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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

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Anonymous

I've been intrigued by the problems of roll-and-move games for a while, so I'll be interested to see what this week's TiGD topic throws up.

I understand I'm meant to write a few paragraphs to kick off the discussion, so here goes...

“Roll-and-move”, a common process through which players move tokens of some kind according to the roll of a die or dice, must be one of the most familiar game mechanics to the public. Most commonly associated with those games where players race to a particular square (for example, Snakes & Ladders), it is largely problematic when used in games which wish to be decided by skill, rather than simple luck.

The wider concept involved in this is that of “track advancement” games. These are games where the game centres on the movement of pieces over some form of track. The winner could be either the first player to reach a particular square, or the furthest advanced along the track when the end of the game is triggered.

I've touched on the wider topic of "track advancement" simply because modern designers have, understandably, approached roll-and-move with the intention of redeeming it... When a non-gamer thinks of board games, they will almost certainly think of 'roll and move' games; this is hardly surprising given the dominance of luck-dominated, or even decision-less luck fests, in the mass market.

David Parlett, writing in his Oxford History of Board Games, pointed out that all civilizations have had racing games, often with a roll-and-move mechanic. As he suggests, it is an easy jump to go from recording the cumulative scores of a number of dice rolls on a track, to a simple roll-and-move game: as long one has defined the score to be reached (i.e. The number of the space to be reached), they are mechanically identical, even if the roll-and-move game has introduced a more overt “racing” theme. The squares can naturally be arranged in any formation, so as to suggest a coiled snake, or a road, or a globe to be circumnavigated, or similar, without mechanical change.

The departure, however, comes when you “load” squares on a board with special functions. The very best example of this, to my mind, is Snakes & Ladders, which is both a puzzle (in why a pure luck-fest should have proved so popular for over a century!) and a very wide-spread example of roll-and-move. Here, some squares provide a bonus to your score (i.e. A jump to a higher square) or subtraction (i.e. A jump to a lower square), and this general principle can be traced, in Western gaming at least, to the Game of Goose. A seventeenth century game apparently commissioned by the Medici family for presentation to Philip II of Spain, the game featured a track within an image of a Goose, with squares providing penalties or rewards familiar to modern players of Snakes & Ladders; all that was missing was the neat graphical representation of advancement or demotion represented by the snakes and ladders in that game (i.e: it would have said "go to no.12" on square no. 33, rather than showing that demotion graphically).

The late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth century saw an explosion of the devising of new games of this type, which I call 'Goose-style', as they deserve to be highlighted as a specific subdivision of roll-and-move. These were proprietorial game, with attempts to patent their aesthetically original designs, which used themes as varied as yachting, the ages of men's lives, history, geographical tours or sports. Some readers may know the Mansion of Happiness, an early Victorian example of a morality Goose game. The mechanics of these are not generally very impressive, with art and themes being the only (although, in those respects, significant) merits of them.

Whilst we can probably dismiss the most basic role-and-move games as pointless luck-fests, it is important not to dismiss the entire mechanic. For example, Parlett points out that such games can quickly introduce a very basic decision, by, for example, providing multiple pieces per player and expecting a choice to be made about which to move on a turn (e.g: Ludo, Parcheesi, Sorry!). The most notable way of introducing skill is to make the real game a gambling one, with the roll-and-move board a race on which to place bets, and the skill being in when odds are good enough to bet on a particular piece. Also, providing branches in the track, perhaps in the form of shorter but more perilous alternatives to the regular route, is one obvious way in which roll-and-move games introduced a suggestion of skillfulness.

I'd be personally interested to know whether people agree with my suggestion that roll-and-move is intrinsically a "problem" mechanic, which has to be specifically tinkered with in order to be used in a skill-based game. Perhaps I'm being too negative. But I do feel that the question, for me at least, is how to modify roll-and-move, or subvert it, to make a very different sort of game to snakes-and-ladders or the endless roll-and-move-and-draw-a-card Move tie-ins in Toys 'R Us. For that reason, I hope people will forgive me if we wander onto games such as Hare & Tortoise, where cards are explicitly used to create a track racing game that departs from roll-and-move

Thanks,

Richard.

Brykovian
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

I'll reply to your question about ways in which to make adjustments to the traditional roll-and-move mechanic in an attempt to inject a little bit of skill (or, at least, decision) and reduce the pure luck aspects of it.

So far, I've personally only put out a single design where numbers on dice impact the number of spaces that can be moved. And, it might not even fit this discussion, since it's for a tactical battle/position game instead of a standard single-lane track.

In "Siege by Number" (link) for the piecepack, the player rolls a number of dice (how many is determined by the number of pieces he has on the board). He can then "spend" each individual die to move one piece "up to" that many spaces.

It's a minor change, and quite similar to having a single die- or dice-roll with multiple pawns to choose between. But it seems to play an important part in this particular game.

-Bryk

GeminiWeb
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Very interesting discussion starter.

Looking at the poll, I was first going to say 'no' - I stay away from roll & move, until I realised that I had actually tried it once (but got distracted and left it on the backburner for another year).

The roll & move does add randomness, but so does the roll & collect resources in Settlers of Catan. The interesting thing in Catan is that you can fiddle with the numbers to increase your range of 'good numbers', or you can increase the payoff on certain numbers.

