of certain outcomes is not necessarily more strategic. It really depends on the design of the game in question.
davypi wrote:
I know I already made this point above, but it bears repeating. I've seen extremely well laid plans fall apart because of poor card draft and, well, there you have it. You still haven't proven your point. Again, I think it has to do with the games you are used to playing. If I've read the gameplay of Starcraft correctly, the randomness of the card pull happens before you even declare combat, so you adjust your strategy after the random happens. Unless you cite a combat game where you rolled your dice ahead of time and then choose which battle to play your ones and when to play your sixes, I'm not convinced that you are making a fair comparison.
He said in a previous post that he wasn't saying that in every situation cards are less random than dice. He said that you can make card driven games with very little, not gamebreaking, luck, whereas with dice, you cannot. As for Starcraft I think that gexthegecko is trying to say that in Starcraft you almost have complete control over your cards and you know the odds of winning the battle because you not only have a hand of cards, but you can also draw more cards into your hand before the battle as well as by doing research. The only way that you won't have the cards you need is by not doing research, or by using those cards in previous battles. And that is YOUR choice. In dice driven games you have no effect on the outcome of dice rolls (unless you cheat ). (Haven't played Macao, so can't comment on it)
Me too. I just love swearing at my dice, shaking them in a cup and then smashing the cup on the table.
The trick is to somehow convince the dice to roll in your favour. Those guys have a personality, you know. For example, I have a black d8 who needs tending and good words - otherwise it fails to roll high numbers.
He said in a previous post that he wasn't saying that in every situation cards are less random than dice. He said that you can make card driven games with very little, not gamebreaking, luck, whereas with dice, you cannot. [...] In dice driven games you have no effect on the outcome of dice rolls (unless you cheat ).
Indeed, I also believe that is his position, and it is also wrong. It might be easier to have systems in place that mitigate randomness with cards than with dice, but it's certainly not the case by necessity. There's dice roll modificators, combat result tables, effects that change how many dice you roll, rerolling possibilities, there are games that use dice as resources that can benefit you regardless of what you roll because a roll of 1 is not in and of itself better or worse than a roll of 6 (like Alien Frontiers or Kingsburg or Troyes), there are dice you can modify during the game in some LEGO titles, and there are plenty of other mechanics that make it possible to influence the results and then mitigate the effects of dice rolls.
As I said before, this post is about dice versus cards when it should really be about mitigatable versus non-mitigatable randomness that is quite independent of what the source of said randomness is.
I greatly enjoy randomising elements in my games and am not a great fan of entirely deterministic games. What I get out of games with random elements are all the things that are frequently argued in their favour....tension, variety, replayability, the challenge of the unexpected to a player's versatility, and most importantly narrative. The last is most important to me.....I play to do my best and try to win but it's secondary to the process. This might be the telling factor for players.....I don't care if I lose, whereas many do (which is entirely fine).
I don't distinguish between dice and cards as randomisers. The important factor is not what does the randomising but how well it is balanced with the ability to exert control over the flow of the game. An entirely deterministic game can be wretched if badly designed, as can a game with random elements poorly integrated into the system. The perfect game for me throws me unexpected challenges but allows me to exercise skill, experience, understanding of probability , planning and versatility to maximise my chances of succeeding when the random elements occur. This is probably what most people mean when they talk about "managing probability".
I enjoy many games but one of my favourite is cited in the original post....Magic Realm. I love Magic Realm for its fine mix of determinism and chance. It's possible to play with a high level of skill, proficiency and success but the dice can be particularly cruel and random setbacks are always just around the corner....and in Magic Realm random setbacks (such as a failed Hide roll) are often instantly fatal. For some that would be unacceptable. For me it is a critical tension of the game, part of the price of great narrative (no game does it like Magic Realm) but most importantly something I know I can mitigate with good play. For me the balance in Magic Realm is just right.....and is similarly well designed into other games.
Indeed, I also believe that is his position, and it is also wrong. It might be easier to have systems in place that mitigate randomness with cards than with dice, but it's certainly not the case by necessity. There's dice roll modificators, combat result tables, effects that change how many dice you roll, rerolling possibilities, there are games that use dice as resources that can benefit you regardless of what you roll because a roll of 1 is not in and of itself better or worse than a roll of 6 (like Alien Frontiers or Kingsburg or Troyes), there are dice you can modify during the game in some LEGO titles, and there are plenty of other mechanics that make it possible to influence the results and then mitigate the effects of dice rolls.
I agree, it seems to me this post is written about three or four years late. I think that there was a lot of energy developing great card game mechanisms in the 90's and early 00's, but in the past 5 years, there have been many games that do very innovative, interesting things with dice.
I'd throw in Macao, Lords of Vegas, and The Castles of Burgundy (not to be confused with the light but also interesting dice based Burgen Land) as all interesting examples of what can be done with dice, though to be honest I haven't played Castles and I didn't like Macao.
Great thoughts. Dice -vs- cards. I like a game called A Touch of evil by FFP. It incorporates dice and cards. It hits all the things I`m looking for in a board game. The luck factor is always there. No matter what game you play. If you watch sports and I do. You will see a lot of luck being played out. Ask Green Bay, New Orleans, Baltimore, and San Francisco. Are the Giants the best team ? Will the Patroits get revenge ? Is it fate or luck ? Is Brady better than Eli Manning ? On any given Sunday, any team can win. Superbowl 3 New York Jets beat the once beaten Baltimore Colts. The Colts were heavily favorited by 15 points. The Jets defense shut them down and the Jets won 16-7. The greatest upset in Superbowl history. Or was it ? The Patroits came undefeated to play the Giants and lost 17-14. Was it fate or luck ? Board games mirror real life. Timing is everything. I rather be lucky than good. Being in the right place at the right time. Its real life my friend. Get use to it.
As the codesigner of The Ares Project I appreciate your comments and understand where you're coming from. This is obviously a matter of personal taste that varies from person to person.
We tried a lot of different things with combat, one of which was an experiment with a 'diceless' (or dice-minimized) version of combat, outlined here:
but found in testing that the deterministic nature didn't have the same excitement as tossing lots of dice. Several of the techs were introduced to mitigate luck somewhat, although of course a lucky (or unlucky) streak will overcome that. In the end we felt that with the number of dice that get tossed during the course of the average game, and the length of the game once players get used to it (45-60 minutes), made the combat system work to our taste.
A chit-pull variant was also proposed by another player here:
But as an earlier post noted, an episode of the amazingly educational and entertaining podcast Ludology, hosted by - hey, it's me! - discussed how the memory element can distort things, and as you introduce more frequent shuffling you end up converging on regular dice distributions anyway.
I totally understand where you're coming from, and realize this issue is as much a 'taste' as a design issue, but wanted to give you some background about what we tried and why we ended up where we did.
I agree that the "dice are try ing to kill me" aspect of some games can be frustrating, but in games such as Fortune and Glory and Lords of Vegas, I couldn't (and wouldn't) play that type of game without dice!
Wait what? If you roll only ones and your opponent rolls only 6s you can win twilight struggle? In what world? That means he dominates western Asia, picks up a bunch of uncounterable points in space, has favorable results in every war event (possibly 10 vp), and successful coups and relignment 100% of the time. If you're both competent, how do you win?
I'm not entirely sure if this provides a counterpoint to your post or not, but I am curious to see your response to something. A few months ago I was talking with a friend of mine about dice rolls in games and he commented that one of the reasons he likes Stone Age is that you can reasonably predict how many resources you are going to get. I thought it the comment was a bit odd given how heavily dice driven the game is. However, after thinking about it, I realized he was correct. There is a nearly wonderful worker placement game called Carson City where the strategy relies on what actions you take, what roles you choose, and where your put your tiles down on the board. But there is a sort of side mechanic where you can fight another player for a spot on the board. The fight is resolved by rolling opposing D6s which are added to the number of guns your player has. What make this aspect of the game extremely frustrating is that all three times I have played the game, the winner was determined by a single die roll. I have to say that when two hour of strategic planning end up getting foiled by a single die roll, it leaves a really bitter taste in one's mouth. And if you want to add a really bizarre twist to the story, in one game it would have been both mine and the other players advantage for me to lose the die roll. I was willing to forfeit the fight, but the rules did not allow me to do so. I ended up winning the die roll but ultimately ending up in a worse position. Going back to Stone Age, yes, you can have bad die rolls in that game that will screw you up, but because you roll so many dice in that game, you often end up with just as many "good luck" rolls as you do "bad luck" rolls. The Law of Large Numbers actually makes the game pretty fair. Out of 20-30 games I have played, only once have I ever felt as though I lost because of die rolls. So between these two games, which is really the more strategic game? Carson City has fewer random factors in it, but those factors have a much larger impact on the game. I really don't know what the right answer to that question is, but what I can say is even though Carson City has more strategic decision than Stone Age, winning Stone Age gives me a more satisfying feel.
Alright, now we're talking. It's been too long since I've been in an online debate like this.
Anyway, it's easy to explain why Stone Age can feel more gratifying and less "cheated" by the end. Less probabilities with the dice rolls. There are 3 ways to use dice in a board game (not including Chase). 1. Rolling each die higher than or below the required amount. These are the ones with the highest probability factor when considering consecutive rolls. If someone brings up how the higher probabilities in consecutive rolls doesn't make any sense because it should be 1/6 no matter what, I'll clarify this (had enough time to sleep on it to find the best way of explaining it).
2. Rolling 1 or more dice and adding the results together. Believe it or not, the results of this aren't as diverse as option 1. If you roll 1 dice, the options are 1,2,3,4,5,6. 2 dice, then it's 2-12. However, unlike option one, this has a median. The odds of rolling a result of 2 or 12 with 2 dice are 1/36 each. But rolling for a result of 6 is 5/36, rolling for 7 is 6/36, rolling for 8 is 5/36 again, and then it all goes by a bell curve in probabilities. Plus you could potentially have die roll modifiers so that you can increase the min & max.
3. Games like Troyes and Alien Frontiers, where sometimes it doesn't matter what you roll as practically any value does something beneficial, though it is a matter of timing of getting what you want. Sometimes these games allow you to take another player's roll result(s) and use them as your own. I'd say this is about as strategic as dice games get.
So, all three have random factors, but option 1 is the one that has the highest consequences out of those factors in the games it is incorporated in. Which is why games like The Ares Project, and Carson City, can become more infuriating than fun no matter how great the other mechanics are.
For the record, I've never played Carson City.
davypi wrote:
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owever, there are card games where the statistics don't fall apart. If you draw a bad card, you will know that the next card you draw won't be that card.
I think you have a huge flaw here. Yes, the are card games where the statistics don't fall apart, but just as with dice, there are card games where the statistics do fall apart. For example, you can play Catan with a deck of cards instead of dice. On the surface this sound good because you know that resources production is going to be proportionally distributed. However, if the cards are shuffled so that one player gets half of the sevens, he is going to be in a better position because he will get more steals. In fact, because of conditional probability, we know that if one player draws a 7 that the next player is less likely to do so. So dice are actually more likely to give you a more fair distribution of robbers than the deck does.
Man, I really need to re-edit my initial blog post don't I? I AM NOT SAYING EVERY SINGLE CARD GAME IS BETTER THAN EVERY SINGLE DICE GAME!!! I am saying that the best strategy board games are better in that regard than the best dice games. There are games that require a random factor that dice are better suited for, while others have cards that are better for it. Dice are usually required for games that have 1 or more decks of cards that everyone draws from regularly, mainly because of the example you gave above. Less likely for someone to roll all 6's and everyone else to roll less, than it is for someone drawing all the good cards and everyone else getting a bad deal out of it.
With that said, it can be argued that a game's system/mechanics are flawed because of the possible outcomes of a player's actions, whether through dice or cards. I personally feel that dice are more likely to screw up a game with great mechanics than cards are. And because of the probabilities they give, it's impossible for a dice-based game to be consider the greatest strategy game of all time because of, well, reasons stated above. However, I hear that Troyes might be the exception.
davypi wrote:
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that is why card-driven-mechanics are better than dice-driven-mechanics in board games when it comes to inserting an element of randomness
Generally speaking, I would tend to agree with this statement, but I don't think it is an absolute. Again, see the Catan reference above. You also have to look at a game like Macao which, really, I think is a huge monkey wrench for nearly everything in your post. In order to succeed at Macao, you need to create certain color patterns to get your cards built. If you were to use a deck of six cards without replacement, you can end up in situations where certain color combination would become impossible.
And I say again, not every game system is suited for cards. But I could argue that for every "good" game system using dice as the frontrunner mechanic, I can find a better "good" system using cards as the main mechanic, at least with games that have a random factor to them.
By the way, I just checked out Macao. Thanks for the reference, I should try that one out. On that note, seems like the cards in that game are every bit as important as the dice.
The real monkey wrench to my argument seems to be Troyes.
davypi wrote:
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So those are 2 examples of what can be achieved in board gaming without the use of a dice in the mechanics.... imagine some of the others how there could be just as good or better, or worse, depending on your taste in games.
Yeah, but I just gave two example sof how switching from dice cards to cards could actually make a game worse. I can easily imagine how Stone Age could be made worse with cards. Suppose you have a deck of cards with numbers 1 to 6 (or one to anything, really) If the first player who draws for resources gets all ones, you automatically know that the second player will get a better draw unless you introduce a replacing mechanism. Of course, if you are going to replace cards once they are put into the deck, you might as well go back to dice. The converse to this would be a game like Oregon. That
That...what? Anyway, to repeat myself, cards don't always make a game better. A game system built around dice may not be able to be improved with cards, thus it will be as good as it gets. That said, it's system is likely inferior to another game whose system is built around cards. Not every card game, but some card-based board games.
davypi wrote:
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What I'm saying is that games that claim to be strategic shouldn't be dice-driven
Once again, you have to play Macao. The game is largely dice driven, but you absolutely cannot win that game without proper planning.
You know what, I think you just managed to successfully bash in a part of my argument. You're right, it is ok for some games to be strategic and dice driven because using cards in the system make it worse, and a game with dice can be superior to a game with cards. That said, I doubt it can be considered the best system.
davypi wrote:
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It's impossible to fully manage risk in games with dice because there is always a chance that no matter what modifier you get, even if you have the best chance of success, you could always get a bad roll.
But you haven't actually justified how this is BETTER. You can just as easily end up in situations where, because certain cards are gone, a certain outcome is absolutely impossible. Being completely locked out of certain outcomes is not necessarily more strategic. It really depends on the design of the game in question.
Exactly. It does depend on the design. That's why I believe certain card-based games are better designed than ANY dice-based game. As for locked out possibilities, such as knowing a card is in the discard pile, thus there's no chance you will get it this round, I would say that encourages planning ahead, timing your card plays. If anything, a game with temporary lock out situations is more strategic than those without them, so long as the lockouts are temporary and can be controlled to an extent. For example, in Starcraft, there are 5 possible cards that work for a unit you have in battle. If you send that unit into battle knowing that all 5 cards are in the discard pile, and assuming the discards won't we reshuffled and drawn from in that round, well, that's arguable either poor planning on your part or great planning on the part of your opponent. And the discards can be controlled. You draw 3 cards every battle. Don't have enough cards in the deck, shuffle discards and draw. Don't like any of the cards in your hand? Draw a random card from the top of your deck. Need the discards reshuffled ASAP? Research a technology which gets reshuffled into the deck along with the discard pile.
So yeah, depending on the game design, making certain events temporarily impossible may not be such a bad thing.
davypi wrote:
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So then, tell me of a dice-driven game that is arguable more strategic (in terms of little reliance on luck) than Starcraft the board game. Name one.
Admittedly, I've not played Starcraft, so its not entirely a fair test, but once again, I would put Macao up as the contender. I browsed a few reviews of Starcraft and it sounds as though it plays similarly to Chaos in the Old World and/or Combat Commander, so I will have to make my comments based on those games.
I can say from experience that Starcraft is absolutely nothing like CitOW.
davypi wrote:
The real problem with this test I think involves the type of games you are looking at. If you want to talk about area control / combat games, I would easily concede the point that card draws are more likely to produce even distributions than dice rolls. So if the only point you are trying to make is that the outcome of your battles are more "fair" then I, and most people, will probably agree with you. However, the truly substaintal quibble I would have here is that these type of games are not card driven. They are tactics driven. Sure, some bad die rolls (or card draws) can ruin an excellent battle plan, but it isn't like any one army can attack another army at will. There are tons of other considerations. They have be within a certain range; they will have different strengths/weaknesses; if the game has such mechanics, battle conditions or victory conditions will change your decision as to when you might attack. Over a period of multiple plays, the player who is the better tactician will win. The cards/dice are not the core mechanism - unit movement/selection are the core mechanisms.
That might be true, but cards or dice determine how the units attack/work.
davypi wrote:
The other issue has to do with what we think of as strategy games. When I look at the games you've rated, I see very few euro games on the list. Your idea of strategy games seems to focus on either area control games or abstract games. My mind goes to worker placement or economic games like Caylus or Powergrid or Pillars of the Earth. Now, neither of us are "wrong" in perceptions, but I think the different points of view are relevant to the argument you are trying to make. For example, lets suppose that somebody were to devise a way in Powergrid such that the inputs and outputs of each factory were randomized via a die roll, and then an appropriate formula were used to balance the base cost of the factory. (Granted, this would be convoluted and impractical to actually implement, but just assume it could be done.) In my mind, this would actually produce a better game than having plants pulled from the deck. It would be possible for two players to own the same power plant; certain plants might never appear in a given game; new plants could be rolled that are not in the deck. Such a system would change the supply/demand curve for the resources, which you will have to account for when you bid on each plant. However, unlike with, say, a combat game, such a change would not adversely affect any single player because the information is open to all players before each auction begins. Players have an opportunity to adjust their strategy to the randomness instead of, as in a war games, having to accept the immediate consequences of a bad roll. I think you are too accustomed to playing games where the latter is true instead of the former. In the former situation, die rolls can actually add more variety and opportunity to a strategy game than a preconstructed deck would.
