'Modern' games and dice combat

I suppose it depends on the game, but for the most part this is spot on. Even something as far from combat as Scrabble uses both A-R-R and R-A-R. It just depends on when you start the sequence. You could argue that acquiring random letters is the first step in the sequence, followed by laying down a word as your action, followed by result of scoring points. You could also note that any word you lay down is action, followed by the random acquisition of your letters, followed by the result of how it impacts your opponent on the board.

In the end, though, a good game can be accused of having both A-R-R and R-A-R because in it could still have a random component counterbalanced by the player's strategic decisions as well as the opponent's strategic decisions.

I thought Scrabble was ARR, actually.

Just action result randomness rather than action randomness result.

Unless you start the sequence on the previous turn, when you draw your hand back up to seven, which seems counterintuitive. (And I'd argue it being such does, to a limited degree, effect strategy of the game - Immediate benefit of a good score vs that score requires using up all your vowels which you're not guaranteed to get back.)

...Thinking about it, are any games strictly speaking purely RAR outside of roll and moves? I'd have thought ARAR was more comon (And the debate being over ARAR vs AARR), but that seems too nitpicky to be worthy of serious discussion.

I think there are ways to incorporate randomness without the direct use of dice. This is a fleet command game right? Here is my suggestion. This die represents the initiative of the commanders of the opposing fleets and can be used as way to determine the number of actions that both players have. For example, there are a total of 6 actions a commander can take. He can...

allocate power to his shields
allocate power to his weapons
allocate power to his thrustors
scan enemy ship's shield power
scan enemy ship's weapon power
scan enemy ship's course (read enemy thruster power)

Six types of actions allow the player who rolls a six to do all of them while, a player who rolls lower if forced to do fewer. Considering the mean statistic for rolls it nots crippling, and even if there is a huge difference, this is not the meat of the tactical game, only a limitation on options for this round. The next round it would start all over again.

Now you mention batteries or powerplants being used in your game. If you put this power allocation as a hidden action you introduce tactics and the randomness inherent for commanders running a fleet.

All ships are a combination of three elements; maneuvor, firepower, and shields. It's this interplay that is key, introduce different ship characteristics and you have the tactical element down. The die roll merely determines how many different types of moves you can make. Do I throw everything into an attack because I fear my commander may have a command disadvatage next round? Do I power up my defenses, take the hit so that next round I may get that command advantage I need? It should introduce tension while not taking away from the tactical element your looking for. Hope that was helpfull and coherent.

From that description it sounds to me like the decision point occurs before you enter battle, and the decision is whether to enter battle or do something else. So long as you can win the game never having participated in a single battle, I see no problem labeling this a "modern" mechanic. On the other hand, if you have to enter battle in order to win, or if another player can force the confrontation through no fault of your own and cause you, randomly, to lose points and/or resources, then it's an old-school mechanic.

Notice I said "through no fault of your own". If you can choose not to go into areas where an opponent could attack you, it's thoroughly modern. The difference is risk/reward versus pure chance. You haven't told us quite enough about the mechanics to tell if the combat is fundamental to the gameplay or functions as risk/reward. If it's fundamental, I'd say there needs to be more to it than Attack-Roll-Result. I'm also not clear if we're talking about fleets of ships or single-to-single ship combat here. Thematically, it seems odd to me that a single ship would have to resolve its combat by chance, rather than evaluating things like skill of the Captain and experience of the crew, to say nothing of upgrades, etc.

I'm not a big fan of games that force you to think about the bell curve. Usually they're too short to reach any sort of statistical balance point (like playing a single hand of Lost Cities) or too long to remember what's come before. Catan's appeal is, partially, that if you think enough about the endgame at the beginning, you can hedge against bad rolls. 2 and 12 will eventually come up, but you don't bet your first few roads on them.

just thought Id breathe some life into this argument that always seems to be brewing. Whats wrong with randomization? Why are dice under fire? Don't most games of tactical depth involve randomization to some degree, coping and adapting to this randomization is what makes the game interesting, no? Are people (publishers?) really so close minded to dice that they would turn down an otherwise perfect game because it involves those doom cubes?

I love dice!!

But, like all things, they have to be used in the right context. I think most (beginning) designers don't even think about alternatives to dice. They stick dice in their games, because every game they know (Risk, Clue, Monopoly) has dice. It just seems a natural thing to do. When used wrong, dice are used in places where a nice human-decision driven mechanic would be much more satisfying. When used right, rolling the dice can be a moment of great excitement.