Introduction

For the record, my complete title for this game mechanic to makeover is “Dice in a Cup,” but for brevity sake, I will often just call it “n Dice” where n is the number of dice rolled. The working title of the game that tests the mechanics in this makeover is called “Challenge Dice.”

5 Dice in a Cup is the primary mechanic of many popular classic games like Yahtzee, Liar’s Dice, Bar or Poker Dice, etc. 1 and 2 Dice are the basis for thousands of games. Although the basic mechanics are old (even ancient) and commonly thought to have been worn out, they are still very popular. Recent adaptations of 5 Dice are King of Tokyo and King of New York, but there are many such examples.

Objective

Redesign the traditional mechanic of “Dice in a Cup” to explore alternatives. Let’s see how far I can get with this well-known mechanic.

Why Dice in a Cup?

This is a special discovery for me because it gets to the deepest roots I can remember in my game design history and was the first place I went in my recent game design discovery as a testing ground (October 2013). On the Opie Games About page I talk about taking an interest in game design at an early age and mention specifically a version of Gin that I designed around age 10. Even before I started tinkering with card games, though, I was digging into dice mechanics – not that I knew then what mechanics are.

I loved dice and dice games. As a family we played Yahtzee (and Triple Yahtzee, which was an early variant on the Yahtzee mechanic) frequently and all we kids loved Cootie. May father often worked long and odd shifts so would be trying to sleep when we were playing Yahtzee after dinner and homework. He called it "Rattle, Rattle, Bang!" For one of my birthdays in there I asked for a set of dice or a dice game of my own. I got a Crisloid 5 Game Set that contained 2 dice cups, 5 regular “spot” dice, and some specially printed dice also; 10 bowling pin dice, 5 card faced dice and others, a total of 25 D6s. With my very own set of dice, I set out to make my very own dice games. I still remember a few of the mechanisms that I devised and have incorporated them into this makeover.

Concerns

First a couple concerns that I need to remind myself occasionally to keep this endeavor in check:

• Although most of the work on this project came in fall of 2013, I am only writing about it now in January 2015. (In my January reflection on what I have done in game design I was reminded that I never published any of this work and should). I will still try to keep a fresh perspective on the effort and discuss some of the interim decisions.
• This makeover is all about the mechanics, so it may seem dry. After all, how exciting is it to talk about Yahtzee? That is, unless you disguise it as a fire-breathing monster attacking a heavily populated city.
• Is there really anything new to discover about this age-old mechanic? Let’s see.

At a Glance

In this first post let’s just take a glance at how the Dice in a Cup mechanism is generally used.

Note: Although, this discovery is a mechanical one, I have incorporated each mechanic into a gamelet and all of the gamelets into a simple filler game. A complete rule set of the game developed to test these mechanics will be posted in the Games section as Challenge Dice.

Description and General Mechanic

The primary mechanic in makeover here is on in which players take turns rolling a number of dice (usually 5 x D6). There are many nuances to this mechanic, but in the interest of not reporting a lot of information you already know, here’s a brief introduction:

Setup

1. Simply put the dice in a cup or cup them in your hands.

Objective

1. Achieve a prescribed set of dice after rolling.
2. The desired set of dice (the hand) depends on the current objective of the game.

Play

1. Roll all of the dice once.
2. Keep/set aside any number of dice that are desirable toward achieving the objective.
3. Roll the undesirable dice.
4. Keep any combination of the originally kept dice and the second roll and set these aside.
   
   1. The player often changes strategies at this point if not making progress on the original objective.
5. Roll the remaining undesirable dice, if any.
6. Combine the kept dice with the last roll to form the best hand.

Typical Variants

When this mechanic is incorporated into a game, there are usually other variations to the typical play.

• Restrict Rerolls:
  • The player cannot reroll specific dice.
  • The player must stop when a specific die or set of dice is rolled.
  • The player has fewer rerolls.
• Extra Rerolls:
  • The player has additional rerolls.
  • Usually only one per turn or one at a time that can keep firing.
• Extra Turns:
  • The player can start again if all the dice in one turn met a condition.
  • Usually if all the dice scored and the player risks all points on subsequent rolls.
• Set a Die Face:
  • The player can set a die to a desired face instead of rolling.

