The xD6h System

The following will try to cover how the dice resolution system of Blight came into being, and shed light on how it tries to solve and improve on some of the kinks and quirks of other similar systems. The system is artfully named xD6h which is short for "x amount of 6-sided dice, choosing highest"

One of the core aspirations of Blight was a desire to create a resolution system that feels immersive and at the same time solves some of the problems I have encountered in other skirmish games. I often see mechanics that are really swingy and random, requires lots of math, relies heavily on custom dice, or makes skilled characters overly epic. My biggest issue however is when systems start to feel arbitrary and detached. For wargames with large units, where rolls are more akin to calculating a result of an overall interaction, some level of abstraction is fine, but for skirmish games that try to emulate individual people and actions, I believe more depth is possible. Instead of acting as a simulation calculation only, I believe a well crafted resolution mechanic can actually underpin and even create elements of emergent narrative.

Creating the xD6h system

First off, I wanted a system where the players physically feel the difference between skilled and untrained models. A system where stats are not only represented as numbers on paper, but felt directly when rolling the dice. The straight forward answer to this was dice pools. Giving the player an amount of dice to roll, corresponding to the models skill level, could provide this feeling (and actually make stats easier to remember, but more on that later).

The next constraint was accessibility. For a board game, you can bundle the needed dice with the box. For a skirmish game, where the players will only buy the book, and then need to get everything else themselves, special dice presents a barrier of entry. Knowing first-hand how difficult (and relativly expensive) it can be to get a hold of special dice in large quantities, I made the decision to go with the true and trusted d6. They are easy to get, and many wargammers already have heaps. But also, because it presented an interesting challenge.

The d10 and d12 was considered, as having more sides on a dice affords more wiggle-room (a +1 modifier on a d6 is rather large, on a d12 you can have much more granularity), but as I initially had an idea that I wanted to try to avoid modifiers as much as possible, I beleived the d6 would work. The challenge was then to make a resolution mechanic work within the confines of the 1-6 space.

A short rant on dice modifiers (and some alternatives!)

Another thing I was looking for was a system where getting skilled makes your models more consistent, rather that more epic. After having some fun with excel and a bit of probability calculations, I realized that you can get consistency from a dice pool, not only by summing dice or counting successes, but also by looking for the highest number in the pool. The more dice, the larger the chance of a high number. Rolling a single die gives a truly random result, fitting someone untrained. If you roll 4 dice, you will tend to get 5's and 6's, fitting someone skilled and consistent. With that in mind, a natural sequence would be that 1 die = untrained, 3 = trained, 5 = master. Note that picking the highest value from a pool of d6's larger than 5 dice, starts to get too consistent and silly. Most importantly though, the system felt right and is fairly easy to learn and remember. When you need to roll melee for your peasant, you know you are going for 1 die. When holding that one d6 in your hand you feel as the peasant does, uncertain of the outcome. On the other hand, grabbing those 4 dice for your knight, you feel more certain and powerful.

A cool side effect of picking highest number of a dice pool is that progression is not linear when your pool increases in size. The jump from 1 to 2 dice, has a much higher impact than the jump from 4 to 5. For those interested, the chance of getting a 6 with a dice pool of 1 to 5 is as follows: 16%, 30%(+14), 42%(+12), 52%(+10), 60%(+8). This reflects well the feeling that learning the basics helps a lot, but mastering something is tough. It also enforces that players level all their models a little, instead of focusing on a few.

The next thing I wanted to achieve was a kind of cinematic realism. When two peasants fight, things are chaotic and brutal. On the other hand, when you see two master-swordsmen you suddenly have a fight of many small cuts and parries. If taking turns attacking, the xD6h system actually has this baked in. If two models roll opposed rolls, both picking highest, the system will start to produce more equal rolls as both models get larger dice pools. Making a rule that says that equals means scoring a partial hit (half damage), will create exactly the desired effect. In this system, the 1d6 peasant will likely loose against the 2d6 city guard, and it will probably be bloody. But the fight between the 4d captain and 5d knight will be much more of an uncertain duel, as most hits will be smaller cuts, as both fighters look for an opening or flaw in the others defence.

Another effect of the xD6h system is that the suspension of a skill check is in the roll itself, and not pushed to somewhere after calculating modifiers or counting successes. In this system both players roll their dice, and the suspension is in the roll itself, looking for that 6. Also, both players can see right away what is going on, without knowing the stats of the opponent model.

Adding in Damage

The missing piece of the puzzle was damage. Many systems either have a separate damage roll, or makes damage be some kind of calculation of difference between yours and your opponents rolls. I wanted damage to be part of the roll itself, and also to follow the same mechanic of getting more consistent the more skilled the model is. So, it seemed only natural to look at the second highest die of the roll for damage. This has the added benefit of naturally capping damage, as the highest die is picked for the hit, making damage a little less swingy. The only issue here was models with a dice pool of 1, meaning there was no second highest die. The solution was to let players with 1d roll a free extra die for damage, but with a -1 modifier (the modifier is needed as 1 die is better than the low of 2d). At first I wasn't very happy with the free die approach, but after play testing it, it actually kind of underpins the chaotic and random nature of unskilled models quite well.

Conclusion

The xD6h system is simple and intuitive, and allows the player to get a feeling for the skill level of their models. It is fast, it works without the need of complex modifiers, and it produces results that try to imitate cinematic realism. It does however ignore and simplify a lot of things that other systems take into account, and as such some players might find it to be too simplistic. So, is the xD6h the perfect resolution system? As with everything else in life, it all comes down to taste and preference.