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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 8052149" data-attributes="member: 6777737">Yes, and I'm saying that even that definition isn't precise enough to tell you how you think the mechanic should operate, how important it is in the game, or even how much the game encourages or discourages engaging in combat.Well, you cut out the next sentence which tells you the type of a die roll that is less varied: one with a bell curve distribution. <a href="https://anydice.com/program/1cffc" target="_blank">Compare d20 to 2d10 to 3d8-3 to 4d6-6 to 6d4-4</a>. These rolls have roughly the same outcome range and roughly the same mean outcome value, but they have wildly different outcome probability distributions. What that means is that the outcome of lower variance rolls is much more predictable. If we're assuming an opposed roll, then even though we have a range of roughly 1 to 20 your game will feel much more predictable running 6d4-4 than it will running 1d20. Making the entire outcome rely on a single roll has a completely different feel in this case, and accruing bonuses and penalties becomes the overriding factor even if we're looking at total modifiers much smaller than the range of outcomes (i.e., -5 to +5 on a range of 1 to 20). Depending on what we tie those bonuses and penalties to, there can be wildly different play experiences. Are bonuses tied to preparation? Strength or level? Position? What are the consequences for the player to win or lose the die roll?It's not like a single physical die roll can't have a bell curve distribution. You could imagine a d10 that has one 1, two 2s, three 3s, and four 4s on it's face. Games that use custom dice almost always have dice like this where there's an uneven face distribution to control the probability of outcome. Other games use card decks to roll dice with unpredictable outcomes, or to generate all outcomes with an explicit distribution (if you're not reshuffling after every draw).That's the point I'm trying to make. "Resolve with one die roll" takes dozens of mechanical forms in a game, and they all feel very differently. Morrus never says that he wants combat to be a literal coin flip. He might mean that he just wants to remove all the combat mechanics from the game. Just replace the Combat chapter with a single mechanical event. On it's face, it sounds like just making combat a coin flip and high risk with a low reward, but it doesn't need to do that at all.No, Risk uses several die rolls. Regardless of the number of armies you attack with or have on a territory for defense, you can never roll more than 3 dice at once and you can never defend with more than dice at once. Then, at the end of each combat turn, the attacker can choose to press the attack (assuming they still have 1 army) or retreat. 30 armies attacking 30 armies will take a minimum of 15 turns of combat and 15 die rolls, and is much more likely to take 20 or more rounds of combat and the attacking player can choose to end the combat early if they want. That is not a single die roll combat mechanic to me.In Dune, you'd move 30 armies into the zone with 30 armies on the movement phase. Then, during combat phase, there's a battle. Each side secretly chooses how many armies to spend in the battle from those present in the territory, then secretly chooses a leader which adds a bonus, and then secretly chooses a weapon card and a special defense card (if available) that have their own bonuses or special effects (usually killing the opposing leader or stopping that from happening). Then both sides reveal their choices. Whichever side has the highest total bonus (armies spent + leader and equipment bonuses) wins the combat. The loser is annihilated completely; equipment lost, leader killed, armies destroyed. Then, the winner loses every army they spent, so if they picked 30 to invest then the winner's army is destroyed completely, too. And that's it. The combat is then over. It's resolved entirely by a single event and one side is always totally annihilated after that event. It's a is single "die roll" combat with high consequences. The equitable uncertainty here comes from the bid system rather than a die roll, but it's still basically a die roll. Since the victory condition is controlling multiple control points on the board, combat is ostensibly necessary to a straightforward victory so this game does not de-emphasize combat at all.The question is: how much influence to the players have on the outcome of the combat? In normal 5e, the answer is quite a lot, and it's extremely granular influence. In a single die roll system you lose the granularity, but that doesn't mean you're relying on a coin flip regardless of whether you're facing a kobold or a swarm of dragons. You don't necessarily lose the predictability or the sense of control that players have.So, again, it comes back to what do you want the system to do? What else do you want besides a fast resolution to get back to the rest of the game? Do you want a high chance of failure? Do you want a high consequence for failure? I think you can make a single die roll combat mechanic do anything you want and feel any way you'd like. You only need one random event to add the desired equitable uncertainty that brings drama, tension, and the perception of risk. But there are countless ways to design that one mechanic. It doesn't even necessarily de-emphasize the importance of combat or the player's willingness to engage in it. It just means you don't have to stop for an hour to run one combat and roll 100 dice.</blockquote>

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