Reply To: Why don’t we already have the perfect wargame?

[limburger 21711xp 1]

The only ‘problem’ with random is that people only ever want it to work in their favour …

A lucky dice roll killing a dangerous enemy ? That’s cool.
An unlucky dice roll killing one of your minions ? That’s soo not cool.

The thing that dice provide isn’t just ‘randomness’ but also ‘control’. You feel like you’re doing something that mimics taking the shot or swinging the axe. I suspect that’s why most wargames need several rolls to determine success/failure (first to hit, then to defeat armour and finally to wound). It wouldn’t be impossible to reduce all of those rolls to a single mathematical chance, but splitting them gives the players a feeling of being ‘in control’ as well as making the most out of a D6.

Here is a thought :

What about *both* cards and dice ?
The dice roll may give greater rewards, but cards offer predictable outcome.
Pick the option that suits the moment. Maybe add in rules that decide how often and when you can choose either option.

Maybe use mechanics like this to give flavour to a faction ?
Faction x is slow and methodical, so they will use a card based mechanic for (most) of their actions.
Faction y is chaotic and irratic at times so they rely on dice rolls to get the job done.

//
‘balance’ is overrated as a feature in games.

It is usually interpreted that if faction A has one option then faction B needs it too.
Few are willing to accept negative features in their army/units (like snipers being automatically killed in close combat), because they still need a chance to survive bad decisions.

It’s the endless arguments in D&D about which class is ‘better’ in a duel, when in reality a thief would murder the warrior in his sleep instead of facing him head on …

Also don’t forget that a wargame shouldn’t always be about defeating an equally matched opponent.
A system that allows for assymetric warfare while giving both sides the same chance to ‘win’ is balanced too.
You just need to accept that you’re likely to be wiped out if you do stupid stuff when you’re playing the smaller faction.