Okay, so in order to make the game more attractice to the general public and to significantly reduce the cost of the dice component, one recommendation I have received has been to toss the concept of combat using different dice types (d4, d6, d8, d10) and simplify back to the ‘standard’ d6.
The main pro is cost. Six-sided dice can be produced in bulk for next to nothing whereas the other dice types are considered ‘specialty dice’ and generally only used by roleplayers and available through specialty manufacturers. The ‘general public’ have very little understanding of these other dice types; some may even find their use confusing. All good reasons to ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’.
The use of dice to resolve combat situations between the players was an early choice of preferred mechanic in the game design. My reasons were:
- People like rolling dice (doing stuff with their hands)
- It introduces a random aspect into any combat so that it wasn’t cut and dried (think ‘David versus Goliath’ and who doesn’t like to root for the Little Guy or be on the side of the Underdog when the Underdog wins?)
- It avoids deck-building mechanics and power gaming dynamics (personal pet peeve)
- It allows players to do something different during game-play, and
- It is relatively quick in a game that is supposed to emphasise tactics over strategy and is pitched at medium-level difficulty.
The main con was having to design a combat system that would be relatively simplistic, preferably unique, and elegant in principle. A related issue revolved around the different strength of the different units: Cultists cf. Servitors cf. Monsters for which ‘step-dice’ seemed the simplist solution e.g. d6 – d8 – d10.
I eventually adopted a mix of step-dice, two combat rounds or segments, and a Risk-like process:
- Attacker/ Defender build dice pools
- Roll dice pools
- Rank results from high to low
- Match off results and
- Remove losses.
So what will be interesting now is whether it will be possible to retro-fit the system without breaking what is good about it. One issue will be keeping track of units and raises the issue of how to determine losses when you can’t easily tie dice to all unit types. Perhaps it should be at the discretion of the player as certain decisions will be affected in the post-combat resolution phase.
To change the system to d6 means that instead of having a step-dice value, you also move to requiring additional dice, i.e. d6 – d8 – d10 (a 3-dice, dice pool) becomes d6 – 2d6 – 3d6 (a 6-dice, dice pool). If you maintain the stacking dynamic around maximums this could mean 5 Cultists and 3 Servitors goes from a dice pool of 8 to 11, which isn’t too bad, although with Monsters at 3d6 each and no stacking limit on Spawning Nodes, there will potentially be quite a lot of dice on either side of a conflict.
One instinct is to provide a unique set of coloured dice for each player as well as another for use for Insane Cultists and Random Monsters (probably black and white for attacker and defender). Another is to reconsider the ‘home advantage’ for defenders in their own elemental ring and the Combat Value Table. Then there will be the various Arcana Cards affecting Combat values, and probably some other stuff that is yet to come out in the wash – like removing d4s from the game will mean Random and Long Gates dynamic will also need to change.
We live in interesting times – again.