RECIVS wrote:Wow! That's a reply.
Davane wrote:A key principle to understand is that card decks and die rolls are two completely different methods of random generation. Die rolls are discrete events, and without modifiers, the odds of rolling specific results NEVER change. A 1 in 12 chance is a 1 in 12th chance on the 1st roll, the 101st roll, or the 1,000,001st roll. Whilst it's a statistical improbability, it's not a statistical impossibility to roll the same result 10, 100, or 1000 times in a row.
My tables use modifiers for the same reason. Results usually depend on more than one roll. The possibilities are much more than 12, and I don't need more than a couple of dice and a piece of paper to implement, test, and modify them.
Davane wrote:some people might STILL prefer this
That's my point exactly. I honestly think it has to do more with preference (even without actually "knowing" it) than with everything else you said.
You're welcome. I certainly agree that preference will have a significant part in the debate over cards vs. dice. Most people don't know enough about probably and/or game design to make an accurately informed decision over which is best.
There's two other factors that should be considered if we are looking at preferences:
Firstly, there's perception - cards often feel more "board-game like" than dice, because of the tactile sensations they bring, and they are often perceived as simpler. Dice are more associated with roleplaying games, typically D&D, and the decision to use dice over cards can often be influenced by this perceptions.
WHQ, for example, being a primarily card-based system for dungeon generation, included the Roleplay Book full of advanced rules that ended up being more reliant on dice than cards. In fact, many fansites for WHQ have created cards for the tables in the Roleplay Book. The final section, which was dedicated to a more D&D like experience using the WHQ rules stopped using cards as anything other than reference materials.
The second factor is the associated rulesets themselves. Comparing AHQ and WHQ, the rules system for WHQ can be taken as somewhat superior, if only because of the scope of advancement and the time and effort put in to developing WHQ and integrating it into the Warhammer world and Warhammer Product Line. WHQ was truly the "Warhammer dungeon crawler."
AHQ was never properly designed this way, seemingly more like a dungeon crawler that had all the things HQ lacked, going for more of a HQ+ vibe, even though in the end, there was actually very little to link HQ and AHQ in the rules set. If AHQ was aiming to be the "Warhammer dungeon crawler," it missed the mark.
I think the issue here is that AHQ went all in to dungeon generation, and the rest of the system seemed out of sync with that somewhat. However, in WHQ, because dungeon generation was pushed to the background thanks to cards, more time was spent with making the system itself a robust experience, adopting many of the insights gained from developing AHQ. As such, to players, WHQ is seen more as the superior system between the two, and thus a bias towards cards can be included along with that.
I want to note two OTHER important dungeon generation systems that I have had significant experience with. The first of these is the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Game System, which is largely card driven. The dungeon itself is generated using dungeon tiles, which are created in a pile as if they were a deck of cards. These tiles have the same pros and cons as cards, but since they are tiles, they can contain a lot more information than can be conveyed in the "single section-wandering monsters-no doors" format of AHQ tables. There's rarely a table in sight.
The other is Dungeoneer, which is a dungeon crawling card game. In this case, there's no boards, because the Dungeon Cards are laid out on the table like a board, and as such, whilst also having the pros and cons of cards, they can also contain more information than the standard "single section-wandering monsters-no doors" format of AHQ tables.
These two examples show the direct interchange between cards and boards/tiles that is possible using card-driven generation, that exists alongside the card -> board representation. These also knuckle down on the individuality of cards/boards that die-roll table-generated dungeons just don't have.
With card generation, each card can be unique, and can represent a single specific location. It's not just A passage, it's THIS passage. The closest AHQ comes with that is the Quest Room Table introduced in TitD, and even then, they still don't strictly represent a unique location. You COULD roll two Skull Rooms in a dungeon with multiple Quest Rooms, for example.
I believe that this is a factor that should be considered between table and deck based generation systems. Tables allow for variety, expansion, and generalism that cards simply cannot achieve, and therefore, by definition, the dungeons themselves are unique, and often without limits because the system itself is limitless.
Cards allow for individuality and uniqueness, but because the cards themselves are finite without shuffling, the dungeons themselves are also finite, as are the various combinations and layouts of dungeons.
I think this is probably the key defining feature of a spectrum of dungeon generation methods that a person's preference is defined upon. The dichotomy of endless generic possibilities from dice roll tables compared to the individual uniqueness yet finite possibilities of card decks. It's a case of what you want to be unique - the dungeon itself, or the individual parts of the dungeon. This pretty much defines the focus of your game, and thus what sort of generation might be best.
In both cases, the merits depend on how well you are exploiting the unique benefits of each system - be it limitless dungeons or individual locations. However, likewise in both cases, they get boring very quickly if you aren't creating new tables/cards to use with the system.
As for ease of creation - cards can be cribbed easily enough with a piece of paper and some card sleeves. Like tables, you can put as much or as little information on them as you want.
Also, to truly compare deck based and die based generation in AHQ, you could take a deck or two of playing cards, take out the Kings (13s) and then use them to generate your dungeons, using the card values in place of dice. Or you could use the King to represent the Quest Room, and add a number of cards from 1 to 12 and use the "Rooms previously entered (0-2)" table to determine the other rooms. You'd get a dungeon that works out like a finite version of the "Rooms Previously Entered (3 - 5)" table, and would be identical to WHQ dungeon generation if you used WHQ deck building.
Likewise, you could replace WHQ deck generation by simply creating a table based on how many cards are in the deck. if I recall correctly, the base WHQ set contains the following:
Boxed Set Dungeon Cards:
Corridor Cards:
1x Corner
1x Stairway
3x T-Junction
7x Passageway
Dungeon Room Cards:
Circle of Power
Dungeon Cell
Guard Room
Monster's Lair
Torture Chamber
Well of Doom
Objective Room Cards:
Fighting Pit
Firechasm
Fountain of Light
Idol Chamber
Tomb Chamber
That means there's 12 Corridor Cards, and 6 Room cards, so you are looking at a 1 in 3 chance that you generate a room. Of the corridors, just over half will be Passageways. Of the remaining, over half will be T-Junctions, the rest either Stairs or Corners.
As such, a D12 table might look like this:
D12 Dungeon Section
--- ---------------
1-3 Dungeon Room
4-7 Passageway
8 Stairway
9-10 T-Junction
11 Corner
12 Objective Room
I know it's not EXACTLY the same odds, but it's certainly doable, and you can compare dungeon variety to WHQ reasonably well...