Not too long ago,
I announced that I had been commissioned
to write a fantasy wargame called
Frostgrave
for Osprey’s wargames series. The game is set in the frozen ruins of a magical
city overrun by undead and other dangerous creatures. The players each control
a wizard from one of ten different schools of magic, each with their preferred
list of spells. These wizards are then allowed to hire an apprentice as well as
a group of soldiers to accompany them into the ruined city in search of lost
treasure and magical secrets. Once in the ruins, far outside the laws of
society, it is every warband for itself...
I knew from the beginning that I wanted Frostgrave to have a little bit of
classic Dungeons and Dragons flavour. Some of that would come from the setting and the large part played by
wizards, but I wanted something a little more, some connection to actually
playing the venerable role-playing game. While I was thinking about this, I
also began to think about the mechanics of the game, and, as so often happens,
one question ended up answering another.
Most wargames these days still use six-sided dice as
their main means of randomization. It is easy to understand why. Everyone has a
few d6s lying around, even if they have to raid the Monopoly set. Also, since people are used to seeing these dice,
they are less intimidated by games that use other, stranger dice. That’s the
theory anyway. The problem with the d6 is that it only has very limited
outcomes (six to be exact) and thus it is difficult to use a d6 to ifferentiate
probabilities. That is to say, the chance of rolling above a 3 is a lot more
likely than the chance of rolling above a 4. How then do you represent a chance
that is only a little bit more likely? You can roll multiple d6s and add them
together, but this introduces a bell-curve into the probability of results.
This is undesirable as it means that modifiers such as a -1 to a roll will affect
the probability of a roll differently depending upon the base target.*
Recently more and more wargames seem to be moving to d10
as their main dice of choice. I think this is a definite improvement and
probably works fine in mass battle games, where the distinction between troop
types doesn’t need to be as refined. However, in a game like Frostgrave where
every miniatures represents an unique individual, I wanted to take it one step
further. Thus, I decided the game would use a d20 for all rolls.
As far as I know, the twenty-sided die didn’t exist before
Dungeons and Dragons, and even though
it was just one of six different dice used in the game, it became the die that
symbolized the game. This is mainly because it was the die used to make attack
rolls, the most common roll in the game. So, by selecting the d20 as the randomizer for Frostgrave, it draws an
immediate link with D&D. Now, the actual attack roll in Frostgrave doesn’t work anything like the one in D&D, but I’ll go into that in a future post.
So, not only does the d20 give me the connection I was
seeking, but I also believe it gives me the best use of probability. With
twenty different outcomes, it is much easier to establish comparative
probabilities, with each number difference being a straight 5% probability
difference, and by only using the one die it means that modifiers remain consistent.
And of course, twenty-sided dice are the most fun to
roll, but that’s just a bonus.
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*It is also possible to roll a number of d6 independent
of one another, needing a certain target, with the number of dice hitting the
target determining success. However, the math needed to understand the
probability of results is extremely difficult and certainly beyond what I
wanted to put myself through in designing Frostgrave!
Tomorrow morning I’m heading over to Heathrow to catch a
flight to Dusseldorf. From there it is just a short train ride to Essen, host
city of Spiel, the world’s largest board game convention. (Actually, it’s not
just about board games any more, they’ve also got wargames, card games and even
comics books).
I first discovered miniatures when I was around ten years
old. I don’t remember the exact moment, but I think I remember the order of
events. I bought a copy of the Dungeons & Dragons box set from a yard sale,
but I couldn’t understand it. My father saw this and, for reasons known only to
him, went out and bought the original Middle-Earth Role-Playing box set. (I was
already a fan of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by this point).
Mithril Miniatures still exists, albeit in a very changed
form. It is now more of an expensive collectors club. Some of their figures
are fantastic, and I would like to pick them up at some point, but in general
the style no longer suits how I find enjoyment in painting. Lucky for me, Games
Workshop picked up The Lord of the Rings
license when the movies came out and has produced some seriously good
miniatures.
A few months ago, I wrote a blog post about my recent
struggles with my miniatures hobby, and how it was causing me as much stress as
enjoyment. I determined that my main problem was that I had far too many
unpainted miniatures, so I resolved to get rid of most of them. Well, I did,
and I can honestly say, I’ve felt much better about my hobby since.
I admit it, one of my favourite aspects of being a writer
is the concept of royalties, that little bit of the contract that says I will
continued to be paid for the sales of my books for the rest of my life.
Eventually, I’ll be able to just kick-back and let the money roll in. Right?
This is the original version of the book and not the
newly released hardback edition. I won’t see any royalties on the new addition
until the next royalty payment six-months from now. Anyway, on this book my total
earns were