Are d10s better than d6s for wargaming?
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2024
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In this second in a series of developer logs, Matthew talks about dice, and how a rule developer's choice of dice impact a game.
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#devlog #ravagedstar
D10s are superior but d6s are more prevalent. However, in order for d10s to become more popular and available, games have to use them.
I think its a self fulfilling cycle. 6s are used because they are used. If more games pushed into d10s or 12s, then more games would use them and there would be more of them
I like the idea of D10s, I don't think there needs to be one dice to rule them all. In Warhammer 2nd edition, all dice variants were used, maybe except D20. For larger scale games, too many dice options becomes too complicated, but D10s allow for D100 which allows for 1% increments and the D10 for 10% increments. I think that's a pretty good sweet spot.
A decent topic for this series would be "How many tokens and markers should be on the table for a game."
Agreed. One of the reasons I never got involved in Star Wars Legion was because I already played Armada and Xwing, and the number of cards and tokens got really annoying and took up so much room.
I also really love Adeptus Titanicus, but the cards used there is a little annoying, but I get that managing the resources of a titan is part of the game.
Sometimes a bit of a fault with Necromunda I feel, I don't mind the visual clutter, but I see it slowing a lot of opponents down in what already can be a slow game for beginners. While impractical, a lot of us have taken to printing off a list (7-9 model game typically) and annotate that as we go
I think 40k would benefit a lot from switching to a d10 or D12 system, just by doing that you could add so much more balance and flavour to individual units and factions.
I absolutely agree.
I agree. It's not going to happen, because it makes too much sense. But, I do agree.
Agreed, D12 could add so much variation to units and easily represent units. For example a space marine could hit of 5+ and a veteran on a 4+.
I concur
i have been working on a system like that for 40k, its playable and i have videos about it (outdated the game is even more streamlined now and more fun). if you are interested you can play it!
This discussion is actually not too dissimilar from the number base discussion. We use base 10 but couldn't we use base 12 for efficiency? Since 12 is super divisible, you can have the same probabilities of a d2, d3, d4, d6 on a d12 and the flexibility of having 12 sides to hit balances between those probabilities for hyper tuning of the game.
The first video game with "Freelook" would be "Marathon" developed by Bungie and released for Mac in 1994. Also id software had adopted the use of freelook with the Quake engine and game. Lastly, Half-life used a very modified Quake 2 engine, which was already using Freelook.
Yes, you got this exactly right. Larger die sizes give you more granularity in modifiers. There are no "Best" dice as it comes down to how you use them. Do you want the percentages easily calculated or do you want them hidden? Obviously D10s are great for easy calculations.
When talking about what dice to use, you have to figure out how fast you want to solve any 1 situation. Does 1 roll = 1 shot? Does 1 roll = shot and armor pen? Does 1 roll = a whole unit shooting PLUS morale effects? That is very important to the speed of your game and its scale.
The GW system is a 3x (D6) system. And I agree with you 1000%!!! The number of rolls needed to solve a single action in a GW game is, frankly, obnoxious. I have seen a single attack take 6 rolls and end with absolutely nothing happening. That is just gratuitous re-rolling of dice. Re-rolls in games, deflate the results of the dice. Rerolls should be very few and far between.
My preferred resolution speed is 2 rolls to decide any effect. That can be 2 by an attacker or 1 from attacker and 1 from defender. But for 99% of the the game 2 rolls should give an outcome against any unit.
I also, absolutely dislike custom dice. It makes it incredibly hard to determine the statistics especially when you have dice with multiple symbols per side. Yuck! They are very popular with certain designers because (1) you can copyright your 'custom' dice set and their mechanic. (2) you can then sell dice sets that only you can produce. I feel its scummy.
I prefer D6s because they are cubes. Very stable so you can push them around without them rolling around.
At least for wargames.
I would suggest reversing the dice success values to make the math quicker. For example, changing a 4+ to a stat of 7.
Most people want to know "how likely am I to hit." Rolling 7 or lower instantly translates to a 70% chance for most people. Instead of having to either take a 4 then subtract 1, then reveres otherwise I've calculated the failure rate.
(Obviously some people can take a 4+ and pull 70% by doing the math of I have 7 chances that succeeded, so 70%, but that's generally less common unless you've played these games a lot.)
PLUS this system means the stats make more intuitive sense. Higher number = better. Instead of this odd switch back-in-forth in 40K unit cards, where some numbers you want big and some numbers you want small depending on if they have a "+". That's weird.
And getting bonuses to hit can be denoted with "+1 to hit", instead of you gain one better ballistic skill which translates into a negative number on that stat (So 4+ becomes 3+).
Couple of quick examples:
Infinity works this way, with the higher number being better. Then they use that intuitive value comparisons humans make to add head to head rolls where higher number wins.
Xcom gives you chance to hit, not chance to fail
etc. but I think you get the idea
I think this change make things more accessible and enjoyable for a wider range of people outside of the wargamming space.
Thumbs up, great idea!
another way, that i've used, the 4+ as 7 is to make the target number 1->7. a 7- if you will. now mind you, my system includes crits 3.5style so, having a fixed "1 is critical" is more helpful to me than the modular "special effect" of a war-game.
It depends on the game. 40k would massively benefit from a D10 system because of their extremely large pool of different factions with varying strengths and weaknesses. A D6 system cannot cover that. Proof ? 9th edition.
if you are interested in a 40k game with d10 dice, i have created (been creating) it. you can play it if you want!
The first commercial FPS to allow players to use the mouse to freely look around a 3D environment was Marathon, released by Bungie in 1994.
You mean designed around doom could use the mouse in the orginal game
Marathon was bound with arrow keys. Not WASD.
Maybe half credit half life.
I like the philosophy you touch on (but didn't outright state) around 14:40, using systems that people are already familiar with.
This means it's easy to pickup, learn and teach. Which is a huge barrier to getting people into miniature games.
I personally like the D10 system Matthew. And agree about rerolls. Maybe add a wild dice mechanic. Like for instance if you pull a boost out of the bag you can use 1 wild dice to your attacks (basically get 1 extra dice to roll with your attack dice that turn you get a boost.) instead of tons of rerolls. Also love the token turn mechanic.
Thank you for recognizing star wars legions superiority concerning movement. It saves so much time and lets you actually focus on the game. Also, i like your reasoning behind using d10s. No rerolls and simplicity make gaming quicker and more enjoyable so Im all for it
I love rolling buckets of dice!!! Really like D6 but I also think D10 are great! I was planning on using D10s in my own game project.
I also don't really like proprietary dice, they get weird even though they lend themselves for unique things.
I've played around a lot with using d10s. As you point out d10 gives you some nice granularity. Some ideas to think about.