Think of a game of snakes and ladders, where you could build your own ladders (that only you could use?) and snakes (which only other people could use ... you could go for may small snakes and ladders, or fewer big ones ... (just add in a mechanic to cover the cost of building them). [Hmmm ... this sounds interesting ... maybe I should design this one now ....]

This way, the roll & move has just become another game of managing risks through strategic (or tactical) choices.

The other thing about Settlers of Catan, which is interesting by way of comparison is that the one roll impacts on everyone. The game I was thinking of making used a similar concept for a roll & move mechanic, whereby everybody moved the same piece ... which moved through the annual cycle of spring, summer, autumn and winter ...

Therre's a few comments for now anyway ....

DarkDream
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Richard,

Well done on an excellent topic opener. The thoroughness and historical background provided is a top notch effort.

I would have to disagree that the roll-and-move mechanic is intrinsically problematic. Like you stated, this mechanic has been used for thousands of years across all cultures (the Oxford History of Board Games clearly shows this) and is usually associated with "race" games as you defined it in your post. The fact that such a mechanic has persisted for such a long time, I think provides evidence of its ubiquity and prevalence indicating that such a mechanic has really touched the gaming soul of man.

Let me point out that some of our arguably best modern racing board games out there use the roll-and-move mechanic. "Formula De", one of the most popular racing board games out there, is a pure roll-and-move game where different dies are rolled for a different gear. "TurfMaster" (some say the best horse racing game out there) is another example of a game that uses the roll-and-move mechanic to advance horses when a round of card playing has finished.

Another excellent example, is Knizia's game Royal Turf, where the movement of the horses is purely luck based. The only real skill provided in the game is the wagering aspect where players bet on certain horses to win.

So what are the strengths of the roll and move mechanic. I believe its central strength lies in the unpredictability of the roll. This is in a sense pure gambling, where any piece that is moving on a board is never assured a certain number of squares moved (let's not forget that a huge section of the gambling industry, which is worth billions of dollars a year, is simply based on pure chance and luck). This fact helps explain the roll-and-move mechanic's affinity to racing, where the winner of any real life race is never assured. The randomness also adds tension in the game for its ability to not just go more squares than a player's opponent but the tension of landing on a certain favorable or unfavorable square (essence of the "Goose Game"). With this added feature of experiencing rewards and punishments by landing on certain squares, you effectively create two arenas of tension: player versus player and player versus board. The other fundamental strength of the roll and move mechanic is the elegant simplicity of moving the number of squares equal to the number rolled.

The disadvantages of the roll-and-move mechanic are its penchant of having zero skilled involved. The laws of probability clearly state that in the long term lady luck has no favorite and your ability of rolling a certain number is no less or better than a chimp who has no clue what its doing.

The lack of any skill involved in the roll-and-move mechanic purely on its own merit, is its greatest weakness.

I do not necessarily think you have to tweak the roll-and-move mechanic to make it work, it simply needs to be given a proper context within a board game that allows the skillful application of the roll-and-move. Choices cannot be made as to whether I will roll a one or a two, but choices can be made as when to roll or to introduce the luck element in the game to the player's advantage.

There have been tons of ways to modify the roll-and-move mechanic so as to introduce skill in the game. Here are some ways I've seen skill added:

- providing the player with the choice in how many dice to roll in a particular situation
- allowing the player to roll multiple dice, and choose which die to ignore and which die to play with
- providing the player with the opportunity to choose among two different dice (in terms of values on them) to roll
- giving a player the choice of when to stop the continual rolling of a die that is scoring (one or more sides of the die have a value that causes the player to loose all points gained for the round)
- allowing the player to estimate and and react to seeing only a partial amount of dice a player has rolled
- the choice to roll a die or choose another action instead

Just some thoughts.

Thanks,

--DarkDream

Scurra
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

(adds thanks to Richard for his excellent overview)

Roll-and-move is inherently luck-based (as everyone admits) but I'm genuinely not convinced that this is a "problem" - more of a "feature" ;)
Richard alludes to the Parcheesi family (Ludo etc.) which illustrate quite nicely how some of the problems can be overcome.
In general, the solution is not to limit the outcome of a player's move to just the roll of the dice, but to widen it, so that choices need to be made about how to best exploit that roll.
For instance, during one of our "Game Design Challenge" chats, sedjtroll proposed a Dogs and Postman game in which the player rolled two dice, but decided which one moved the dog(s) and which the Postman. Now this is hardly the stuff of greatness - although it wasn't bad for a five-minute design :) - but it does go a long way towards breaking the luck/skill barrier.

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

The first board game I designed (along with my wife) was a roll and move based game.

It was a marketplace game where players would move around different market areas, each area having cheaper or more expensive items for players to buy, collect, auction and sell. The mechanic was boradened by giving characters multiple paths to take, though each path was one-way so a player had to take their chances and live with them. The paths around the cheapest markets contained the mose costly spaces, the opposite being true of the most expensive markets.

The mechanics of the roll-and-move worked to give players hard decisions to make about the real focus of the game, which was collecting (hence the name Collectibility for the game). It is always interesting to see if a player would risk the costly path for a shot at the cheaper markets rather than paying a little more for about the same thing at a market along a safer path. Like I always say, a good game is all about the decisions you make!

