Under the Hood - An examination of dice mechanics 

Amazing video! For a while now, I've been making a real time strategy board game now that uses dice as the core mechanic. So far I can't find any similar game that exists.

This was an extremely well made video. You managed to change my mind about most dice game now.

Terrific video! Part of the reason that I enjoy this hobby so much is because I love dice. I agree with everything you said regarding how they can enhance a game if used well. I can understand why folks don’t like the luck element if it comes across as cheap, but if done well it can add a superb tension to a game. It’s a great feeling when you get that die roll that you need and it can be deliciously satisfying when you opponents role fails!

Just played race for the galaxy for the first time. Agree that the reason the rolling is fun because the balance of control lets you take advantage of most any role while still having to optimize reassignments. Which makes a "bad roll" an interesting challenge instead of a wasted round. I like this podcast format. Looking forward to more!

That was the longest 3 minutes I ever spent. But it was excellent!

Great video! I think you make an excellent point about dice, they can create great stories. I think anyone who has played many games has experienced that moment in a game where your back is against the wall and the odds are against you but somehow you manage to pull off that perfect roll of the dice and save the day. You feel like a hero. Now you have created a story to be told around the gaming table. "Remember that time you were surrounded by zombies and needed a 6 to evade death...". You don't want that kind of thing to happen all of the time, but it sure is fun when it does.

I found this video because I'm working on a dice roll mechanic for resolving a large ancient strategic level battle with less rolls then the system I was using ( which became very tedious after a while). So, firstly, I wanted to keep the importance of having a mix of troop types (for instance Cavalry, archers and melee infantry). I initially borrowed the mechanic from Risk Europe which worked fine at first. But after a while, the number of rolls ( not the number of dice), bogged down the game, slowing it down greatly. With a large army, getting a few hits per round meant many more rounds of rolling. I wanted a system that would still make those individual troop types matter, but with less rounds to get there. I did come up with a solution and playtesting seems to work. I can resolve a battle within 2 or three dice rolls. Thanks for this video. I love studying game mechanics. Especially dice.

ya know, I loved this video and I agree with almost everything you said. with most good games, the better player will win more often, regardless of dice rolls. HOWEVER you are absolutely wrong in one aspect. luck absolutely does exist... now, an argument can be made that you make your own luck, but that is different to saying that it doesnt exist.

Excellent video. I loved every bit of it. Really well paced and very thorough.

Think of this vid as a podcast, its primarily an audio thing, and the images are just there as points of reference. I also feel like my old university lecture giving self a bit after this vid.

Please do more!

This was a fantastic episode, you said it was a pilot episode for a larger series is there a link to the series or playlist please, thanks

Great video! I look forward to seeing more of these in-depth explorations of game mechanics.

Fantastic video, lots of useful information.

Old school napoleonic wargaming combat mechanic- both sides roll an opposed average dice (2,3,3,4,4,5).

Ghost Stories: " yeah stop blaming the dice! Get gud scrub 🤡" On a serious note this is a brilliant video and I've been enamored listening to your reviews but I didn't know I would enjoy a 3 minute video on dice mechanics and its various mutations. GOLD MEDAL VIDEO.

This was a great overview!

Brilliant. Thank you.

Really enjoyed this video. Would love to see the series continue.

Nice exploration of Dice - I often end up listening to videos rather than watching so enjoyed thd conversational and infomational style. I agree that dice add a necessary uncertainty to games and create space to adapt and think around problems. I also think that playing big games with kids adds this kind of randomness too 😉😂 We are really enjoying the channel - thank you

Thank you for your amazing work! May Nuffle bless your dice!

This is exactly the video I needed. Thank you!

I love dice games and dice mechanics. Nothing is more fun than watching grown adults getting angry at some plastic cubes. Also after a while, people begin to curse certain dice in particular. Great analysis of dice mechanics, great stuff

Loved this video. Listened to it while getting ready for work! Looking forward to more in the future!

Reality exists as a subset to consciousness. Consciousness creates reality. Your mind has far more control over dice outcomes then simple mechanistic probability. You create your own reality.

