Don’t Ask Defenders to Roll Dice

Effort in games should be balanced by reward. When players perform work for no reward, the game seems long, tedious, and not worth the setup. Rolling dice is work, and rolling attack dice in combat games rewards players by destroying enemy units. Rolling dice on defense, however, often at best maintains the status quo. The status quo is not a reward; even if players prefer to keep what they have, it does not feel like progress toward victory.

The best you can hope for emotionally with defense dice is relief at surviving a powerful attack, but if attacks are random too, then attack and defense rolls often do not match. In Heroscape, players roll dice on both attack and defense and deal damage for each skull unblocked by a shield. Rolling many skulls on attack feels exciting, but an amazing roll on defense often coincides with a weak attack roll, which makes success feel wasted. The untimely success leaves the player wishing they could save their shields for a more successful attack roll instead.

You can spare the defender the effort by using a fixed defense strength instead of a roll. Static defenses are ideal if the defender is just trying to survive. One might object that some defenses are too high to overcome with any attack roll. If a unit has a static defense of ten and you cannot roll higher than seven, you will never get through. But creative damage mechanics can get through any static defense. In Mage Wars, attack dice can roll critical hits, which ignore armor. This allows the design of units with extremely high defenses, since damage is still possible.

Defense dice do make sense when defense means dealing damage back to the attacker, for example, with counterattacks. The issue with defense dice is that they provide no reward for effort. Counterattacks create positive rewards for the defender: they want to punish the attacker and turn the attacker's attack back on them. Rolling to counterattack feels rewarding.

However, even with counterattacks, it may still be worth avoiding defense rolls because of a common incentive asymmetry. Attackers don't like initiating attacks unless they have the advantage or are desperate. Since they should have more to gain, it makes sense to have them shoulder the procedural burden of rolling for both parties. In Root, the attacker rolls two dice and uses the higher number to determine the damage they deal, while the defender uses the lower number. This gives them an advantage while streamlining attack resolution.

Effort should be rewarded, and the status quo is no reward. If you want the defender to roll dice, make sure there is actually a way for them to improve their position, not just maintain it.