On Dice

I recently played two games that were very heavily dice dependent and one I found the dice annoying - and the other the dice added a pleasing amount of randomness....

The first was  Elder Sign and the second was Roll Through The Ages - the bronze age although technically we were playing the free expansion "the late bronze age" it's a much more balanced game).

Now there very different games - one is Arkham horror lite well the other is Civilisation in 30 minutes and there are a lot of other differences but as I sat there trying to work why the dice in one where annoying me and in another they were not.  I think it hinges on one very big difference struck me....

In Elder sign i you roll dice to try and overcome a problem.   You either succeed and gain a reward - or fail and take a penalty.  And while the tasks come in stages you can not get partial credit -only clear 2 out of 3 stages it's still a fail and the next person will face all 3 stages again.

So very binary.  And succeeding was also a bit flat - after all - what had I actually done? 

In Roll Through The Ages - you roll your dice three times - keep some of them (have to keep others of them) and then use those dice to do stuff.  There are times that you get terrible turns - when you need food and rule no food at all.  Or when you roll a bunch of disasters.  But no matter what luck sends you - you get to do something even if it's not quite what you wanted.

I find one of these annoying and the other fun......

So in my opinion - succeed/fail is a bad mechanic where as "where do I go from here" is a good mechanic to use with dice.  And I shall do my best to remember that.

So some friends of mine....

....helped me work out the probability of certain things and the deck design I had for "empire poker" did create some really really odd effects.....  Not given up - running the numbers on another possible design but there's no sign my subconscious has got better at game design.....

But today we had a decent GSH play test.  Actually went really well - felt like a game.  Not perfect - one player started to death spiral in a bit - but still pretty good.  One thing I'm noticing is that I don't see the temptation in hitting weaker player - but other players do....... Also the "lurking at the back" before leaping forwards tactic seems very strong....

Players have pointed out that I've created a game of Chaos - where nothing lasts and everything swings back and forwards.  Which is good - as that's what I wanted to do......

Quick conversation provide some clear modifications - one change to board set up, reducing the cost of something, and a change in order.  All easy enough to implement that version 2.08 is actually already read to go.  Just need a bit of cutting out......

With some potential changes for 2.09 already lined up - but need to see how 2.08 works first.....

There is some serious work to do on the User Interface - and flow of the game which might help make the game rattle along quickly (it currently takes about 3 hours to play - but feels more like a two hour game in terms of the amount of game play you get) but that needs to wait till the game itself is better.  But good overall.