This is a great video and covers all the games I play and have played. Plus some I've never looked at. I'm 2 years or so into the world of Tabletop gaming, I'm also the age of 38 and the attraction was a social environment. My inquiring mind always wonders about these elements of games. I'm also considering creating some games or scenarios within existing games and this video is thought provoking. Thanks for creating it.

There's one factor about dice that I think got missed... They're perfect for keeping track of moderate-sized, or frequently-changing numbers. That's what Magic the Gathering players use dice for most of the time.

Great video, but I think you have the "swinginess" vs modifiers thing backwards, in a sense. A d30 is fine, as long as a +3 modifier is as common as a +1 in a d10 system, it's sort of equivalent. As long as you make those adjustments, the swinginess is the same. The difference is that the d30 allows for much more granularity, while the d10 is arguable easier to conceptualise in your head. Of course, greater granularity may not be a good thing, as it usually means more tiny modifiers, which may become a hassle. This is all assuming a target number system or something related, I'm not sure how this changes with other methods.

Thanks for uploading this video! As a designer I'm always tinkering with dice mechanisms when I can. (BTW, there are actually 4 types of sides on X-Wing Miniatures attack dice: hit, *critical hit*, focus and blank)

Hey, I'm a huge fan of your videos! I've come back to this one several times for inspiration. The exhaustive but whistle-stop tour is perfect to give me ideas for designing systems of my own. So.. This is a huge long shot, and I'm fully not expecting a response to a random comment on a five year old video, but do you happen to know what game the cards at 4:13 are from? The system looks interesting but searching for 'contrary lava-monster' doesn't bring up any useful results. Anyway thanks my dude, keep up the good work!

Loved it! Some games there I need to check out more. I'm fond of using dice pools for my games but looking at expanding to include other mechanics. More vids like this would be great. Good job.

Just gonna chime in and say this is a GOOD idea for a series. One more disembodied voice in the aether nodding in approval

Rpg's really miss the fog of war, or friction, as you say. Dice help add the uncertainty, but the confusion that can set in is hard to replicate, probably because it stems from the psychology of the situation more than logistics. We can now add DCC to the group of games that use odd sided dice. They've really gone all out with that system.

I really love this video. Is there an "Under the Hood" playlist?

(D100):[10’s & 01’s]: modifications & odds can be shifted tremendously and allows percentages to be altered

Like for rolemaster. New edition just came out.

from what game are those characters at 5:50 and 6:25 ? great video btw

Very intresting video. I feel that X-wing had the best dice system i've seen so far. Custom dice are very good as you can have various results on one roll, rather than a success or fail (although you sometime see in warhammer something like 'a six on a roll to hit ignores armour), and a d8 just gives a bit more gradation than a d6. The one issue with x-wing is that you had differentiated dice between attack and defend; if they could of had the SAME dice for attack and defence, just different strenghts of them, I think they would have got it perfect. I've designd games based on d8 and d12, and d12 is surprisingly good as a custom dice as you can divide it by 2, 3, and 4.

In the name of all that is holy... die is singular, dice is plural.

Nicely designed

Your videos are fantastic!

This was very helpful. Thanks for putting this video together. I now feel like a better game designer.

I really enjoyed your explanation of the various mechanics and I really hope that you do produce more videos along the same lines. While I have no problems with the 'podcast with slides', I hope you're not too offended if I suggest that you work on introducing a little more interest into your delivery, I think that you just need a bit more rise and fall in your intonation and perhaps a few ad-libs if you can manage it. It's not as important in short videos but when you're recording over twenty minutes, it will help to maintain people's attention. Thanks again for sharing this.

"Doice!"

What about the theory of fair dice? 🤔

For another example of dice in a "worker placement" is Kingsburg, I haven't actually played it myself but has been on my wishlist for a long time.

Video number 2 of yours today! :) Xia is a favourite of mine. It was not so until the expansion though.