Lucky for me, I have played Power Grid, though over a year ago. Can't say for certain if the dice would improve/worsen the game, but the one part that makes me think "worse" is 2 players owning the same plant.
Also, not every wargame uses dice to win/lose battles. Some wargames also fit the description of adjusting to the randomness of a single event/action. Try Dune.
Dice can potentially add variety in a good way to a game, but again, that depends on the game, and I argue that the better board games use dice minimally (if at all).
davypi wrote:
This is exactly why I think Macao really blows a hole in all of your arguements. All players works with the same die rolls and are allowed to react to the dice. Sure, you can get rolls that help one player more than the other, but the resources you acquire from the dice have multiple uses, so you're never completely screwed. In fact, Macao also has a deck of cards and my experience with the game is that card draft will mess people up much more frequently than die rolls will.
You just reminded me of another game that sounds similar based solely on what you just said. Ad Astra. Same sort of concept on of the dice/card reveal the resource that every player gets, but unlike Macao, the value changes depending on how well setup you are on planets that produce that resource. Though in all fairness Macao is rated higher than Ad Astra.
davypi wrote:
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probability can be defied, which means any extremely well laid plan can fall apart against a poorly laid one because of the die roll results, and, well, there you have it.
I know I already made this point above, but it bears repeating. I've seen extremely well laid plans fall apart because of poor card draft and, well, there you have it. You still haven't proven your point. Again, I think it has to do with the games you are used to playing. If I've read the gameplay of Starcraft correctly, the randomness of the card pull happens before you even declare combat, so you adjust your strategy after the random happens. Unless you cite a combat game where you rolled your dice ahead of time and then choose which battle to play your ones and when to play your sixes, I'm not convinced that you are making a fair comparison.
You read incorrectly. The draws are made after you declare combats and decide which of your units are participating in the battle. First you have you initial hand, so you have an initial idea of what your odds are (there is a chart that shows the min/max attack/defense values of each unit of each race so you can plan accordingly, plus you can know what is in your and your opponent's discard piles). Then you draw a certain number of cards (usually 3 if you're the attacker, 1 if defender) to add into your hand which may improve your odds of winning. However, if you know that there is a card in your deck that you need, and that there are only 3 cards in your deck (the rest are discarded), then you know you are guaranteed to get that card when you attack. If more than 3 make up the deck, then you're taking a chance.
Choose which battle, or which units? Because I have to admit, if you're talking about a game where you roll dice before declaring a battle, knowing what your potential odds are of winning/losing, and can decide on battle based on that, I'd say a card game system would be far superior than a dice based system working with that mechanic. Case in point, what if you roll all 1s for your turn? A well made card-system can best that kind of dice system anyday.
Anyway, if choosing which units, Chaos in the Old World is a perfect example. If choosing a battle, you mine as well as be playing Liar's Dice, it's most likely better than any game that matches your description.
I appreciate dice in games precisely because I know what my odds are when I make a roll. I know I have a 1/6 chance to roll a 1 on a D6 and I know that I have a 1/36 chance to roll snake eyes on a 2D6. That's true every single time I pick up them bones, and I don't have to waste any brainpower trying to remember what happened three rolls previously.
However, that is not the case in card driven games. Card driven games introduce a memory element which I don't find nearly as enjoyable. The most basic example would be a deck with six cards numbered 1 through 6. If I don't pull a 1 the first time, the next time I have a 1/5 chance to pull a 1. Obviously I should be able to remember something that simple, but it introduces another element in the calculations for the game. In more complex games, it could be a huge advantage to know what is in the deck -- which may or may not be desirable...but since I don't like strong memory elements in my games, its not.
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
One game is not a sufficiently large sample size for randomness to balance out. That should be incredibly obvious.
But that's my point! If it doesn't balance out like yin yang, then it's imbalanced. If it can become very imbalanced, then it's not good for strategy gaming.
Bad luck streaks among poker players are legendary. In any game with random elements it is possible to go on lengthy low probability runs, both good and bad. Heck, if you decide to start playing Chess 960 you can go on a bad luck streak that would drive you crazy.
And I should add that you are picking on a really swingy example of dice based games, Risk is a luck heavy game period. Even if you replaced the dice mechanism with a card draw mechanism, its still going to be an extremely swingy game....at least unless you change the game to the point of being unrecognizable.
And actually, I think a simple elegant "fix" for the swingyness of Risk would be to just roll the number of dice equal to the number of armies that you have instead of limiting the offence to three dice and the defense to two dice. So when you've got a horde of 40 armies entering a country with 2 soldiers you'd roll forty dice against their two. Of course there is a chance that the lone holdouts could last forever, just rolling 6's twenty times in a row, but the odds are much lower than with the rules as written. There's a good chance that game might not be nearly as "fun" but I'd say this simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
Unless a card game was made that makes bad draw streaks impossible unless the player made too many poor planning decisions on his part (not the games fault, that's on the player for playing the game in that way). Games like that do exist (see previous post[s]), hence it is false that a simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
One game is not a sufficiently large sample size for randomness to balance out. That should be incredibly obvious.
But that's my point! If it doesn't balance out like yin yang, then it's imbalanced. If it can become very imbalanced, then it's not good for strategy gaming.
Bad luck streaks among poker players are legendary. In any game with random elements it is possible to go on lengthy low probability runs, both good and bad. Heck, if you decide to start playing Chess 960 you can go on a bad luck streak that would drive you crazy.
And I should add that you are picking on a really swingy example of dice based games, Risk is a luck heavy game period. Even if you replaced the dice mechanism with a card draw mechanism, its still going to be an extremely swingy game....at least unless you change the game to the point of being unrecognizable.
And actually, I think a simple elegant "fix" for the swingyness of Risk would be to just roll the number of dice equal to the number of armies that you have instead of limiting the offence to three dice and the defense to two dice. So when you've got a horde of 40 armies entering a country with 2 soldiers you'd roll forty dice against their two. Of course there is a chance that the lone holdouts could last forever, just rolling 6's twenty times in a row, but the odds are much lower than with the rules as written. There's a good chance that game might not be nearly as "fun" but I'd say this simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
Unless a card game was made that makes bad draw streaks impossible unless the player made too many poor planning decisions on his part (not the games fault, that's on the player for playing the game in that way). Games like that do exist (see previous post[s]), hence it is false that a simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
I never said that. Its all about using the right randomization mechanism for the job. I just think its silly to immediately dismiss dice as a potentially very useful tool. For example, Titan is a great strategic game, are you saying that drawing 18 cards from a deck would be any better than rolling 18 dice for your serpent? Or are you saying that because it needs dice, Titan is by definition not a good strategic game?
I was more critiquing your repeated use of Risk as an example of the flaws of using dice for randomization. In the gambling world, you could say War makes for a really boring gambling game (which you can now find in casinos); craps is a more interesting game, therefore cards clearly are useless for gambling. Or I could pull out Tic-Tac-Toe and say, see all perfect information abstracts leads towards draws and are really not of any interest. If you want to compare best in breed, don't pull out a 50 year old mutt to make your point.
He said in a previous post that he wasn't saying that in every situation cards are less random than dice. He said that you can make card driven games with very little, not gamebreaking, luck, whereas with dice, you cannot. [...] In dice driven games you have no effect on the outcome of dice rolls (unless you cheat ).
Indeed, I also believe that is his position, and it is also wrong. It might be easier to have systems in place that mitigate randomness with cards than with dice, but it's certainly not the case by necessity. There's dice roll modificators, combat result tables, effects that change how many dice you roll, rerolling possibilities, there are games that use dice as resources that can benefit you regardless of what you roll because a roll of 1 is not in and of itself better or worse than a roll of 6 (like Alien Frontiers or Kingsburg or Troyes), there are dice you can modify during the game in some LEGO titles, and there are plenty of other mechanics that make it possible to influence the results and then mitigate the effects of dice rolls.
As I said before, this post is about dice versus cards when it should really be about mitigatable versus non-mitigatable randomness that is quite independent of what the source of said randomness is.
I made the forum about randomness with my initial blog post, so I see no reason not to discuss it.
I can see that a good case is being made for certain types of dice games (out of the 3 I mentioned in a previous post). I might be wrong then. Guess it is better to state, then, that my arguments for cards against dice games mostly applies to dice game mechanic 1.
Dice mechanic 1: Player(s) must roll above/below a certain number, which is either higher/lower than the opponent's (potentially modified) roll, or roll higher/lower than an amount determined by a rule or element of the game.
The other 2 dice mechanic options seem to have a good way of competing with card-based games, especially mechanic #3, which you've cited in all 3 of you game examples (1 of which I've played). I don't agree with Alien Frontiers being better though, from my experience with it anyway. Not much better than Lords of Vegas. But at the same time, those dice-based games are certainly better than just about every other dice-based game out there.
To restate my philosophy, the main problem I have with dice in games is when you roll results that screw you over to the point where you feel cheated. Where your well-laid plans were messed up too easily by a dice roll. I have little to no problem with a die messing up someone's plans if it doesn't seem too harsh of a messer-upper (ie Twilight Struggle vs. The Ares Project). If a plan is laid well enough, just a lone random factor (a die roll) shouldn't be enough to defeat it. It must be combined with a good ploy by the opposing player. If a game gets messed up because of just a dice roll (or multiple rolls for a single battle), mainly because of rolls affecting several events by way of a streak (bad streak for the losing player, obviously), then I have a problem with it. I find that dice tend to be more infuriating than cards in this regard, usually because there are games that have everything great about them, until the dice systems come into play. The opposite is true for one game that I know of, Cosmic Encounter. However, that system could be easily replaced with dice and still be a terrible game (imho), so the argument goes both ways and cancels each other out there.
Anyway, there's the main reason why I hate dice in games, if I didn't state it clearly enough earlier. However, I've been seeing some pretty good counter arguments, on how dice can be used well. I would say that it limits dice down to 2 of 3 ways that can be used effectively without feeling "cheap" too often (as opposed to Risk, The Ares Project, Chaos in the Old World, etc.).
You read incorrectly. The draws are made after you declare combats and decide which of your units are participating in the battle. First you have you initial hand, so you have an initial idea of what your odds are (there is a chart that shows the min/max attack/defense values of each unit of each race so you can plan accordingly, plus you can know what is in your and your opponent's discard piles). Then you draw a certain number of cards (usually 3 if you're the attacker, 1 if defender) to add into your hand which may improve your odds of winning. However, if you know that there is a card in your deck that you need, and that there are only 3 cards in your deck (the rest are discarded), then you know you are guaranteed to get that card when you attack. If more than 3 make up the deck, then you're taking a chance.
Actually youfirst draw 3 cards and then you establish skirmishes From the Rulebook:
A battle is resolved by taking the following steps: 1. Place order token in contested area 2. Use “start of battle” abilities 3. Draw Combat cards 4. Attacker establishes skirmishes 5. Assign supporting units 6. Place Combat cards 7. Resolve skirmishes 8. Resolve splash damage 9. Resolve retreats
I greatly enjoy randomising elements in my games and am not a great fan of entirely deterministic games. What I get out of games with random elements are all the things that are frequently argued in their favour....tension, variety, replayability, the challenge of the unexpected to a player's versatility, and most importantly narrative. The last is most important to me.....I play to do my best and try to win but it's secondary to the process. This might be the telling factor for players.....I don't care if I lose, whereas many do (which is entirely fine).
I am one of those kinds of players. Those who don't care, well, then plenty of dice games are perfectly suited for them.
goshublue wrote:
I don't distinguish between dice and cards as randomisers. The important factor is not what does the randomising but how well it is balanced with the ability to exert control over the flow of the game. An entirely deterministic game can be wretched if badly designed, as can a game with random elements poorly integrated into the system. The perfect game for me throws me unexpected challenges but allows me to exercise skill, experience, understanding of probability , planning and versatility to maximise my chances of succeeding when the random elements occur. This is probably what most people mean when they talk about "managing probability".
For those who care about winning, they hate it when the chance of succeeding/failing is determined by a roll of the die, even with modifiers going for them. For those who don't care, they're in it for the narrative, so the outcome doesn't matter that much, as you've stated.
goshublue wrote:
I enjoy many games but one of my favourite is cited in the original post....Magic Realm. I love Magic Realm for its fine mix of determinism and chance. It's possible to play with a high level of skill, proficiency and success but the dice can be particularly cruel and random setbacks are always just around the corner....and in Magic Realm random setbacks (such as a failed Hide roll) are often instantly fatal. For some that would be unacceptable. For me it is a critical tension of the game, part of the price of great narrative (no game does it like Magic Realm) but most importantly something I know I can mitigate with good play. For me the balance in Magic Realm is just right.....and is similarly well designed into other games.
Brent.
As hypocritical as this sounds, I also enjoy that game, but mainly because it's not strictly player vs player. It's more player vs. game, and sometimes player vs. player. Games like that you usually play more for the narrative and less for the competition.
but found in testing that the deterministic nature didn't have the same excitement as tossing lots of dice. Several of the techs were introduced to mitigate luck somewhat, although of course a lucky (or unlucky) streak will overcome that. In the end we felt that with the number of dice that get tossed during the course of the average game, and the length of the game once players get used to it (45-60 minutes), made the combat system work to our taste.
A chit-pull variant was also proposed by another player here:
But as an earlier post noted, an episode of the amazingly educational and entertaining podcast Ludology, hosted by - hey, it's me! - discussed how the memory element can distort things, and as you introduce more frequent shuffling you end up converging on regular dice distributions anyway.
I totally understand where you're coming from, and realize this issue is as much a 'taste' as a design issue, but wanted to give you some background about what we tried and why we ended up where we did.
Thanks for the thoughtful discussion!
Geoff
Well, I checked some of the posts of both those linked threads, and I can see why the combat system you have in the game is, well, superior to both those variants. Don't see how the combat in the game could work any other way without redesigning the cards, but that may change the game too radically. So it's meant to stand as it is because it couldn't be made any better with all the mechanics it has built into it. Changing one causes the others to fall.
For the record, I do enjoy playing the game, just not too often and not when I'm feeling very competitive (when I'm in that mood, I might pull a rage quit [hasn't happened, yet]). I won't lie, it's a good well made game. It just depends on your tastes and what mood you're in. So, thanks for making the game.
Oh yeah, just in case you read this and wish to reply, just how inspired by Starcraft (not necessarily the board game, but the video game, the units and the races and how they worked in it) were you when making the game?
Wait what? If you roll only ones and your opponent rolls only 6s you can win twilight struggle? In what world? That means he dominates western Asia, picks up a bunch of uncounterable points in space, has favorable results in every war event (possibly 10 vp), and successful coups and relignment 100% of the time. If you're both competent, how do you win?
Well first off, you could have enough influence in a country to where the opponent rolling a 6 won't remove enough of you for him to gain control.
Second, if you control the country that your opponent played the war event on, and control enough of the adjacent countries, then it's impossible for him to win with the war event (thus will only get the 2 military ops advancement).
Third, you can limit you opponent's rolls in all of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East once the defcon reaches certain points, and make it impossible for coups in battleground countries, thus can only focus on laying influence.
Fourth, your opponent may screw himself by placing the defcon at track 2 if you play a card that allows you to play a random card from your opponents hand, and that card is one of the 2 cards that can be used for 1 op point, thus you can play the card for an op to do a coup in a battleground country outside of the 3 regions to start a thermonuclear war, which is played as if your opponent did it, thus causing you to win the game.
And fifth, just because someone wins a few coups in the countries that will be scored, doesn't mean they have more control over the country than you do, thus you can still score higher with the scoring cards and win the game, making your opponent feel stupid for using his ops more for coups and less for laying influence.
Granted you're less likely to win if you only roll 1s, but it's possible. And any decent veteran player will be smart enough to know that he can't rely on dice rolls, thus won't coup too often, so you would most likely be playing someone who would rather press his luck than play intelligently, which will cause him to lose most of the time.
And if it doesn't balance out (there are game sessions where it might not, like Risk)?
One game is not a sufficiently large sample size for randomness to balance out. That should be incredibly obvious.
But that's my point! If it doesn't balance out like yin yang, then it's imbalanced. If it can become very imbalanced, then it's not good for strategy gaming.
Bad luck streaks among poker players are legendary. In any game with random elements it is possible to go on lengthy low probability runs, both good and bad. Heck, if you decide to start playing Chess 960 you can go on a bad luck streak that would drive you crazy.
And I should add that you are picking on a really swingy example of dice based games, Risk is a luck heavy game period. Even if you replaced the dice mechanism with a card draw mechanism, its still going to be an extremely swingy game....at least unless you change the game to the point of being unrecognizable.