Zzzzz
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I have to agree in its unaltered basic form that roll-and-move is all luck, but a pure luck of the roll mechanic that lends itself to being used with other mechanics to help create a more skilled based game.

As stated by DarkDream, it is a great mechanic to bring tension to a game. When playing games like Life, Sorry!, Candyland, the player emotions that are introduce bring so much to these simple games. No one likes to be behind on a board, but everyone loves to catch the leader. If more skill was involved, these games might lose some of the basic excitment that is built in by roll-and-move.

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

DarkDream wrote:
I would have to disagree that the roll-and-move mechanic is intrinsically problematic. Like you stated, this mechanic has been used for thousands of years across all cultures (the Oxford History of Board Games clearly shows this) and is usually associated with "race" games as you defined it in your post. The fact that such a mechanic has persisted for such a long time, I think provides evidence of its ubiquity and prevalence indicating that such a mechanic has really touched the gaming soul of man.

Zzzz wrote:
As stated by DarkDream, it is a great mechanic to bring tension to a game. When playing games like Life, Sorry!, Candyland, the player emotions that are introduce bring so much to these simple games. No one likes to be behind on a board, but everyone loves to catch the leader. If more skill was involved, these games might lose some of the basic excitment that is built in by roll-and-move.

I certainly agree with David Parlett, as I mentioned in my original post, that roll-and-move can be interesting as the basis for a gambling game, and becomes better when it is dilluted by introducing choice, and I guess those are the sorts of embellishments when I talked about the possible need to "redeem" the mechanic.

This said, I'm not sure I would fully agree with DarkDream's 'touches the soul of man' idea, which Zzzz elaborated in his comments. I can certainly see the factor that you mention, and I can remember as a small child being thrilled at the experience of snakes-and-ladders, but I'm not sure I'd want that feeling in a game if it meant removing all skill,as Snakes & Ladders does. I think the 'touches the soul of man' thing is very revealing for identifying that the satisfaction of roll-and-move is a non-intellectual sensation, where we would expect Chess or even Settlers to be, to a certain extent, an intellectual accomplishment, even if influenced by luck. It is a primitive and supersticious satisfaction that we are somehow worthy or blessed because our piece is winning. While there is no doubting that it is a powerful emotion, unless tempered in some way with the ability to control our own destiny, I don't think pure roll-and-move games can be anything but an appeal to some existential attraction to blind fate.

To put it bluntly: is Snakes & Ladders actually a game? I'm not sure it is.

I know it is and always will be referred to as such, but it seems to miss the basic criterion that you can 'play' it: there are no decisions to make and unless I am meant to see if I can cheat in a skillful manner, there is absolutely no action on my part to effect it. I don't see how it is a game any more than watching a film is "playing" a game: I have no control over the events unfolding before me, other than deciding when I wish to cease the activity. Even a pure gambling game (for example, fruit machines without any HOLD ability) at least give you the decision of how long to risk cash/points for possible gain.

Snakes & Ladders, as the archetypical simple roll-and-move game, is a psychological experience rather than a game for me. I can agree that its hold on human interest seems to be eternal, and the pleasure and tension we feel in luck-orientated or pure-luck games is palpable, but when there is no decision and we are not assuming fate in a board game is meted out by some supernatural ability, I'm not convinced it is anything more than a pastime, an entertainment and an experience: it doesn't seem to be a game.

Scurra wrote:
Richard alludes to the Parcheesi family (Ludo etc.) which illustrate quite nicely how some of the problems can be overcome.
In general, the solution is not to limit the outcome of a player's move to just the roll of the dice, but to widen it, so that choices need to be made about how to best exploit that roll.

Hm, yep. As soon as you give players more than one playing piece (i.e: some sort of decision) my anxiety is very much reduced! :) This said, the skill in Parcheesi et. al. is minimal, isn't it, as it is not too difficult to decide which piece is the optimal one to move given the available information. I suppose the niggling problem for me is the fact that you need to start offering choices in a roll-and-move game very quickly: Trivial Pursuit is a good example of this, I guess, as your roll limits the choice of squares you can move to, but still gives you the decision where to go. This said, it seems harsh that evil die rolls could make it impossible for your to hit a square of the colour you need to get the last pie slice.

SiskNY wrote:
The mechanics of the roll-and-move worked to give players hard decisions to make about the real focus of the game, which was collecting (hence the name Collectibility for the game). It is always interesting to see if a player would risk the costly path for a shot at the cheaper markets rather than paying a little more for about the same thing at a market along a safer path. Like I always say, a good game is all about the decisions you make!

Yes, I'm 100% with you. The way you used roll-and-move is the sort of "redemption" I was thinking about. A favourite example of mine is Klaus Teuber'slittle known game Barbarossa. I know Jeff wanted examples to be as universally appreciable as possible, so I am sinning to some extent by mentioning an obscure game, but I hope it's okay... I've written a review of it (http://www.thegamesjournal.com/reviews/Barbarossa.shtml) and one of the things I praised was the way it used roll-and-move to create a mechanic where players had to take responsibility and tough decisions over when to pay to control their movement, rather than shake a die for it. This is the bit I'm think of:

Quote:
Players move their "wizards" (pawns) around a small circular track, taking actions depending on the spaces they encounter. Separate scales along the board's rim track players' points and gold. Each turn your pawn will move either according to a D6 roll or your choice. But, if you choose the number of spaces, you must pay that much gold (tracked by a money marker). This is a neat little mechanic - with players constantly trying to temper their luck and engineer their pawn onto the desired space.

