[Sorcerer] What die do you use and why?

[Xaranthas]

Given the flexibility of which die to use, and the effect on conflict resolution, and balance between strong (high number of dice) and weak (low number of dice) pools, I'm curious to see what long term players of sorcerer use in their games, and why.  Especially if they've spent time toying with a variety of dice rather than just starting and sticking with one type (I'd assume most likely d6's or d10's).

[greyorm]

For a long time, I thought resolution was done with d6. When rolling d6, I was always frustrated by the low number of successes and the high number of discards that would appear. Switching to d10 increased the number of successes rolled by an individual since there was a greater range the results could fall into. I haven't really tried resolution rolls with any other die size, so no anecdotal data there.

[Mike Holmes]

What Raven says is statistically true. That is, the effect of lower dice is slightly less successes. Otherwise there's very little effect on the overall outcomes of relative differences in ability.

Here are a couple of threads in which it's disccussed:
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=6967
http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7628

I myself have only used D10s.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I've used d10s in all my major games, but have used d6 and d20 in demo situations. The effective differences are covered pretty well here and in the previous threads.

Best,
Ron

[Bret Gillan]

d6's because they're the cheapest.

[Christopher Weeks]

Ties increase handling time.  All other factors being equal, I'd prefer any larger number of sides over any smaller number.  But I've used d10s like everyone else because that's what everyone has.  (And who wants to see fifteen thirty-siders go rolling off the table?)

Chris

[NickHollingsworth]

At the weekend I bought every standard price d20 my games shop had, in preparation for Sorcerer.

However, on seeing

Ties increase handling time

it belatedly strikes me that the scanning time to spot highest two digit roll might be noticably longer with a whole load of d20s than spotting the highest one digit values on the same number of d10s, and that this might outweight the effect of ties making d10s preferable.

Anyone in a position to actually comment on the difference between the two from experience?

[Lxndr]

In person, probably D10s since, like most people, that's what I have tons of (years of Storyteller and its clones).  Haven't run one in person yet, however.

Online, my first game uses 12s 'cause I just like that number and the look of the die, even though I don't get to actually see them roll.  I've also toyed with the idea of running a sorcerer game using a d13, 'cause of the whole superstition thing surrounding that number and the fact that, online, you don't need to worry about mathematically correct solids.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Beware odd-sided dice. The Sorcerer system is built to run on even-sided dice; the d7 hadn't been invented (or I didn't know about it) when I wrote the system.

The system is built on the principle that the die sizes are merely subdivisions of d2 (coins). Odd-sided dice don't conform to this and shouldn't be used for Sorcerer.

Best,
Ron

[Trevis Martin]

At the weekend I bought every standard price d20 my games shop had, in preparation for Sorcerer.

However, on seeing

Ties increase handling time

it belatedly strikes me that the scanning time to spot highest two digit roll might be noticably longer with a whole load of d20s than spotting the highest one digit values on the same number of d10s, and that this might outweight the effect of ties making d10s preferable.

Anyone in a position to actually comment on the difference between the two from experience?

Well actually I purchased a bag of 50 regular solid d20's for use in Donjon.  Being as that outweighed my d10's (which I still had quite a few of from old VtM games)  That's what we use for rolling in Sorcerer. Its really the only ones I have enough of to roll NPC's and all the PC's in a five player group. But we use them as 10's, i.e. we only read the second number showing with 0's counting as 10's.  

As for the scanning time, once we got used to it, its pretty fast.

Trevis

[Christopher Weeks]

However, on seeing

Ties increase handling time

it belatedly strikes me that the scanning time to spot highest two digit roll might be noticably longer with a whole load of d20s than spotting the highest one digit values on the same number of d10s, and that this might outweight the effect of ties making d10s preferable.

If you used the old-style d20s where you had to ink/crayon them with different colors, it might actually speed things up because you could concentrate on red, ignoring the black (or whatever) and identify the high digits.  You'd have all the advantages of both the d10 and the d20.

Odd-sided dice [aren't multiples of d2] and shouldn't be used for Sorcerer.

I can't figure out why it matters.  Before posting, I cooked up a spreadsheet to analyze the difference between d2, d3, and d4 and I'm not seeing an odd-number anomoly.

Chris

[greyorm]

Statistically, since Sorcerer is a "high numbers" game, it makes no difference whether the die-sides are odd or even; nothing in the mechanics is dependent upon whether the results are even or odd. Sooo, it doesn't matter...sorry, Ron.

[Ron Edwards]

Well good, you guys can talk to the smug monkey who emailed me with an elaborate argument for how my "any dice will do" claim was all screwed up.

Best,
Ron

[Andy Kitkowski]

Hey King- Up until now every game of Sorcerer I ran used d10s. I bought a bunch of d20s for this weekend's demo games of high-action Sorcerer. Insted of getting the pretty speckled dice (I'm a dice whore), I bought about 14 dice, half were white dice with black numbering, the rest were solid dark colors with white numbering. I wish they had more of the same die type.

Anyway, the speckly dice might throw you off for counting the highest number only if you have a bunch of different dice and they are all colored and speckled different- But that's true for d10s, etc too.

I'll be able to comment more on how successes turned out and the like after this weekend. Well, statistically I know what's supposed to happen, but still I'd like to see what the "side effects" are (see below)- The only thing that makes me hesitant about the d20s is this:

A couple weeks back, we played a 4-game Dread campaign.  You're regularly rollying lots of d12s. They're rather "round", though not as round as the d20. Anyway, when you have a pile of 5 or more dice, they often bounce off each other and fly all over the table.  That's the only thing I'm wary of.

But if it didn't bother you in Donjon, you're golden.

[Yokiboy]

This is about the only thing I'm not worrying over as we're preparing to play Sorcerer for the first time. See, I worked at Chessex for a few years and have more dice than you can shake a stick at!  :D

I will probably go with d10, although my group loves d20 (yeah and the game system of the same name).

TTFN,

Yokiboy