And actually, I think a simple elegant "fix" for the swingyness of Risk would be to just roll the number of dice equal to the number of armies that you have instead of limiting the offence to three dice and the defense to two dice. So when you've got a horde of 40 armies entering a country with 2 soldiers you'd roll forty dice against their two. Of course there is a chance that the lone holdouts could last forever, just rolling 6's twenty times in a row, but the odds are much lower than with the rules as written. There's a good chance that game might not be nearly as "fun" but I'd say this simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
Unless a card game was made that makes bad draw streaks impossible unless the player made too many poor planning decisions on his part (not the games fault, that's on the player for playing the game in that way). Games like that do exist (see previous post[s]), hence it is false that a simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
I never said that.
You're kidding right? Didn't you even compare the bold to what you wrote near the bottom of your previous post I responded to? I copy-pasted your sentence and just inserted the word "a".
aaarg_ink wrote:
Its all about using the right randomization mechanism for the job. I just think its silly to immediately dismiss dice as a potentially very useful tool. For example, Titan is a great strategic game, are you saying that drawing 18 cards from a deck would be any better than rolling 18 dice for your serpent? Or are you saying that because it needs dice, Titan is by definition not a good strategic game?
More the latter than anything else. As for the former, well, not necessarily 18 cards. That would depend on how the card system would work. I haven't played the game, so I couldn't say for certain if a card system could substitute the dice system without causing other mechanics in the game to change to fit the cards, thus changing the game entirely. So I couldn't say for certain if Titan is a good or bad strategic game, but I can predict bad.
aaarg_ink wrote:
I was more critiquing your repeated use of Risk as an example of the flaws of using dice for randomization. In the gambling world, you could say War makes for a really boring gambling game (which you can now find in casinos); craps is a more interesting game, therefore cards clearly are useless for gambling. Or I could pull out Tic-Tac-Toe and say, see all perfect information abstracts leads towards draws and are really not of any interest. If you want to compare best in breed, don't pull out a 50 year old mutt to make your point.
Alright fine, Nexus Ops, The Ares Project, Chaos in the Old World, Risk Legacy. That good enough for you?
You read incorrectly. The draws are made after you declare combats and decide which of your units are participating in the battle. First you have you initial hand, so you have an initial idea of what your odds are (there is a chart that shows the min/max attack/defense values of each unit of each race so you can plan accordingly, plus you can know what is in your and your opponent's discard piles). Then you draw a certain number of cards (usually 3 if you're the attacker, 1 if defender) to add into your hand which may improve your odds of winning. However, if you know that there is a card in your deck that you need, and that there are only 3 cards in your deck (the rest are discarded), then you know you are guaranteed to get that card when you attack. If more than 3 make up the deck, then you're taking a chance.
Actually youfirst draw 3 cards and then you establish skirmishes From the Rulebook:
A battle is resolved by taking the following steps: 1. Place order token in contested area 2. Use “start of battle” abilities 3. Draw Combat cards 4. Attacker establishes skirmishes 5. Assign supporting units 6. Place Combat cards 7. Resolve skirmishes 8. Resolve splash damage 9. Resolve retreats
Page 29 of the rulebook: PRELUDE TO BATTLE As described previously, all battles are fought as a result of the active player executing a Mobilize order and moving his units into an area containing enemy units. Such an area is referred to as the contested area.
After the active player has completed all his movement allowed by the Mobilize order [...] if he created a contested area, a battle begins there.
A battle is resolved by taking the following steps:
Thus the units you wish to use in combat are moved into the area with the opposing units before any of the stuff listed on the battle steps, which come immediately after what I just wrote.
I never said you establish skirmishes before you draw cards, I said you decide which units you will use in the battle before you draw cards.
You read incorrectly. The draws are made after you declare combats and decide which of your units are participating in the battle. First you have you initial hand, so you have an initial idea of what your odds are (there is a chart that shows the min/max attack/defense values of each unit of each race so you can plan accordingly, plus you can know what is in your and your opponent's discard piles). Then you draw a certain number of cards (usually 3 if you're the attacker, 1 if defender) to add into your hand which may improve your odds of winning. However, if you know that there is a card in your deck that you need, and that there are only 3 cards in your deck (the rest are discarded), then you know you are guaranteed to get that card when you attack. If more than 3 make up the deck, then you're taking a chance.
Actually youfirst draw 3 cards and then you establish skirmishes From the Rulebook:
A battle is resolved by taking the following steps: 1. Place order token in contested area 2. Use “start of battle” abilities 3. Draw Combat cards 4. Attacker establishes skirmishes 5. Assign supporting units 6. Place Combat cards 7. Resolve skirmishes 8. Resolve splash damage 9. Resolve retreats
Page 29 of the rulebook: PRELUDE TO BATTLE As described previously, all battles are fought as a result of the active player executing a Mobilize order and moving his units into an area containing enemy units. Such an area is referred to as the contested area.
After the active player has completed all his movement allowed by the Mobilize order [...] if he created a contested area, a battle begins there.
A battle is resolved by taking the following steps:
Thus the units you wish to use in combat are moved into the area with the opposing units before any of the stuff listed on the battle steps, which come immediately after what I just wrote.
I never said you establish skirmishes before you draw cards, I said you decide which units you will use in the battle before you draw cards.
You play Starcraft the board game? Awesome! If you enjoy it at all, you should try it with the Brood Wars expansion. It tweaks the game to perfection, balancing out a few card combat values, adds in more units/technologies/planets, and adds a new order to the benefit of defense.
6d6 = (2 + 4 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 2) = 23
Edit: *looks at Floating World's profile* Oh, you do play with the Brood War expansion. In that case, more power to yah.
And actually, I think a simple elegant "fix" for the swingyness of Risk would be to just roll the number of dice equal to the number of armies that you have instead of limiting the offence to three dice and the defense to two dice. So when you've got a horde of 40 armies entering a country with 2 soldiers you'd roll forty dice against their two. Of course there is a chance that the lone holdouts could last forever, just rolling 6's twenty times in a row, but the odds are much lower than with the rules as written. There's a good chance that game might not be nearly as "fun" but I'd say this simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
Unless a card game was made that makes bad draw streaks impossible unless the player made too many poor planning decisions on his part (not the games fault, that's on the player for playing the game in that way). Games like that do exist (see previous post[s]), hence it is false that a simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
I never said that.
You're kidding right? Didn't you even compare the bold to what you wrote near the bottom of your previous post I responded to? I copy-pasted your sentence and just inserted the word "a".
Ok, I'm sorry, my sentence was not well written. In context I meant that to "fix" the specific game of risk I felt my dice driven "solution" would be better than any card driven mechanic that I could think of at that time. I did not mean for it to be a general statement. Of course taken out of context, my sentence makes no sense - not even to me!
Quote:
Alright fine, Nexus Ops, The Ares Project, Chaos in the Old World, Risk Legacy. That good enough for you?
Unfortuantely it seems that the dice driven games that we've played do not overlap. I haven't played any of those listed games, though I strongly suspect that Nexus Ops and Risk Legacy are both developed from the older wargaming dice tradition rather than the new innovative games that I and others have listed. But without common ground I guess there isn't much more to say than we'll just have to disagree....And that I'm still definite that you're completely wrong -- no matter how bad my argumentative skills are...which as noted above can be quite considerable.
You play Starcraft the board game? Awesome! If you enjoy it at all, you should try it with the Brood Wars expansion. It tweaks the game to perfection, balancing out a few card combat values, adds in more units/technologies/planets, and adds a new order to the benefit of defense.
And actually, I think a simple elegant "fix" for the swingyness of Risk would be to just roll the number of dice equal to the number of armies that you have instead of limiting the offence to three dice and the defense to two dice. So when you've got a horde of 40 armies entering a country with 2 soldiers you'd roll forty dice against their two. Of course there is a chance that the lone holdouts could last forever, just rolling 6's twenty times in a row, but the odds are much lower than with the rules as written. There's a good chance that game might not be nearly as "fun" but I'd say this simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
Unless a card game was made that makes bad draw streaks impossible unless the player made too many poor planning decisions on his part (not the games fault, that's on the player for playing the game in that way). Games like that do exist (see previous post[s]), hence it is false that a simple dice based mechanic would balance out luck issues much more elegantly than any card driven mechanic.
I never said that.
You're kidding right? Didn't you even compare the bold to what you wrote near the bottom of your previous post I responded to? I copy-pasted your sentence and just inserted the word "a".
Ok, I'm sorry, my sentence was not well written. In context I meant that to "fix" the specific game of risk I felt my dice driven "solution" would be better than any card driven mechanic that I could think of at that time. I did not mean for it to be a general statement. Of course taken out of context, my sentence makes no sense - not even to me!
Quote:
Alright fine, Nexus Ops, The Ares Project, Chaos in the Old World, Risk Legacy. That good enough for you?
Unfortuantely it seems that the dice driven games that we've played do not overlap. I haven't played any of those listed games, though I strongly suspect that Nexus Ops and Risk Legacy are both developed from the older wargaming dice tradition rather than the new innovative games that I and others have listed. But without common ground I guess there isn't much more to say than we'll just have to disagree....And that I'm still definite that you're completely wrong -- no matter how bad my argumentative skills are...which as noted above can be quite considerable.
Check some of my recent replies. Have had a "small" change of heart. Also edited the initial blog post, including the 3 main dice mechanics used in various games, and pointing out the system I hate the most.
Despite my position change, I have the same relative opinion of what I would like to call dice mechanic #1, the mechanic used in games like Risk, Nexus Ops, and The Ares Project.
I will say that I no longer support the claim of any card based system being better than any simple dice based system. With that said, I will argue that there are more "varieties" of good games with card-based systems than there are of good games with dice-based systems, especially with dice system #1. But there are some dice-based games that stand up pretty well to some of the best card-based games. I just doubt the numerical variety amount of them.
Hehehe well then we are a lot closer than I thought! I think we both agree that #3 is by far the most interesting/innovative thing going and is most likely why there has been an resurgence of dice in well received games.
And I would add that #2 (rolling multiple dice) can often be more annoying than #1 (single die) when its just used in a simplistic way. Maybe I'm not that mathematically inclined but my brain does not quickly compute the odds of getting 7 or higher on 2D6. With a single die, you can very intuitively compute the odds, if I know must roll 4 or higher on the D6 then I know that I have a 50% chance of winning and can plan accordingly.
As such, I would say that I don't mind #1 that much when used judiciously. But I agree with you that it is often used thoughtlessly which is to the detriment of the games.
Interesting note, a couple months ago I played Hare and Tortoise at a local convention. One of the players has owned almost every version of the game except for the latest Ravensberger release which has a set of random event cards that you draw whenever you land on a "hare" space. These random events can be good or bad with a baked in "catch the leader" edge to it. My friend (the game designer, Kevin Nunn) noted that he did not enjoy this as much as an earlier version of the game where you rolled a D6 when you landed on the space and consulted a table relative to your position in the game (eg if you rolled a 6 the event that happened to you would be different depending on whether you were in first, second, third, etc). I think I agree with Kevin, the card deck in this case adds an unnecessary memory element to the game while also adding more uncertainty about might might happen to you when you land on the space. With the D6, you know what 6 things might happen to you in that space and you can quickly compute whether it is worth the risk or not to land on the hare space. (complete random aside: the downside artistically to the "D6 and table approach" for Hare and Tortoise is that then you can't call it a game that looks like a roll and move game but it doesn't have dice)
Lest I sound as someone who is completely anti-cards as randomization, let me mention one game which I think is absolutely stellar in using cards, even though it is in the most basic way - Aton. This is a simple (almost filler) easy to learn but very rich 2player area control game.
Both players start with their own decks which have 9 instances each of the numbers 1,2,3,4. Each turn the players will draw and play four cards in four different slots. Usually the game lasts through about one run through the deck, though it may last a little longer. The beauty of the card system -- even though it is extremely simple is that you KNOW you will have the same card draw as your opponent at least through the first run through the deck, and so while you might not get what you want this turn, you better be damn ready to go when the cards come your way -- which they will I absolutely love this game, and I could never imagine it being played with D4's...though I'd be curious to try now that I've thought of it.....
However, I will admit that I am still partial to dice...especially as one of the few people who seems to enjoy Los Banditos as much as the highly lauded Battle Line/Schotten-Totten.
Well, I checked some of the posts of both those linked threads, and I can see why the combat system you have in the game is, well, superior to both those variants. Don't see how the combat in the game could work any other way without redesigning the cards, but that may change the game too radically. So it's meant to stand as it is because it couldn't be made any better with all the mechanics it has built into it. Changing one causes the others to fall.
For the record, I do enjoy playing the game, just not too often and not when I'm feeling very competitive (when I'm in that mood, I might pull a rage quit [hasn't happened, yet]). I won't lie, it's a good well made game. It just depends on your tastes and what mood you're in. So, thanks for making the game.
Oh yeah, just in case you read this and wish to reply, just how inspired by Starcraft (not necessarily the board game, but the video game, the units and the races and how they worked in it) were you when making the game? [/geekroll]
We were very much inspired by RTS's in general, and Starcraft in particular.
In fact, we had the first idea for the game after playing Starcraft the Boardgame. I liked the game, but it didn't capture the feel of an RTS for me - it had the trappings, but not the feel. So I thought about what was missing and decided to try my hand at designing one myself. Specifically our design goals were:
Some form of a 'base' Rock/Paper/Scissors combat mechanic Heavy Fog of War Choices about what to build - couldn't build everything Factions - as different as we could make them
Certainly the factions were inspired by Starcraft and the sci-fi tropes that it draws on, but we went in slightly different directions. In the end I think the Terrans and Xenos were more Starship Troopers, Kahoum became more 'wizardy' based on elemental forces (although the Obelisks are a nod to Pylons, but act quite differently), and Colossus comes from Battletech/Voltron/Gigantor.
There are three distinctions the blog post (and subsequent comments) haven't made clear:
First, you might roll dice AFTER making your decisions, as in Risk and Stone Age. Even with modifiers, the dice can hate you and lead to frustration. Or you might roll dice BEFORE making your decisions. The dice constrain what you can do. The simplest form of this is roll-and-move (and Catan), which often give you no "choice" at all. But done right, this can lead to some strategic choices. Games I'm aware of which fall into this category include Yspahan, Livingstone, Alea Iacta Est, and the already-mentioned Alien Frontiers, Troyes, and Macao.
Second, most games assign a dice roll to each individual player. Some games, like Yspahan and Livingstone treat the dice as a common pool, where after they are rolled, all players have an equal chance to use them. In those two games the dice are drafted, but I'm pretty sure in some games each player can use the dice as they wish, not denying other players that same ability. Although in Troyes you can buy dice from other players, you have to pay for the privilege, so Troyes is not a communal-dice game.
Third, many games have rolls that are inherently better and inherently worse. Alien Frontiers does a very good job of avoiding this (although there is one place they could have done better). Unfortunately I find that Troyes and Kingsburg favor high rolls, so if you consistently roll low, you are at a significant disadvantage. Games with non-numeric dice (like Ra: The Dice Game or Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age, to take a couple lighter examples, can more easily avoid this, as long as there are not inherently-better symbols.
I read about the first half of this thread (of posts not half of the OP) if I missed something important I apologize. I even agree fundamentally with the OP in board game like/dislikes but half the statements about chance and probability seem to be straight wrong. Here is my attempt to re-phrase things in a way that gets to some important points without causing mathematicians to jump out nearby windows.
So there are three factors 1. Effects of skill differences on your probability for winning a game. (Objective) 2. Difficulty of playing at any given skill level. (Semi-Objective) 3. Obviousness of chance. (Highly-Subjective)
You say you don’t like risk and that it’s a bad strategy game. I agree completely but it has everything to do with game design and is only related to dice in terms of #3. To fully look at the game and its issues: 1. Even with perfect strategy a player still has a decent chance of losing to even a mediocre player (no I can’t give a number, defining perfect and mediocre strategy and then calculating the odds would take at least a week of my life). Worse a good player versus a slightly worse player probably has little more than even odds. 2. It is fairly easy to play well, possibly close to perfectly in risk (my observation up for debate). 3. Luck is very obvious (both from experience and comments here, when you play risk it is obvious to you that the die determine your fate).
However apart from 3 it is ALL game design. Statistically it is easy to build equivalent systems or at least close using dice or cards (ex 52 sided dice instead of a standard deck) and many of them will be much better disguised then that example.
So, instead of talking about dice or no dice, I think strategy games with an element of chance should have: 1. High effects of skill differences on winning games (playing slightly better than your opponent gives you a significantly better chance of winning than them) 2. Very hard or impossible for a human to play perfectly (ex Chess>>Checkers) 3. Less obvious chance (I might even agree with you that cards can often obscure chance better than dice) But all this should be used to evaluate individual board games. Even talking about dice systems in the OP a game could have risk or modified risk style battles but still be a good strategy game by points 1 and 2.
Your assessment of Risk has forced me to don my "Risk fan" microbadge, as I think you're selling it way short. Yours is a common sentiment around here though, so you'll fit right in.
fishy12 wrote:
So, instead of talking about dice or no dice, I think strategy games with an element of chance should have: 1. High effects of skill differences on winning games (playing slightly better than your opponent gives you a significantly better chance of winning than them) 2. Very hard or impossible for a human to play perfectly (ex Chess>>Checkers) 3. Less obvious chance (I might even agree with you that cards can often obscure chance better than dice)
This is perhaps a matter of taste, but I don't agree with #3. I think the best strategy games make the aspects of the game that rely on chance (and the odds involved) perfectly clear. This maximizes the players' ability to take the randomness into account, emphasizing the strategy rather than obscuring it.