I certainly agree that move-and-roll can be deployed in games to nice effect, but I stand by my original suggestion that I still view it as a problem mechanic: its inclusion immediately worries me and I need to assauge my fears that it is adding something by introducing choices that are limited by the dice, in place of a non-dice mechanic.

Thanks for everybody's replies so far-- universally interesting, I feel.

Richard.

sedjtroll
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Richard_Huzzey wrote:

To put it bluntly: is Snakes & Ladders actually a game? I'm not sure it is.

I agree that it likely doesn't fit the definition of a game. Furthermore, I've always know it as "Chutes and Ladders" as opposed to "Snakes and Ladders". I'm sure in some places the name is in fact Snakes and Ladders, but that sounds so odd to me, and really doesn't make much sense (you climb a ladder up, but do you ever ride a snake down?). How did that get to be the standard nomenclature?

- Seth

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My thoughts

I think one of the problems with roll and move games, especially in classican American culture, is that it is overused. It's so overused, that most American would be designers (who have only been exposed to typical American board games) will inevitably include it in any game they intend to make. And before anyone flies off the handle I do realize this is not the case for every american game, but it seems to be the norm more than any other mechanic I've seen.

I personally have several games in my library that use roll and move effectively. Two that come immediately to mind are Basari and Magic Hill. Both however have immediate decisions you have to make after you roll the die. With Basari, you have to choose which of the three things you'd like to have that are on the square you landed on. With Magic Hill, you roll two die: One die dictates which numbered goblin you move and the other die tells how far that goblin is moved. Both are clever and proper use of roll and move.

Here's where I think the dilemna comes in. When designing games, for the most part we as designers have a finite number of game mechanics that we can choose from to produce the desired effect in our game. Of course, it is possible to come up with something completely new, but since we don't live in a vacuum more often than not these so called 'new mechanics' are really just variations on existing mechanics. So, back to our finite # of mechanics... When desiging a game, we have to setup rules that interact in such a way that we achieve our goal(s) for the game. We might need a specific mechanic to achieve one of these effects, and there could be X # of mechanics that achieve this effect. There will be times when roll and move will achieve this effect, but as Richard put, we throw up a mental roadblock just because it is a roll and move. We could even suggest that sometimes a roll and move mechanic might be the BEST method for achieving the desired effect, yet we are reluctant to use it because of the possible stigma of our game being labled a 'roll and move' game. I think at that point we need to step back and reevaluate the situation. It might be possible that 5 years from now, auction games could be as overused as roll and move, and have a similar stigma attached to them. Our job is to look at each mechanic objectively and decide if it's the right one for the situation at hand.

-Michael

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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

sedjtroll wrote:
Richard_Huzzey wrote:

To put it bluntly: is Snakes & Ladders actually a game? I'm not sure it is.

I agree that it likely doesn't fit the definition of a game. Furthermore, I've always know it as "Chutes and Ladders" as opposed to "Snakes and Ladders". I'm sure in some places the name is in fact Snakes and Ladders, but that sounds so odd to me, and really doesn't make much sense (you climb a ladder up, but do you ever ride a snake down?). How did that get to be the standard nomenclature?

- Seth

Chutes & Ladders is the American name for the game. I assume it was just a difference in theme (I.E. the European version had pictures of snakes rather than pictures of slides). Kind of like our Parcheesi and their Ludo.

-Michael

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Darkehorse wrote:
It's so overused, that most American would be designers (who have only been exposed to typical American board games) will inevitably include it in any game they intend to make.

I would agree. In my infancy as a designer (a scant few years ago and from which I have progressed little) I saw it as the go to force to drive any game design. The more I started to learn about games (especially the "German" games) the more I learned that there are so many other colors to the game designer's palette.

Quote:
There will be times when roll and move will achieve this effect, but as Richard put, we throw up a mental roadblock just because it is a roll and move. We could even suggest that sometimes a roll and move mechanic might be the BEST method for achieving the desired effect, yet we are reluctant to use it because of the possible stigma of our game being labeled a 'roll and move' game.

I couldn't agree more. There is no shame inherent in a roll-and-move mechanic (in fact, as you put it, it may be the best solution for a desired goal), so long as it is used in a way that still provides players with meaningful (and hopefully challenging) ways to effect the outcome of the game.

By the way, Richard, thank you for initiating such a great discussion!

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Darkehorse wrote:
Chutes & Ladders is the American name for the game. I assume it was just a difference in theme (I.E. the European version had pictures of snakes rather than pictures of slides). Kind of like our Parcheesi and their Ludo.

It has often been said that the most difficult part of travelling in the UK is the language barrier! :wink:

Zzzzz
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Richard_Huzzey wrote:
To put it bluntly: is Snakes & Ladders actually a game? I'm not sure it is.

I just want to point out to everyone that we need to keep the games intended audience in mind.

Is a game an activity that provides some form of entertainment, based on a set of rules?

(see http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=game for additional definitions)

Does the age/exprience of your players help determine "what a game is?"

Does a 4-7 year old feel that the game is providing entertainment? If so, then I guess it is a game to them based on the defintion of game.