These variations are introduced several ways:

• A particular die face has an effect on the turn.
• A player’s power can inhibit another player’s turn.
• A player’s state (wound, curse) can inhibit that player’s turn.
• A player can spend the game currency to take the desired action.

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.

Design Workbench

This is the second and final part describing the individual mechanics and their attributes – the modifiers. Again, there are three basic sets of mechanics; starting from the bottom up:

1. Those that affect the die rolls. (Roll Modifiers)
2. Those that affect the goal or victory condition. (Goal Modifiers)
3. Those that affect the players. (Round Modifiers)

Picking up where we left off, in this round we will look at the last set. I set these apart from the other two because these only impact the die rolls in a meta sense. They don’t impact the actual rolls, but may impact the choices you make during rolling, since they impact who you are rolling against and who goes first.

Round Modifiers

Opponent

Indicates who the Challenger will play against.

Special Rules:

• If there are two possible Defenders, the Challenger gets to choose.

First/Lead Roller

Indicates who will roll first; the Challenger or Defender.

Special Rules:

• The dice are rolled secretly in some challenges, but they should still be rolled according to this rule. Based on the first roller’s demeanor, the second roller may choose to be more/less aggressive.

Modifiers Summary

Playtest

Prototype

Since I am reporting this after much has been done and several prototypes have come and gone, I will just describe the major prototypes along the way to give an idea of how they have developed. We will pick up with Prototype III later.

Prototype I

The initial prototype was just a set of d6 dice of different colors and a reference card that showed what each number for each colored die meant. This was functional enough to get the die rolling, but quickly proved to be too much effort and slowed the pace of testing down too much.

Prototype II

I created dice sides in Excel, printed them on a full sheet label, trimmed them, and stickered the dice. This made for much quicker resolution of the game parameters. At this point, though, I had dice to determine the gamelets as well, but this was too difficult to remember. Since Ithe players had to refer to the instructions often for the gamelet instructions, I will replace these dice with cards in the next prototype.

Playing

We’ll start talking about how to play and changes to the game play once we get through this long setup.

New Rules

Since there are so many variables in play here, I created a table of the recommended approach to introducing each of the modifiers into the game.

Working It Out

There is a lot in this notebook page and the next two as well. Hopefully, they are worth the trip. I’ll save any commentary on the progress of the mechanics once I have described them all.

Glossary

In addition to the standard dice game terms, I have derived a few new ones for this makeover and for use in the Challenge Dice game. Not all are used right away, but this way the glossary can be referenced at any time. This may look like a lot of terminology for a simple game, but it is intended to be used intuitively. Defining terms helps that happen.

Challenge (Round): A turn where 1 player acts as Challenger and a final score is settled.

Challenge Roll: The result of the Challenger rolling the Challenge dice to determine the rules of that round.

Challenge Rules (Dice): The collection of rules created by the Challenge Roll.

Challenger: Indicates the player whose turn it is.

Clear Winner: When a roller wins a round without having to resolve the winner by tiebreaker.

Complete Round: When players have completed 1 Challenge Round as Challenger.

Concealed (Roll): Rollers roll the dice in secret and keep them concealed until resolving a winner.

Defender(s): Indicates the player(s) who has been challenged by the Challenger.

Final Tiebreaker: Compare total on Trash Dice according to the Challenge Goal: Big - Highest total wins. Little - Lowest total wins.

First/Lead Roller: The first player to roll the dice in a Challenge (according to the First Roller die.

Hand: The collection of dice used for scoring a round.

House Rules: There are many suggested rule variations and players can devise their own.

Natural: When a player's scoring dice include no wilds.

Rollers: Indicates the players involved in a particular Challenge (Challenger and all Defenders).

Scoop Foul: When a player scoops up her/his dice before fully scored.

Scoring Dice: Dice that have been collected for scoring the round.