I read about the first half of this thread (of posts not half of the OP) if I missed something important I apologize. I even agree fundamentally with the OP in board game like/dislikes but half the statements about chance and probability seem to be straight wrong. Here is my attempt to re-phrase things in a way that gets to some important points without causing mathematicians to jump out nearby windows.
So there are three factors 1. Effects of skill differences on your probability for winning a game. (Objective) 2. Difficulty of playing at any given skill level. (Semi-Objective) 3. Obviousness of chance. (Highly-Subjective)
You say you don’t like risk and that it’s a bad strategy game. I agree completely but it has everything to do with game design and is only related to dice in terms of #3. To fully look at the game and its issues: 1. Even with perfect strategy a player still has a decent chance of losing to even a mediocre player (no I can’t give a number, defining perfect and mediocre strategy and then calculating the odds would take at least a week of my life). Worse a good player versus a slightly worse player probably has little more than even odds. 2. It is fairly easy to play well, possibly close to perfectly in risk (my observation up for debate). 3. Luck is very obvious (both from experience and comments here, when you play risk it is obvious to you that the die determine your fate).
However apart from 3 it is ALL game design. Statistically it is easy to build equivalent systems using dice or cards (ex 52 sided dice instead of a standard deck) and many of them will be much better disguised then that example.
So, instead of talking about dice or no dice, I think strategy games with an element of chance should have: 1. High effects of skill differences on winning games (playing slightly better than your opponent gives you a significantly better chance of winning than them) 2. Very hard or impossible for a human to play perfectly (ex Chess>>Checkers) 3. Less obvious chance (I might even agree with you that cards can often obscure chance better than dice) But all this should be used to evaluate individual board games. Even talking about dice systems in the OP a game could have risk or modified risk style battles but still be a good strategy game by points 1 and 2.
Final point I haven’t played a lot of the games mentioned but I would guess that luck is a bigger factor in many games then you would guess.
I think you misunderstood. He was saying that you can make a game that is less luck driven by using cards, than by using dice. With dice there is always that slim chance that things will go wrong if you roll badly against the odds. If you have a hand of cards From the beginning of the game and you have a way to take cards out and in of your hand (as in Starcraft) you will be prepared for any situation.
Your assessment of Risk has forced me to don my "Risk fan" microbadge, as I think you're selling it way short. Yours is a common sentiment around here though, so you'll fit right in.
fishy12 wrote:
So, instead of talking about dice or no dice, I think strategy games with an element of chance should have: 1. High effects of skill differences on winning games (playing slightly better than your opponent gives you a significantly better chance of winning than them) 2. Very hard or impossible for a human to play perfectly (ex Chess>>Checkers) 3. Less obvious chance (I might even agree with you that cards can often obscure chance better than dice)
This is perhaps a matter of taste, but I don't agree with #3. I think the best strategy games make the aspects of the game that rely on chance (and the odds involved) perfectly clear. This maximizes the players' ability to take the randomness into account, emphasizing the strategy rather than obscuring it.
Thanks for the welcome. I will admit it has been some years since i played risk. On three I think you do have a decent point, and a potential bonus for dice systems. It still seems like the main complaint voiced by the OP however.
Floating World wrote:
I think you misunderstood. He was saying that you can make a game that is less luck driven by using cards, than by using dice. With dice there is always that slim chance that things will go wrong if you roll badly against the odds. If you have a hand of cards From the beginning of the game and you have a way to take cards out and in of your hand (as in Starcraft) you will be prepared for any situation.
I think I would disagree here. Unless you look through your entire deck and choose cards then every time you draw you adjust your probability of winning up or down, just as every role of the dice does the same thing. I think cards just hide that fact better from most people. In any situation you have a given number of cards that will improve your situation relative to your opponent and a given number that will not, same as the role of the die. I need to go read the rules or play Starcraft but in most cases cards or dice that slim chance still exists.
Your assessment of Risk has forced me to don my "Risk fan" microbadge, as I think you're selling it way short. Yours is a common sentiment around here though, so you'll fit right in.
fishy12 wrote:
So, instead of talking about dice or no dice, I think strategy games with an element of chance should have: 1. High effects of skill differences on winning games (playing slightly better than your opponent gives you a significantly better chance of winning than them) 2. Very hard or impossible for a human to play perfectly (ex Chess>>Checkers) 3. Less obvious chance (I might even agree with you that cards can often obscure chance better than dice)
This is perhaps a matter of taste, but I don't agree with #3. I think the best strategy games make the aspects of the game that rely on chance (and the odds involved) perfectly clear. This maximizes the players' ability to take the randomness into account, emphasizing the strategy rather than obscuring it.
Thanks for the welcome. I will admit it has been some years since i played risk. On three I think you do have a decent point, and a potential bonus for dice systems. It still seems like the main complaint voiced by the OP however.
Floating World wrote:
I think you misunderstood. He was saying that you can make a game that is less luck driven by using cards, than by using dice. With dice there is always that slim chance that things will go wrong if you roll badly against the odds. If you have a hand of cards From the beginning of the game and you have a way to take cards out and in of your hand (as in Starcraft) you will be prepared for any situation.
I think I would disagree here. Unless you look through your entire deck and choose cards then every time you draw you adjust your probability of winning up or down, just as every role of the dice does the same thing. I think cards just hide that fact better from most people. In any situation you have a given number of cards that will improve your situation relative to your opponent and a given number that will not, same as the role of the die. I need to go read the rules or play Starcraft but in most cases cards or dice that slim chance still exists.
You need to provide an example. In STarcraft you have a hand of 6-8 cards and you r deck is 20 cards (18 in the base game) You need the cadrss to match your units in battle and by researching and attacking you get 3 cards in your hand. You also ha 9-11 units. And some cards have multiple units on them, so you cannot have an unlucky draw that won't match your unit entirely, whereas you can always miss with dice if you roll badly.
I read about the first half of this thread (of posts not half of the OP) if I missed something important I apologize. I even agree fundamentally with the OP in board game like/dislikes but half the statements about chance and probability seem to be straight wrong. Here is my attempt to re-phrase things in a way that gets to some important points without causing mathematicians to jump out nearby windows.
So there are three factors 1. Effects of skill differences on your probability for winning a game. (Objective) 2. Difficulty of playing at any given skill level. (Semi-Objective) 3. Obviousness of chance. (Highly-Subjective)
You say you don’t like risk and that it’s a bad strategy game. I agree completely but it has everything to do with game design and is only related to dice in terms of #3. To fully look at the game and its issues: 1. Even with perfect strategy a player still has a decent chance of losing to even a mediocre player (no I can’t give a number, defining perfect and mediocre strategy and then calculating the odds would take at least a week of my life). Worse a good player versus a slightly worse player probably has little more than even odds. 2. It is fairly easy to play well, possibly close to perfectly in risk (my observation up for debate). 3. Luck is very obvious (both from experience and comments here, when you play risk it is obvious to you that the die determine your fate).
However apart from 3 it is ALL game design. Statistically it is easy to build equivalent systems or at least close using dice or cards (ex 52 sided dice instead of a standard deck) and many of them will be much better disguised then that example.
So, instead of talking about dice or no dice, I think strategy games with an element of chance should have: 1. High effects of skill differences on winning games (playing slightly better than your opponent gives you a significantly better chance of winning than them) 2. Very hard or impossible for a human to play perfectly (ex Chess>>Checkers) 3. Less obvious chance (I might even agree with you that cards can often obscure chance better than dice) But all this should be used to evaluate individual board games. Even talking about dice systems in the OP a game could have risk or modified risk style battles but still be a good strategy game by points 1 and 2.
Final point I haven’t played a lot of the games mentioned but I would guess that luck is a bigger factor in many games then you would guess.
[edit] 52 sided dice in place of a deck of cards is completely incorrect[/edit]
Nice to see that this post is still getting looked at. Enjoyed the link. Rest assured, I've learned to swallow my pride and admit when I'm wrong many years ago.
That said, a 52 sided dice (or however many sides it needs to work ) is not an equivalent system for a number of reasons (unless each card is immediately shuffled back into the deck after being drawn and immediately used, in which case why even bother making such a system card-based rather than dice-based?). First off, counting cards. Secondly, the outcome probability changes with every draw, making it more and more likely to draw a specific card the further into the game you go (or next to impossible if the card was drawn).
In every single one of my favorite games (abstract strategy games aside), I am well aware of the luck factor and how much of a factor it plays in every action I take. With Starcraft, it's in the board set-up and the card draws (though the decks are a controlled luck factor in a similar vain as Dominion).
With Dune, also a luck factor in Treachery card draws and the Spice Deck (though the Atreides don't have that disadvantage). That said, there are other ways aside from analyzing statistically what the next card draw will be, from character abilities to card abilities to seeing how badly some players want a card (or bluffing that they want a card), to where players move on the board (are they making a go for the next spice blow?).
With Twilight Struggle, well I won't lie, that game has a lot of luck in it. However, the game was designed in such a way that the quantity of cards tend to balance out in power and potential no matter which player holds them. Sometimes it's just as bad to hold a card of your type as it is to hold one of your opponents (you'd have to play the game to understand). But aside from that, the dice (potentially modified in rolls) are luck, but they're optional (though you will eventually want to take a chance).
Chaos in the Old World, yes, very luck based with the draws and the rolls. After a while I started to dislike the whole "Roll a 6 and get an extra roll" bit, but that's why house rules exist. That said, every card is beneficial in some way, no matter what you draw. Plus other players can gang up on the leading player in a way to keep things balanced out (I enjoy games that encourage temporary alliances that can be broken at any moment).
Ad Astra, well now, that's one with the least amount of luck as I have seen in a non-abstract strategy game. Sure planets are placed randomly, but the way you explore and land on each one really limits the luck factor. The limited Alien Artifacts, I feel, add just the right amount of random spice to the game, randomness that isn't overpowered. That game is all about reading your opponents like you were playing a poker game.
Dominant Species (purely luck of the draw), Cyclades (bit of both, mostly draw), The Ares Project (bit of both), and others have their own share of luck. And I will admit, over the last week or so, I have learned to enjoy The Ares Project more. The dice still anger me at times, but on the other hand I can look back at the game and know what I could have done different to have allowed me to win the game (aside from rolling better).
It's not just about the amount of luck that's in the game, but how it's implemented, how much control (or lack thereof) players have over the luck, how the mechanics and players adapt to the luck, etc. Dice are things that almost always cannot be controlled, no matter what sort of mechanic is used to modify the results (note the words "almost always", there always tends to be a few exceptions to things). And luck is good. Luck is what keeps a game fresh and fun with each play. But at the same time, it shouldn't feel like luck is driving the game forward, at least not with strategy games. I believe card-driven games (not all of them, but a fair portion) control the luck factor a lot better than just about every dice-driven game. And I especially believe this for the top best rated board games out there.
Let me end this post with an example. Twilight Struggle. The first time you play the game when you're not acquainted with the cards at all, you would think it's very luck based, that the luck of the draw is practically the same as a roll of the die. A card comes up that gives you a number of points to use (usually 1-4) in one place or another, why not roll a D4? Each card may be unique, but they all have to do with placing points (influence) on the board. What makes it different than a glorified Axis & Allies? But then you play it a few more times, and then you start to anticipate the cards you or your opponent could get, so you prepare yourself accordingly, changing where you make your plays, determining whether you should roll a dice here or play the points there. And then you realize that the more familiar with the cards you get, the better you can strategize and take things into account, and ultimately know whether you're playing better than your opponent or vice versa, to the point that you can get to a certain point in the game where you will know that there is no way your opponent will be able to catch up to you, that you have won. It's just going to take the rest of the turn or a couple of rounds for your opponent to realize it. That kind of feeling of achievement in besting your opponent is one that I have never felt in any dice-based game that I have played, and doubt I ever will. That is why I made this theory that most of the "Best board games ever" out there are card-based games, or games with a very strong card element that accompanies the dice to the point where you worry more about what card is played than what die result you will get.
You need to provide an example. In STarcraft you have a hand of 6-8 cards and you r deck is 20 cards (18 in the base game) You need the cadrss to match your units in battle and by researching and attacking you get 3 cards in your hand. You also ha 9-11 units. And some cards have multiple units on them, so you cannot have an unlucky draw that won't match your unit entirely, whereas you can always miss with dice if you roll badly.
I guess my main point is at the beginning of a game of StarCraft or risk between equally skilled players (let’s pretend the games are perfectly balanced) each has a 50/50 chance of winning. The complaints about risk seem to be “Even if I am WAY ahead I can still lose by rolling lots of 1’s.” The game was a coin flip to begin with. Your opponent is just as good as you. So how did you get way ahead? By being lucky. A game of StarCraft might get to a point where no amount of luck can save a player, and that might make some gamers happy, but in a game of equally skilled opponents the player in the lead got that way by being lucky. He also played to his best, which he needed to do to be in the lead, but it is not why he is in the lead.
Cards or dice are irrelevant. When you play a game with chance against someone who matches you very closely in skill, luck will determine the winner more often than who plays that tiny little bit closer to the perfect game. So talk about how luck is incorporated. Say StarCraft is good because you are just a tad better than someone but that allows you to win the game against them 90% of the time. Or Say you like it because there are no sudden swings, decline comes in a long run of less than ideal cards over multiple turns. Or that people in the lead stay in the lead if they continue to play well. Talking cards or dice hides these attributes rather than bringing them front and center. You are looking at the game design in how much difference skill makes, and how obvious or concealed the coin flip is, not whether the game uses cards or dice to get to a certain set of probabilities.
*notices the total lack of examples, apologizes and goes to bed*
I have to say that I've found this discussion both interesting and entertaining.
First to get my innate biases out of the way: I like and play games with both dice and card driven mechanisms. Both card driven and dice driven mechanisms introduce randomness. Some dice driven games are more random than others, and some card driven mechanisms are more random than others. Games with either mechanisms involve different levels of skill.
We need to get past apparent randomness and actual randomness. There are no such thing as 'bad rollers.' Conversely there is no such thing as good rollers. Everyone who rolls the dice has exactly the same probability as everyone else to get identical roles. Unless the dice are loaded Over the course of time probabilities will even out. In general this will occur in a single game, but occasionally it will take several games.
Another point. If you roll two dice, the chance of them both being a 1 is ~3% (1/36). It doesn't matter if you roll them both at the same time or one after another. The chance of you rolling a one on either die is ~17% (1/6). So, If you have already rolled a 1, when you roll the second die that die has a 1:6 chance of being a one. But the chance of both dice being a 1 is 1/36. This sounds like a contradiction but it is not, because you are asking two fundamentally different questions.
I have to say that I've found this discussion both interesting and entertaining.
First to get my innate biases out of the way: I like and play games with both dice and card driven mechanisms. Both card driven and dice driven mechanisms introduce randomness. Some dice driven games are more random than others, and some card driven mechanisms are more random than others. Games with either mechanisms involve different levels of skill.
We need to get past apparent randomness and actual randomness. There are no such thing as 'bad rollers.' Conversely there is no such thing as good rollers. Everyone who rolls the dice has exactly the same probability as everyone else to get identical roles. Unless the dice are loaded Over the course of time probabilities will even out. In general this will occur in a single game, but occasionally it will take several games.
You say that now, but wait until you meet guys like this: [youtube=t1dTadFlyDE&feature=related]
Or when you play a game of Risk that has you swearing that it's the spawn of Satan in the dice.
There are no such thing as 'bad rollers.' Conversely there is no such thing as good rollers.
One guy I game with is convinced that dice hate him. Sure enough, he seems to get a lot of bad rolls. However, what I have noticed is that he pays close attention to his bad rolls, and gleefully points them out. Meanwhile, he ignores his good rolls. He does the same thing with card draws and chit pulls, but to a lesser extent. Perhaps partly because those are more likely to be done in secret.
At some point I'm going to record his every roll throughout a game, and see how he really did.
You say that now, but wait until you meet guys like this:
I guess he chose not to talk about cheating. I tend to ignore that that exists, too.
Some people would call it skill. Regardless, the best solution to that is to do what the ancient Romans did (or so I've heard). Use a dice tower. That makes "cheating" with dice close to impossible.
haslo wrote:
gexthegecko wrote:
Or when you play a game of Risk that has you swearing that it's the spawn of Satan in the dice.
That's an entirely different subject altogether, and that is exactly what he talked about.
He may have talked about it but didn't really accomplish anything beyond that. It's still a wide open topic, bad/good luck with dice. I say it exists. He says it doesn't (or words it in a way that tries not to sound like that, but it roughly means the same thing).
I'd say the odds are a bit in my favor. All that has to happen is show that at least 1 person has lost a very large majority of board games due to dice rolls (lets say 80% or higher). Risk would probably be the best way to test the theory.
So, in plain terms, out of 10 straight games of Risk, I predict someone will lose 8/10 of them. And what the hell, let's raise the stakes. I predict that someone will lose 8 straight games of Risk. If something like that happens, I would say that's a strong case for bad luck in board gaming. If the person who won at Risk won 8 times in a row, I would say that also makes a case for good luck. A dice tower should be used to make sure that there are no skilled/unskilled rolls (or "cheating" rolls) done in the game.
In fact, I should make a blog on that. Or in a forum on the Risk page.
