Cards and Dice

I saw the trailer for D&D Beyond Honest and realized how difficult it is to serve between the actual game and the digital game stores. I spent a lot of money on D&D Beyond, mainly buying digital copies of the books I already have in physical format. But I prefer the legal digital version to the pirated PDF version. The character generator and database are also great. But the most hyped feature right now is one I never use: rolling digital dice. I have nothing against digital dice at Roll20, but that's where all the online D&D games are. There is no set schedule in D&D Beyond; And when I'm at a table with friends, real dice are a big part of the experience and more fun than digital dice.

I am a big fan of dice. Yes, they create randomness and some people just don't like it. But the effects depend on the game system, since board games often have ways to reduce randomness, such as repetition. Finally, the most interesting thing is that the result is unknown and the dice are a risk that must be managed. In D&D, the dice are the perfect "third party" at the table along with the GM and the players; Particularly happy or unhappy endings become unforgettable plot points that neither the player nor the players could have foreseen.

Maps are another popular way to create randomness in games. However, cards are slightly different from dice in that past results affect future results. Imagine a hypothetical deck of 6 cards, simply numbered 1 to 6. Drawing 3 cards from this deck is not the same as rolling 3d6. Even if you have a thicker deck of 18 cards with three repetitions of each number from 1 to 6, the chance of "rolling" 18 is less than the chance of "rolling" 18 on 3d6. Each time you draw a card, you change the probability distribution of the remaining cards until you make a deck. The thinner the bridge, the greater the effect.

As a result, the cards don't work well with thin decks. For example, my experience with LOTR: walks in Middle Earth, where the bridges are very thin and often have to be remade. I tried to play this game on my own and finally gave up due to the constant need to remake each character's decks. This is where I would roll the dice best, although I understand this is impossible because successfully playing holding or throwing cards to change the odds is an important part of this game. But while I'm good at shuffling big decks (much to the annoyance of some other players, I've shuffled sleeveless decks from Magic the Gathering), I find it pretty boring to shuffle skinny decks over and over again. .

In the end, maybe it's all down to the numbers: Cards are difficult to split into thin decks due to shuffling and the undue influence of one card drawn on the chances of the rest. Dice work well in small amounts, but you don't need a game system that requires you to roll 60 actual dice.

tobold's blog