Game Design #7: Kirkbuzzer
Introduction: In this game, you assume the role of an enterprising businessman or woman of opportunity, an expert in a profession with a long and distinguished history, respected and admired since the dawn of civilization. That’s right, you’re a thief—sadly down on your luck or else you wouldn’t be in this little church in the middle of nowhere trying to pilfer whatever you can carry, from the coffers to the candlesticks, before the kindly, elderly, and furious parish priest catches on!
Players: 3+
Materials:
- Tokens or a notepad to keep score.
- Seven six-sided dice: four for the thieves and three for the priest.
Setting Up: The oldest player goes first and play proceeds to the left.
How to Play: Every turn, players try their luck searching the darkened church for valuables. Each turn, the player may roll as many dice as they choose, in the following manner:
- Players roll a die and observe the result. The number shown represents the point value of the goods they have found. They may now choose to end their turn or continue to roll.
- If the player chooses to continue, they roll a second die and add that total to their score for the turn. Players may stop rolling at any time, but they must stop rolling in the event of the following: either they have rolled all four dice, or they have rolled a number that doubles a number already showing.
- Doubles means the thief has been careless and noisy and has woken the parish priest. They player must now roll to run and hide, described below. If the player successfully rolls all four dice without rolling doubles, or they have stopped rolling voluntarily, the total amount showing on all rolled dice is added to their score and the turn ends.
Waking the Priest: If you’ve rolled doubles, you’re in trouble! The priest has heard a commotion and has come to investigate. The thief must attempt to run and hide: designate another player to roll for the priest and proceed with the following:
- The priest rolls three dice and adds them up. This amount represents the priest’s search for the culprit: it is the number the thief must beat in order to escape.
- The thief may now roll as many dice as they wish in the same manner as if they were searching for valuables: one at time, up to a maximum of four. If at any point the thief’s dice total more than the priest’s total, and he or she has not rolled doubles, the priest decides he heard wrong and returns to bed. The thief’s turn ends with no score accrued.
- If the thief has rolled all four dice and still not beaten the father’s score, they are discovered and trapped, collared, and arrested. The thief’s score is reduced to zero and they are out of the game.
- If the thief has rolled doubles at any point, the father has not found them, but he’s very suspicious and gives search. Consult the table below:
- Double Ones or Twos: Shhhh! The thief hides and waits until the priest gives up. The thief’s turn is ended with no score accrued, and they must also sit out the next turn.
- Double Threes or Fours: Drop the Loot! The player escapes but is forced to drop some of their haul to distract the father. Deduct the total shown on the thief’s dice from their total score and end their turn.
- Double Fives or Sixes: He’s Spotted You! The thief must attempt to flee and hide again. Replay the run and hide sequence.
Winning the Game: Play continues until all thieves but one have been captured or twelve rounds have been played. The uncaptured thief with the highest score is the winner.
Next: Designing “Kirkbuzzer”
True to my word and suggestion, I got this idea from a word out of the Grandiloquent Dictionary:
kirkbuzzer - one who robs churches
Seemed like a viable premise, plus I recognized the prefix “kirk,” which means “church” in the Scottish language—specifically the Presbyterian Church, or Church of Scotland. I’m Scottish, you see, and my family is very proud to be so, so it was a predictable response 
Once I had the game’s color, I chose a central mechanic based on dice rolling and borrowed from the a rule I remember from one of my all-time favorite games, Warhammer: Fantasy Battles. The idea of rolling one dice at a time and hoping not to get doubles as your score adds up struck me as particularly effective and ingenious at the time, and it was fortunate I remembered it when I sat down to make this game.
Add to that a simple system of scorekeeping and score-getting, and the game practically made itself. You don’t have to break the mold on every one, after all: the combination of mechanics felt very natural, and seemed to be fairly well-suited to the premise… remarkably so, considering how specific a premise it is! It felt good to get back to dice after a brief sojourn with cards, but I felt myself longing to be able to add a board, maybe a little map of the church and a system of pathfinding, like in Scotland Yard or Stop Thief. But that violates the rules I set for this little design project, so the church will have to remain in the imagination.
The mechanic of avoiding doubles while trying to maximize your roll is a nice, simple implementation for push-your-luck play. However, you’ve commited what is to me a cardinal sin of game design: inserting a results table where none is needed. There are any number of alternatives to try before resorting to having people memorize what should happen on different results of a die (or doubles, in this case).
Oh, and “kirkbuzzer” is a fun word. Never heard it before.
I was influenced by the Warhammer rules and the prolific results tables they contain when I made this system, and I suspect I did so because of my affection for and familiarity with that game. I feel results tables add some flavor to what would otherwise be a detached, abstract rule. I think it’s fair to say that the mechanics and the narrative of this game are somewhat artificially connected, and I look on the table as a chance to introduce a little storytelling into the system. However, I think it’s obvious I have a little soft (or blind) spot for this mechanic, so I musn’t declare this the last word on the subject. Would you care to share any alternatives that come to your mind?
