Dice Systems Are Go

I’m pretty sure that after I’ve written my book. I will resume creating this board game.  One of the main reasons I paused on it is because I wanted to tick off other stuff from my creative projects bucket list. I already had board game ticked off (Dwarven Beerfest) and the others were:

1. Novel – Which I am currently completing with Two Visions of Mars

2. Film/TV Series – Which I have decided I will be doing in collaboration with a friend of mine. I had always expected to do some kind of sci-fi film or TV series but given the tools I have available, my friend’s idea is much more suitable.

3. An RPG – Either my version of 4E D&D or the RPG of Spaceship 47. This would e difficult to do as I don’t really have anybody I could play test either of those projects with. The pool of people that like 4E D&D enough to look at an improved version of it is very small. And most people I know that play RPGs aren’t really into Sci-fi.

So yeah, I think I will do my board game. With the board game, I have the feeling of been there-done that as I now have one published with Dwarven Beerfest. But Spaceship 47 the board game is not intended to be published. I know that I was extremely lucky in getting Dwarven Beerfest published without even really trying. I wouldn’t be that lucky again. Instead I would  have to pitch at conventions etc. which given the plethora of similar games out there at the moment and the fact that I am pretty sure these types of games come from in-house,  I don’t think I would be able to get it published. So now, having that weight off of my back, I can get on with designing the game the way I want.

An odd thing occurred to me though. If I were to design an RPG, I would use a subset of the standard RPG dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12 and d20). But if I am designing a board game I would use custom dice. As I’ve previously blogged, I was going to use the four Go First Dice. But I realised that instead of having four colours of dice, I only need two – one colour for the players and one colour for the opposition (be that an alien or a hazard or the environment).

Player dice would be black six-sided dice with the following numbers on the faces: 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12.

Opposing dice (for aliens, environment obstacles etc.) would be white six-sided dice with the following numbers on the faces: 2, 3, 5, 8, 10, 11.

A number of black dice would be  rolled due to the player’s character’s appropriate ability. For example for breaking down a door, a Strength check would be required. If the character had a Strength score of 3, then the player would roll 3 black dice. The door might have a toughness of 2, so therefore the player would also roll 2 white dice. IF one of the player’s dice had the greatest value, then the character succeeded. If one of the white dice was the highest, then the player failed. The way the dice are numbered, there could never be any ties.

This is essentially what I already had, but without the extra critical hit die. Instead, if two or more of the player’s dice are higher than the highest white dice, then the player scores a critical hit and does more damage, which will be labelled on the weapon card that the player is using. If, when the aliens are rolling to hit the player’s character, the highest two dice are both white, then  the alien has scored a critical hit.

The following two tables are the percentage probabilities of the system using different numbers of dice.

The probability of at least one of the black dice being the highest diceNumber of Opposing Dice (White Dice) rolled1234Number of Player Dice (Black Dice) rolled150.0834.1626.5922.27266.6151.1142.5337.59374.9361.4553.7649.43480.2669.1662.658.72584.375.0469.2765.87

The probability of the two highest dice being the player’s dice. Number of Opposing Dice (White Dice) rolled1234Number of player Dice (Black Dice) rolled233.2817.0410.727349.7129.1419.6314.28457.8538.0128.0222.01565.1345.7535.0329.21

I think those percentages are good, but we will see when I eventually get round to play testing it!