Rolling the Dice.
Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 8:48 pm
In my current game/AAR, which I started back on 12/27/2108, I'm rolling the dice for all random events. In the case of 1D10 (e.g., naval search) or 2D10 (e.g., land, air-to-air combat) events, it's obvious how to do this. That is, roll either 1 or 2 10-sided die/dice as appropriate. However, for other events (e.g., chit draws, fractional odds) it may not be so obvious how I'm doing it and I thought I'd share it with you how I am. Especially, since I've figured out a way to roll for 0-14 (uniform) with two dice, but more on that later.
Fractional odds (0-999): I first select and order three different colored 10-sided dice (e.g., Blue-Green-Red in order from left to right). I then roll the three dice and construct the number with Blue=100's, Green=10's and Red=1's. For example a roll of Blue=5, Green=7, Red=0 would produce the 3-digit number 570.
Chit draws (0-3017, 0-365, 0-920, 0-5097, 0-6113): I select and order four different colored 10-sided dice (e.g., Purple-Blue-Green-Red). I then roll the 4 dice to produce a 4-digit decimal number with Purple (in this case) being the digit closest to the decimal. For example, Purple=7, Blue=1, Green=0, Red=5 would produce the 4-digital decimal number 0.7105. I then multiple this number by the number of chits for the given year I'm in and round off to the nearest integer. In continuing with my example say it's 1940. There are 920 chits and chit draws vary between 0 and 920, inclusively. So, the chit draw in continuing my example would be 0.7305 x 920 = 653.6600 which rounds off (to the nearest integer) to 654.
Partisans (0-99, 0-9, 0-14). For 0-99 I just select two different colored dice and order them (e.g., White-Yellow). In this example White is the 10's and Yellow the 1's. So White = 3 and Yellow = 5 would produce 35. 0-9 roll should be obvious how to do with a 10-sided die. What wasn't obvious was how to roll and produce a uniform draw between 0 and 14, inclusively. Until today, I've been using a similar, but not exactly the same, method as I did for chit draws. I select and order four different colored 10-sided dice to produce a four digit decimal number between 0.0000 and 0.9999. I then multiply that number by 15 and round down. That is, 14.9985 is 14. While this method did indeed produce a uniform equivalent roll between 0 and 14, inclusively, it entailed a lot of "bookkeeping" during the partisan phase especially when I needed two or three 0-14 numbers.
It was today when I had an aha moment and came up with a way that only required rolling two dice to get this number (i.e., uniform integer between 0 and 14, inclusively). For this new method I used one 10-sided die and one 6-sided die. For a roll of 1-4 on the 6-sided die, the resulting number was whatever was rolled on the 10-sided die (i.e., 0-9). For a roll of 5-6 on the 6-sided die, the resulting number was 10 + modulo 5 of the 10-sided die roll. So in this last case (i.e., 5 or 6 on the 1d6), 1d10 rolls of 0 & 5 are 0, 1 & 6 are 1, 2 & 7 are 2, 3 & 8 are 3, 4 & 9 are 4 and when added to 10 would produce the numbers 10 - 14.
Anyway, for someone not familiar with the board version of MWiF, I've found "rolling the dice" and working through all the game tables is not only fun but has help me better understand the game.
Fractional odds (0-999): I first select and order three different colored 10-sided dice (e.g., Blue-Green-Red in order from left to right). I then roll the three dice and construct the number with Blue=100's, Green=10's and Red=1's. For example a roll of Blue=5, Green=7, Red=0 would produce the 3-digit number 570.
Chit draws (0-3017, 0-365, 0-920, 0-5097, 0-6113): I select and order four different colored 10-sided dice (e.g., Purple-Blue-Green-Red). I then roll the 4 dice to produce a 4-digit decimal number with Purple (in this case) being the digit closest to the decimal. For example, Purple=7, Blue=1, Green=0, Red=5 would produce the 4-digital decimal number 0.7105. I then multiple this number by the number of chits for the given year I'm in and round off to the nearest integer. In continuing with my example say it's 1940. There are 920 chits and chit draws vary between 0 and 920, inclusively. So, the chit draw in continuing my example would be 0.7305 x 920 = 653.6600 which rounds off (to the nearest integer) to 654.
Partisans (0-99, 0-9, 0-14). For 0-99 I just select two different colored dice and order them (e.g., White-Yellow). In this example White is the 10's and Yellow the 1's. So White = 3 and Yellow = 5 would produce 35. 0-9 roll should be obvious how to do with a 10-sided die. What wasn't obvious was how to roll and produce a uniform draw between 0 and 14, inclusively. Until today, I've been using a similar, but not exactly the same, method as I did for chit draws. I select and order four different colored 10-sided dice to produce a four digit decimal number between 0.0000 and 0.9999. I then multiply that number by 15 and round down. That is, 14.9985 is 14. While this method did indeed produce a uniform equivalent roll between 0 and 14, inclusively, it entailed a lot of "bookkeeping" during the partisan phase especially when I needed two or three 0-14 numbers.
It was today when I had an aha moment and came up with a way that only required rolling two dice to get this number (i.e., uniform integer between 0 and 14, inclusively). For this new method I used one 10-sided die and one 6-sided die. For a roll of 1-4 on the 6-sided die, the resulting number was whatever was rolled on the 10-sided die (i.e., 0-9). For a roll of 5-6 on the 6-sided die, the resulting number was 10 + modulo 5 of the 10-sided die roll. So in this last case (i.e., 5 or 6 on the 1d6), 1d10 rolls of 0 & 5 are 0, 1 & 6 are 1, 2 & 7 are 2, 3 & 8 are 3, 4 & 9 are 4 and when added to 10 would produce the numbers 10 - 14.
Anyway, for someone not familiar with the board version of MWiF, I've found "rolling the dice" and working through all the game tables is not only fun but has help me better understand the game.