Mechanics Makeover: Dice in a Cup – Round 1a

Design Workbench

Since I am starting to report this progress further into the design phase than previously, I will break up the “rounds” a little differently at first to catch up. Here’s how the first few rounds will shake out:

1. I will catch up on the mechanics and their attributes, which I will call modifiers.
   1. Since there is a lot to report here, I’ll break this round up into two parts.
2. I will catch up on the gamelets.
   
   1. Since there is a lot to report here, I’ll break this round up into three parts.
3. I will catch up on the game created by compiling the gamelets.

At this point I have also published a glossary of terms as well. Some of them won’t make sense yet, as they are described in future articles, but it’s better to just get it all out on the table now. Since ultimately all of these mechanics and gamelets will end up in a game called Challenge Dice, from here on, I may refer to the collection of mechanics dice as the Challenge Dice, the rules resulting from compiling them as the Challenge Rules, the active player as the Challenger, and a gamelet as a Challenge Round.

Traditional Mechanics

As mentioned previously, many different games have introduced many different mechanics/modifiers to the dice rolling mechanic. These additions range from simply adding to or subtracting from the total, permitting or prohibiting re-rolls, locking certain die values, etc.

Something Old, Something New

In this discovery I have tried to find mechanics that can be introduced together and varied independently without breaking the game. I think I have several that work together and can show where they don’t work or don’t apply. However, the beauty of this approach is new modifiers can be introduced and the game system provides a means to test the interaction of that modifier with others.

Let’s start off by looking at modifiers individually. There are three basic sets of modifiers; starting from the bottom up:

1. Those that affect the die rolls. (Roll Modifiers)
2. Those that affect the goal of the roll. (Goal Modifiers)
3. Those that affect the players rolling. (Round Modifiers)

In this round we will look at the first two sets and follow up with the last in the next round.

Roll Modifiers

Rolls/Rounds

Indicates the number of rolls/rounds (depending on the type of Challenge) to play to determine a winner.

Lock/Free

Indicates whether kept dice are Locked (cannot be re-rolled) or Free (can be re-rolled).

Keep/Throw

Indicates whether the roller is required to keep or throw a specific number of dice.

Special Rules:

• The Keep/Throw rule only applies if there is another roll.
• A roller's turn ends if they cannot follow a Keep/Throw rule.
• If a roller must keep dice that cannot be used, they immediately become Trash and cannot be used later.
  • (Exception when totaling for a tiebreaker).

Wilds & Wild #

Together these two dice indicate whether there is a wild number and what the number is.

Special Rules:

• The Wild # may count as any number including the # that is wild.
• The Wild # is also used for other rules, so keep it even if there is No Wild.

Goal Modifiers

Goal/Winning Condition

Indicates whether the goal of the challenge is to get the biggest/longest/highest or smallest/shortest/lowest score.

Difficulty: Easy/Hard

Indicates which game rules are in play, Easy or Hard.

That is a lot for now and probably isn’t coming together yet for you, but hopefully it will when we get onto the gamelets and then you can refer back to this article.