Wargamers like to roll lots of dice. I sure do. There is nothing quite like picking up twenty or so six sided dice and rolling them across the table. The only trouble with lots of dice is that they go along with lots of tables that tell exactly how many dice SHOULD be rolled and what they mean. The machine model of games, suggests that the mechanics of each game system give it certain properties like friction, and static. one can lubricate a system down to aid it to work better (by writing a coherent easy accessed rules book, by having large easy to read charts and graphs, or by limiting the number of rolls required) but no matter how greased up a system gets there is still an outside maximum of how fast it will go. once the limit is reached it bogs down due to friction, which leads to player boredom. A truth of all dice based game systems is that each unit type is assigned a certain number of dice or a better or worse dice roll to reflect its relative strength. Thus in Napoleonic games Neapolitan infantry, the joke infantry of the period, gets the lowest rolls possible. Game makers exercise their greatest Influence over the outcomes of games when making determinations over such strengths. Napoleon said that the battle would go to the side with the larger battalions, well in wargaming the battle goes to the better dice rolls. I believe this basic game mechanism is flawed and there is another way to go. CALCULATED RISK Two gamers are playing a sailing game. one of the ships is rated to be good at shooting, the other poor. The good shooter is unfortunately a poor sailor, so it can not maneuver well. When the ships get into range, the good sailor reaches a fire position first. In a normal game, the players would now get out the tables and graphs and start figuring out just how many dice the attacker would get to roll. But this game is different. "Do your worst!" The receiving captain taunts. "I will!" the other replies. He then grabs all 12 of the dice laying on the table, no table looking or factor adding up. He rolls them and scores 2, 6s and 3, 1s. The dice are easy to read for 6s and 1s, so the results are easy to determine. 6s score hits on the enemy, while 1s cause problems on the firing ship. The defender laughs, because when the look at the combat result table it shows that the attacking ship scored 2 hits on his hull (corresponding to the 2, 6s), but he scored 1 hit on his own hull! (The negative result of rolling 3, 1s). "What?!" cries the attacker. "This can't be. I was just firing my guns!" "Stop your whining. You took the risk, you accept the consequences!" As the game goes on the good shooting ship slowly gains the upper hand. He faces less risk of a bad effect from shooting so he can generally "risk" rolling more dice. The poor shooter decides he has to be more conservative in his rolling to avoid hurting his own ship again. Each player chooses how much danger they want to face. it would be possible chose next to no risk at all (le negative consequences) but such a commander is unlikely to win any battle. When ever the bullets start to fly there is risk Involved in sticking around. ASSUMED RISK Most rules systems dictate how many dice a unit gets to roll. Imagine though a game that allowed the player to roll as many dice as are on the table. What would this do to a game? Obviously every player would want to roll as many dice as he could every turn, right? But now imagine that each dice rolled can give either a positive effect (like hits on the enemy, or repairs completed) or a negative effect (further damage to the rollers unit, striking or even sinking!) Maybe then, players would think twice about rolling all the dice on the table every turn. The player is in charge of how much risk he want to chance to do damage to the enemy. Too much risk could spell disaster. Too little risk will almost certainly lead to failure. So how much do you want to wager? Do you feel lucky today? CALCULATED RISK: HOW IT WORKS I've been working on calculated risk rules for about a year now. The idea is an attempt to slip around having to read too many charts before the dice are rolled. I started off with the idea that player can make tactical judgements based on what they see on the game table. The more dice the roll the better they will do in battle. But greater battle results also lead to lead to greater risk of troops getting disordered or otherwise messed up. The number of dice on the table is limited so that the rules don't fall into the trap of the Kamikaze player who tries rolling an Infinite number of dice to win the battle in one roll. 12 or 18 dice are as many dice as anyone needs to hold. 12 easily cram one hand, 18 can fill up two palms full. Once the dice are rolled, the resulting 6s and 1s are added up and compared to a very simple table to find the positive and negative results from the turn. The results are marked on unit rosters, and the next turn can begin. PLAYERS HAVE A REAL CHOICE The nice thing about this dice system is that it give the players another decision to make when playing in a game. Up till now, players have only had the chose to fight or not fight. The leadership skill in games was all in maneuver. For an ancients game Involving two opposing rows of hoplite Infantry, this does not give much choice. Calculated risk allows players to decide where they want their big push to be. Not all pushes of pike are the same. The area of the field that is more critical usually sees more desperate fighting. Both sides feel they have to take more risk there than in other places. More risk means a greater chance of having a negative result. Disordering in the face of the enemy charge is likely to prove decisive. The losing side literally flinched, and was pounced on. I believe that because calculated risk allows players to chose their own fate that the "invisible hand" of morale will seep in to take charge. Desperate men will make desperate rolls even though to roll big may be a disaster. Some players will grouse that "they didn't mean to roll that many dice!" But what they are really saying is that they do not like to lose, and certainly don't want to take personal responsibility for their losing. I believe that this dice system actually allows gamers to get a feel for a part of battle morale mainstream game presently miss. It may not be fun to watch one's elite troops disorder from marching too quickly. And then to be attacked by the ordered Neapolitan infantry who win. But this is "realistic" given the calculated risks each side took on by the actions they did. Howard Whitehouse has a similar responsibility mechanism In Science vs Pluck. Players can always make "emergency responses" to pending disasters. But the closer the enemy Is, the greater the chance that the response will make matters worse than before. Players have literally destroyed their commands by opening up gaps in their lines at critical moments. FUTURE PLANS I'm presently working on a set of 18th Century sailing rules using this idea. I've also got a set of land combat rules in development to use for the period of 1755 to 1866. I'll put these rules into EGG down the road. Back to Experimental Games Group # 23 Table of Contents Back to Experimental Games Group List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1993 by Chris Engle This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com