New Player Hates All The Dice

[Ndreare]

I have a new player and she hates that the game requires so many dice to be rolled. What I have resolved to do is to use the system for killing attacks for normal attacks.

 

Essentially 1D6 for every 3 Damage Class. Then I use a flat X2 Stun Multiplier. The thing that separates killing damage from normal damage is whether or not a character may use non resistant defenses.

 

In Example

 

EX1: Character with STR 30 Punches a character with 8/3 PD/rPD.

The character rolls 2D6 and gets a 9 he will do 9 Body and 18 Stun minus 8 Body and 8 Stun equals 1 Body and 10 Stun after defenses.

 

EX2: Character with a Magic Sword Swings it and it does 2D6 Killing, rolling a 7 vs. the same character he would take 4 Body and 6 Stun.

 

So have any of you tried this or see it as working? So far it seems to work OK and we find the characters taking a lot more stun than Body but they do now have the potential of taking a little body (broken bones?) from normal combat.

 

 

Feed back? Any other ideas or tweaks? I would like to keep her in the game as we are short on players anyways so if you have other ideas on how to keep the number of dice down and the math at a simple level I would love to here it.

[Curufea]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

You could also reduce the number of dice by averaging the dice. I believe there are a number of suggestions about this in the rulebook too.

 

For normal attacks - don't calculate body. Assume it is the same as the number of dice rolled.

Only roll one to three dice for anything, just multiply the results to get large numbers (ie a 6D6 attack can be a 3D6 multiplied by 2) - you still get a bell curve with 3D6.

[KA.]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Does this player, or anyone else in your group, have access to a laptop, PDA, programmable calculator, etc?

 

I use an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop that can 'roll' up to 25 d6 of Normal Damage, or 10 d6 of Killing Damage, and add up the totals including BODY and STUN.

 

And it does all that in the time it takes to hit a button.

 

These days, I think this feat could be recreated on anything more complicated than a toaster.

 

So, if your player hates rolling dice that much, there is an alternative that would not mess with the underlying math of the game.

 

KA.

 

P.S. If anyone would be interested in a copy of the spreadsheet, just let me know.

[ideasmith]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

You could allow her to take Standard Effect on all her Powers.

[Mike W]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Well, first, I would not use a x2 multiplier. It's too low. Fights will take forever if you don't severely limit defenses. A x2 multiplier means almost every attack will do below average STUN. If you feel it necessary, make it x3. Really though, I'd try to avoid doing that though. The numbers DO change.

 

I think the first thing you need to do is address WHY the player doesn't like all the dice. I had some problems when I first started playing HERO just because I have very small hands, so trying to hold enough dice for big attacks was tricky. But you can get cubes of small dice for that, or just roll two-handed.

 

Is it the math? The counting goes quick once you get in the habit of looking for "10s"(i.e. two 5s, a 6 & a 4, etc.).

 

Or is it just an aversion to rolling large numbers of dice as a way to resolve things?(an Amber bias if you will) It this is the problem, you'll probably just have to talk with her about the system and why it works the way it does. Basically, it's designed to allow people of varying levels of ability to survive on the same playing field easily,so you have graduated increases in power rather than exponential increases.

[Dust Raven]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

I occasionally make use of Arooo's dice roller, found here: http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/dice_roller/

 

It's a great utility and has a setting specifically for the Hero System that can roll for normal damage, skill rolls, killing damage, etc. It also has settings for other systems as well, so it's very versitle.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

All I've ever done with the dice-phobic in my games is cut the number of dice rolled in half (or to one-third for really big attacks), and multiply the result, e.g. 10d6 becomes 5d6 x 2. Add one separate die for odd numbered dice rolls.

 

The bell-curve for results becomes a little flatter, but it's faster to count and, apparently, less intimidating.

[gojira]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

1) Subtract 3 damage classes for all attacks or standard rolls (etangle, ego blast, etc.). Figure average stun and body for each such roll. Then when the time comes to roll 'em, grab 3 dice and add the result to the prefigured numbers. Less dice, and still pretty random.

 

 

2) Introduce your player to second edition Shadowrun. Suddenly, Hero doesn't look that bad.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Another option would be to use a damage chart like this one...

[Lord Liaden]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Another suggestion I've seen for large dice rolls is to use Standard Effect for all but the last three or four; those are rolled normally. Much faster, but still adds some randomness to the result.

 

I haven't tried this out myself, though.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Another suggestion I've seen for large dice rolls is to use Standard Effect for all but the last three or four; those are rolled normally. Much faster, but still adds some randomness to the result.

 

I haven't tried this out myself, though.

 

This would be my solution. Instead of rolling 12d6 for your 12d6 EB, roll 4d6 and add the results to 28 STUN and 8 BOD. You get a range of 32 STUN to 52 STUN, and I rarely see 12d6 roll outside those parameters anyway.

 

less dice? Only use 2d6 for randomization. Your 12d6 EB does 35 Stun and 10 BOD, plus 2d6, Range is now 37 - 47.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

I agree with the Standard Effect and 'partial Standard Effect' ideas.