So maybe the problem with the basic use of roll-and-move with respect to skill is all based on the abilities/comprehension/level of the players.

Maybe roll-and-move in its basic form is only fun/entertaining for a certian audience.

rkalajian
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

I've been trying to stay away from roll and move ever since my little Disc fiasco upon first joining the board.

Man, i've learned a lot since then and it's only been a few short months.

After following this thread, i'd have to agree that it's really not a bad mech to use as long as choices are available.

sedjtroll
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To echo what everyone seems to be saying, I agree that Roll-And-Move can be a fine game mechanic. What makes it interesting or not is what happens after you roll and move. In Chutes and Ladders you just move- and maybe you jump foreward or backward as well, but it's not up to you. In Sorry you actually have to decide how to move your 2 pawns, which is already leaps and bounds more interesting than Chutes and Ladders.

So I propose that the stigma attached to the Roll-And-Move mechanic is a false one, and it's artifically attached with the mechanic based on a (rather large) number of sub-optimal uses of the mechanic. As we all seem to agree though, the sub-optimal use is at fault here, not the mechanic.

And furthermore not the dice. There has on occasion been lengty discussions on these boards about dice and their use in games (introducing a random element), and the overwhelming response tends to not only be that dice randomness in a game is unfavorable, but that it's the dice themselves that are objectionable (other methods are suggested in lieu of dice when the discussion does come up).

The topic of this thread is Roll-And-Move, not Dice, but I believe the two are at least peripherally related, so please excuse the aside.

Finally, in another thread recently I mentioned a game that had what I thought was a decent use of a roll and move mechanic... Culdcept. Though the game is on the Playstation, it works like a board game and has Roll And Move as a central mechanic. The interesting things that game does are:

1. Split up the turn such that you have choices to make (what spell to cast) BEFORE you roll, so you don't know where you will land ehn you make that choice,
2. Allow the possibility to control the die roll of you or an opponent in a few different ways (via spells), and
3. The boards have different forks and paths such that a single roll can produce a number of options as to what space to land on.
4. Important spaces (like checkpoints) need not be landed on, merely passed over during a turn. Also, spaces (of yours) passed over can be upgraded- not just spaces landed on.

Though the board is really a track, and you play the game by advancing through it and 'passing go' like Monopoly, you can often choose your path (to an extent) and even continually loop without returning to 'go' at all (and in some cases that can be advantagous).

I think that's a good example of how to use Roll-And-Move without it causing too much randomness and allowing too little strategy in a game.

SVan
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Adding to Seth's comments on Culdcept, if any of you have played any of the Mario Parties (or Sonic Shuffle or Crash Bash or other party games) it is pretty much a roll and move game. There are some choices, but mostly you are being forced down a path. The mini-games are probably the saving factor of the party games.

I mentioned it once before, but I own Monopoly Party for the Gamecube, where the game is still the same roll and move luckfest, but the difference is all of the players move at the same time and you have a lot of control over the set-up of the game. It is ok to bring out with some friends because the game only takes 30 minutes at the most usually.

Which gets to one of my points, which is the fact that roll and move games are usually longer games than games without this mechanic as its central mechanic. Each person takes a seperate turn, with one action per turn. This also means it has the possiblity of being the most boring as well.

I think as a central mechanic, roll and move is not worth using. However, it can have much more use as an added mechanic (or side mechanic.)

I am part of the group that has shied away from using roll and move mechanics, almost in the same way I have shied away from collectable games. I think that can be a weakness and we need to try to use any mechanic that we feel will make the game work as cleanly as possible.

I've enjoyed everything that has been said about this so far. I'm amazed how much my opinion has changed since this has been discussed. I hope to learn even more as the week goes by.

-Steve

sedjtroll
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SVan wrote:
I am part of the group that has shied away from using roll and move mechanics, almost in the same way I have shied away from collectable games. I think that can be a weakness and we need to try to use any mechanic that we feel will make the game work as cleanly as possible.

So that's pretty much what we're talking about. Is the weakness with the mechanic, or the application.

You had a good point about the turns and the boredom while waiting for your turn to roll and move. That can be addressed though by clever use of what you do with the mechanic. Someone suggested a game where there's only 1 pawn, and on your turn you move it. That way everyone's got an interest in where the pawn goes. Maybe people will wheel and deal to get each other to move the pawn to a spot that's good for them (similar to Traders of Genoa).

- Seth

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

SiskNY wrote:
Darkehorse wrote:
Chutes & Ladders is the American name for the game. I assume it was just a difference in theme (I.E. the European version had pictures of snakes rather than pictures of slides). Kind of like our Parcheesi and their Ludo.

It has often been said that the most difficult part of travelling in the UK is the language barrier! :wink:

Yes-- I bought an American friend of mine an English-American dictionary recently when she went home. Despite 4 years here, she was still amused to see that certain vegetables she'd heard people talk about were not exotic ones she'd not encountered, but just cloaked in a British name.

Back on topic, yes, Snakes & Ladders in shoots and ladders. I've copied-and-pasted my introduction from a longer article I wrote, and I tried to use American terms (i.e. chequers rather than draughts) when appropriate, but that was one I missed. Graphically, our boards feature snakes instead of your chutes (the tongues are the trigger square and the tails where you get deposited). I believe the Australians have the same, although what Canadians and other English-speaking peoples know it as, I don't know.

