New Rule

Introduction: Diced is a simple game of attack and defense that blends all the conventional playing pieces of a traditional table game into one–just dice. Dice are your health, your tactics, and your attack and defense power. Use them wisely as you battle your opponents until only one remains.

Players: 3+

Materials: Six-sided dice–at minimum two per player, but any number beyond that may be used.

Setting Up: Each player receives one die, and all remaining dice are placed in a pool in the middle. Players roll off to see who goes first, then play proceeds to the left in turns.

How to Play: On their turn, players use their dice to steal dice (either from another player or the pool) and increase their power. Players first announce the target of their action, then the number of dice they wish to commit. Finally, they roll and determine the results.

1. Stealing Dice from the Pool: To steal dice from the pool, players roll as many of their own dice as they wish and observe the results. For every six they have rolled, they acquire one dice from their target. Once the pool is exhausted, it is closed for the remainder of the game–only attacks versus other players are permitted.
2. Stealing Dice from Another Player: When battling another player, both players declare how many dice they wish to use, then roll off. Every six a player rolls allows them to steal one dice from their opponent, just as they would from the pool. However, if both players roll a six, the net effect is null and the exchange is canceled. All opposing sixes paired in this way are disregarded; a player must have surplus sixes among his dice to successfully steal from his opponent.

Every turn, a player may declare as many attacks as they wish, but each dice may only be used once. They may select more than one target per turn, though not more than one target per attack. They may end their turn at any time, but must end it when all their dice have been used.

Dice Defense: Every dice a player chooses not to commit during their turn may be held in reserve to use for defense. For every dice held back, one re-roll is allowed per round, up to a maximum of three. The player is free to use these re-rolls whenever they wish, but they expire at the beginning of the player’s next turn. Re-rolls are for defense only, never attack. Unlike attack, where each dice may be used only once per turn, defending players may always commit as many of their dice as they like to defend each attack.

There Can Be Only One: Play continues until one player wins by acquiring all the dice.

Next: Designing “Diced”With this game, I sought to blend the two quintissential board game pieces–the token and the agent. The token is usually nothing more than a placeholder, an object that represents the player’s position or score, while the agent is the item by which the player enacts their choices. Often dice, agents are also commonly seen as cards, spinners, or tiles. These are the things that really matter. But why should they be separate? Nearly all card games combine their functions, so why not a dice game?

Thus, I set out to envision a game where the dice you used to compete were also the symbol of your score. I started with classic dice competition rules: roll off and compare scores, designating six as the “winning” value–an obvious choice. And since dice represent your score, dice are what you win with your sixes: you use your dice to get more dice, and then you use those dice to get even more dice, and so on until someone has them all, like the card game War.

I could see the negative feedback loop lurking–it’s the thing that always turned me off from playing War. I needed a mechanic that would offer hope to the losing player, and a way to ensure the competitiveness of the game right to the very end. If players faced off and compared sixes, the player with more dice was going to be the statistical favorite, always. But if defending players were given an edge, one that could only be used for defense, it would give short-stacked players a reason to keep fighting and perhaps turn the tables. After some musing on the balancing implications of various choices–defenders win on 5 and 6, attackers can’t commit more than the defenders have, and so on–I decided on an old standby of miniature games: re-rolling.

Re-rolling offers a second chance but not a guarantee, which is important. I don’t want to counteract a stronger player’s advantage: that advantage is important and essential to keeping the game moving forward. Re-rolling is luck-based, but it changes the probability equation enough to offer just what I needed–a little bit of an edge. After more tests, I decided to make it a tactical choice during the attack phase, and add a little strategy to the game (cause I love strategy in games).

And so it seems to be finished. After adding in a pool so the game doesn’t become instant sudden death, I think it could work. As before, I simply conceived and wrote it down, so I have not yet tested it. If anyone reading this should give it a try, let me know how it works out. Thanks!

Tags: Game Design //