Pardon me if I’ve been a bit harsh. I’m sure that some might enjoy results tables. I find that they’re too cumbersome in practice and take choice away from the player.
As far as alternatives…
I would probably be inclined to remove the run and hide portion entirely and try to expand on the original mechanic, but that answer seems like a bit of cop-out. So in the spirit of trying to retain more of the flavor of the game, here is one suggestion:
When you wake the priest after rolling doubles, you will again roll further to find out your fate. After noting the score they had achieved (including the double rolled), the player in jeopardy will roll one die at a time. The player may quit at any point and take a zero for the turn. This represents dropping all the loot in order to escape. If the player rolls dice that make a run of three (i.e 1-2-3, 3-4-5) then they are to run away with the loot and still add the score they managed on their first series of rolls. If they roll a third die of the same value, the priest has caught them. Being a priest, he will forgive them a first time even though they will score zero for the round. However, the second time they are caught they will be eliminated from the game.
An advantage is that the gameplay is somewhat aligned with the first round, making it fairly easy to remember. Doubles are bad, triples are worse. You can still quit at any time, and runs represent running away with the loot. It always gets rid of losing the chance to take a turn, which isn’t much fun for players either. Interestingly, it also adds an *incentive* to press your luck to this next level, since you actually get one more die worth of loot if you succeed.
A disadvantage is that the second series of rolls could possibly take up to nine dice (rather than the previous seven) before either triples are a run of three are inevitable. You could possibly resolve this by allowing wrap-around runs (like 6-1-2) or by also making three doubles trigger the player being caught. Either of these reduces the number of dice needed back to seven (I personally prefer the second of these).
The above suggestion is far from perfect, but I do think it shows a viable alternative to using a results table.
The theme of stealing from the church has put into my mind some swirling, hazy thoughts about a game that involves anonymously stealing from a collection plate as it’s passed around. I’m not sure these thoughts will amount to much, but it has gone some distance in convincing me of the effectiveness of Grandiloquent game design.
No no, no need to apologize! The criticism is essential, and I like these suggestions a lot—especially the idea of tying it back to the “press your luck” mechanic. That is clearly the core of the game, and I think your solution keeps continuity better than the results table, and without sacrificing flavor. It’s a fair point that narrative can exist within any mechanic, results table or no
I also think the “drop the loot” as an option to choose zero, and the priestly forgiveness, are excellent ideas; more player choice and more flavor.
I can see the dilemma about the dice requirements of looking for runs. I should go back and calculate the odds of getting the sequences you and I described in seven dice. I haven’t tested the game and I would bet it isn’t balanced, so that information would be useful in deciding on a goal that has the right probability. Perhaps we’re overcomplicating things, and none of the extra rolls are necessary. If you rolled doubles during your regular turn, you wake the priest. He rolls his three dice, then you roll yours: if you beat his score, you escape and get to keep the loot you rolled the first time. If you roll doubles again, he catches you. And if you choose, at any time you can take zero for the turn and escape. I’ll run the numbers and see how it works out.
I turned this over in my head a few times over the weekend. Making the second roll similiar to the first certainly does simplify the game and make things easy to remember, though it does remove a bit of the flavor. My initial thought was that the best of all possible worlds would be to have each player go through only *one* series of rolls which would determine whether they profited, got nothing or got caught.
Then yesterday I had the idea that players could alternate rolling, each taking a turn at rolling one die. Their die rolls would all contribute together to whether or not *all* remaining players got caught. A player would be able to withdraw on their turn (instead of rolling), taking the loot they had so far and forgoing further rolls that round. The value of their dice might also be affected by what dice other players were showing. I’ve come up with several scenarios for this, but have yet to find one I’m really crazy about.
The idea of alternate rolling is interesting. It changes the equation so that one player rolling doubles is detrimental to all players. If players know that their mistakes have a fair chance to harm their opponents, I expect it would alter the tactics significantly. I’ll have to think about that a bit…
Here is an alternate-rolling variant that I think works. Sadly, it discards the original mechanism completely.
Players: 2-4
Equipment: 5 dice per player, a notepad to keep score
Each round, each player in turn rolls one die at a time. Before rolling a player may instead withdraw, “looting” whatever dice they would like to attempt to score from the play area. Players are not required to loot all dice they roll - whatever dice they choose not to loot are placed near the center of the play area and are considered in play. Players who loot no longer roll dice during that round, and may no longer be caught.
Getting caught: If at any point when rolling, there are dice of all six values within the playing area then all of the players still in the round are considered “caught” and score a zero for the round. The dice that “caught” players have rolled are not considered valid for scoring purposes. As long as players are not caught, they may continue to roll until the unrolled pool of dice is exhausted.
Scoring: Each dice value is awarded to the player who has the most of that value. Ties are split among all tied players, rounding down. For example, if two players have two sixes and another has one six, the two players score three apiece with the third player scoring nothing.
If a player is caught three times, they are eliminated from the game. The highest scoring after ten rounds after ten rounds wins the game.