Peacetime Income Increases via D6+3 Instead of D12

There is a children’s card game called “War.” You and your opponent have a stack of facedown cards. You each flip up a card and the high card wins. It is 100% luck-based. There are no decisions. Then, there is Chess or Go. Other than determining who goes first, luck is uninvolved in the gameplay. The winner is determined by skill. Everyone knows that having a game determined by luck is less fun than having a game determined by skill. For very important game rolls, if we can diminish luck we will increase the fun.

I propose a house rule where all Peacetime Income Increases that utilize a D12, are replaced with a D6+3 instead. The average value of a D12 roll is 6.5. The average value of a D6+3 roll is 6.5. The difference is that instead of getting 1-12 results, you have 4-9 results. For people that have a hard time understanding what I am saying, it’s like using a D12, but if you roll a 1-3 or a 10-12, you reroll. If you want high rolls (say you are USA rolling your Peacetime Income Increase), then you are bummed when you roll a 10-12 and have to reroll it, but are elated when you roll a 1-3 and get to reroll.

The effect of this change is more fun will be injected into the game as we diminish the impact of luck. Anyone who opposes this, ask yourself, would you want MORE luck on Peacetime Income Increases? In other words, should we use a D20-4 to see how much USSR’s income increases or for USA response to Axis aggression? Would that be MORE fun or less? I argue firmly it would be less.

@noneshallpass said in Peacetime Income Increases via D6+3 Instead of D12:

Yes, and lets get rid of these very not fun games that also rely too much on luck like Poker, Twilight Struggle, Catan…

Do you support more luck in peacetime income increases then? Will that increase the fun for you? Or do you agree the fun would increase if the luck diminished.

To use your analogy, do you want more luck in your Poker games, or less? If more luck is fun to you, after a player decides to discard a certain number of cards, have them randomly discard an additional one to increase the involvement of luck.

My proposal still has luck, but less of it.

@didier_de_dax Regarding the right number to add, it is 3.

If you look at the average result of a D6, you take every possible result (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and divide by the total number of results (6) and get 21/6 = 3.5.

If you do the same for D12, you get 78/12 = 6.5.

So on average, a D12 will give you 3 more than a D6, mathematically. All the playtesting that has been done on this game holds up if you transition from a D12 to a D6+3, the only difference is you get rid of the outlandish results where a player rolls a 1 and 2 2’s out of their first five rolls for USA’s peacetime income increases. You basically drop 10-12 and 1-3. But the average results is exactly the same (just less luck).

@noneshallpass said in Peacetime Income Increases via D6+3 Instead of D12:

@HBG-GW-Enthusiast
GW1936 has both a preset and random aspect in peacetime increases so that all games don’t turn out the same. I respect your choice to house rules your games. It’s just the pretention of a universal luck/fun ratio that I don’t buy at all.

Fair enough, Noneshallpass! I agree that GW1936 has both a preset and random aspect to peacetime income increases. Using D6 + 3 instead of D12 has exactly the same mathematical average, but increases the preset by 3 and decreases the random aspect by 45%. Thanks so much for your thoughtful and civil discussion, my friend! 8 )

First, I want to thank everyone for a fantastic discussion thus far!

Let me lay out some math and some hypothetical scenarios:
Let’s posit that Japan will declare war on China and Germany will declare war on France, giving +5 to USA for both actions. USA starts at 6, so this puts us up to 16. Let’s also hypothesize Japan declaring war on the Netherlands on turn 5. It could be sooner, or perhaps a turn later, but for the sake of a general game, let’s assume turn 5. This 2D12 roll is the most important roll of the game and if you leave it purely to luck, it will have an outsized impact on any other roll.

Let’s say USA rolls perfectly average for this 2D12 peacetime income increase for the Japanese invasion of the Money Islands, and gets a 13.

Now, let’s say USA gets just as lucky as Fighting Irish got in Operation Live and Let Die, rolling a 22 upon the invasion of the Money Islands. How would that affect Total USA income?

But even more devastating is the impact of bad luck, like Mad Man Dan got in Operation No Time to Die. Let’s say someone rolls a 4 (the inverse of a 22) for the USA’s peacetime income increase for the hypothetical Japanese invasion of the Dutch East Indies on turn 5:

The difference between good luck and bad luck on just this 2D12 for the Money Islands could be 481-359.5 = 121.5 IPP. That’s just bad or good luck on this one particular 2D12. And note that I didn’t use the worst/best luck. I just used what Fighting Irish rolled as the template. It could have been two better (24) or two worse (2) which would have lead to an even more obscene result.

What I am trying to explain to people is allowing the range of 11 (1-12) on D12’s for peacetime increases is basically saying, “I’m fine with giving or taking away 120 IPP’s to/from USA. Leaving the game to luck is fun for me!” Also, the luck in this single roll affects the turn of entry for USA into the war by 3 turns. Why would people want this? Why would it be fun to have your game so dramatically impacted by the luck of USA peacetime income increases?

Please note that I’m not trying to script the USA peacetime income increases. I’m not saying to change from a D12 to a non-random number. I’m saying we decrease the range of the random number from 11 (1-12) to 5 (1-6). The average result stays the same.

Thanks for reading my long diatribe and I really appreciate the discussion!

@delaja said in Peacetime Income Increases via D6+3 Instead of D12:

The range is from 12 to 6 (not 11 to 5).
Sure it works well like this. Some people may want to play with less luck. Others want more randomness. Give the US player the choice which system he or she wants to use.

In mathematics, the definition of range is the difference between the highest and lowest possible values, and is a measure of dispersion. https://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/range-statistics-.html

The high value is 12. The low value is 1. The difference is 11. And you can see the difference between 6 and 1 is 5. One way to find the average of a particular sided die is to take all the possible values (1+2+3+4+5+6=21) and then divide by the number of sides (21/6=3.5). But another possible way when the probability of each side is equal, is to take the range/2 and add that to the minimum value. So the average of a D6 is 5/2 + 1 = 3.5. The average of a D12 is 11/2 + 1 = 6.5.

@delaja said in Peacetime Income Increases via D6+3 Instead of D12:

Sure it works well like this. Some people may want to play with less luck. Others want more randomness. Give the US player the choice which system he or she wants to use.

The interesting thing is the peacetime income increases become less and less impactful the later they are. A compromise position might be to do D6+3 for rolls before 1941, then go back to D12’s after that if people like the excitement.