1. Try roll UNDER
If you do a d10 roll under instead of a roll over then the number you need to roll is the percentage chance (divided by 10). This is highly intuitive.
2. The number you roll can have an impact on what happened.
You can also use different rolls for different effects because each number has a 10% chance. So if you roll a 1 that might be an extra success, if you roll 10 that might be a bad failure, if you roll equal to the number you needed that might be a complication. If it was d6 these things would be happening a little too often but on a d10 it's infrequent enough to be interesting but frequent enough to be a real factor.
You can also create a range for a GREAT attack. So one unit might need to roll a 5 or less to succeed and have a great attack on 1. Another unit might need to roll an 8 or less to succeed and have a great attack on 1-2.
3. Roll 2 dice and take the best or worst result.
You can also roll an extra d10 for some attacks and take the best or worst roll depending on what the attack is. That will increase or decrease your chance by around 23%. This can be useful for things like shooting at someone with cover (worst of two), attacking from above (best of two) etc. if you're looking for a simple way to deal with those types of combat situations.
It is interesting when you get into usefulness of a dice. I like to think of about how many times I can divide a dice's number of sides. The more variations, the more useful. I really like 12 sided dice, you can divide by 2, 3, 4, and 6, which means you half a coin (heads or tail), a 3sided dice, a 4 sided dice, or a 6 sided dice. I wish there were more systems that used these.
I agree, 12 sided dice are really good for the reason you've stated
The same reason 12 inches to a foot is really useful, easy fractional calculations. I feel like percentages are more popular these days though for game mechanics. There's always a d20 is you want 5% increments.
@@paulkingtiger those Babylonians really did have a good ability to choose a base numbers for a system. Way better at math than those Romans and Mongolians!
Big fan of SWL here. Just got back into 40k and what you said about rerolls resonated deeply.
Love these videos, I've spent a lot of research on both of the topics so far and have come to similar conclusions. It's tricky because inside a particular game's community it will be full of people stating that x rule that game isn't using is 'objectively better', but as you've said it's much more about the cohesive whole and how each mechanic slots into that. My biggest suggestion is to really have a theme and gameplay experience goals very heavily nailed down so that with every one of these questions you can really push into those and give them an extra twist that makes it unique and come together.
So with dice, it's really about complexity and granularity as you've stated, bigger dice let's you create a bigger range of results, either allowing for tables with different effects/different dice faces or a wider range between extremes, meaning something with low accuracy has a much harder time hitting something with high dodge the bigger that range gets.
It's a really tough line to walk with wargames. The more you lean into complexity and granularity the more you risk making the game more time consuming and difficult to learn, and therefore the less models the game is enjoyable to have on the table. It's why Warhammer pushes to use d6's and limited bonuses and rerolls, these generally are quick to read and perform and they can push the game to have bigger armies and make more money from models.
I personally think d10 is my preferred default as it has much more granularity than d6 and most people can easily understand and calculate within the 1-10 number range. I think the biggest fault is that d6's are just more fun to roll and satisfying to just have pips to read, but it's often worth it to free up the range of bonuses and have the more powerful stats feel much more powerful than the low end. D8's and d12's aren't bad options either and are nice to roll, but d20's I think go too far in their range.
An interesting concept for dice I've been thinking about is you always succeed on a 6+ but the dice changes depending on the quality of the unit. For example, a unit that's bad a shooting will roll D6s while a unit that's good at shooting will roll D12s. Changing the dice instead of changing the value required.
Tomorrow's War does this as well as others, plays quite well.
I think Force on Force does this.
Yeah, Tomorrow's War is like that. The problem is that the difference in qualities between dice become really big. In TW the quality of the troops or strength of the weapon is reflected in the dice used. Once you attack with the bigger dice, rolling defence on a lower dice becomes almost meaningless. It's a choice, but not one that made a fun game for me personally.
Stargrunt II did it in a way that looked really wrong at first, until I sat down and did the math on the statistics, and found it to be perfectly reasonable. As a more modern example, Polyversal uses multiple die types to good effect.
I want to say D&D Conquest of Nerath (fantasy Risk with a bit more crunch?) did this, using 4+ and units up and down the polyhedral scale. Decent game, that.
I reckon you have made a good choice going with D10’s. I am a roleplayer at heart, so I use lots of different dice in rpg games. I love the ‘one dice system’ of wargames as it just makes it easier and faster. D10’s over D6’s have a cleaner percentile gap, so theoretically, is easier to work out how strong/weak any given model is. I’d keep the D10 system, for a faster and easier experience when playing
I personally love Wasteland Warfare and Skyrim dice systems, the rolling of the dice itself is way more satisfying than any other game I've played.
It absolutely would not work for a larger game scale though, but it's perfect for skirmish scale.
As an old L5R 4e player, Im all in on d10s. Really excited to see you guys using them. d6s really hurt 40k when it comes to armor saves. Power armor and terminator saves are the same as heavy tanks and guns with 1-2 AP meant for dealing with Medium to heavy infantry could easily overwhelm heavy armor on mass. It leaves a lot more room for balancing out the difference in units as well.
A friend and I started used Alternating activations in 9th, going phase by phase. I move a unit, them him, then me, then him... until were out of units. We did the same with psychic, then combined shooting and charging (so that gunlines wouldn't just dominate melee armies) A unit was aloud to shoot then charge (if eligible) as part of the same phase, then we did all the fighting, then moral. All going one at a time.
Made the games a lot more dynamic. Units that wanted to shoot had to at least somewhat expose themselves to do so. Both armies were moving at the same time so melee units were both rushing forward turn one, but units that didn't want to get tied up in melee were able to move reactively and retreat. We would see what the other player was gunning for and move block or pull away and suddenly it all became so much more tactical. Then the shooting started and it became this real puzzle of picking which unit to activate first. Shooting with your big tank in the back means giving him the chance to charge first with the melee threats you both rushed into charge range. Charging first with your own melee units means you might not be able to soften them up with your big guns. Meanwhile, if your opponent did just fire a really scary glass cannon at you, ..you could shoot it next, but its already shot this turn, you might be better off targeting a unit that hasn't fired yet to mitigate further damage now.
First turn advantage was cut down drastically, winning on one flank often meant taking losses on anther, games were more engaging without 30+ minutes between turns. It does take a surprising amount of patches as a lot of strats become suddenly worthless without re-writing (rapid ingress in 10th for example), and it skews the points in favor of durability by a noticeable amount. Its definitely better, but it does need balancing.
If you guys could find a way to blend d10s and alternating activations and then put in the leg work of balancing it all, I would absolutely evangelize for such a system.