 

As far as counting dice goes, I've discovered that grouping them by 10s and setting them in rows works pretty well.

[teh bunneh]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Take all her dice away from her. Your player needs to learn that dice are a privilige, not a right. She'll get her dice back when she's ready to behave!

 

Bill.

(I practice tough-love with my players, and they thank me for it!)

[Blue]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Tell the player to suck it up. Wimp!

 

I not only want more dice, I want BIGGER dice!

 

Sorry, I went all Dennis Leary there

[bigdamnhero]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

I have a new player and she hates that the game requires so many dice to be rolled. What I have resolved to do is to use the system for killing attacks for normal attacks.

A gamer who hates rolling dice?

 

I haven't tried that one, but I did experiment for awhile with going the opposite direction - using the normal damage mechanics to resolve killing attacks. The idea was to simplify teaching the system to newbies. It worked ok, but the confusion it generated among veteran Hero players outweighed any benefit the novices might've gotten. And having different players at the same table using different mechnics...?

 

Also -- and possibly more relevant to your suggestion -- it made normal and killing attacks seem too similar. Even tho the math isn't that dissimilar between the two (STUN lotto notwithstanding), having different mechanics makes them feel different in an entirely subjective sort of way. I found I missed that.

 

Lastly, I'm not sure how well your mechanic would work for powers other than Blast and KAs. Depending on your campaign that may or may not be a big issue, but it bears keeping in mind.

 

So bottom line, I think I'd be more inclined to try one of the other suggestions, such as the "partial standard effect" idea.

 

These days' date=' I think this feat could be recreated on anything more complicated than a toaster. [/quote']

...and I know a guy that could probably program it into your toaster.

[ghost-angel]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Tell the player to suck it up. Wimp!

 

I not only want more dice, I want BIGGER dice!

 

Sorry, I went all Dennis Leary there

I can make a bong out of this giant six-sider!

[RDU Neil]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

My first question would be... is the amount of dice in a roll the problem?

 

 

Or is it the number of times players are asked to roll dice?

 

 

If it is the former... many of the ideas above make sense... I like the partial-standard-affect bit myself.

 

 

If it is the second... is it an issue of every time a player tries to do something, they are required to "roll for it!" ?? That nothing just "happens because it is stated" but every little thing is a die roll? I've been in games like that and it drives me nuts.

 

"I look around the corner."

 

"Make a perception roll."

 

"I make it."

 

"Ok... you see the tank rolling down the street flanked by armed soldiers."

 

"I needed a perception roll for that? If I'd missed the roll, would my character really not have seen a tank and soldiers bearing down on him?"

 

 

etc. THAT kind of "too much dice" I would hate as well. Die rolls should only be for moments when the plot/story hinges on success/failure. If the plot isn't really kicked into gear until they get inside the villain base... don't bother rolling out all the stealth dice... just give a good description of how they successfully snuck inside and get right to the point where dice do matter.

 

If the plot hinges around "do they get into the base or not?" then ok... roll the dice.

 

Dice rolls should be meaningful.

[Silbeg]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

I agree with the Standard Effect and 'partial Standard Effect' ideas.

 

As far as counting dice goes, I've discovered that grouping them by 10s and setting them in rows works pretty well.

 

doesn't everyone do that?

[Silbeg]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Die rolls should only be for moments when the plot/story hinges on success/failure. If the plot isn't really kicked into gear until they get inside the villain base... don't bother rolling out all the stealth dice... just give a good description of how they successfully snuck inside and get right to the point where dice do matter.

 

If the plot hinges around "do they get into the base or not?" then ok... roll the dice.

 

Dice rolls should be meaningful.

 

What I do to help this is to allow for "Take 11" (stealing from D20). In a non-combat situation, a character can assume they made an average effort, and base their success/failure from that. I find it does help, even if my players don't always remember they can do it.

 

They do love to roll dem bones!

[Lucius]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

I have a new player and she hates that the game requires so many dice to be rolled. What I have resolved to do is to use the system for killing attacks for normal attacks.

 

Essentially 1D6 for every 3 Damage Class. Then I use a flat X2 Stun Multiplier. The thing that separates killing damage from normal damage is whether or not a character may use non resistant defenses.

 

In Example

 

EX1: Character with STR 30 Punches a character with 8/3 PD/rPD.

The character rolls 2D6 and gets a 9 he will do 9 Body and 18 Stun minus 8 Body and 8 Stun equals 1 Body and 10 Stun after defenses.

 

EX2: Character with a Magic Sword Swings it and it does 2D6 Killing, rolling a 7 vs. the same character he would take 4 Body and 6 Stun.

 

So have any of you tried this or see it as working? So far it seems to work OK and we find the characters taking a lot more stun than Body but they do now have the potential of taking a little body (broken bones?) from normal combat.

 

 

Feed back? Any other ideas or tweaks? I would like to keep her in the game as we are short on players anyways so if you have other ideas on how to keep the number of dice down and the math at a simple level I would love to here it.