Best wishes,

Richard.

sedjtroll
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Richard_Huzzey wrote:
I tried to use American terms (i.e. chequers rather than draughts)

Cool. Except we call it "Checkers" ;)

Quote:
the tongues are the trigger square and the tails where you get deposited.

Um, ewwww! Doesn't that strike anyone else as odd, or a little gross? I know when I was a kid I'd have much rather slid down a slide than be ingested and then shat out buy a reptile.

- Seth

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Darkehorse wrote:
There will be times when roll and move will achieve this effect, but as Richard put, we throw up a mental roadblock just because it is a roll and move. We could even suggest that sometimes a roll and move mechanic might be the BEST method for achieving the desired effect, yet we are reluctant to use it because of the possible stigma of our game being labled a 'roll and move' game. I think at that point we need to step back and reevaluate the situation. It might be possible that 5 years from now, auction games could be as overused as roll and move, and have a similar stigma attached to them. Our job is to look at each mechanic objectively and decide if it's the right one for the situation at hand.

It's interesting to think of that comparison with auction games. I remember in another thread someone suggested they almost seemed like 'cheating' as they were such a cheap way to balance a game. I already know some people who have decided they dislike auction games in general, and a more moderate section of players who tend to say, "oh, another auction game?" (Indeed, often "Oh, another of Reiner's auction games?" as he seems to specialise in them ;-)). I love them, and want Pizarro, Medici, Modern Art, Traumfabrik, Ra and High Society in my collection for their subtle differences. But there'sdefinitely some fatigue.

This said, I do think that there's a difference between fatigue and the situation with roll-and-move. Anglo-American game design seems to have through two centuries of dominance by Goose-style games, where game design simply meant re-theming the hazard and benefit squares to fit a new theme. While it is therefore so common in non-German-style games that it has probably suffered a bit of stigma as a "before I discovered good games" memory, the luck element must surely be responsible for a lot of its reputation. I still think Barbarossa and other games are great examples of proper and worthwhile uses of it in strategy games, but it must be said that it is so often lazily used that it isn't unreasonable, statistically, to guess that a roll-and-move game is going to be a poor game.

On balance, I'd say that while both auctions and roll-and-move suffer fatigue, auction mechanics are inherently safer (read: easier) to use whilst maintaining a satisfying level of choice, while roll-and-move mechanics start at a low bar and have to be pulled upwards. I'd suggest that a game designer has to be spectacularly incompetent to 'break' an auction mechanic, and equally cunning to 'make' roll-and-move.

sedjtroll wrote:
SVan wrote:
I am part of the group that has shied away from using roll and move mechanics, almost in the same way I have shied away from collectable games. I think that can be a weakness and we need to try to use any mechanic that we feel will make the game work as cleanly as possible.

So that's pretty much what we're talking about. Is the weakness with the mechanic, or the application.

I think I'm probably with you on pratical application of the mechanic, Sedjtroll, but I still*feel* it is a case of redemption of the original mechanic, rather than reversing years of misuse. As far as I can understand, this form of game was essentially a way of recording the cumulative rolls of dicewhen first deployed.

Indeed, the oldest games actually describe your movement not as going forward a number of spaces equal to your roll but as placing your marker on the square equal to your rolls over the whole of the game. I can't find a printed picture of the late 16thC Italian game at this second, but there's a very early 18thC English version on pp.140-141 of Brian Love's "Play The Game"; it says,

Quote:
'The players take their turns to throw the pair of dice and place their marker on the numbered squares of the board. For example, on a throw of six and five, the marker is placed on eleven etc. On the following turns, the number scored is added to the figure on which the marker rests and the marker is moved accordingly'.

So, I would tend to see the original mechanic growing from a method of tracking the cumulative scores of rolling dice. That's why I would argue the mechanic was originally flawed in its historical conception, and, is still, in its original state, weak, but I am with you, Darke and the majority opinion that it can be interesting and worthile in the right circumstances.

Best wishes,

Richard.

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

sedjtroll wrote:
Richard_Huzzey wrote:
I tried to use American terms (i.e. chequers rather than draughts)

Cool. Except we call it "Checkers" ;)

I can cater for American mis-use of language, but it's hard to keep up with the mis-spellings at the same time. ;-)))

sedjtroll wrote:
Richard_Huzzey wrote:
the tongues are the trigger square and the tails where you get deposited.

Um, ewwww! Doesn't that strike anyone else as odd, or a little gross? I know when I was a kid I'd have much rather slid down a slide than be ingested and then shat out buy a reptile.

I think the general idea (as I grasped it as a child) was that you slid down the snake, so I don't think there's any digestive track allusions! Then again, perhaps the theme was sanitised when it was explained to me, but I don't think so....!

Actually, while we're on the question of this game, I've got a bit to add. I've singled it out as the simplest and worst use of roll-and-move, and questioned if it was really a game at all, so I probably ought to say a bit more. It was a British re-working of India's Poksha-Patamu, which was a religious instruction activity: squares represented good or bad virtues, and had rewards and penalties attached. Actually, early 19thC British versions (one was tellingly entitled 'Karma') kept this(e.g: A boy is illustrated torturing a dog at the top of one snake, and is bitten by it at the bottom). Anyway, it's interesting to think that it had originally been nothing more than a learning tool as much as a "game".