Mantic's d8 with exploding 8s on Firefight/Killzone makes the game sooooo much more variable and fun. There is crazy excitement when you throw a d8, get an 8, then another, then another and then some little unit suddenly became the hero of the game. That said, it is sooo hard to source them, and there aren't Chessex boxes of just d8/10/12 with a million color variations.
I dont think that exists in Firefight but does in Deadzone if thats what you meant.
It depends also you can't discount the simple fact d6s are easier and cheaper to get in bulk which is a larger factor than one would think
Yea I would be pissed off if I suddenly had to buy 120 d12’s because I wanted to run a green tide or something.
These days I do not think it is much of an issue.
When bought in bulk costs are close.
D6 will cost maybe a bit less.
Plenty of bulk d10 for sale, quick search showed 1000 lots of ten d10 per pack for about 2.75 each.
I think it's a matter of volume. If one unit's attack action represents 20-30+ swings/shots (if they are to be resolved individually), it is much more convenient to use 6-sided dice. Not only are they more prevalent in various sizes and cheaper to buy, but their geometry facilitates rolling many at a time. If the game allows for more granularity/grit, 10-sided dice do provide many benefits such as you have discussed. Frostgrave comes to mind as a warband game with ~11 models per team, where each model moves and acts individually. Each attack or action is resolved with a D20 roll, and there are many modifiers.
Fan of d10s in general. But nothing beats the d12!
2D8 -D4 !! (thats 1 to 15)
100% agree. D12 is the perfect dice.
Why the D12 specifically?
has lego levels of pain under foot@@GlassHalfDead
@@GlassHalfDeadIt's the most unloved die.
Brought back a fun memory.
4th edition of Warhammer Fantasy.
They had this interesting Jem, called Black Gem of Gnar.
Where if your character suffered a wound, it/they can be rebounded.
Well Azhad, and Karl were battling it out, and both our characters had one wound left with the Gnar.
And the wound kept bouncing back and forth. We were so sweating, and entertained. But alas, Azhag fell.
We had to take a break, enjoyed a drink, and laughed. And the rules were so much simpler then. Ok, also known as Hero hammer.
But was a blast.the rules were so much easier that we ended up playing 10,000 pt games.
But we kept the blind deployment from 3rd. The shock was so cool when lifting the blind. Good times.
For my Dev project, I chose D6s as the main for the system due to the wider availability of D6 and their general lower cost: as it's a F2P Tabletop ruleset being able to go to any dollar store or Walmart here in America and pick up a set of D6 for 1-3$, reducing cost for the end user to start playing.
Love these videos so much!!! Keep up the dev work!
Touching on Rerolls, running heavy reroll options is somewhat tedious, and while I haven't eliminated them completely, they are not nearly as prevalent or as available as they are in 40K or, the closer analog for my game, Killteam
A big bucket of basic D6s gives you a binomial curve the closest to the standard normal distribution, so that is what is best in my view. I used to play eurogames and Magic: the Gathering with a guy whose day job was this stuff at the time, and his view was that the two ways he would like to see dice used in a game would be in the hundreds, or not at all.
I like the idea of D10's for the granularity as you discussed. One thing that may be slightly offsetting is most gamers have several sets of D6's around, but rarer to see D10's. I'd recommend quality D10's in the box sets vice standard quality fair. I.E. Make them seem themed to the factions included, vice a color swap. Ravaged Star already has such a cool presentation, having it match to the point of what you're rolling on the tabletop is great. Thanks for your thoughtfulness with the game's development, and wisdom to solicit input from the community on this! Can't wait to play the game!
A friend wrote a set of rules that had a cool, I thought anyway, mechanic. He called it a 'Risk-Die' The standard game used D6, but on things where you wanted to really push your luck, wanting that ability to not just hurt the opponent, but destroy them, you could opt in for a D10. The rewards were there, a top of the dice, 9-10 you could do way more damage(similar to Exploding 6s that other games use) but the risk was, on a 1-2 YOU could be hurt(exploding gun, malfunctions) those problems weren't available on either end using D6. Honestly, I'm just a D10 fan, but it was interesting.
So far my favorite dice system is that of Pulp Alley, which uses D6s up to D12s. The game has no modifiers to roll values; instead, it always uses a target number of four for any dice rolled and counts successes. The strength of a unit's ability to shoot or brawl is determined by its die type and the number of dice rolled for that die type (e.g. 3d8). Furthermore, defenders always have the option to fight back or dodge, which introduces a mechanic of success canceling by the attacker or defender depending on the defender's choice of fighting or dodging. Kill Team's close combat is the closest thing that resembles it but in Pulp Alley it is used for both shooting and close combat.
It's activation system is also pretty unique (this belongs to your other video but I'll just post it here) where one player is the "Director" and decides which player gets to activate next. Other players can become the director by capturing objectives or "clearly" winning combats ("clearly" meaning suffering no hits during the exchange) and directorship can exchange several times per round. Overall, the game has unique sets of mechanics that I really haven't seen from other wargames.
Hey! long time viewer, best tabletop-channel. Love your camera-style, gets me a good understanding of the match and what's going on, also wholesome people.
I really like your train of thought on D10s giving better granularity and being able to modify them more in a stackable way, I'm also onboard on rerolls, I like rerolls but they should be rare and mostly for things like "roll on this table to see effect", not so much anything like vehicles exploding or a good weapon hitting on a 2+.
In my experience (small as it is, WHFB 7-9, AoS 1-3, 40k 5-9), in the current GW lineup the thing I really really really like about 40k and miss when I play AoS is Strength vs Toughness and also Damage not spilling over.
In 40k a weapon can be a really powerful anti heavy killer but useless agains hordes. In AoS a weapon is most often either good or bad.
I'm all into artillery and such where this really shows, good examples are the Bonereaper Catapult and the new Cities of Sigmar Cannon. Both have different firing modes which in 40k would be really useful but in AoS there's really not much to "trade". It's all about attacks and damage.
20 attacks with 1 damage or 1 attack with 20 damage doesn't really matter, yes there's the reliability ofc but statistically it's the same, just go with the one that has a better chance to hit.
The thing you can trade is potential damage for rend/ap which never feels really interesting or useful to me. With D10s and more granularity it could be better I guess.
One thought that came up based on when you were talking about "I want the rules to allow for narrative play." IE I want to allow for randomness. I think some randomness is great, however too much may feel nihilistic, as in nothing much matters because everything is so chaotic. Players are going to be split on this point, some are going to want more randomness, and some are going to want less. Hearthstone went down the path of more randomness if you are looking for a case study. You may consider diverging into competitive play versus casual play where the randomness is turned up on the casual play side. If you try to have a system that tries to please both of these camps, you may fail and end up pleasing neither.