So, in plain terms, out of 10 straight games of Risk, I predict someone will lose 8/10 of them. And what the hell, let's raise the stakes. I predict that someone will lose 8 straight games of Risk. If something like that happens, I would say that's a strong case for bad luck in board gaming. If the person who won at Risk won 8 times in a row, I would say that also makes a case for good luck. A dice tower should be used to make sure that there are no skilled/unskilled rolls (or "cheating" rolls) done in the game.
You would need to account for skill as well. I lost at least 8 straight games to my older brother. He was not cheating with the dice, and I doubt I had any worse luck with rolling. I just sucked at the game.
So, in plain terms, out of 10 straight games of Risk, I predict someone will lose 8/10 of them. And what the hell, let's raise the stakes. I predict that someone will lose 8 straight games of Risk. If something like that happens, I would say that's a strong case for bad luck in board gaming. If the person who won at Risk won 8 times in a row, I would say that also makes a case for good luck. A dice tower should be used to make sure that there are no skilled/unskilled rolls (or "cheating" rolls) done in the game.
You would need to account for skill as well. I lost at least 8 straight games to my older brother. He was not cheating with the dice, and I doubt I had any worse luck with rolling. I just sucked at the game.
Well yeah, skill can be a factor in just about every game. But the point I'm making is that there are games where luck can regularly override skill, which I believe is the case with Risk, most of the time. You can strategize on where to send reinforcements, where to anticipate attacks, which countries/regions you should try to take, etc. But even the best laid plans can come crashing down just because of some bad dice rolls.
My thoughts are, in a good strategy game, there must be other factors should determine the failure of a strategy so that it doesn't feel like a cheap win or loss, particularly a better strategy or something the strategist hadn't thought of (ie forgot about). Or just flat out underestimating your opponent.
You say that now, but wait until you meet guys like this:
I guess he chose not to talk about cheating. I tend to ignore that that exists, too.
Some people would call it skill. Regardless, the best solution to that is to do what the ancient Romans did (or so I've heard). Use a dice tower. That makes "cheating" with dice close to impossible.
While yes fixing the die rolls is a skill, most honest players would consider it cheating. (Even though I have never seen it implicitly in rule books.) I do magic shows for kids and can manipulate a deck of cards without anyone knowing it. Fixing the deck is also not implicitly written into many rule books, but most would call it cheating.
Both dice and card games can be easily manipulated. Rolling in cups or requiring the dice to be thrown into a box can eliminate roll manipulation. Just as many card players require a deck cut or multicut.
gexthegecko wrote:
Well yeah, skill can be a factor in just about every game. But the point I'm making is that there are games where luck can regularly override skill, which I believe is the case with Risk, most of the time. You can strategize on where to send reinforcements, where to anticipate attacks, which countries/regions you should try to take, etc. But even the best laid plans can come crashing down just because of some bad dice rolls.
My thoughts are, in a good strategy game, there must be other factors should determine the failure of a strategy so that it doesn't feel like a cheap win or loss, particularly a better strategy or something the strategist hadn't thought of (ie forgot about). Or just flat out underestimating your opponent.
In a good strategy game there are other factors that determine factor. Randomness allows for the possibility that the best player will not always win. Yes, rolls in particular battles in a game of Risk can cause the better player to lose, but in general better players beat worse players. Over the course of dozens and hundreds of games clear patterns emerge and skill plays a huge factors in who wins at Risk. The problem is many people think they are good players when in fact they are mediocre.
This is no different than Poker. Anther game that I play quite often (and I personally know several player who play professionally). There is a lot of luck involved in Poker, but there is also a lot of skill. You have to know when to stick out a hand (just as in a battle of risk). You have to know the probability of winning a particular hand (just as choosing attack strategies in Risk). You need to know the skill level and strategies of your opponents (just as you do in Risk). While over a few hands it may appear that anyone can win and the game is all luck, over time the skill players win more often than not.
Both dice and card games can be easily manipulated. Rolling in cups or requiring the dice to be thrown into a box can eliminate roll manipulation. Just as many card players require a deck cut or multicut.
True. I personally prefer dice towers. And cards, well, if you shuffle them using the wash method, it's usually not a problem. And yeah, cutting helps. Card sleeves can also mix things up a bit.
charlieturtle wrote:
In a good strategy game there are other factors that determine factor. Randomness allows for the possibility that the best player will not always win. Yes, rolls in particular battles in a game of Risk can cause the better player to lose, but in general better players beat worse players. Over the course of dozens and hundreds of games clear patterns emerge and skill plays a huge factors in who wins at Risk. The problem is many people think they are good players when in fact they are mediocre.
This is no different than Poker. Anther game that I play quite often (and I personally know several player who play professionally). There is a lot of luck involved in Poker, but there is also a lot of skill. You have to know when to stick out a hand (just as in a battle of risk). You have to know the probability of winning a particular hand (just as choosing attack strategies in Risk). You need to know the skill level and strategies of your opponents (just as you do in Risk). While over a few hands it may appear that anyone can win and the game is all luck, over time the skill players win more often than not.
Unlike Risk, however, with poker, you could get a hand that you know is guaranteed to win (a Royal Flush with Spades). This is especially the case in Texas Hold 'Em. A lot of card games have this kind of probability, while as with dice games, you never know what you're going to roll. That's basically why I prefer card games to dice games, with a few exceptions.
Unlike Risk, however, with poker, you could get a hand that you know is guaranteed to win (a Royal Flush with Spades). This is especially the case in Texas Hold 'Em. A lot of card games have this kind of probability, while as with dice games, you never know what you're going to roll. That's basically why I prefer card games to dice games, with a few exceptions.
This isn't an inherent feature of cards or dice, however. There are card-based systems that do not have the "unbeatable hand" feature. For example, each player flips over a card, highest card wins. There are also dice-based systems that do have this feature. For example, each player adds up all of their units plus a die roll, highest value wins. If you have enough units, your die roll is irrelevant.
In other words, what you seem to actually be arguing for (from my perspective) is a particular type of randomness in games, not for cards over dice in games.
(As an aside, I realize I keep disputing you in multiple threads now. I guess my hope is that I'll convince you, but I don't want to harass you. Please send me a GeekMail if you want me to unsubscribe and go away.)
Unlike Risk, however, with poker, you could get a hand that you know is guaranteed to win (a Royal Flush with Spades). This is especially the case in Texas Hold 'Em. A lot of card games have this kind of probability, while as with dice games, you never know what you're going to roll. That's basically why I prefer card games to dice games, with a few exceptions.
This isn't an inherent feature of cards or dice, however. There are card-based systems that do not have the "unbeatable hand" feature. For example, each player flips over a card, highest card wins. There are also dice-based systems that do have this feature. For example, each player adds up all of their units plus a die roll, highest value wins. If you have enough units, your die roll is irrelevant.
In other words, what you seem to actually be arguing for (from my perspective) is a particular type of randomness in games, not for cards over dice in games.
(As an aside, I realize I keep disputing you in multiple threads now. I guess my hope is that I'll convince you, but I don't want to harass you. Please send me a GeekMail if you want me to unsubscribe and go away.)
On the contrary, I'm also hoping to convince you.
And I repeat again, I don't believe every card game is more strategic than every dice game. But I do believe that the majority of good strategic games is card-based and not dice-based.
Unlike Risk, however, with poker, you could get a hand that you know is guaranteed to win (a Royal Flush with Spades). This is especially the case in Texas Hold 'Em. A lot of card games have this kind of probability, while as with dice games, you never know what you're going to roll. That's basically why I prefer card games to dice games, with a few exceptions.
Well, true if you get one specific hand you are guarenteed to win, but the chances of you getting that hand is not only exceptionally rare, but also completely random. The levels of randomness in one hand of 5 card stud poker is actually significantly higher than the rolls of 5 individual die rolls.
United States Stillwater (actually West Lakeland) Minnesota
gexthegecko wrote:
And I repeat again, I don't believe every card game is more strategic than every dice game. But I do believe that the majority of good strategic games is card-based and not dice-based.
Your just looking at the wrong dice based games - risk?. Try ASL, Titan or OCS and think that a rookie has a chance against a real good player.
I could throw candyland out as a card based game, but that would not be fair to the other CDGs either.
And I repeat again, I don't believe every card game is more strategic than every dice game. But I do believe that the majority of good strategic games is card-based and not dice-based.
Your just looking at the wrong dice based games - risk?. Try ASL, Titan or OCS and think that a rookie has a chance against a real good player.
I could throw candyland out as a card based game, but that would not be fair to the other CDGs either.
I'm talking best of the best here. And if you want to talk about best of the best when it comes to dice games, try The Ares Project, or Nexus Ops. At the same time, you should compare it to some of the best card-based games out there, like Starcraft the board game, or Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation.
How many of the top 500 board games are dice-based vs those that are card-based? The tricky part is considering the games that have both dice and card elements to them. What conditions and rules are we to have to deal with that issue?
For example, I consider Twilight Struggle to be more card based than dice based because it's possible to play and win the game without ever using the dice, while as with Chaos in the Old World, I would consider that more dice based because you will have to roll dice at some point in order to win (as you will almost certainly be attacked at some point).
Unlike Risk, however, with poker, you could get a hand that you know is guaranteed to win (a Royal Flush with Spades). This is especially the case in Texas Hold 'Em. A lot of card games have this kind of probability, while as with dice games, you never know what you're going to roll. That's basically why I prefer card games to dice games, with a few exceptions.
Well, true if you get one specific hand you are guarenteed to win, but the chances of you getting that hand is not only exceptionally rare, but also completely random. The levels of randomness in one hand of 5 card stud poker is actually significantly higher than the rolls of 5 individual die rolls.
I know of a great comparison to make to Poker. Liar's Dice. Let's say you roll five 6s. You know there are at least that many 6s on the table, but you don't know if anyone else rolled a 6, or if there are more 4's than 6's, etc. Long story short, it doesn't matter what you or anyone else rolls, you could still lose or win a round, either way. With Poker, you will get certain cards in your hand and, assuming your good at the game and can do calculations in your head, will know the odds of winning or losing, while not taking into account the bluffing aspect of the game. In Poker you can always make an estimate on the odds of winning, even if you have the worst hand in the world and want to bluff your way to victory, or have the best hand in the world and have no need to bluff at all. With Liar's Dice, you can bluff, but the statistics are more of a crapshoot than anything else.
My point being that cards are better for strategizing than dice ever will be.
Edit: on the other hand, it might be interesting to see a Hold 'Em variant of Liar's Dice that will add more strategy to the game, while making it shorter too (not necessarily a bad thing).
My point being that cards are better for strategizing than dice ever will be.
Opinions. In the end this is what it comes down to. What forms of strategizing a person thinks is better. Personally I think that the peripheral elements of a game generally make the game. It appears that you add mechanism to the list (correct me if I'm wrong).
Generally when people get to "Geek" status they tend to already be stuck in one mode. Dice vs Cards, Euro vs Wargame vs Ameritrash, Short vs Long, etc etc. Therefore biases are already set and no matter how much sense you put into your argument, only few will change.
My point being that cards are better for strategizing than dice ever will be.
Opinions. In the end this is what it comes down to. What forms of strategizing a person thinks is better. Personally I think that the peripheral elements of a game generally make the game. It appears that you add mechanism to the list (correct me if I'm wrong).
Generally when people get to "Geek" status they tend to already be stuck in one mode. Dice vs Cards, Euro vs Wargame vs Ameritrash, Short vs Long, etc etc. Therefore biases are already set and no matter how much sense you put into your argument, only few will change.
I started as a dice lover. You can look at my first geeklist here where someone recommended Starcraft and I say that I don't like diceless combat. Then I happened to buy Starcraft after listening to an audio podcast and after a couple of plays of Starcraft and Heroscape, I turned 180. I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one. Why? Simply because when I loose at Starcraft I feel great because I done my best and my opponent out-bested me - I know I didn't loose by the luck of the roll or draw. That doesn't happen with dice-based games. (except for Arkham Horror, but that's a different story)
I started as a dice lover. You can look at my first geeklist here where someone recommended Starcraft and I say that I don't like diceless combat. Then I happened to buy Starcraft after listening to an audio podcast and after a couple of plays of Starcraft and Heroscape, I turned 180. I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one. Why? Simply because when I loose at Starcraft I feel great because I done my best and my opponent out-bested me - I know I didn't loose by the luck of the roll or draw. That doesn't happen with dice-based games. (except for Arkham Horror, but that's a different story)
You are identifying apparent randomness (luck) and not actual randomness. In addition you need to look at randomness (luck) by who wins and not who loses. The amount of skill a player has can be quantified by wins, but it is extremely difficult to quantify lack of skill. As it is impossible to prove a null hypothesis.
I like both Risk and Starcraft equivalently. You need should see that this is your opinion. When I lose at Starcraft, I know I got bested by my opponent, but there was an element of randomness there. When I lose at Risk, I know I got bested by my opponent, but there was an element of randomness there. I'll admit that in this one on one comparison Starcraft has less randomness, but depending on the length of the games and the number of players the effect of randomness can become almost equal.
I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one.
If cards were always better at making it possible to influence randomness than dice, then War would be more strategic than Yahtzee (to take an pretty un-strategic game and not Troyes).
I started as a dice lover. You can look at my first geeklist here where someone recommended Starcraft and I say that I don't like diceless combat. Then I happened to buy Starcraft after listening to an audio podcast and after a couple of plays of Starcraft and Heroscape, I turned 180. I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one. Why? Simply because when I loose at Starcraft I feel great because I done my best and my opponent out-bested me - I know I didn't loose by the luck of the roll or draw. That doesn't happen with dice-based games. (except for Arkham Horror, but that's a different story)
You are identifying apparent randomness (luck) and not actual randomness. In addition you need to look at randomness (luck) by who wins and not who loses. The amount of skill a player has can be quantified by wins, but it is extremely difficult to quantify lack of skill. As it is impossible to prove a null hypothesis.
I like both Risk and Starcraft equivalently. You need should see that this is your opinion. When I lose at Starcraft, I know I got bested by my opponent, but there was an element of randomness there. When I lose at Risk, I know I got bested by my opponent, but there was an element of randomness there. I'll admit that in this one on one comparison Starcraft has less randomness, but depending on the length of the games and the number of players the effect of randomness can become almost equal.
I speak from experience. 3 examples: 1. A guy had no strategy. He attacked and attacked until he had no units to attack any more. Then he passed and when it came to his turn he did the same. He went on to win the game. 2. A guy conquered the entire map but for one country which had 25 or so units. He pressed on his attack and lost all of his units and the defender lost only one unit. Needless to say he called it quits. 3. A guy conquered the entire map. All that was left were 2 provinces in Australia and a neutral army in Siam, which had around 30 units. The same thing happened. He lost all of his units, tried 2 or 3 more times and callaed it quits.
About Starcraft: I played more than 30 games and only remember one game where one guy could have one based on sheer luck. He had already one on Special victory, but would have won on points because of an event card. (The other guy screwed his Special Victory by not controling every area on a planet).
About you liking both Starcraft and Risk: I admire you, man. You can certainly enjoy more games than me beacuse of that.
haslo wrote:
Floating World wrote:
I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one.
If cards were always better at making it possible to influence randomness than dice, then War would be more strategic than Yahtzee (to take an pretty un-strategic game and not Troyes).
As OP mentioned a couple of times (and I agree): Card's aren't always better than dice. The point was that one can make a more strategic and less random game with cards than with dice.
As OP mentioned a couple of times (and I agree): Card's aren't always better than dice. The point was that one can make a more strategic and less random game with cards than with dice.
Aye, the thing is that nobody has yet offered an argument why this should be the case.
My challenge goes as follows: Whatever kind of randomness you can model with cards, you can model it with dice as well. It might involve more tables and maybe rerolls if you want to model some peculiar kinds of card randomness with dice, particularly if you want to exhaust a pool of options before restarting the random generator, but it is always possible.
Because of that, there is no inherent benefit to having a game with cards over having a game with dice when it comes to how strategic they are. There can't be an inherent benefit, because the two kinds of generating random results are completely equivalent, given proper parametrization.
If you can show me a counter example of a kind of randomness with cards that dice can't model, then I will admit that I was wrong and cards are superior.
(Mind you, I'm not talking about a necessarily particularly handy way to emulate one with the other - fully emulating dice rolls with cards will probably involve shuffling after every draw, while fully emulating cards with dice will always work with striking off entries from a list and then counting down that list with the dice result, neither of which are very practical. The different methods do have different strengths and are better used for some applications. But my point is that neither of the two methods of generating random results can do things the other can't, and thus it's entirely up to the designer to decide which one suits his particular kind of game and the kind of random results he wants better than the other, and neither dice nor cards are inherently superior.)
I speak from experience. 3 examples: 1. A guy had no strategy. He attacked and attacked until he had no units to attack any more. Then he passed and when it came to his turn he did the same. He went on to win the game. 2. A guy conquered the entire map but for one country which had 25 or so units. He pressed on his attack and lost all of his units and the defender lost only one unit. Needless to say he called it quits. 3. A guy conquered the entire map. All that was left were 2 provinces in Australia and a neutral army in Siam, which had around 30 units. The same thing happened. He lost all of his units, tried 2 or 3 more times and callaed it quits.
Haven't played Starcraft and I'm kind of neutral on Risk (though I am enjoying Legacy). I'm certainly not going to try to tell you what games to enjoy or not, but these examples don't really impress me much. There are player choices here you're glossing over. In both cases I can see possibilities of strategy and good gameplay that were either overlooked or ignored, though I will admit I cannot say for certain what those might have been with the amount of information you've given.