The ladders, according to Love's book, were used in the Hindu original to represent advancement towards Nirvana, while snakes represented reincarnation in a lower animal form.

And I may have mislead you over the directions the snakes faced. The early 20thC ones I'm looking at seem to have tails on the trigger squares and mouths on the deposit squares. It's perfectly possible my memory of the 1960's/70's board we used when I was young is imperfect, or, I guess, that they've changed since.

Best wishes,

Richard.

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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

I haven't followed the discussion completely, so forgive if I repeat anything that's already been said. Thanks to all who've contributed so far, what I have read has been interesting.

One "weakness" that I haven't seen touched on in die-rolling for movement is that while it scores points for being universally easy to pick up ("You roll the die, and see how far you go"), it loses big points to me in that it doesn't fit particularly well into any thematic context. What exactly is being represented by my movement range being obtained from a random number? It's a simple mechanic that is actually quite abstract. There are lots of ways that you could have movement on a track, and almost any other system -- like "move 2 spaces per turn" or "pay energy points equal to how far you want to move" are preferable because they can be fit more easily into a thematic context.

The other problem, as I see it, with R&M is that for a standard d6, there's a fairly broad range of possible outcomes, and designing a game that is "fair", while still having this large variation, is tough if the range of movement matters (as it does in a race game, say).

Some alternatives that may have already been discussed:

-- Instead of rolling to see how far one moves, roll to see which player(s) may move. On my honeymoon, we took a cruise, and one of the very popular activities on board was the horse race, which was played out by having six "horses", and each "turn", the caller would roll 3 dice, then move the indicated horses one space each.

-- Instead of rolling to determine your movement, rolling can set a *limit* to your movement; ie, "you must move at least the number you rolled" or some such.

-- Make each space that is moved over "active", ie, players can take an action at each space they pass, or perhaps other players can take the action as well. Though not a roll-and-move, Traders of Genoa has an element of this. You're allowed 5 moves, and each one, you can auction off to other players to allow them to take the action at the space(s) you land on.

-- Must balance movement on multiple tracks, a la Lord of the Rings, a masterpiece where each track has a different urgency and you must balance motion on all of the tracks for various reasons (again, not a roll and move, but in the "track movement" genre, it sort of fits).

I don't know that roll and move needs to be "fixed", it's just that it's not that interesting as it is, however broken it may or may not be.

As for "Is Chutes and Ladders" a game? Yeah, I think it probably is. True, it's not much of a game, not even having any decisions, but I think for us as designers to call it "not a game" is a value judgement more than anything else, and risks redefining a commonly understood word, which I don't think will help us in using the English language in general, or in appealing to the broad public that we gamers aren't really a bunch of high-brow snobs or low-life losers.

Again, great job all who've contributed! Glad so much fertile soil has been found in this old mechanic.

-Jeff

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jwarrend wrote:
I don't know that roll and move needs to be "fixed", it's just that it's not that interesting as it is, however broken it may or may not be.

Not to belabor the point, but there it is again. I maintain that it's not the mechanic that is or needs to be interesting, it's the application.

Roll and Move doesn't require the die to be a simple d6. Using 2d6 instead (not unheard of, even in the mainstream) makes the distribution of results obviously much different than a single d6. There are books about Monopoly, and they all agree that the Orange and Red properties are the most commonly landed on in the game. That's not coincidence.

Furthermore, it's not extremely difficult to make a 'random' d6 roll into a less random advace for use in some kind of race game... movement could equal X plus 1d6, where X is either constant (all cars move almost the same rate, with variation due to local conditions at that moment and driving strength/error) or based on Skill or Equipment. Player 1's upgraded card might have a higher X than the stock car P2 still drives, therefore the upgraded car might move farther on average and have less variability than the stock model.

In Formula De you roll and move, but you roll different dice depending on some other part of the game. I think that's a very clever use of Roll and move. I proposed a somewhat similar thing for a race game in my journal... imagine cars have Speed Dice, and which dice you roll for your car's movement depends on the type of vehicle (light, medium, heavy) and the amount of damage the vehichle has sustained. A heavy vehichle that's taken a lot of damage might be rolling a d4 for movement, while a light undamaged card might speed along at 2d8 or something- I forget the specifics, but I think you get the point.

Roll and Move as a mechanic is just another mechanic. Assigning other attributes to that mechanic based on some previous uninteresting use and then saying the mechanic itself is uninteresting isn't really fair.

- Seth

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sedjtroll wrote:

I maintain that it's not the mechanic that is or needs to be interesting, it's the application.

I agree with this in principle, although one certainly does detect preferences and peeves from some gamers; some people don't like "blind bidding" games, for example, and won't enjoy any games with such a mechanic, regardless of how it's used in the game.

Quote:

Roll and Move as a mechanic is just another mechanic. Assigning other attributes to that mechanic based on some previous uninteresting use and then saying the mechanic itself is uninteresting isn't really fair.

I think that I, at least, should have been more precise; rolling a d6 (or two, for that matter) and moving on a track is not interesting to me, for the reasons I discussed. Of course there are applications in which the overall mechanic, "roll and move", can be interesting; I proposed some alternatives. But I think that "roll a d6, move your piece, and do what the space tells you" can describe a lot of games, and I think that in most of those games, this mechanic is simply a design crutch. Happily, I don't think many of us here are leaning on that crutch!