I really like percentile dice for the granularity and transparency. It also has a lot of cool dice tricks like doubles (33), adding them together (34 becomes 7) and flipping the results (93 becomes 39). Love this series.
Game dev here.
Totally agree with your opinion on wierd dices. is it good? is it bad? no idea..
D6 and D10 are easy to read and understand numbers. Instead of special dices with multiple outputs which you don't understand directy or have to go to a chart to understand what happens next.
An interesting dice system was Warmachine. Adding multiple dice together gives a result weighted towards the center value. However it's not really viable for a system with lots of units and models that act together. At least in my opinion.
I feel that the dice with more numerous faces minimizes the need for multiple rolls to determine the effects of a single action. But for war games I would advise stealing from the CMON game War of Kings. Where each attack is decided by a single roll of a D10. The die roll is matched against the defender's chart to show how the reacted to being struck (dodging; blocking; deflection; or allowing their armour to sock the hit). But each attacker also had an ability to counter some of those defenses, such as an attacker with a great hammer ignoring the defender's attempts to rely on their armour.
I love how OPR handles Rerolls. Cause it's never enough to slow the game down but it ALSO allows for tactical flow and ebb..
D6 (or whole load of them) are easier to read faster than a bunch of D10s. I don't really mind re-rolls as long as they don't come up too often and aren't too powerful. I used to like re-rolling 1s as a mechanic, for example. I might be more jaded with rolling a lot of dice if I gamed more often (for example-If I played games for a living on youtube). As it is I only play one or two games per month on average so to me rolling dice is part of the fun rather than being a chore.
To my mind, D10s are one of those things that makes sense on paper but doesn't work as well as people think it will in practice. Like metric based time or grid layouts for cities (yes, you can't get lost but you also can't get anywhere fast-In a car or on foot as there are roads or traffic lights every few moments).
I agree about special dice. I also don't like games that come with mountains of counters and what have you. One of the things that stops me from wanting to pick up Star Wars Legion is the mountain of cards and counters you need to play.
So I think youre absolutely right that the Warhammer rerolls are a little fun crushing. But there's also something specific they do that you need to think about, is that they add consistency to "elite" units. If you aren't adding rerolls, then modifiers become way more important for some added consistency. I do like your answer that you aren't planning on capping modifiers.
A topic which is completely outside the scope of this discussion, but I want to send it your way regardless: Vehicles and tanks.
Would you want them to work like they do in modern 40k? Basicly just a large healthbar to wittle down? Or armorvalues where outflanking the tank actually is rewarding?
What about damage? Personally I would prefer the realistic variant of components being destroyed (tracks damaged, crewmen killed, turret traverse stuck). I’d love to hear a discussion about this!
In my mind D12's are probably the highest dice i'd use for rollability/readability (although they *roll* way too well for the rogue dice scenario), plus they're just neat and alas seldom used. D20's are fine for RPGs but are slow to read and even worse in multiples, and are essentially abridged D100s. D10's are by far the easiest for mathing out things.
I think if the hit/wound save/save thing wasn't so embedded in warhammer they'd consider changing it, but it's somewhat "iconic" of the system. For some reason if you mathed it out and say resolved the entire chain in a D12, i'd guess it would *feel* worse. Albeit waaay faster. Feels like the sweet spot is 1 attack, then 1 oppose.
Of course real game systems standardise on D7's.
GW game rules feel very outdated to me. They need to get over their "iconic" systems and modernize imo.
The limitations on a die come from how the game uses dice to determine outcomes, mot always because of the number of faces.
One of the mechanics i like least is a static x+ for a characteristic, because that's where the limitation really comes in.
But there are plenty of ways to use dice without needing a lot of sides to generate differences
I have to say I hate almost all rerolls. I get the point of them, but, as you mentioned, it takes away from the emotional attachment to the rolls and high tension moments. And it takes more time.
As for the die types, I think the d6 are more ubiquitous and so better for most games to use, though the larger die does add more granularity.
One thing not really discussed about special dice is it can open up easier fast rolling of the same dice size. For example with Legion, if the game just used standard D8s you would have to go, “these two hit on a 3+, these three one a 5+, and this one on a 7+”, etc. rather than needing to remember that or roll separately you just roll everything and count the symbols.
I think it works especially well when you use the same symbols across the dice and only have a couple different symbols so it doesn’t get cluttered, for example legion has 4. hit, surge, crit and blanks. Any more and it starts to get confusing quickly.
Unique symbols also allow for integrated modifiers to the die roll, such as some units surges count as hits (essentially a +1 to hit), though it does restrict what modifiers you can use and the ability to stack them.
All in all, just further points that different systems offer different options and drawbacks. Pros and cons all to be weight by the designer to pick what best fits their particular goal.
For example you mention not wanting rerolls in ravaged start to allow for more dice variance, so you get those crazy dice swings. That is a fantastic goal (in my mind) for a game that aims to be a bit more casual and fun. I’m my mind, more “dicey” == less strategic. It’s a sliding scale every game has to pick a point on. They all have their place and appeal.
For example I love Blood Bowl, but I think it’s incredibly dicey. It’s part of the charm and appeal. But that doesn’t fit for other games. Like when I play 40K, Legion, or Armada I want less swingy dice. I prefer it to be much more on the deterministic side, but with an option for variance. That’s what I personally find the most enjoyable.
The trick is to have multiple colours of dice. Reds hit on 4, blues hit on 6, and so on, arranged to taste.
I am a huge fan of these videos and am very excited for this game!
Yes, SW Legion movenent is awesome, also enjoy drawing the cards for activations
The benefit of a d10 system is newer wargamers can recognize the impacts of modifiers quicker.
Not that other dice are not inviting, but it just helps get newer games over the initial hurdle of investing in a game.
One other unique characteristic of D10s: they double as a pointing arrow when a random direction is needed (scattering explosion, confusion, etc).
Someone recently made a case to me for D12s: "they are the coolest looking dice". And I have to admit, I couldn't deny that argument. lol
On the subject of picture dice, I lump all unique play materials material together (such as special measuring sticks instead of giving players a range in cm or inchs). It's a big turnoff when I need to buy stuff like that for just one game, not to mention that a manufacturing defect can cause huge confusion between players with different pieces. A few real world examples of this happening: a change in plastic warping a measuring stick, and a special die misprint leading to a game's hit rate being different than intended.
Hey Matt! Very excited about Ravaged Star. Congratulations! I would love to hear more about the setting and conflict.When it comes to dice and game mechanics, I recently played and read a dice-less miniatures game: One-Hour Skirmish Wargames. If you get the chance, take a look at it. The book explains some of the math behind the game mechanics and it's very interesting. Also, the turn/phase system is quite different from what I've seen and very engaging. Looking forward to watching the next video in the series!