You *had* to mention Quantum, now did you? So on my WannaHave list and totally unavailable. English versions start at 190€ ebay last time I checked. Bah. :-)

I'd really like another under the hood video

Today I learned something new... That's neat

Great Vid

Dice made interesting; thanks. I look forward to the rest of the series. I get that in some games where a player is more skilled then dice aren't necessarily the defining factor and the skilful player can win despite the dice. But in my experience most players are pretty equal in skill therefore luck of the dice in these games is a very definite factor and I just can't come around to thinking otherwise. I have seen many games where extremes of rolls tainted the enjoyment for all involved because they just didn't average out. Imagine a game of Xia (pronounced 'z eye ah' as in 'my-a' say the makers) where one player gets 8 out of 15 points for luck from a D20 but the 'other' player, who rolled the D20 more than the first, gets 0. Try telling that second player that their losing is not the fault of the die rolls and you will find one heading toward your face at speed xD But seriously, I know you are generalising and use words like 'should' and I generally agree but I don't think I would be as comfortable as you saying dice are not to blame, even in a well made game. I can think of many games where dice rolling lead to some extreme results. Not complaining, just giving my 2 cents :)

Really enjoyable video, thanks for making this! Hoping I can become one of your Patreon supporters in the near future. My wife and I have gotten a few great suggestions from your 3 minute reviews. Maybe one of these 20 minutes videos every 5-8 of your 3 minute reviews would be ideal? Also, you may have missed this (or just thought they aren't important enough to mention), but just in case take a look at Dice Coins: www.kickstarter.com/projects/1719872687/dice-coins-2019 . I like the idea and decided to order some, but it seems like they wouldn't work well for frequent rolling.

This is why I prefer backgammon to chess. The dice provide an element of chance that mimics real life, while the "luck" element cancels out over the course of a match.

More please

Dice forge has bad dice to fix.

Well. There is a reason that in many TTRPGs you do not roll too many dice of any type at once. Say you roll the D20 in D&D5e and the number is lower than your enemies armor value, you are not going anywhere no matter how many dice a Berserk can roll at level 6 in rage mode.

I honestly hate those stupid custom picture dice. If your game needs 6 different colored custom d6s with the symbol layout slightly changed then I’m comfortable saying your game is probably shit. At that point I’d rather just roll regular d6s and have a chart on hand. It seems simpler. It’s especially infuriating if the dice don’t come with the game and you’re expected to get them separate.

Nice! ...but, FFS: it's one die, two dice. Seriously.

Dice based games are fucking awful. They remove all skill entirely and bring everything down to dice rolls. It's totally possible to make all the right moves and decisions but have your dice rolls come up failing. I'm really thankful that I have videogames and don't have to play games based off the roll of the dice.

When you take everything into Pearl Harbor as Japan in Axis and Allies, and you lose, the dice made you lose that game. When you have to play a game 100,000 times to balance out the rolls, you can claim that the outcome was statistically unlikely. That is what I say instead of saying I was unlucky.

Impressive & request an update

Enjoyed that but if I may offer some technical suggestions: the sound was very compressed (like the old days of the internet) and the pace way too fast. I was pausing it a lot and rewinding to note the game titles - if it’s intended to be audio only, it’s too quick and lacking in inflection. If it’s intended to be accompanied by video, add the game names. However, it’s easy to criticise. Please feel free to have a go at the many videos and podcasts I have never quite got around to making 🤣 One is the points of a well designed game is that if the dice bring bad luck it adds to the drama and allows the player to use skill to overcome it - a bit like a good story where the hero meets an obstacle and, in overcoming it, becomes better. So a game should reward replaying it. A game that just throws bad roll after bad roll without the potential for redeeming yourself... especially if you spent half an hour setting it up... that’s just painful. Nothing worse than knowing the event that just happened is inevitably going to kill your character in three turns. I learned to hate dice with Steve Jackson books back in the 80s.

"...learn to love the stories they tell..." Favorite line. I love my dice pools.

How do you call upgrading dice d4 > d6 >d8 ... ? Time 10:47