Tabletop Game Design Math: Dice Distributions, Target Numbers, Advantage Rolls, Expected Damage, Card Draw Odds & Point-Cost Balancing
Design and balance your own board or tabletop game: build dice distributions by enumeration, find the chance of reaching a target number, compare advantage rolls, calculate expected damage against armour, work out card-draw odds without special functions, balance units with point costs and analyse your playtest logs, with every cell checked as you go.
One-time payment · lifetime access · lessons, labs, exam and certificate included · no subscription.
About this course
In this course you design and balance an original tabletop game with a spreadsheet. You build the 6×6 outcome grid of two dice and count the ways for every sum, add one die at a time for three-dice distributions and turn them into the chance of reaching a target, with a skill bonus and repeated tries. You compare advantage and disadvantage on a twenty-sided die, calculate expected damage against armour and the turns to defeat a unit, and work out card-draw odds without replacement using PRODUCT. Finally you balance point costs from value scores and analyse playtest logs with COUNTIFS and a chart.
Lessons
- One and Two Dice: the 6×6 Outcome Grid, Ways per Sum and the Distribution Chart Pro
- More Dice by Convolution: Ways for 2 and 3 Dice, Probabilities and the Expected Sum Pro
- Target Numbers: Chance to Reach a Target, a Difficulty Table and Repeated Tries Pro
- Advantage & Disadvantage: Best and Worst of Two Rolls, Chances and Averages Pro
- Expected Damage: Hit Chance × Damage after Armour and Turns to Defeat Pro
- Card Draws without Replacement: Chance of a Key Card, Deck Size and Expected Copies Pro
- Point-Cost Balancing: Value Scores, Fair Costs, Over- and Under-Costed Units Pro
- Capstone: Playtest Analysis – Wins by Faction, First-Player Advantage and a Balance Chart Pro