I always found the Dropzone game system did a very good job of having granularity with their dice without resorting to custom dice or going away from the D6. They simply removed the Armor save roll in most situations, combining it with a larger to wound table which made resolving attacks a lot easier. To be fair they aren't throwing around buckets of dice like 40k outside of infantry combats but it does smooth out alot of the normal gameplay. They even managed to add in criticals and modifiers into that system without complicating its simplicity.
The point about granularity is exactly right and what I dislike about d6.
I read one of the original Warhammer designers (maybe Rick Priestly) write that d6s were selected because of their accessibility, which was a big selling feature when games didn't come with dice, there were fewer game stores globally, and no internet.
I think that another thing to consider here is how much the modifiers are felt in-game.
For example a +1 modifier on a single d20 roll is basically non-noticeable (because with 95% probability the roll fails/succeeds regardless of the modifier).
Imo this is also a really important thing to consider when it comes to what type of dice you use, how many of them you roll at a time, and what kind of modifiers your system uses on those rolls. I think all these things should come together s.t. the effect of the modifiers are really felt while playing.
Perhaps something to consider.
Don't underestimate the D6 😉
On a D6 you can have a 1:1:1 distribution of chances: 1-2 = A, 3-4 = B, 5-6 = C.
Add a +1 Modifier and BOOM the distribution shifts to 1:2:3 -> 1 = A, 2-3 = B, 4-6 = C.
Something, a D10 cannot deliver.
Also, do you happen to know "Gangs Of Rome"? They are using dice with Roman numerals.
So you get the numerals I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
For a reason.
When you need a movment into a random direction, you roll such a D6. On I-III, no movement takes place, but on IV, V or VI a unit moves that many inches into the direction the V is pointing.
Somthing, a D10 cannot deliver either.
To throw in - again - one of my games: Whack & Slaughter uses D6, as a D6 comes with pips. And those pips are used as pips on a character sheet: by colouring them in, you distribute the power of your Hero across the faces of a die.
Nope, once again the D10 is not capable of that, too.
I'd prefer a D6 over a D10 any time.
Maybe it's because I'm new to dice rolling games, but I enjoy the roller coaster ride of ups and downs when rerolls are involved. But I have to agree with rerolls on large batches of dice. If it's hinging on one or two dice being rerolled, I do like that.
WRT custom dice, these have a couple of advantages that you didn't mention 1) they allow you to get a weighted probability distribution onto a single dice (this cuts out the step where you have to add up the numbers on multiple dice). 2) they allow flexibility with the numeric system you use for stats and 3) The addition of symbols allows for narrative possibilities beyond succeed or fail and give you access to some of the advantages that cards or tokens have over dice. For example you suceed in boosting the ship but a symbol came up that indicates that now you are running low on fuel. The custom dice is speeding up the amount of time it takes to model a more complex proceedure.
I would be curious if there is a stronger preference for d10s in countries that use the metric system.
I like the system in Bushido, D6, you have a sett number of dice, you pick how many you will use to attack and defend in secret. Your opponent dose the same, and you both roll att the same time
defense successes nullifies attacks of the opponent, so both players dose damage att the same time. but it is a smal model count game focus on duels
With 40k having a success variable of only 3-5 usually really removes the dice aspect. Not percentile-wise, number variable wise.
Off topic I LOVE that you have range bands. Agree on the rerolls.
I think you should look into 2nd ed 40k. D6 was the standard dice, but D4, 8,10,20 was used for a few things, mainly weapon penetration values
The trade-off is in readability which drops as the number of dice you need to roll increases.
D6s are language agnostic and very easy to pattern match in a large group.
Higher sided dice trade readability for granularity and work better with smaller sets of rolls.
I personally love the feeling of rolling an actual handful of dice, to the point that I don't mind D6s being the increasing standard. However, rerolling and losing out on granularity is something I find bothersome as well.
I do like the idea of using D10s to add that granularity, and potentially it would speed up the rolling process because that granularity would reduce the need to count up and roll another set of "successful" dice. Having the "toughness" be a modifier to the actual hit roll would be much simpler and faster for me.
For what it's worth, though, I feel a D12 would be more comfortable to roll in handfuls rather than D10s. They're less spikey.
On Dice:
My personal feeling is that nothing larger than a D12 should be used for miniature wargames. Frostgrave is one of those games that exemplifies this. The game has low modifiers, but the D20 has so much swing, that you are basically cleaving through people, or doing no damage. I also feel this is a reflection of not having the defender's die roll matter unless it is above the attacker's. Instead of providing some mitigation, as long as you roll high enough, and beat your opponent by 1, you are seriously wounding or removing them. Infinity is a similar vein, except they do use the opponent's roll to mean something for dodging multiple shots.
FMA Skirmish (FMASk,) developed by Ground Zero Games for their 25mm Star Grunt game has a good mechanic which based the die type used by a unit or model to their quality. Something like an untrained civilian would use a D4, while a battle hardened veteran would use a D12. This meant that some things could just not be accomplished by those who did not have a high enough quality to them. However, it was amazingly fun, and a friend of mine skinned it to some home brew skirmish games.
On Re-Rolls:
I also despise how prevalent re-rolling dice has become. I feel it is unnecessary in extremely large salvos, and grinds away time. Games like 40K were much simpler before the aura abilities and en masse re-rolls. It makes rolling mean less. Of course there were certain rules that allowed for it before 8th edition popped up, but they were very few. Keep it simple.
Nothing wrong with the KISS method, 'Keep It Stupid Simple'/ 'Simple'Stupid'.
Not saying the basic roll to hit, and defense is stupid or simple, but it is refreshing not having to roll and reroll and reroll and potentially reroll again for a single activation of a unit.
Man, D10’s, no re-rolls and one single round to hit and one to save? I AM ALL IN!
I do appreciate the d10 system from things like This is not a Test and Reality's Edge (yes I'm aware they are the same game system as the author is the same) as it does definitely allow for more flexibility to utilise and stack modifiers and to the extent allow a bit more variety in the rolling calculations (d6 rolls are 16.6667% between values as d10 is 10% between values)
My biggest point against special dice is availability and customization. Like in TTRPGs dice can be part of the story. So you have your special army that you painted in a special way and then you go online and you find just the perfect dice that acompany them. With special game dice that option is off the table because you can pretty much only play the game with those dice. It alos beggs the question of what happens when the game maybe goes out of print somewhen and you might still be able to buy some miniatures but you just cannot get the dice anymore.