 

This bears thinking on.

 

I suggested in a post quite some time ago that the two different dice rolling mechanics can be easily divorced from the "normal" and "killing" paradigms, but I didn't suggest changing the STUN multiplier. I just said that, for example, you could have physical "killing" attacks rolled as "normal" but then applied to resistant defenses, and energy "normal" attacks rolled as "killing" but applied to all defenses, not just resistant. That would make energy attacks more "wild and unpredictable" if you wanted to go for that feel in the game. Or, I suggested you could make all magick damage use the "killing mechanic" whether it applied to resistant defense or not.

 

In the game I have in the planning stages, I intended to roll all damage (or almost all) by the "normal" mechanic; killing attacks would be distinguished by going against only resistant defense. Now I think maybe I should take it the other direction, like you have. Why didn't I think of that?

 

A factor to keep in mind: this is increasing the randomness of combat. Characters are more likely to get seriously hurt in each fight.

 

There are only two "tweaks" I can think of.

 

First, if you have not adjusted the cost of anything, then you have preserved the imbalance between normal and killing attacks, in that killing attack BOD is only stopped by resistant defense. I proposed the fix for this in the thread Killing Epiphany

 

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43202&highlight=epiphany

 

But there may be another way to address the imbalance.

 

Second, it has often been expressed that a normal attack should, in general, generate more STUN, and a killing attack should, in general, generate more BOD.

 

So you could, for example, keep rolling killing attacks as you have been, but use a X4 multiplier for normal attacks, and subtract one BOD per die from each normal attack. So a roll of

 

5

 

Would be 20 STUN, and 4 BOD, if it were a normal attack. If you rolled two dice and got

 

7

 

It would be 28 STUN, and 5 BOD.

 

Or maybe it can be a X3 multiplier. Or you can subtract 2 BOD. But my point is, you can not only use such an adjustment to make normal attacks and killing attacks more obviously different in terms of lethality, you can AT THE SAME TIME move towards making them more perfectly balanced against each other.

 

I am hoping other people with more mathematical talent than I can jump in at this point, but the real proof of the pudding is in the playtest. Or something like that.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

"And just think" says the palindromedary, "You didn't think this thread would be interesting...."

[Ndreare]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

She does not like all the dice because they take to long to add up and they do not fit in her hands. I also use the groupings in sets of ten, but she did not seem to want to budge on the dice thing.

 

I like the idea of using an altered standard effect rule as it seems balanced and makes sense.

 

Someone asked why I chose X2 stun multiplier; it was because X2.5 is average based on a 1D6-1 system (I know it is off set by 1 being the lowest option. But if X2.5 was too much math imagine me telling her to use X2.66.)

 

I think the PDF provided by Derek Hiemhorth kicks butt. I wonder why I did not have it on my computer this whole time.

 

I will talk to her and see if any of the options you guys have provided will be acceptable to her.

 

PS: as for the Take 11 options and things like that, I generally do not have players roll the dice when their modified chance of success it -12 or higher unless in combat. Which is a huge reduction for this new group, as they are used to D&D with a GM that liked the dice to determine the adventure.

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

A gamer who hates rolling dice?

That was my first reaction as well. What's not to like about rolling lots of dice? Rather than bending the game to accommodate this player, maybe you should ask her what the issue is. Is it adding up all the dice? That gets easier with practice (grab out pairs of 5-5, and 4-6 to count by tens, etc.), and you can certainly do it for her until she learns the technique. Is it a physical problem? Are her hands not big enough? You can get dice towers or smaller dice. Is she annoyed by the loud sound of the dice clattering on the table? I've always loved that sound ("Sounds like...victory!"). It's like the sound of clattering bowling pins - it means your successfully knocked them down - that's a good thing.

 

Wild speculation, based on no evidence: maybe she has some other problem with the system or the game and is just using this as an excuse or rationalization.

[Ndreare]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Well I talked to her tonight at Church and we will be getting together to game again on Fryday with the new group. She will look at the options we have so far and see if any apeal to her. I think it may be a bit of reluctance for some one who only has played D&D prior to this.

 

The other group members are liking the game and are already taking aboutmaking characters that "Break the Rules". Which to them means mages with armor and fighters with magic tricks. To me its not breaking rules but hey what ever gets them in.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

doesn't everyone do that?

 

Actually, no ... I've known some people who insist on grouping them by number (all the 1's, all the 2's ...). Why they do this, I have *no* idea.

[ghost-angel]

Re: New Player Hates All The Dice

 

Well I talked to her tonight at Church and we will be getting together to game again on Fryday with the new group. She will look at the options we have so far and see if any apeal to her. I think it may be a bit of reluctance for some one who only has played D&D prior to this.

 

The other group members are liking the game and are already taking aboutmaking characters that "Break the Rules". Which to them means mages with armor and fighters with magic tricks. To me its not breaking rules but hey what ever gets them in.

Ah.. the glint in a new Herophile's eyes when they realize that all those old achetypes mean nothing. nothing at all.