1: The guy attacked and attacked until he had no units... And nobody thought to take advantage of this situation? 2 and 3 are basically just two different instances of the same situation. This can happen, but without knowing the specifics it's hard to say how much luck was really involved. How many units did the attacker start with? If he really controlled the entire board except for a few territories, he was significantly outproducing his opponent so why did he press the attack so much that he lost everything, despite the battle not going his way at the start?
I speak from experience. 3 examples: 1. A guy had no strategy. He attacked and attacked until he had no units to attack any more. Then he passed and when it came to his turn he did the same. He went on to win the game. 2. A guy conquered the entire map but for one country which had 25 or so units. He pressed on his attack and lost all of his units and the defender lost only one unit. Needless to say he called it quits. 3. A guy conquered the entire map. All that was left were 2 provinces in Australia and a neutral army in Siam, which had around 30 units. The same thing happened. He lost all of his units, tried 2 or 3 more times and callaed it quits.
About Starcraft: I played more than 30 games and only remember one game where one guy could have one based on sheer luck. He had already one on Special victory, but would have won on points because of an event card. (The other guy screwed his Special Victory by not controling every area on a planet).
Your examples actually demonstrate "apparent randomness." One of the problems with personal experience is that it is always extremely limited. 30 games or even 1000 games is a very small sample set for the complex variables involved. You gave three good examples, but there are far more variables out there than you gave. You need to asses the actual skill level of all players involved. How good are they actually and not apparently. Second, Examples 2 and 3 take into account only a few battles. Both of these games were still winnable by the player who lost the battles. Quitting is generally a sign of a poor player in general. Thirdly we tend to remember extreme examples.
To identify actual randomness especially in a game as complex as Risk or Starcraft, you need to observe literally thousands of games. You need to control for player skill and many other things. You need to identify actual player skill. And generally you need to quantify your results by who is winning and why they won.
Floating World wrote:
About you liking both Starcraft and Risk: I admire you, man. You can certainly enjoy more games than me beacuse of that.
Thank you. I love sitting across from people shooting the breeze and playing some games. There are some games that I can't play because the mechanics are either to convoluted or solely luck based.
Floating World wrote:
haslo wrote:
Floating World wrote:
I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one.
If cards were always better at making it possible to influence randomness than dice, then War would be more strategic than Yahtzee (to take an pretty un-strategic game and not Troyes).
As OP mentioned a couple of times (and I agree): Card's aren't always better than dice.
You're right (and the OP states this as well). The reverse is also true. You also can't try to compare apples and oranges. The game mechanics outside of the cards/dice has to be similar.
I speak from experience. 3 examples: 1. A guy had no strategy. He attacked and attacked until he had no units to attack any more. Then he passed and when it came to his turn he did the same. He went on to win the game. 2. A guy conquered the entire map but for one country which had 25 or so units. He pressed on his attack and lost all of his units and the defender lost only one unit. Needless to say he called it quits. 3. A guy conquered the entire map. All that was left were 2 provinces in Australia and a neutral army in Siam, which had around 30 units. The same thing happened. He lost all of his units, tried 2 or 3 more times and callaed it quits.
1: The guy attacked and attacked until he had no units... And nobody thought to take advantage of this situation? 2 and 3 are basically just two different instances of the same situation. This can happen, but without knowing the specifics it's hard to say how much luck was really involved. How many units did the attacker start with? If he really controlled the entire board except for a few territories, he was significantly outproducing his opponent so why did he press the attack so much that he lost everything, despite the battle not going his way at the start?
1. Nobody wanted to do the same things he did and over extend - we tried to play strategically. 2.& 3. He lost nearly all units a couple of times in a row
haslo wrote:
Floating World wrote:
As OP mentioned a couple of times (and I agree): Card's aren't always better than dice. The point was that one can make a more strategic and less random game with cards than with dice.
Aye, the thing is that nobody has yet offered an argument why this should be the case.
My challenge goes as follows: Whatever kind of randomness you can model with cards, you can model it with dice as well. It might involve more tables and maybe rerolls if you want to model some peculiar kinds of card randomness with dice, particularly if you want to exhaust a pool of options before restarting the random generator, but it is always possible.
Because of that, there is no inherent benefit to having a game with cards over having a game with dice when it comes to how strategic they are. There can't be an inherent benefit, because the two kinds of generating random results are completely equivalent, given proper parametrization.
If you can show me a counter example of a kind of randomness with cards that dice can't model, then I will admit that I was wrong and cards are superior.
(Mind you, I'm not talking about a necessarily particularly handy way to emulate one with the other - fully emulating dice rolls with cards will probably involve shuffling after every draw, while fully emulating cards with dice will always work with striking off entries from a list and then counting down that list with the dice result, neither of which are very practical. The different methods do have different strengths and are better used for some applications. But my point is that neither of the two methods of generating random results can do things the other can't, and thus it's entirely up to the designer to decide which one suits his particular kind of game and the kind of random results he wants better than the other, and neither dice nor cards are inherently superior.)
I can give you an example for Starcraft: Here you have a deck of 20 battle cards that correspond to units and a hand of 6-8 cards (depending on the factions) whom you draw from that deck. If you lack the cards you need can research to get additional 3 cards in your hand. You can do it up to 4 times per round (but 2 times is the normal amount) and you also draw 3 cards when you start a battle. If you could make a dice system that works the same way, I would like to see it.
I speak from experience. 3 examples: 1. A guy had no strategy. He attacked and attacked until he had no units to attack any more. Then he passed and when it came to his turn he did the same. He went on to win the game. 2. A guy conquered the entire map but for one country which had 25 or so units. He pressed on his attack and lost all of his units and the defender lost only one unit. Needless to say he called it quits. 3. A guy conquered the entire map. All that was left were 2 provinces in Australia and a neutral army in Siam, which had around 30 units. The same thing happened. He lost all of his units, tried 2 or 3 more times and callaed it quits.
About Starcraft: I played more than 30 games and only remember one game where one guy could have one based on sheer luck. He had already one on Special victory, but would have won on points because of an event card. (The other guy screwed his Special Victory by not controling every area on a planet).
Your examples actually demonstrate "apparent randomness." One of the problems with personal experience is that it is always extremely limited. 30 games or even 1000 games is a very small sample set for the complex variables involved. You gave three good examples, but there are far more variables out there than you gave. You need to asses the actual skill level of all players involved. How good are they actually and not apparently. Second, Examples 2 and 3 take into account only a few battles. Both of these games were still winnable by the player who lost the battles. Quitting is generally a sign of a poor player in general. Thirdly we tend to remember extreme examples.
To identify actual randomness especially in a game as complex as Risk or Starcraft, you need to observe literally thousands of games. You need to control for player skill and many other things. You need to identify actual player skill. And generally you need to quantify your results by who is winning and why they won.
Floating World wrote:
About you liking both Starcraft and Risk: I admire you, man. You can certainly enjoy more games than me beacuse of that.
Thank you. I love sitting across from people shooting the breeze and playing some games. There are some games that I can't play because the mechanics are either to convoluted or solely luck based.
Floating World wrote:
haslo wrote:
Floating World wrote:
I don't hate dice now, but will always pick a good card based strategy game than a dice based one.
If cards were always better at making it possible to influence randomness than dice, then War would be more strategic than Yahtzee (to take an pretty un-strategic game and not Troyes).
As OP mentioned a couple of times (and I agree): Card's aren't always better than dice.
You're right (and the OP states this as well). The reverse is also true. You also can't try to compare apples and oranges. The game mechanics outside of the cards/dice has to be similar.
I don't think we understand each other well. The OP (and I) don't talk about probabilities and statistics. We talk about the fact that one player can lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on dice roll. He can alos win 3-4 games in a row. It might balance out over 1000 games, but it also might not. the sheer fact that you can loose a coule of games based on dice rolls is why I don't like dice in my strategy games (And I think Op agrees)
1. Nobody wanted to do the same things he did and over extend - we tried to play strategically.
Again, hard to know for sure without knowing ALL of the details of the game, but it sounds like he won because nobody stopped him. Doesn't read like luck to me.
Quote:
2.& 3. He lost nearly all units a couple of times in a row
So he's attacking and attacking and losing and does so several times in a row down to 0 units. He never thinks to stop the attack at some point? This doesn't read like bad luck to me.
In both cases, that randomness has an effect I won't deny, but also in both cases a part of the strategy of the game is in dealing with that and in dealing with the game situation as it develops.
Regardless, the level of detail you're giving here is not enough to say, objectively, whether these examples actually support your argument or not. As it is, they're strictly anecdotal.
I can give you an example for Starcraft: Here you have a deck of 20 battle cards that correspond to units and a hand of 6-8 cards (depending on the factions) whom you draw from that deck. If you lack the cards you need can research to get additional 3 cards in your hand. You can do it up to 4 times per round (but 2 times is the normal amount) and you also draw 3 cards when you start a battle. If you could make a dice system that works the same way, I would like to see it.
As I said, it will involve tables and cumbersome mechanics, but it's entirely possible. (I know Starcraft, wrote strategy articles about it.)
A short overview:
Table with possible results, as many entries in the table at the start of the game as there are deck cards now, every row standing for the combat values and units on a particular card. Roll 6-8 times with a d20, rerolling duplicates and marking the results as "drawn" in a column for "shuffle 1", until you have your set of possible results. When you "draw" cards later during play, you roll again with the d20 with the same method. When there's more than 20 rows, you roll a d6 alongside the d20, then add 20 to the result of the d20 if the d6 was at 4+ - and if there's more than 40 cards, you add 0 for 1-2, 20 for 3-4 and 40 for 5-6 on the d6.
When you "play" rows, you mark them off as "played" in the "shuffle" column of the row. When you have all rows marked off as "drawn", you start over with a new "shuffle" column, and you can only "draw" rows that were already "played" in the last "shuffle".
Researching tech lets you add new rows and start a new "shuffle".
As I said, it's very cumbersome. But so would be replicating the exact dice mechanic of something as simple as Risk with cards. The point is that it's possible. Whether dice or cards are more practical depends on the kind of effect the designer wants, but the simple fact that a game has dice doesn't make it completely random.
Floating World wrote:
I don't think we understand each other well. The OP (and I) don't talk about probabilities and statistics. We talk about the fact that one player can lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on dice roll. He can alos win 3-4 games in a row. It might balance out over 1000 games, but it also might not. the sheer fact that you can loose a coule of games based on dice rolls is why I don't like dice in my strategy games (And I think Op agrees)
You can also lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on bad card draws. In Starcraft, if you don't draw any cards for your Mutalisks in an air-only region, and then draw all the Mutalisk cards for a fight in a ground-only region where your Ultralisks are ready to fight, you're equally screwed. Of course, hand management can remedy that, and there is no equivalent to that in Risk - but that's not because Risk uses dice, but because Risk is fifty years old, modern board games were not even in their infancy back then, and it doesn't give you the means to manage risk. It could, dice or no dice, but it doesn't. Just like War doesn't give you the means to manage risk with cards.
You can also lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on bad card draws.
This is a big part of what I find interesting about this discussion. Unless you're playing something that's completely deterministic (Diplomacy and Werewolf come to mind), then any random element can turn against you. It will be unlikely if the game is well designed, but it's almost impossible to eliminate completely.
I'm also not convinced that the examples recently given for Risk are truly examples of this anyway. It's impossible to know for certain with the information provided, but in all three cases there are instances of player choice involved with the example and if someone had chosen differently, then things could have progressed differently.
I don't think we understand each other well. The OP (and I) don't talk about probabilities and statistics. We talk about the fact that one player can lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on dice roll. He can alos win 3-4 games in a row. It might balance out over 1000 games, but it also might not. the sheer fact that you can loose a coule of games based on dice rolls is why I don't like dice in my strategy games (And I think Op agrees)
In order to make the arguments that you and the OP are making, you have to take into account probabilities and statistics. In both dice and card games all players have the same constraints. Mechanisms can control piece placement, piece movement, conflict outcomes, decision making, and other things. To say that one mechanism in equivalent games removes the value of skill in the non-random portions is making a probabilities argument. The two ideas are inseparable unless you are suggesting that a third outside force is also at work in dice games over card games. For example superstition (pure luck), manipulation of the random mechanism (cheating), etc.
I can give you an example for Starcraft: Here you have a deck of 20 battle cards that correspond to units and a hand of 6-8 cards (depending on the factions) whom you draw from that deck. If you lack the cards you need can research to get additional 3 cards in your hand. You can do it up to 4 times per round (but 2 times is the normal amount) and you also draw 3 cards when you start a battle. If you could make a dice system that works the same way, I would like to see it.
As I said, it will involve tables and cumbersome mechanics, but it's entirely possible. (I know Starcraft, wrote strategy articles about it.)
A short overview:
Table with possible results, as many entries in the table at the start of the game as there are deck cards now, every row standing for the combat values and units on a particular card. Roll 6-8 times with a d20, rerolling duplicates and marking the results as "drawn" in a column for "shuffle 1", until you have your set of possible results. When you "draw" cards later during play, you roll again with the d20 with the same method. When there's more than 20 rows, you roll a d6 alongside the d20, then add 20 to the result of the d20 if the d6 was at 4+ - and if there's more than 40 cards, you add 0 for 1-2, 20 for 3-4 and 40 for 5-6 on the d6.
When you "play" rows, you mark them off as "played" in the "shuffle" column of the row. When you have all rows marked off as "drawn", you start over with a new "shuffle" column, and you can only "draw" rows that were already "played" in the last "shuffle".
Researching tech lets you add new rows and start a new "shuffle".
As I said, it's very cumbersome. But so would be replicating the exact dice mechanic of something as simple as Risk with cards. The point is that it's possible. Whether dice or cards are more practical depends on the kind of effect the designer wants, but the simple fact that a game has dice doesn't make it completely random.
And that would make a 4 hour game into an 8 hour game. Yes, it is possible, but why would someone do that? Is the game with those mechanics as good as the card based one? I would say no.
haslo wrote:
Floating World wrote:
I don't think we understand each other well. The OP (and I) don't talk about probabilities and statistics. We talk about the fact that one player can lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on dice roll. He can alos win 3-4 games in a row. It might balance out over 1000 games, but it also might not. the sheer fact that you can loose a coule of games based on dice rolls is why I don't like dice in my strategy games (And I think Op agrees)
You can also lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on bad card draws. In Starcraft, if you don't draw any cards for your Mutalisks in an air-only region, and then draw all the Mutalisk cards for a fight in a ground-only region where your Ultralisks are ready to fight, you're equally screwed. Of course, hand management can remedy that, and there is no equivalent to that in Risk - but that's not because Risk uses dice, but because Risk is fifty years old, modern board games were not even in their infancy back then, and it doesn't give you the means to manage risk. It could, dice or no dice, but it doesn't. Just like War doesn't give you the means to manage risk with cards.
It rarely happened to me not to have cards for Mutalisks (for example) because I wouldn't attack with them unless I have cards in my hand. Maybe when being attacked by someone, but that situation probably occured after I spend the cards for Mutalisks. This simulates the health lost by units in the video game. And I don't see loosing 3 or 4 times in a row (I'm talking about STarcraft) because you can possibly have an unlucky draw in one battle, but if yo plan well, you cannot loose, lets say out of 8 battles on the luck of the draw 3 or 4 games ion a row. It never happened in the games tha I play and I don't see how that could happen.
I don't think we understand each other well. The OP (and I) don't talk about probabilities and statistics. We talk about the fact that one player can lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on dice roll. He can alos win 3-4 games in a row. It might balance out over 1000 games, but it also might not. the sheer fact that you can loose a coule of games based on dice rolls is why I don't like dice in my strategy games (And I think Op agrees)
In order to make the arguments that you and the OP are making, you have to take into account probabilities and statistics. In both dice and card games all players have the same constraints. Mechanisms can control piece placement, piece movement, conflict outcomes, decision making, and other things. To say that one mechanism in equivalent games removes the value of skill in the non-random portions is making a probabilities argument. The two ideas are inseparable unless you are suggesting that a third outside force is also at work in dice games over card games. For example superstition (pure luck), manipulation of the random mechanism (cheating), etc.
We are talking about real life situations. Are you saying that it's impossible to have a bad luck streak in rolling dice and lose because of it? I say that this situation for Starcraft is, I would be so bold as to say, impossible if you play well. Why? Because when having a hand of cards you can plan ahead and manipulate your hand to suit your needs later. You cannot do that in a dice games, unless you make a cumbersome and overly complex system that couldn't really work.
I won't repeat what I already said. Because what you posted has been refuted with my arguments already, in the very sections you quoted.
I re-read the posts a couple of times but couldn't find this. I was adding new information and I really don't see how you could have refuted me in the very posts I was trying to refute. Maybe it's my English, but I don't thinks so. Where did you relate to my question: Is the game with those mechanics as good as the card based one? Where did you prove that one could lose 3-4 games in a row because of the draw in Starcraft? Yes, you said that Risk is an old game, but you didn't provide examples of modern games where dice rolling cannot lead to multiple wins or losses based on dice rolls.
Where did you relate to my question: Is the game with those mechanics as good as the card based one?
No, but neither is any card game that tries to replicate the exact same results of randomness of any dice-based game (for which I used Risk as an example).
Floating World wrote:
Where did you prove that one could lose 3-4 games in a row because of the draw in Starcraft?
