Seboss said:

Depends on how the cards are utilized. If you get a "hand" of card, then yes. Possibly, depending on what the card effects are. If you just draw from a combat deck randomly, then it isn't a lot different. Though if the cards aren't shuffled back in, then there is a default memory system which could possibly be exploited, but if they are then it's just as random as dice. On the other hand, a dice system doesn't necessarily mean a lack of control, depending on what the mechanics behind the system. Sure, dice are random and so are card draws, but dice coupled with triggerable abilities, or card hands, or some combination thereof, and then the randomness gets mitigated a bit. It really depends on the specific mechanics of the game. All dice systems are not equal, nor are all card systems. We'll just have to wait and see.

I imagine that it will be very similar to Middle Earth Quests card combat system which is great because that was the best thing about that game to me

bearing in mind that Corey had a hand in that game too, its all the more likely they will be similar (although not identical)

No dice may be (in some people's opinion) a stupid reason to not buy a game, but I'm with the original poster on this one. I enjoy rolling dice in board games with war and I despise card driven combat.

Obviously not everyone here shares my opinion but the majority of my gaming circle (or at least the AmeriGamers in it) feel the same way and the eurogamers aren't interested in RuneWars anyway.

I was really excited about this game when it was announced. Then I read that Corey had his mits on it and my heart sunk. What's with his new infatuation with card driven combat anyway? In my opinion he's turning into the Ewe Boll of board games.

I'm sorry Corey. Obviously you're doing something right to be in the position you are, but until you ditch the cards you can scratch me off your list of fans.

And how can you have a game set in Terrinoth without dice?? It just doesn't seem right

Dice just for the sake or dice can be fun, but if there is another way to implement combat that can still have the random factor, but allow a little more control in the risk management, it can't be all that bad.

Granted, it's a matter of tastes. But Starcraft is immensely popular (probably moreso than Runebound and Descent), as is Battlestar Galactica - Corey does seem to have a knack for making card-based combat strategic, yet still with an element of "luck".

The question I would ask, have you tried Starcraft? If so, and you didn't like it, then fair enough - this game may not work for you. But I think some of these ideas are nice - they break away from the "norm" and make combat interesting without making it TOO abstract. Dice can be nice, but dice just for dice sake isn't necessary good or bad - but it can be somewhat bland by today's standards.

I like my Titan-style dicefests on occasion, but sometimes having a little more tactical control can be nice, too.

Dice in wargames are a big plus. Combat can be resolved quickly. It's fun, it's fast, it's active and if you get emotionally involved you can dispense your anger on the dice.

The card-driven combat in, let's say, Starcraft is good but can be a bottleneck with slow, annoying, players. I would always recommend against it in complex games which take an evening to play or longer.

But whatever the system I'd buy Runewars just on looks.

I didn't think I'd like card driven combat until I tried Starcraft. Now I think I can't like a game without it :-)

Based on the information provided in the two preview articles thus far, it's "diceless" in that there are no polyhedrons that are rolled, but you still have a "Fate" deck which has a distribution of outcomes for each type of military unit. It's the functional equivalent of using a deck of 36 cards instead of rolling 2d6 - except with cards, you save on production costs incurred from fabricating uniquely-purposed dice OR having to use normal dice and then look up the results on a table. This solution solves both problems by putting the table results on the actual randomization element and GUARANTEES that the outcomes follow the intended distribution (in case you think dice can be lucky or improperly balanced).

So there are dice, trust me. They're just flatter and have the results presented in a very concise fashion.

Big Head Zach said:

The people who believe in lucky dice are also probably the people who believe in lucky cards. The whole thing about luck is it can't be proven or disproven, so the method of randomization is largely irrelevant. If you're the sort of person who's worried about loaded dice, well, I think it would be easier to stack a deck of cards than to modify a set of dice and I'm not nearly jaded enough to accept the claim that FFG would intentionally send out unfair dice.

I'm not arguing against card-based combat systems, mind you. I don't really care either way, I'm just saying cards aren't inherently better than dice. It's a matter of personal taste. Some people in this thread are saying they won't support a product without dice, that's fine. They have a right to choose and if that's their choice, so be it.

I could not care less about the randomization method. As some people stated in this thread, if the cards allow for a more streamlined combat resolution as we don't have to rely on resolution tables or memorize "to hit" values, all the better.
It's more the randomization itself that kinda displeases me. I much prefer the control and double guessing A Game of Thrones provides for instance.

Big Head Zach said:

Well, yes and no. It depends on if the combat cards are shuffled back into the deck or if they are discarded. If they are immediately shuffled back into the deck, then they are functionally identical to a dice with an equal number of sides as there are cards in the deck. However, if you discard the card then this all changes because whatever result was on the card is taken out of play. It's the equivalent of rolling a six on a chart, and then saying that you can no longer roll sixes on the chart. It has a memory, which isn't something that dice support.

So far we have seen 1 card and no rules. I wonder if each card will be unique or their will be duplicates. You could have cards that will have more hits or can have more type of units hitting. I'm not fond of having to reshuffle the pack everytime but I can see it better resembles the randomness of dice. I'd rather see some cards saying when to reshuffle.

SamVimes said:

And that's where the line between Euro-style and Ameri-style tends to be drawn, as far as randomness goes. Best illustrated in the classic "Settlers of Catan", which eventually included a dice deck to replace the actual dice, because some people thought they were getting screwed picking the 2 and 12 spots, which never came in many a dice-rolling game, but were sure to appear once every 36 turns if each combination of dice was eventually "flipped over". This gets slightly altered by burning the bottom few cards and reshuffling (to avoid predictability once the deck runs low), which is what I'd expect Runewars to do as well. Cosmic Encounter does this with its Destiny Deck too.

Since each Fate card contains outcomes for each class of unit (infantry, elite infantry, mounted, heavy), plus some unknown-use number at the bottom, it'll be much harder to predict that any given unit will get good or bad results, even with the deck running low - because you're not sure how many cards will be flipped before your chosen units' initiative will come round.

I guess cards make it easier to prove the reliability/unreliability of outcomes whereas dice would take more trials than a typical game might have to come to the same conclusion, empirically.

**** this is making my head hurt ..I just wanna move all those plastic bits about

OD

SamVimes said:

The problem is that the dice are used for completely different events, so saying you can no longer roll 6 is pointless: it will happen because anyone else has rolled a 6 for any action, and not just because you already rolled a 6 in this situation. So it feels pretty out of place there.

Galdred said:

I think that the deck may get reshuffled prior to it being all used up, so it's not going to be an absolute. The above assessment is also rooted in the 1d6 scenario, which is a bit limited in scope. The deck is a more of a pressure-release valve instead of an airtight seal...instead of 1d6 and saying you can't reroll a number until all of them have been rolled, it's saying, as an example, that you can't roll a number more than 6 times until all of them have been rolled 6 times - which would balance out the situation that an "unfair" die was appearing to favor a result; it gets reined back in a bit if it's looking bizarre, but once the bizarrity has been balanced out, it can happen again, if it's going to.