Some time ago there appeared in the pages of the PW Review several articles which contained Wally's evaluation of several games. I forget which exactly, I've never played them or ever. heard of them, so therefore they can't be very good, but what struck me was Wally's belief that the rules were flawed by their use of only six-sided dice. I have always marvelled at this, and the gist of Wally's argument was that the use of this type of die limited the game results that were possible. This is all true, simply from the simple fact that having only six sides, the dice could produce only six results. Yet the question really is "How many results do you need?" Even a cursory study of combat shows that in most of the situations involving UNITS fighting UNITS, there are really only four results. 1. Sometimes side A gets schlonged while Side B is largely untouched. 2. Sometimes side B gets schlonged while Side A is largely, untouched. 3. Occasionally Side A and Side B both get schlonged. 4. Most of the times both sides are largely untouched, there's a lot of hootin and holler'n and some gunplay, and a lot of running around, but it's all really quite harmless. Ardant Du Piq noted this in his masterful work on Ancient Combat, and it has been seconded by modern scholars like Michael Howard, John Keegan, and Victor Davis Hanson. Du Piq noted that results 1 and 2 invariably happen when one side breaks its formation and runs, and it is that side that gets schlonged. As he said, "The willingness of troops to close with an eneny, whose back is turned knows no bounds." Result 3 comes about when somebody miscalculates or when things go awry, or when troops suddenly come into close proximity to each other with no warning or in unusual spaces. Keegan shows exactly this in the fighting at Hougomount and LaHay Sainte at Waterloo and elsewhere. As to result 4, well this is the warp and woof of most combat, and again, as DuPiq and Hanson noted, in ancient combat continuous combat for hours was impossible. The troops would literally be dead on their feet from exhaustion in fignting in such heavy armor and in such strenuous style. Most likely these "long melees" amounted to a few clashes along the front between individuals, or small groups, and the rest of the time was spent with the lines a few yards apart, hurling weapons and aspersions about the other guys' mothers' sexual partners at each other. Results? So what other results do we need? Making up a simple chart we get the following. COMBAT STRAIGHT UP IN AN OPEN FIELD. 1 Side A gets schlonged while Side B is largely untouched. 2 Side B gets schlonged while Side A is largely untouched. 3 Side A and Side B both get schlonged. 4-6 Side A and Side B are largely untouched. I realize that only having the indecisive result (A & B untouched) is definitely not congruent with the statistical average, but it probably will make a better game. If you are offended by the asymmetry of the chart, you can make the "2" result in a "6" etc. Yet the point is clear, why do you have to complicate it with eight, ten, twelve, twenty, or a hundred results when all you need is six. Further, you don't have to memorize any big charts, and it makes modifiers much easier. Once again, you can change the form of the chart. For example... 1 or less Side A gets schlonged while Side B is largely untouched. 2 Side B gets schlonged while Side A is largely untouched. 3-5 Side A and Side B are largely untouched. 6 or more Side A and Side B both get schlonged. If you configured the chart as above, and you made say, when A attacks B in a defensive position, you reduce the die roll by one, then in effect you get a modified chart that looks like this. 1 Side A gets schlonged while Side B is largely untouched. 2 Side A gets schlonged while Side B is largely untouched. 3 Side B gets schlonged while Side A is largely untouched. 4-6 Side A and Side B are largely untouched. Obviously quite Different! You see... there is a benefit to non-symmetry in the chart. Or, even better why not configure the chart for different situations. The above was for A attack B in a defensive position. What about attacking prepared fortifications? Perhaps... 1-2 Side A gets schlonged while Side B is largely untouched. 3-4 Side A and B get schlonged. 5-6 Side A and Side B are largely untouched. Verdun here we come! Confirming Result At the same time, if you did not want to do this, you could use the idea of a "confirming result a on the first basic chart. That is, either side could roll two dice and take the ..best.' or the "worst" of the two, his choice. You could construct similar tables or orders of results depending on the situation. Obviously I am speaking here only in general categories and you would have to figure out the specific application in your own system, and what exactly the words "schlonged" and "largely untouched" constitute. But the point is clear- larger number of dice faces are not needed, only a close attention to detail of the structures and forms we have now. I am sure you have noticed that one of the interesting things about the charts above is that they are largely not symetrical. They do not follow the unwritten but omnipresent rule of game design that if low numbers are X, high numbers must be the negation of X. This is a hold-over from the old Avalon Hill charts where 1's were good and 6's were bad. Yet in a results producing system like dice where each face is theoretically random and equal to the other, there is absolutely no reason why there should be a sliding schlonging scale either way. In effect, all we really need in any situation, is just the pertinent results. For example, let's assume we have a Seven Years War Game and we need a Cavalry versus Cavalry Chart. This is particularly easy, for since both sides are cavalry we're not going to have anything messy like fire-arms or fortifications or defensive positions. We can assume that both sides draw their swords, spur their horses and charge for each other. 1. Side A loses 10% combat effectiveness and runs 2 moves to the rear. Side B loses nothing and pursues for two moves. 2. Side A loses 10 percent combat effectiveness and runs 2 moves to the rear. Side B loses 10 percent combat effectiveness and pursues for one move. 3. Side A loses nothing and runs one move to the rear, side B rallies on side A's former spot. 4. Side B loses nothing and returns to its former position. Side a rallies on the ground 1t held. 5. Side B loses 10 percent combat effectiveness and runs 2 moves to the rear, Side A loses 10 percent combat effectiveness and pursues for one move, rallying on the point B started from. 6. Side B loses 10 percent combat effectiveness and runs 2 moves to the rear, and side A loses nothing and pursues for two moves. Careful readers will note that result 5 does not necessarily mean that the pursuing "A" will pursue side B if B's retreat takes it in a different direction thyan that from whence it came. Again I leave these entirely up to you. I hope that I have in some way answered Mr. Simon and, at the same time, stood up for "the good old six-sided Gods".-- Yet there is another reason for my advocacy of them. I've used all styles of dice, and frankly, the non-sixed dice just don't feel right in the hand, nor do they "sound" right as they are tossed out on the table top. Nothing matches the conjunction of the aesthetics of motion, sound, form, touch, and timing that the unleashing of a handful of six-sided dice (grapeshot-like) on the table top produces. EDITORIAL COMMENT ON THE ABOVE Otto has the major part of the story... but not all of it. Yes, I've mentioned in the past that the 6-sided-die doesn't provide enough graduations, i.e., the number of outcomes is rather limited. And in part, I agree with Otto that there's really no need for a large number of different results... that, in a wargame, there's a fairly limited choice of results to be listed in a set of rules, whether the procedures apply to firing, to melee, to morale, etc. But my real gripe with the toss of a single 6-sided die lies, not with the restricted number of available results, but with the fact that, no matter how you "massage" the outcomes, you're still dealing with 16 percent increments between any two results. Look, for example, at the way the ever-popular, ever-faithful, and extremely-historic DBM set of rules attempts to expand the 6-sided die toss. Some units are "inferior", others "superior", others get a "+1" if you toss low, others get a "-1" if you toss high. But through it all, they are still bridging the gap produced by those stodgy old 16 percent increments. Using a 10-sided die, or, better yet, two 10-sided dice, these percentage dice allow me to modify the results table to my liking. Result Number One can differ from Result Number Two by 10 percent, while Result Number Three can differ from Number Two by 24 percent. I'm not restricted to the 16 percent increment between pips on the toss of a single 6-sided die, nor to the 3 percent increments which are available when two 6-siders are tossed. Six-Sided Gods Part 2 (Mar 98) Back to PW Review January 1998 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com