That needs no proof, because any kind of randomness can have streaks of any kind, including streaks that lead to game losses. They are improbable, yeah, but not impossible.
Floating World wrote:
Yes, you said that Risk is an old game, but you didn't provide examples of modern games where dice rolling cannot lead to multiple wins or losses based on dice rolls.
Again it's a matter of probability. There is no such game, just like there is no game based on randomness generated through cards that can not be won or lost based on streaks of bad luck. But there are games that minimize the odds of that happening, just like Starcraft does compared to War, by adding more ways to influence dice rolls and multiple uses of dice. It's very, very, very, very improbable that you lose a game of Troyes just because you keep rolling badly.
Where did you relate to my question: Is the game with those mechanics as good as the card based one?
No, but neither is any card game that tries to replicate the exact same results of randomness of any dice-based game (for which I used Risk as an example).
Floating World wrote:
Where did you prove that one could lose 3-4 games in a row because of the draw in Starcraft?
That needs no proof, because any kind of randomness can have streaks of any kind, including streaks that lead to game losses. They are improbable, yeah, but not impossible.
Floating World wrote:
Yes, you said that Risk is an old game, but you didn't provide examples of modern games where dice rolling cannot lead to multiple wins or losses based on dice rolls.
Again it's a matter of probability. There is no such game, just like there is no game based on randomness generated through cards that can not be won or lost based on streaks of bad luck. But there are games that minimize the odds of that happening, just like Starcraft does compared to War, by adding more ways to influence dice rolls and multiple uses of dice. It's very, very, very, very improbable that you lose a game of Troyes just because you keep rolling badly.
Where did you relate to my question: Is the game with those mechanics as good as the card based one?
No, but neither is any card game that tries to replicate the exact same results of randomness of any dice-based game (for which I used Risk as an example).
Floating World wrote:
Where did you prove that one could lose 3-4 games in a row because of the draw in Starcraft?
That needs no proof, because any kind of randomness can have streaks of any kind, including streaks that lead to game losses. They are improbable, yeah, but not impossible.
Floating World wrote:
Yes, you said that Risk is an old game, but you didn't provide examples of modern games where dice rolling cannot lead to multiple wins or losses based on dice rolls.
Again it's a matter of probability. There is no such game, just like there is no game based on randomness generated through cards that can not be won or lost based on streaks of bad luck. But there are games that minimize the odds of that happening, just like Starcraft does compared to War, by adding more ways to influence dice rolls and multiple uses of dice. It's very, very, very, very improbable that you lose a game of Troyes just because you keep rolling badly.
Are you saying that it's impossible to have a bad luck streak in rolling dice and lose because of it? I say that this situation for Starcraft is, I would be so bold as to say, impossible if you play well. Why? Because when having a hand of cards you can plan ahead and manipulate your hand to suit your needs later. You cannot do that in a dice games, unless you make a cumbersome and overly complex system that couldn't really work.
I'm not saying that it is impossible. And the chances of this happens varies based on the quality of the players playing. If all players are equal (this is extremely unlikely in any situation in gaming or life), the dice actually can play a huge factor as can the cards in your hand and manage in Starcraft. But if one player is significantly better than the other players, the situations where dice make or break the game is rare as it would be in Starcraft. Your assumption that this could not happen in Starcraft is wrong.
In order for the dice/cards to affect the endpoint in the game they must happen at a critical point. This can and does happen in Risk, and this can and does happen in Starcraft.
Are you saying that it's impossible to have a bad luck streak in rolling dice and lose because of it? I say that this situation for Starcraft is, I would be so bold as to say, impossible if you play well. Why? Because when having a hand of cards you can plan ahead and manipulate your hand to suit your needs later. You cannot do that in a dice games, unless you make a cumbersome and overly complex system that couldn't really work.
I'm not saying that it is impossible. And the chances of this happens varies based on the quality of the players playing. If all players are equal (this is extremely unlikely in any situation in gaming or life), the dice actually can play a huge factor as can the cards in your hand and manage in Starcraft. But if one player is significantly better than the other players, the situations where dice make or break the game is rare as it would be in Starcraft. Your assumption that this could not happen in Starcraft is wrong.
In order for the dice/cards to affect the endpoint in the game they must happen at a critical point. This can and does happen in Risk, and this can and does happen in Starcraft.
It didn't happen in any of my games (The example I gave where it did wasn't related to battle cards). I grant you it could happen that when the players are tied and it comes down to one decisive battle and one guy gets a lucky draw and he wins. But it cannot happen that a player has continuous streaks of bad/good luck and wins/losses because of that. The game simply doesn't allow that to happen simply because you have a 20 card deck and a hand of 6 to 8 cards and you can possibly draw 9 cards per round. (I'm talking about optimal play) which gets 15 cards into your hand. And also, there are multiple copies of each card (the values differ, but they are used for the same units). and also you don't have access to all the units from the start and can save cards for later turns.
[q="Floating World"]As OP mentioned a couple of times (and I agree): Card's aren't always better than dice. The point was that one can make a more strategic and less random game with cards than with dice.
Aye, the thing is that nobody has yet offered an argument why this should be the case.
Takes a lot of work to prove that, as I state in my new blog post
My challenge goes as follows: Whatever kind of randomness you can model with cards, you can model it with dice as well. It might involve more tables and maybe rerolls if you want to model some peculiar kinds of card randomness with dice, particularly if you want to exhaust a pool of options before restarting the random generator, but it is always possible.
Because of that, there is no inherent benefit to having a game with cards over having a game with dice when it comes to how strategic they are. There can't be an inherent benefit, because the two kinds of generating random results are completely equivalent, given proper parametrization.
If you can show me a counter example of a kind of randomness with cards that dice can't model, then I will admit that I was wrong and cards are superior.
(Mind you, I'm not talking about a necessarily particularly handy way to emulate one with the other - fully emulating dice rolls with cards will probably involve shuffling after every draw, while fully emulating cards with dice will always work with striking off entries from a list and then counting down that list with the dice result, neither of which are very practical. The different methods do have different strengths and are better used for some applications. But my point is that neither of the two methods of generating random results can do things the other can't, and thus it's entirely up to the designer to decide which one suits his particular kind of game and the kind of random results he wants better than the other, and neither dice nor cards are inherently superior.)
Where did you prove that one could lose 3-4 games in a row because of the draw in Starcraft?
That needs no proof, because any kind of randomness can have streaks of any kind, including streaks that lead to game losses. They are improbable, yeah, but not impossible.
Not if you play well in Starcraft. If you use up your cards that fit for a particular unit, that means those unit types have been exhausted, wounded, weakened from battle, untrained, whatever theme you wish to attach to not having the appropriate cards in your hand for that unit. This isn't a mechanic designed for randomness (not mainly anyway), it's designed so that you can't and shouldn't rely on a single unit type, that multiple units should be fighting alongside it, other units that you do have cards for. Thus, all you have to do is build the right variety of units. And considering that each card normally has more than 1 unit type on it (sometimes up to 3), it's usually very easy to adapt the unit types you have on the board to what you have in your hand. It's a game that encourages you to adapt to what is in your hand, and everyone playing the game has to deal with the exact same limits (discounting the fact that Terrans can hold more cards than the Zerg and Protoss, and certain race abilities). That is something that I very seriously doubt dice can replicate. If they can replicate it, it can't be done effectively, as it would be more efficient to play with the current card system. Even if you could closely replicate it, it would mess with the statistical odds of drawing a certain type of card with a certain combat value, mess with possible attack values that may or may not be impossible to get, etc.
In a nutshell, you're wrong; or at the very least, your statement does require proof.
Are you saying that it's impossible to have a bad luck streak in rolling dice and lose because of it? I say that this situation for Starcraft is, I would be so bold as to say, impossible if you play well. Why? Because when having a hand of cards you can plan ahead and manipulate your hand to suit your needs later. You cannot do that in a dice games, unless you make a cumbersome and overly complex system that couldn't really work.
I'm not saying that it is impossible. And the chances of this happens varies based on the quality of the players playing. If all players are equal (this is extremely unlikely in any situation in gaming or life), the dice actually can play a huge factor as can the cards in your hand and manage in Starcraft. But if one player is significantly better than the other players, the situations where dice make or break the game is rare as it would be in Starcraft. Your assumption that this could not happen in Starcraft is wrong.
In order for the dice/cards to affect the endpoint in the game they must happen at a critical point. This can and does happen in Risk, and this can and does happen in Starcraft.
It didn't happen in any of my games (The example I gave where it did wasn't related to battle cards). I grant you it could happen that when the players are tied and it comes down to one decisive battle and one guy gets a lucky draw and he wins. But it cannot happen that a player has continuous streaks of bad/good luck and wins/losses because of that. The game simply doesn't allow that to happen simply because you have a 20 card deck and a hand of 6 to 8 cards and you can possibly draw 9 cards per round. (I'm talking about optimal play) which gets 15 cards into your hand. And also, there are multiple copies of each card (the values differ, but they are used for the same units). and also you don't have access to all the units from the start and can save cards for later turns.
Don't forget the deck building mechanic, how your deck could get diluted with techn cards you may not need if you don't think ahead well enough.
It didn't happen in any of my games (The example I gave where it did wasn't related to battle cards). I grant you it could happen that when the players are tied and it comes down to one decisive battle and one guy gets a lucky draw and he wins. But it cannot happen that a player has continuous streaks of bad/good luck and wins/losses because of that. The game simply doesn't allow that to happen simply because you have a 20 card deck and a hand of 6 to 8 cards and you can possibly draw 9 cards per round. (I'm talking about optimal play) which gets 15 cards into your hand. And also, there are multiple copies of each card (the values differ, but they are used for the same units). and also you don't have access to all the units from the start and can save cards for later turns.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be crass, but your personal experience is meaningless. Only controlled empirical analysis can determine that. I'll grant you a few things.
One, Starcraft is the near perfect example of a card based strategy game. Randomness is extremely controlled by skill, but streaks of 2 or more losses due to random card play do happen. I know I've seen them, but just as your experience is meaningless so is mine. Tourneys keep good records of these things I wonder if there is anyway to get your hands on them.
Two, Risk while a good example is not nearly as perfect as Starcraft. Randomness is mostly controlled by skill, streaks of 2 or more wins by inferior play does happen on occasion, but still rarely. Remember there are also far more battles in a standard Risk game than in a standard Starcraft game and individual battles have can have far more weight than they can do in Starcraft. So yes Risk has more randomization than Starcraft (not by a lot though), but it is the game far more people have actually played so I'm sticking with it as the example. ASL, Russian campaign, and others are far better choices.
It didn't happen in any of my games (The example I gave where it did wasn't related to battle cards). I grant you it could happen that when the players are tied and it comes down to one decisive battle and one guy gets a lucky draw and he wins. But it cannot happen that a player has continuous streaks of bad/good luck and wins/losses because of that. The game simply doesn't allow that to happen simply because you have a 20 card deck and a hand of 6 to 8 cards and you can possibly draw 9 cards per round. (I'm talking about optimal play) which gets 15 cards into your hand. And also, there are multiple copies of each card (the values differ, but they are used for the same units). and also you don't have access to all the units from the start and can save cards for later turns.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm not trying to be crass, but your personal experience is meaningless. Only controlled empirical analysis can determine that. I'll grant you a few things.
One, Starcraft is the near perfect example of a card based strategy game. Randomness is extremely controlled by skill, but streaks of 2 or more losses due to random card play do happen. I know I've seen them, but just as your experience is meaningless so is mine. Tourneys keep good records of these things I wonder if there is anyway to get your hands on them.
Two, Risk while a good example is not nearly as perfect as Starcraft. Randomness is mostly controlled by skill, streaks of 2 or more wins by inferior play does happen on occasion, but still rarely. Remember there are also far more battles in a standard Risk game than in a standard Starcraft game and individual battles have can have far more weight than they can do in Starcraft. So yes Risk has more randomization than Starcraft (not by a lot though), but it is the game far more people have actually played so I'm sticking with it as the example. ASL, Russian campaign, and others are far better choices.
I can understand your other points (I don't agree though), but I really don't understand how Risk doesn't have A LOT more randomization than Starcraft? In Risk you don't have any control over your attacks - you might roll well, or you might not, and even if you do roll well your opponent can roll better and beat you. Or, let me rephrase.: What game HAS A LOT more randomization than Starcraft? (I assume by randomization you mean luck?)
I can understand your other points (I don't agree though), but I really don't understand how Risk doesn't have A LOT more randomization than Starcraft? In Risk you don't have any control over your attacks - you might roll well, or you might not, and even if you do roll well your opponent can roll better and beat you. Or, let me rephrase.: What game HAS A LOT more randomization than Starcraft? (I assume by randomization you mean luck?)
Edit: Have you ever played Starcraft?
I have played Starcraft a few dozen times and watch several other times. I've played many more games of Risk(since I don't own Starcraft). At one time I went 4 years and about 60 games without losing at Risk and luck had nothing to do with that (it's really hard to find quality competition). I've only won 8 games of Starcraft and luck has nothing to do with that (my friend who owns the game is just awesome at it).
Randomization can be luck depending on your definition of luck. I personally see them as one and the same. A mathematical probability and not a fixed determination. This is what die rolling and card drawing are. I am not supersticious and don't believe in VooDoo style luck.
Most card drawing games and deck building games that I have played have more randomization than Starcraft. And I have not played on that has less. Dominion has less at the beginning and more at the end, Ticket to Ride always has more. Shoots and Ladders/Candyland have infinitely more because you control nothing and everything is left to randomization. Risk has more randomization than Starcraft but not significantly more. The only think that the dice control is the outcome of the battles, and even then the probabilities and outcomes in general give the player with more armies wins in a single battle. And this happens overwhelmingly so. This has actually been studied and tested over thousands of games. The dice have no control over army placement, army movement, value of reinforcements, retreating from battles, number of battles, alliances, grudges, or player manipulations. There is only one degree of randomization in Risk. Over time everyone rolls the same.
We talk about the fact that one player can lose 3 or 4 games in a row based on dice roll. He can alos win 3-4 games in a row. It might balance out over 1000 games, but it also might not. the sheer fact that you can loose a coule of games based on dice rolls is why I don't like dice in my strategy games (And I think Op agrees)
For whatever reason, this reminds me of how cruel the cards (and tiles) can be in Forbidden Island. It is possible to lose after the 2nd player has taken their turn, regardless of what actions you take. No dice there.
But cutting through all the cross talk, I think:
1. Running through a deck of cards with unique values, you will see each value exactly once. This is more predictable than rolling dice an equivalent number of times. To me, this is the single most important difference between the two.
2. If you draw just a few cards off a deck before re-shuffling, the randomness is not that different from rolling dice.
3. Even if you go through the whole deck, the cards may still come up in a sequence that is good or bad for you (luck), perhaps to the point of winning/losing the game.
4. There are high-randomness card and dice games, and there are low-randomness card and dice games.
5. Among low-randomness games, which would include most heavier strategic games, more are probably card-based and fewer dice-based.
6. Among dice games, more are probably high-randomness and few are low-randomness ("strategic").
7. You could design a strategic, low-luck dice game. Such a game would be less prone to strings of lucky wins or losses than *some* (not all) strategic card-based games.
8. Using Risk and Starcraft might not be the best examples. Using any specific examples is problematic.
Its very difficult to objectively look at luck in boardgames, since we all have a bias in our thinking to blame our losses on bad luck.
For example, compare the cases where I lose a game of Catan and where I lose a game of Puerto Rico. I am far more likely to claim that I lost the Catan game because of bad luck, since there is an obvious 'target' for the luck - the dice. Losing Puerto Rico is different - there is not such an obvious excuse for losing other than bad play.
However, it could easily be the case that I lost Catan because of bad play and lost PR because of luck - its just that I cannot see it that way because (a) I don't want to see it that way and (b) its not the most obvious simple interpretation.
What luck is there in PR? As with all multiplayer strategy games, the luck in PR revolves around the unintended consequences of the moves other players make. For example, if a player makes a poor move in PR, taking the Craftsman (for example), which means you (as the next player) really must take the Captain even though its not your best move but you need to ensure that someone else does not take it. That is, a weak player unwittingly played kingmaker and you lost as result. That happens a LOT in PR, and I would much much much rather lose Risk to a bad dice roll than lose PR in that way.
Put another way, low-luck strategy games are OFTEN won by the player who was 'lucky' enough to not be affected by the poor moves of the weakest player at the table, or was lucky enough to be helped by the poor moves of the weakest player at the table. These games are often not won by the most skilful player at the table.
What I am trying to say is that it is actually quite tricky to determine how much luck is present in a game, and looking at it 'theoretically' is not the best guide. The best measure is if the same players tend to win a lot or if the winners are pretty spread around. For example, Stone Age has as little luck as a multiplayer game could have - I played in a tournament once where the pre-tournament favourite won every game he played. At the Catan tournaments I attend (Australian Championships) the same players make the finals almost every year - that's a pretty good indicator that there is less luck than it appears.
By the way, games of Risk are usually not decided by the dice - they are decided because Fred should have attacked Bill in Europe but instead he attacked me in North America and so he let Fred win ...
i agree John. Diplomacy is a game that illustrates your argument. Technically speaking there is no randomness (luck, although the definition of luck is slippery and covered in superstition).
But there can appear to be a fair amount of luck in the game. Players at the other end of the table can make decisions that no matter what you do were ever going to influence them and indirectly these decisions could put you out of the game. If Russia and Turkey make a really tight alliance, as England your in trouble despite this being far across the board. You could try and influence the decisions but sometimes you can't.