In terms of mechanics special dice have a lot to offer though imo. Looking at Genesys RPG, the way the dice are able to tell a story. I like that a lot better than a simple d20.
And in wargames like Dystopian Wars the multiuse of the critical "wound"/ damage dice is pretty neat.
Great work so far!
D10 are a good solution.
Got my hands on the whole bundle of the Veil Touched.
They are awesome models!
I'm so excited to get the Gorkogs and Immari and !RULES!.
In my opinion, you are on the right way. Keep it simple!
Watched the testgames, it was so much fun. I'm tired of 40k.
Ravaged Star is like fresh air.
Best wishes and greetings from Germany!
One thing I like about using D6 is that they feel good in the hand when shaking and rolling. Granularity is great with D10, but there's something very cut and dry with how brutal a D6 result can be. Better for larger wargames where a simple live or die result is needed.
I agree with using D10s. My biggest complaint about Bolt Action is how just a few modifiers are enough to push you to needing 7s on a D6.
I remember hearing that the designers wanted to use something besides d6s but the higher ups thought D6s were just more familiar to beginners. So that is why you roll the dice so many times.
Rerolls in GW games are a pet peeve of mine. Sometimes you have to do a lot of dice just to pull a few gretchen off the board. At least the got rid of the whole "Might as well overcharge these plasma rifles since I'm rerolling 1s." That really made me mad.
Yes. The answer is yes. Most games should have been d10, or as others suggest, even a D12. The old reason was that "D6 is more available, thus accessible". This is no longer a problem. D10's are accessible. Its easier to balance a system on a larger number (especially if it has more diversity of models).
The "Bespoke" dice that many games are using now make sense for board games (Heroquest for example) but I'm not a fan of them in more complete miniatures games.
D6s were fine in earlier editions of Warhammer/40k, but that was before we were rolling buckets of dice and had all of the rerolls and "feel no pain" sort of rules. Anything more that 3 rounds of rolling more than 20 dice is just a pain.
I think the folks at Warlord got it right. the d6 still works well with Bolt Action and other historical games because the troops are very similar and there are fewer special rules. But with Beyond the Gate of Antares they used d10s to get more granular, allow for the differences in different species, and avoided the need for an armor save roll.
12:28 A Champion player named Tresh won with WASD+Mouse in Quake. Everyone I know switched to WASD after that.
Half-Life was just the first main-stream game that had it as default.
I too love 10s.
I absolutely agree that the re-rolls in 40K has been way too much. I will be happy if you keep to your word that there will be no Re-Rolls in Ravaged Star.
I like the roll once for the hit and once for defense, however I do believe that it shouldn't be a 50/50 on heavily armoured things with no mods. It doesn't feel like those things are armoured so I would like to see a shift with that. Basically I would do it like this Basic 5+, Trained 4+, and elite/heavy defense 3+.
Yes, we should keep looking at chess to help us maintain what it means to have something strategic and still easy to learn.
I dislike heavily symbol-ed dice cause it's like learning a new friggin language. I am working on a system that uses D4, D8, and D12.
Not a fan of D100 have played some Five Leagues from the BorderLands and it's exhausting, too many things that just feel unimportant are constantly being rolled for.
I like your Frankenstein monster, it helps to take good mechanics from elsewhere.
Number of side dice that works best with any game will depend on how wide a gap do you have between your best and your worst unit. 40k ties its own game in knots as they have 4 useable options 2+ to 5+ on a d6. So to cover the scope of ability from grots to gods you get, rerolls or triggers abilities on an x, its instant rules bloat buy sticking to a d6.
I personally like games with multiple dice like mantic uses so it's way easier to show scope of power with ad6 versus like a giant robot using d10
I really agree on the rerolling thing.
1st of all. It really slows down the game when both players can reroll anything.
2nd, it takes away the cool situations where "sometimes you just gotta roll a hard six" to win the game, make the save, destroy the Cylon Centurion. It takes away the awesome sense of desperate victory through sheer chance.
Also It truly feels like 40K and GW wants to add more and more rules to mitigate chance. Which is very strange for a game that revolves around throwing dice. If you want to mitigate chance, you should ditch out dice completely and use something like a deck of cards with a set amount of specific results. Then both players know exactly at any point of the game that there are for example only 6 cards with a 5+ left in the current deck cycle. But that would in general take the game completely to a new direction.
As an aspiring game developer - I like games that combine various types of dice - particularly for different actions or even weapons (one great example is Space Weirdos)
I think the idea of granularity was built into how GW developed Rogue Trader, and in some cases 2nd Ed. You saw a whole variety of dice that were used for attacks, damage, move, etc. I always felt like this gave more flavor to the game as it demonstrated how different aspect of the game impact the outcome. Through making games more ‘competitive’ GW has built themselves into a corner with D6’s. This isn’t ‘bad’ but it does mean the rules for the game need to be more complex to make up for the ‘flatness’ that a D6 system creates. I for one am all about a d10 system as it does, as a matter of function, allow for more variety in all aspects of the game.
so i have been watching this is not a test, and i really like damage being applied at the end of the round. that way you can us all your stuff.
I would like something like this too. If not the end of round, then end of phase. Using all toys are reducing feels bad alpha strike is a good way to go.
There's another reason to wish that GW would consider other dice for their games, and that's that in any system that runs off of dice rolls determined by opposed stats (most commonly Strength vs Toughness in GW's case) and not using a large enough dice to account for the range of variance within those stats will inevitably lead to situations in which the differences in those stats effectively don't matter, which is a feel bad moment. For example: assuming for a moment that the average Strength of an attack in a GW game is 4, then due to the nature of how they do wound rolls there is effectively no mechanical difference between having 5 Toughness or 7, at least to the average attack. Same with S3 VS T4-5, or S5 VS T6-9!
Basically, the dice you use may limit the numerical scale of stat ranges you can/should use for your game while still keeping the variations between those stats meaningful. Depending of course on how you use those stats.
Nobody likes dead or meaningless numbers in their numbers game.
Watching some of the playtest videos previously, d10 is great and as you said has the granularity. To me d6's only work with small scale or when there is a chart to reference like the old Warhammer editions.
I think the reroll could be incorporated but as a single dice roll associated to the unit. This could be a unique ability or tied with the Boost, but since they only roll to attack or if they are defending, a single dice roll feels good and has that "I might save this for defense" feel or "All out attack" feel. Again, it's rerolling a single dice for the unit, so it's player agency where that should go and if it gets used, hopefully helping with the critical moments, but still not reliable.
I look forward to playing Ravaged Star, it looks fantastic.
stick with the d10 systems and the alternative activations. love the way the tokens are being pulled from the bag as well.