Trash (Dice): Dice that were rolled, but were not used in scoring a hand.

Victory Point (VP): Earned for winning a round. Standard game is to 6 VPs.

Playtesting

A few words about the playtesting approach are in order so they are not necessary in every posting. While the specific variations in this makeover are relatively simple, a valuable aspect of this makeover is to review the testing approach to a highly variable game.

Approach

For playtesting an individual mechanic, I am introducing what I call a “Gamelet.” A gamelet (like an applet compared to an application) is a mini-game in the sense that it does the functions of a game, but in a very narrow sense. A good gamelet will exercise one mechanic in a very limited sense. In this case there are also Attributes that impact the operation of the mechanic. So there is a grid of Attributes and Gamelets to test if each attribute is tested separately.

However, I need to test how the different attributes affect each other also. Since I don’t have to test the same attribute applied twice in one scenario, those scenarios are not applicable.

Ultimately, then I end up with a grid for each gamelet or, more precisely a 3D matrix with two dimensions of Attributes and one dimension of Gamelets. The testing scenarios, then are [#Gamelets] x [#Attributes] x [#Attributes – 1]. So if I have 5 Gamelets and 3 Attributes, the total number of test scenarios is 30. I expect to have closer to 20 Gamelets and 5 Attributes, which creates a total of 400 test scenarios.

But we aren’t done yet. Each of those Attributes has 2 – 6 possible Values. Let’s say they each have 4 values to simplify. The number of permutations for 5 Attributes each with 4 Values is 1024. That puts our total possible game states at 400 x 1024 = 409600! This is just considering the mathematical variability of the game. Add in the testing iterations required when problems are discovered and then add in differences in the player tactics and strategies and the testing requirements have not only gone through the roof, but have escaped earth’s atmosphere.

Wow, all the more reason to make the testing fun! If the gamelets can be compiled into a game, it certainly will have a high degree of variability.

Testing 409600 different game states is a practical impossibility, so I will have to be smart about testing to get a sense as to how each variable impacts the game play. There are a couple approaches to testing that can help reduce the actual tests required:

Combine Like Scenarios: In this case, I have selected gamelets that are intentionally different, but in a game, there may be various actions or situations that are similar and testing can be done primarily on one and the impact inferred on the other.

Perform Thought Experiments: While the Thought Experiment is a tool that must be in every game designer’s bag of tricks, it is even more important in testing high variability game states.

Test Individual Attributes: This is probably the natural approach to testing for most designers. In fact, the designer most likely (and probably should) be introducing new Attributes to the game over time and so these will be tested as they enter the game. In this makeover, I am intentionally starting with a list of Attributes. So I need to test how each Attribute impacts each gamelet before testing combinations of Attributes. In this case, I will have to be extra diligent to understand the impact because I will have to infer impacts from the combinations later.

Test the Extreme States: In testing individual Attributes, I will want to pay particular attention to the extreme states and to note whether the impact is relatively linear across all values between the extremes. Example: if Attribute A has possible Values of 1, 2, 3, and 4, does the change in value from 1 to 4 have a linear impact on the game or does it act very differently, say at a value of 2?

Test Break Points: If the impact between extremes is not linear; there is a break point at which there is a big change to impact, then pay particular attention to these as well.

Test Combinations of Expected Dependent Attributes: Presumably some Attributes are more co-dependent than others. Special attention will need to be paid to these to determine where they may have break points as a combination.

Test a Random Sample: Finally, test a random sample of combinations of all Attributes. This may reveal other co-dependencies that were not anticipated and other combinations that just don’t work.

Test Outliers and Break Points: If any problems were discovered in the sample testing, then dig into them.

Breaking it down this way makes the number of variations/arrangements seem astronomical, but keep in mind that the number of variations/arrangements possible for a deck of 52 cards is 8×10⁶⁷. When designing a game with a large number of dice or cards, these numbers are typical. For more information on how probability affects game design, read the great article “Probability for Game Designers” by James Earnst (of Cheapass Games) on the League of Game Makers.

What other testing approaches do you use to ease the burden of testing a high degree of variation?