In most multiplayer direct interaction games player interaction far out trumps luck in the outcome, as you have suggested in risk. I rarely see games that are in my view decided by luck, when more than 2 players are involved.
I have mixed views about luck in games. When it comes down to it, i think luck is something you just have to accept and role with. In my experience its competitive folks that don't like losing when it isn't their fault that hate luck in games. I love the game Hannibal Rome Vs Carthage, its a 3 hour plus epic struggle, and sometimes the dice screw you, and its tough, but that's the way of the world. Some times things go wrong and strategically you didn't do anything wrong. You might loose, but its just a game. There's quite a few people on the website that will blank refuse to play a game that involves dice (they've commented in my reviews), i class them as sore losers.
Having said this there are some games, such as War of the Ring that i feel there is slightly too much luck in. Some times my decisions feel rather arbitrary, and luck is tied to every single action in the game. Its also has an emotionally involving theme that makes loosing dice roles harder to stomach. You can be cold and tactical and detach your self from the theme, but this sort of kills the main attraction to the game. This is part of the reason why i could never get into warhammer, i didn't mind losing games, but i hated it when the models i slaved over got killed by dice (and probably my poor strategy).
Look at the main stream toy stores, almost every game is based on brainless luck. When you go at the hobby games, luck is still very present despite some efforts to control it.
The more a game requires skill, less people are interested in it and only adepts move on to better themselves and appreciate the game. The less skill is required, more people like it, since they either a) don't want to spend time getting good at a game or b) do not have analytical minds and are drawn to games that allow them the occasional random win which satisfies their gaming needs.
People also love when dramatic changes occur. The phenomenon of Texas Hold'em is great at illustrating this point. Most poker players don't count the odds and even fewer master them. Why is it such a gripping game? Because there is a lot of drama with each step of the game: flop, turn and river. Who knows what is really going to happen? Nobody. The possibility of having a "runner-runner full house" that beats another full house maybe constitutes a horrible play, but the "oh snap!" factor is off the chart and cannot be matched by any of the top 10 b-games on BGG. Hence why they telivise poker and not board game tournaments - not even TS tournaments.
This said, you can't fight human nature. People like easy wins and drama. You don't get that with skill games. TS could have been the next chess game. But they made sure it would never get that status by introducing the die (must win at least a couple coups or realilgnment rolls to win your game), the reshuffling of cards at every 1-2 turns (making some very powerful or weak cards come back repeatedly to hurt your opponent or yourself), random scoring moments, and making so many losing nuclear scenarios cards and negative opponent events that force the players to manage their hands rather than actually use all of their resources to outplay their opponent.
All this combined introduces a lot more "theme" to the game and reduces actual skill. Players have to "live" the story that the cards structure in their hands. Players are allowed to shape the story to a certain degree, but they are definetely restricted in their strategies by their hand, the war phase and the entire TS deck. Experienced players will definitely have an edge over noobs, but the best players can horribly lose to a bad player if their rolls fail and simply end up having a couple of bad hands to manage and offbeat scoring momentum - all luck driven factors.
When you combine the nature of TS and human nature, it's no surprise that it's currently the #1 game and will stay there for a while. Which is somewhat depressing either way you look at it.
Look at the main stream toy stores, almost evert game is based on brainless luck. When you go at the hobby games, luck is still very present despite some efforts to control it.
The more a game requires skill, less people are interested in it and only adepts move on to better themselves and appreciate the game. The less skill is required, more people like it, since they either a) don't want to spend time getting good at a game or b) do not have analytical minds and only appreciate games that allow them the occasional random win.
People also love when dramatic changes occur. The phenomenon of Texas Hold'em is great at illustrating this point. Most poker players don't count the odds and even fewer master them. Why is it such a gripping game? Because there is a lot of drama with each step of the game: flop, turn and river. Who knows what is really going to happen? Nobody. The possibility of having runner-runner full house that beats another full house maybe a horrible play, but the "oh snap!" factor is off the chart and cannot be matched by any of the top 10 b-games on BGG.
This said, you can't fight human nature. People like easy wins and drama. You don't get that with skill games. TS could of been the next chess game. But they made sure it would never get that status by introducing the die, the reshuffling of cards at every 1-2 turns and making so many nuclear scenarios that forces the players to manage those scenarios rather than actually use all of their resources to outplay their opponent.
Adding randomness to a point actually increases the skill required, and Poker including Texas holdem is a fine example of this. Extreme randomness means everyone has an equal chance of winning. If you don't see an even distribution of wins skill is involved.
Look at the main stream toy stores, almost evert game is based on brainless luck. When you go at the hobby games, luck is still very present despite some efforts to control it.
I don't think the people in this thread are the same ones buying the bulk of the games from these stores.
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The more a game requires skill, less people are interested in it and only adepts move on to better themselves and appreciate the game. The less skill is required, more people like it, since they either a) don't want to spend time getting good at a game or b) do not have analytical minds and only appreciate games that allow them the occasional random win.
Or maybe it's just that managing certain types of randomness *is* a skill, but of course that doesn't fit your preconceived notions of the actual people you're disagreeing with.
I think you'd be hard pressed to find games highly rated on the geek (or by the people participating in this thread that you're labeling as "haters") that are as random as you are implying we all want. As Charlie says a well-designed game that includes random elements is still going to favor the player with more skill.
Aside from that, I enjoy games with random elements in the form of die rolls (so long as they are well designed and interesting), but I also enjoy games that are more deterministic, both light and heavy. Off the top of my head these include (but are not limited to): Go, Diplomacy, Game of Thrones and Tobago (both of these most recent ones do include some random elements, but they are more like the type that Thomas said he favored).
and Poker including Texas holdem is a fine example of this. Extreme randomness means everyone has an equal chance of winning. If you don't see an even distribution of wins skill is involved.
Yes skill is involved in poker, but since there is still a lot of luck in poker a lot of champions can and do lose against total noobs and people who do not count the odds. There is a sufficent statistical margin in poker that makes almost anyone a candidate for victory be it a bar game or the WSOP that is played for a couple of days. Case and point: WSOP winners were not all pro players or even good players for that matter (some don't make it after turning pro). Skill is not sufficent to win at poker when you are all-in with A-A vs K-K. You could play 1,000 times the same hand to eventually make your money back, but most people can't afford to do so.
Attitude suffices to communicate implicit disdain - just like you are currently writing a logical equation as a sign that you cannot be bothered by writing a complete sentence to my comment, which quite frankly, didn't require a response when you think about it since I was obviously refering to the kind of "hate" you would find defined in the Urbandictionary or from the lamen's casual parley.
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Prisme wrote:
Look at the main stream toy stores, almost evert game is based on brainless luck. When you go at the hobby games, luck is still very present despite some efforts to control it.
[q="RedShark92"] I don't think the people in this thread are the same ones buying the bulk of the games from these stores.
Don't worry, I never said they were. I used a complete different sentence to describe them/us. My entire comment had more to do with all people rather than hobby gamers. You have to take my comment in its entirety. But still, a lot of games on BGG that are highly rated have much more luck than skill involved. It's just the average bgger doesn't like to admit it.
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Prisme wrote:
The more a game requires skill, less people are interested in it and only adepts move on to better themselves and appreciate the game. The less skill is required, more people like it, since they either a) don't want to spend time getting good at a game or b) do not have analytical minds and only appreciate games that allow them the occasional random win.
[q="RedShark92"] Or maybe it's just that managing certain types of randomness *is* a skill, but of course that doesn't fit your preconceived notions of the actual people you're disagreeing with.
Who said managing odds is not a skill? Of course, it's a skill, just don't kid yourself that you are a Bobby Fisher because you know that there are more "6" and "8" when playing Catan. It is more a skill the more the odds are manageable. The less they can be managed, the less skill is required in the game. Usually the latter version gets more sales because of their accessibility, hence the interest in easy wins and drama innate to the human nature I was refering to.
RedShark92 wrote:
I think you'd be hard pressed to find games highly rated on the geek (or by the people participating in this thread that you're labeling as "haters") that are as random as you are implying we all want. As Charlie says a well-designed game that includes random elements is still going to favor the player with more skill.
I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm sure my Catan example can maybe be recycled here. And if that doesn't suffice: factor in that for every player you add in most of the top 100 games at BGG, that allow 3+ players, the odds of certain key events giving victory become more and more unpredictable with the decision of every player or their die roll or their randomly attributed cards -or other mechanism- that skill, again with each player, fades more and more.
The very concept of the Euro-game should suffice: the fact that 4-5 players all finish the game with +-2 to 4 VPs difference, that all players are still playing up until the end, and that often, still have a chance to come back and win late in the game, all prove that most popular bgg games have a lot of luck involved. Case closed.
RedShark92 wrote:
Aside from that, I enjoy games with random elements in the form of die rolls (so long as they are well designed and interesting), but I also enjoy games that are more deterministic, both light and heavy. Off the top of my head these include (but are not limited to): Go, Diplomacy, Game of Thrones and Tobago (both of these most recent ones do include some random elements, but they are more like the type that Thomas said he favored).
Good for you Redshark. Going to play my first GoT next week-end.
Attitude suffices to communicate implicit disdain - just like you are currently writing a logical equation as a sign that you cannot be bothered by writing a complete sentence to my comment, which quite frankly, didn't require a response when you think about it since I was obviously refering to the kind of "hate" you would find defined in the Urbandictionary or from the lamen's casual parley.
I suppose then, that it wasn't so obvious. Regardless, the definitions in the urban dictionary imply a much stronger viewpoint against Thomas than I think most people here have intended, so my statement stands, simple as it is.
Prisme wrote:
But still, a lot of games on BGG that are highly rated have much more luck than skill involved. It's just the average bgger doesn't like to admit it.
Can you give some examples of these games and why they have more luck than skill?
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Who said managing odds is not a skill? Of course, it's a skill, just don't kid yourself that you are a Bobby Fisher because you know that there are more "6" and "8" when playing Catan.
Who is doing this?
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It is more a skill the more the odds are manageable. The less they can be managed, the less skill is required in the game. Usually the latter version gets more sales because of their accessibility, hence the interest in easy wins and drama innate to the human nature I was refering to.
Examples?
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I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm sure my Catan example can maybe be recycled here. And if that doesn't suffice: factor in that for every player you add in most of the top 100 games at BGG, that allow 3+ players, the odds of certain key events giving victory become more and more unpredictable with the decision of every player or their die roll or their randomly attributed cards -or other mechanism- that skill, again with each player, fades more and more.
I'm trying to say that I doubt that these games are truly as random as you are claiming they are. You're making some pretty big claims here with no real supporting arguments or examples.
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The very concept of the Euro-game should suffice: the fact that 4-5 players all finish the game with +-2 to 4 VPs difference, that all players are still playing up until the end, and that often, still have a chance to come back and win late in the game, all prove that most popular bgg games have a lot of luck involved. Case closed.
I don't play many Euro games, so I won't be that familiar with the games you're thinking of. Regardless, I don't see how this conclusion follows from your statement. Can you provide more detailed examples?
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Good for you Redshark. Going to play my first GoT next week-end.
I didn't say that to brag, I said to to make a point: I'm one of the people in this thread, presumably included in the "haters" and in the group that loves games based completely on luck.
Poker including Texas holdem is a fine example of this. Extreme randomness means everyone has an equal chance of winning. If you don't see an even distribution of wins skill is involved.
Yes skill is involved in poker, but since there is still a lot of luck in poker a lot of champions can and do lose against total noobs and people who do not count the odds. There is a sufficent statistical margin in poker that makes almost anyone a candidate for victory be it a bar game or the WSOP that is played for a couple of days. Case and point: WSOP winners were not all pro players or even good players for that matter (some don't make it after turning pro). Skill is not sufficent to win at poker when you are all-in with A-A vs K-K. You could play 1,000 times the same hand to eventually make your money back, but most people can't afford to do so.
In a single hand a less skilled player has a shot over a skilled player. But in the course of a set of games a skilled player will almost always beet an unskilled player. Even with the level of randomness involved.
In reading your posts I think you may be missing the point of the OP. He was not saying that randomness is bad. He was saying that randomness in dice based games was higher than in card based games and that makes card games superior to dice games.
There actually are not many games available with no luck involved at all. But many of those acutally are quite popular (Acquire, Diplomacy, chess, checkers, stratego, go. . . )
All this combined introduces a lot more "theme" to the game and reduces actual skill. Players have to "live" the story that the cards structure in their hands. Players are allowed to shape the story to a certain degree, but they are definetely restricted in their strategies by their hand, the war phase and the entire TS deck. Experienced players will definitely have an edge over noobs, but the best players can horribly lose to a bad player if their rolls fail and simply end up having a couple of bad hands to manage and offbeat scoring momentum - all luck driven factors.
I seriously doubt that, especially in Twilight Struggle. There is a small possibility of them losing, but losing horribly? That's pushing it. An experienced player could probably beat a noob without ever picking up the dice in that game, especially if he knows the cards and where the important places for influence are at the beginning-mid game. This is assuming that the noob plays like a noob.
And from what I've seen in the game, if you have a bad hand, then there's a very good chance that your opponent also has a bad hand, especially in the Early War.
Don't buy it. 1 bad card could easily be the equal of 10 bad die rolls. .
Just scrolled through and spotted this. Decided, what the hell, comment on it.
The fact that a single bad card can be the equivalent (says as much) as 10 bad rolls surely says something about the efficiency in some card games. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a card can be worth a dozen dice.
The fact that a single bad card can be the equivalent (says as much) as 10 bad rolls surely says something about the efficiency in some card games. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a card can be worth a dozen dice.
And vice versa, as we agreed to disagree on logic about
I think dice have a great value particullarly in war games, nothing ever goes the way it was planned and moderating these effects is what the the simulation might be about. Looking at WW2, all the stuff that happened that was completely at odds with what one would expect in a war game. "I rolled a 100; looks like my single guy here captured your company".
Guy in that article has no idea of economics, at all. The thing with shocking is caused by marginalism. And the fact with keeping shotgun under bed is pretty much greatly screwed by the fact he's mentioning Wisconsin - the reason, that in Wisconsin are almost no murders is - everyone has shotgun under his bed, there. So the chances of an accident with it are higher, becouse, granted by the gun owning, there are less crimes tried and commited. Also, there are not many crimes repele with use of guns, becouse only professional, weel prepared gangsters may try to commit one in a situation, when they may be repeld with fire arm.
It's true, we don't percive random chances accurate, but given examples are horribly bad - it's the thing I hate - right thesis, bad arguments.
(just my few words, outside the topic, sorry, I couldn't help myself)
Not trolling. Trying to inject some philosophical discussion on board gaming, with some statistics thrown in (I'm taking a statistics course, so it's a win-win for me in learning something philosophically and mathematically from you guys).
Ok, so not everyone agrees with that, but they should because it happens. Probably should have stated it more clearly, but it is possible for someone to do better, or more poorly, than any probability could predict; and this happens in some games, not all games, some games.
I'm curious, have you got far in your statistics course (ie have you realised that you are completely wrong about probability yet)? NO-ONE can do worse in die-rolling than "probability could predict" because the possibilities have very clearly defined upper and lower bounds. You can't roll 0 on a d6 (without renumbering the faces of course). Even if this was not the case, an event can only occur if it is possible, and therefore it is within the bounds of possibility (note that "not possible" and "having a probability of zero" are not the same, as events with a probability of zero still happen).
Anyone who says they are "unlucky" with dice most likely doesn't understand probability and also most likely has a high pessimistic confirmation bias (at least for dice).
Now, there is no shame in being bad at determining probability "on the fly" as it were- most people are terrible at it (because "correct" probability calculations are generally counter-intuitive). For example, let's take lottery numbers- the vast majority of people will tell you that sequential numbers (especially at the beginning or end of the possibility range) are less likely than a non-sequential group of numbers. But the odds are actually exactly the same.
"Luck" only exists as a retrospective comparison of past events to their probability (and one that people almost always get wrong). There is no such thing as luck for events that are going to happen.
s also do something special, but that's beside the point in this case). Then there's Axis & Allies, or Nexus Ops, where certain units have a greater chance of hitting their target than others, and can potential eliminate others before they get a chance to respond in kind with their own attack. In other words, there are dice games which give priorities in addition to modifiers, making some pieces more valuable than others, thus giving strategy in deciding which pieces you will end up building. It all amounts to, "Will I build more units that have a less chance of hitting for cheap, or will I build a couple units that have a better chance of hitting for more, or will I settle for those in between?" Even The Ares Project does this, only at a much more complex and strategic level. Yes, strategic. From a statistical standpoint, strategy should end up very well incorporated with games such as these. Now all you have to do is roll what the game requires you to roll in order to defeat your opponent, not necessarily out-roll your opponent. Thus it becomes less about your luck vs. your opponents luck, and more about how well your luck meshes with what the game requires of you in order to win, though rolling better than you important is still a factor in all of this, just no longer to the extent of games like Risk, which is nothing short of an obsolete combat system.
], imagine some of the others how there could be just as good or better, or worse, depending on your taste in games.
.]
.
Anyway, to repeat myself, cards don't always make a game better. A game system built around dice may not be able to be improved with cards, thus it will be as good as it gets. That said, it's system is likely inferior to another game whose system is built around cards. Not every card game, but some card-based board games.