I've said this on another video, but I wanna double down on how much I love the single attack and single defense rolls. It's quick and way easier to grok how good/bad an interaction will be. I also totally understand (and largely agree with) the no-reroll policy. Let stats be good, but let the rolls stand.
The only thing I'd say is missing is a way to strategically modify the dice in some way. I'd like to have some sort of Strategem style system so that I can choose when or how to augment something. And maybe boosts are currently filling that niche, but I think they are too random to feel right for me. I also like how army-wide narratives/mechanics can be showcased by the strategems, whereas boosts are entirely dependent on the unit.
Also, I really like the d10s because they *do* allow for all those different modifiers to stack and not wildly swing things like d6s. It hits the sweet spot for y'all's goals imo
I just stumbled upon this video although I've been a fan of MWG for years. ( I still remember feeling vindicated after watching your video on Finecast lol)
I just wanted to say THANK YOU and please keep the discussion going!
I've been writing my own wargame for a few years now and I'm at the stage where I need to raise money to get models made. I've had to do this on my own and its been a slog.
Hearing your insights would be a big help.
Especially if you can share anything about how to copyright to protect your game and dealing with other IP's. Mainly how to possibly acquire the rights to use someone else's and how to protect your own. Overall, any insights you have would be helpful. I look forward to the next video!!
Here is an argument for D6. For larger conflicts, the range of probable outcomes is lowered. A duel between 2 figures, there is a huge variety of outcomes. 100 men vs 100 men, some will die, some will run away, but overall the range of outcomes is lower than in single combat. Again, I favor D10, which can be combined to create a 'percentage dice' easily.
I generally prefer larger numbered dice because it lets a designer make units more granular. I think a lot of the d6 systems struggle with really differentiating what makes 1 unit better than another since you only have so many options. I do wonder if that greater granularity would make balancing easier or harder though, because sometimes more options can just make things worse. Also, personally I think d20 is about the highest you would want to go, since it's the largest common die size so is easy to get ahold of, and something like a d100 isn't great cuz it limits you to rolling just the d100 pair for readability and we all know rolling a ton of dice at once can be very satisfying.
I find that d20s mean a bunch of fiddly +1s that just slow things down, or don't have a big enough impact, so I wouldn't go above d12. As for d100, while I love percentages for making it extremely easy to gauge the odds, rolling two dice at once is inconvenient and it's virtually always better to just divide by 5 and use a d20, because screw +3% nonsense. Kinda wish there was a 20-sided dice labelled up [5, 10, 15… 95, 00] but I've never seen one.
One advantage of d6 is that you can roll 2d6 add have a gaussian like distribution of results. Obviously it doesn't really work if you are making multiple rolls at once though.
Also: I've got a 12 sided die, I've got the Dungeon Masters Guide, I've got Kitty Pryde
And: keep rollin' rollin' rollin'
I just bought a bunch of D10s, just so I could play Verrotwood. It's a solid choice for game design.
My gripe with D6s is that they can be frustrating in 40k because of the silly mechanics around rolling way too many, multiple times, only to have no damage dealt in the end.Foe example, Imperial Guard vs Demons in 9th edition 40k.
I think a big thing to consider about D6s is their physical real world properties and tactile properties that makes them ideal for a game that rolls a lot of dice.
Here's the problem with with higher sided dice: they are inherently unstable. The more sides there are, the more unstable the shape is. D10s and D12s are kinda easy to knock over. D8s are relatively tolerable in terms of stability but still has that lever point that makes them easy knock over. D20s, oh man....
Okay, less sides means more stable. That leaves 2 shapes: pyramids and cubes. That is, D4s and D6s. They are extremely stable.
But D4s have two huge physical problems: they're hard to pick up and they're basically little caltrops. If you're rolling 20 of these, D4s are kinda frustrating. They feel bad in the hand and they don't feel satisfying to roll. Pyramids are too stable, hard to pick up, feels uncomfortable in the hand. I once made a game using D4s (the math worked perfectly with D4s) but I had a huge concern over how uncomfortable it is to handle mass D4s.
I think higher sided dice have limitations as to how many is practical to roll at once. Having played World of Darkness that function primarily on D10s, I think around 7-10 dice is the limit. It gets too cumbersome after that. D20s I think 2-4 dice is about how much is tolerable. They're just easy to knock over and it makes extraction start to get tedious when there's too many.
That leaves the D6 as the perfect shape for purposes of comfort, stability, rollability and readability. Rounded D6s feel great to roll up until they have a hard time fitting in the hand, which is around 20-24 16mm dice. That's great for wargames. Rolling 20-24 D10s is probably tolerable but I can't say it's enjoyable when trying to separate success and fails.
Of course, I can also understand the argument that the shot count bloat is the result of using D6s. If we moved on to higher sided dice, we can start reducing the number of shots in the game. All things are in balance. I am typing this "in defense" of D6s but I am definitely not typing this saying "D6s are superior". As many (and you) have pointed out, having more sides provide significant mathematical advantages. However, I just don't want the D6 to be discounted simply because we are used to it and are too fixated on its mathematical disadvantages and forgetting about its physical advantages.
2dn are usually superior to 1d(n*2). If you roll 1d12, you have an equal chance of getting any result - it's chaos, 2d6 gives you a nice curve biased toward the expected values. Much more civilized.
Specialist dice I see in two camps. The first allows for probabilities not easily represented through normal dice (looking at you Saga). The second gives another product to be sold to the gaming public (Also looking at you Saga)
I noticed that for time you glossed over a number of dice mechanics like "exploding sixes". There is one interesting mechanic found in StarGrunt II - and that is dice shifts. Rather than a +1 modifier adding to a roll, it instead shifts the dice up so a d6 becomes a d8, a d8 becomes a d10 and so on. The success number doesn't need to change at all, but your probabilities of achieving that success increase or decrease accordingly.
I’m also a fan of the multiple dice rolling method is that the bell curve outcome makes modifiers change value depending on what values you need. The further you are away from the average roll, the less the modifier affects the outcome. Also going from 2d6 to 3d6 also isn’t necessary a flat bonus. (Yes, I’m a fan of Warmachine back in the day.) I think flat percentages aren’t as interesting as having a sliding scale of effectiveness that multidice rolling systems offer. The trade off is that it’s nearly impossible to fast roll in those systems, so it’s better when the number of rolls is smaller.
Infinity is also interesting, since while it’s a single roll system, most rolls are contested (roll-offs) and in that way it feels a little more interactive than 40K’s rolling system. (Even more, the reactive action system makes the game feel truly interactive in most parts of the turns. It is much slower in overall pace and more complex, and is why those games are three turn game length instead of five turns, though.)
Keep in mind that the scale of the game (how many rolls) should influence the system used. I can understand GW going with the simple 1d6 system when it’s not uncommon to roll 30+ attack rolls all at once. I’d hate to do that with either WarMachine or Infinity’s systems, but they’re also not (theoretically) built to support that many models on the board all at once.
Having larger dice allow for greater variation between units without having to lean on special rules like armor of contempt. In the case of war gaming, I would argue that d8s or d12s are the best. They roll the best and are easy to read. Personally I like d12s the most, but I understand the percentage argument.
So, some thoughts: i dislike d10s as dice because they are not platonic solids, and they are not as divisible. What that means is, platonic solid dice (d4, d6, d8, d12, d20) all have the same shape and same angle between faces, which makes them appear to lay flatter and be more clear which side is up, especially at an angle or weird lighting.
In addition, 12s is a supercomposite number, meaning it has the most numbers which can divide it. A d12 can also be used to do a d2, d3, d4, and d6,and while prercentage probability is tough, fractional probability (1/2, 3/4 chance) is pretty easy.
But d10s are fine.
Also humans didnt evolve with a decimal system, but a logarithmic one. Our counting words (a, a pair, a few, several, many) can be seen as a leftover of that, and there's some research on how babies interact with numbers which show it.
Also there is a great numberphile video on how to count in a base 12 system on your hand (4 fingers, 3 segments per finger).
On to stuff not about 12.
One game i have seen do custom dice well is Middara. It uses custom d6, with different numbers (starting is 2 through 7 i think) and also some symbols on the sides. You roll to reach a target number, and the symbols unlock bonuses. The symbols you want are based on your characters cards, so its less about learning whats on the dice and more looking what you get, and the dice progress to higher and higher numbers. This was done as its a campaign tactical game, and you tend to do four or five missions vefore you even rank up one dice to the next. It lets the game slowly tick up the target number, as well as letting you feel more powerful becaise the better dice have better numbers, and upgrading one of your (usually 2) dice feels like a lot more even though probability wise it's not a massive change. "But this one can roll an 11!"
The to hit, to wound, and save rolls are how you introduce granularity with a D6. "There are two hundred and sixteen possible outcomes from a triple sequential D6 roll...." pg64 Tabletop Wargames Rick Priestly and John Lambshead. I have recently been enamored with Mike Hutchinson's rank-and-flank game Hobgoblin, which only uses a single die roll to factory hit/wound/armor. It takes a bit to get used to as most of us haven been raised on the GW sequential roll sequence, but I now greatly appreciate the transparency of a single roll and the time savings in doing so.
First thought before watching the video. Other dice are fine for small skirmish games, but d6's are easier to use for games with multiple squads of 10 or more troops and vehicles. Rolling a bucket of d6's for a 20 troop squad, you only have to pick out from 1-6 results. The same reason why d6's tend to have pips instead of numbers on them. 1-6 is enough fidelity for simple modifiers, unlike a d4 where even a plus one is a 25% improvement. I think the d6 is the "sweet spot" for speed versus fidelity, when playing with more than a squad.
doom1 had an option to use mouse and keyboard. most people did not, but it was possible (and great - the skill jump, that I made when I switched to mouse was incredible). Also d10 are best for this kind of game
d6 is more accessible but d10s provide better balance/nuance to different armies
a slight pet peeve of mine is that the Tau in 40k with a lifetime of shooting experience hit just as well as someone who is considered veteran after spending 2 days fighting. granted 4+ is considered average, 3+ for enhanced and 2+ for snipers, but it feels like there should be a 3.5+ and a 4.5+ to help even out the averages between different species and experience levels
I like D10s and use those in my homebrew rpgs/wargames. D10s just have such a great simplicity and offer enough variance. Often I don't need the huge variability of a D20 in wargaming, but sometimes use them in my skirmish/rpg games.
Thanks for those Developper's diary. Very Interesting.
I think I like D10 more now, with less throws. I would really like 40k to have alternate units system and 1 Attack throw then 1 Defense Throw with less reroll (just the Stratagem maybe)
With time and version, there is too many rolls : To Hit, Reroll, To Wound, Reroll, Damage, sometimes reroll, Saves, sometimes Reroll, Feel No Pain, sometime Rerolls...
That's way too much and a bit annoying. I don't mind having big number of dices but those slow downs too much the game.
I'm thinking about merging Hit and Wound as Houses rules but that's hard (and need agreement from my opponent)
Good Work and Good Luck for your campaign !
D6s are the most accessible for players who are unfamiliar with tabletop war gaming.
D10s or D12s are the better option because they allow for more granularity in unit statistics.
Take 40k as an example, Power Armour vs Carapace Armour (3+ vs 4+). One of those saves represents armour that far outclasses the other, but GW are limited by the D6 system so there is no way to separate them further. In a D10 system however you could have a 4+ vs a 6+ to give the same rough odds of success, but allow for units that fit between the gap to be able to have a save that differentiates them more. Would also allow you to have lots of abilities and rules to modify dice more without completely breaking the balance.
I like D10s. With a D6 you really only have 3+, 4+ and 5+ to work with, 2+ and 6+ are edge cases with dramatic effects. What is often lost though is how many good combinations do you get?
In 40k where you have typically 3 D6 rolls: to hit, to wound, to save, you get a total of 216 combinations. If you roll a 1 to hit then no other rolls mater and 36 of your 216 combinations are of no use. If we were to take 3+, 4+ and 5+ as the most useable rolls and include half of the 6+ and 2+ rolls we get 4 good rolls per D6 so 4x4x4=64 good combinations from your 3 D6s. If you apply the same method to 2 D10 rolls then you would get 8x8=64 good combinations.
I enjoy OPR's Grimdark Future, try it if you have not, with only 2 D6 rolls, one to hit and one to save, it is fun but many of the units have pretty similar stats and the difference between +1/-1 is still pretty telling. With Mantic Firefight, which I recommend trying, where it uses 2 D8 rolls, one to hit and one to damage. Even with the addition of 2 more sides the improvement over GDF is notable. Gates of Antares uses 2 D10 rolls, one to hit and one to resist. I think that is best method, where and attack makes a roll and the defender replies with a roll. While I think that D12s are ok but you can buy D10s in bulk quite easily and some like the easy percentage calcs with D10s.
I honestly think rerolls are the worst mechanic in competitive player vs. Player type games, whereas in cooperative games that reroll can be a wonderful moment of that once last chance feeling when it is use sparingly
We used to do a Thanksgiving tourney that you used food items to get rerolls, had some other silly stuff like turkeys running around the board.
Made a fun way to get a food drive going.
You want to reroll you say 3 cans or corn, your foe could then counter 1 big can of tuna and so on.
Only time I liked rerolls.