-Jeff

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jwarrend wrote:
one certainly does detect preferences and peeves from some gamers; some people don't like "blind bidding" games, for example, and won't enjoy any games with such a mechanic, regardless of how it's used in the game.

I know what you mean. I'm terrible at bidding, and therefore may be predisposed against such a mechanic. I don;'t know if that's the same thing actually. And furthermore, maybe I'm not giving bidding the credit it deserves (in fact, I am using a bidding mechanic in 8/7 Central, not that I'm any good at that game either!).

Quote:
rolling [dice] and moving on a track is not interesting to me, for the reasons I discussed.

Irrespective of what decisions are involved? Even if the track is non-linear? Even if there were strategic options present? what if there were modifiers to the die roll (from cards in hand for example)?

If it doesn't appeal then it doesn't appeal. It just seems harsh to neglect an entire classs of possibilities for that reason.

Quote:
"roll a d6, move your piece, and do what the space tells you" can describe a lot of games, and I think that in most of those games, this mechanic is simply a design crutch. Happily, I don't think many of us here are leaning on that crutch!

Word!

- Seth

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sedjtroll wrote:

Quote:
rolling [dice] and moving on a track is not interesting to me, for the reasons I discussed.

Irrespective of what decisions are involved? Even if the track is non-linear? Even if there were strategic options present? what if there were modifiers to the die roll (from cards in hand for example)?

If it doesn't appeal then it doesn't appeal. It just seems harsh to neglect an entire classs of possibilities for that reason.

No. Again, please read what I wrote, and try to understand my remarks in context. As I tried to make clear, the problem I have with "roll and move" is mostly one of motivation; I find that it's almost always a very abstractly motivated mechanic, and there's almost always a better choice for a well-themed game. For a game like Monopoly or Parchesi, the theme is pretty thin if it even exists at all, so the mechanic I suppose is ok.

An example of a roll and move game that I love is Clue, although I love it inspite of, rather than because of, the roll-and-move.

Again, I think I made it pretty clear that there most definitely are roll-and-move mechanics that could be interesting; I even came up with a few. I can't help but feel you're either misreading me, or nitpicking on my remarks for the sake of nitpicking. Surely someone must have said something in this thread more controversial than I!

Anyway,

Jeff

sedjtroll
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jwarrend wrote:
please read what I wrote, and try to understand my remarks in context... I can't help but feel you're either misreading me, or nitpicking on my remarks for the sake of nitpicking. Surely someone must have said something in this thread more controversial than I!

Nothing personal... I think we're talking about 2 different things. I understand your point that Roll and Move doesn't lend itself to many themes well... it's more abstract. I don't know if I agree with it necessarily but I see what you are saying.

My point is that we (the whole group, not just you) have been basing comments on the mechanic primarily on the game that have used it. Some people like yourself have acknowledged that there are other uses, but then as a group we go back to pointing fingers at Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly and claiming them as evidence that Roll and Move isn't very deep.

And to change focus to your point about the thematic use of dice, I would say that the use of different sized dice with different ranges of numbers in Formula De is a pretty thematic representation of gearing- just for example.

- Seth

P.S. I'm not picking a fight, we're supposed to be discussing Roll and Move, right?

Anonymous
Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

sedjtroll wrote:
My point is that we (the whole group, not just you) have been basing comments on the mechanic primarily on the game that have used it. Some people like yourself have acknowledged that there are other uses, but then as a group we go back to pointing fingers at Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly and claiming them as evidence that Roll and Move isn't very deep.

I think almost everybody has concluded that roll-and-move isn't a completely useless mechanic, but I'd put myself in a camp of people who find it deeply flawed in its simplest and most common applications on the mass market. I'd still hold my earlier line, that this is because we're salvaging something, rather than just a case of us collectively finger-pointing.

On the idea of theme, the karma idea in Poksha-Patamu at least gets it right. It is also tolerable in sailing games as a random strength of the wind in propelling players along.

Best wishes,

Richard.

Fos
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Crusoe's Planet does a good job with Roll and Move, eliminating any geographic allusions from the various tracks players can choose, and instead letting the mechanic symbolize only the random access to various resources. It's better than just using tables with the dice because the board becomes a central piece of the game and allows players to quickly see the advantages and disadvantages in different tracks.

Of course, in that situation Roll and Move doesn't feel like "moving around the board," one of the great advantages of the mechanic, as I see it. Roll and Move allows players to have a sense of geography, to move around a world, without necessarily adding many more strategic decisions to the concept (1 axis vs. 2). It's a very stream-lined way to do it, and I agree that it needs much more added to make it fun.

Crusoe's Planet is mostly resource management and trading/negotiations. The Roll and Move bit is only to randomize the influx of resources. However, Roll and Move can be shored up in other ways beyond shoving the mechanic into the far background, as sedjtroll has listed earlier.

jwarrend
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Roll-and-Move & Track Advancement Games

Quote:

On the idea of theme, the karma idea in Poksha-Patamu at least gets it right. It is also tolerable in sailing games as a random strength of the wind in propelling players along.

Again, just to be "annoying overbearing moderator guy" for a second, please, when possible, try to choose examples from well-known games, and when it's not possible, please provide a link to the game -- the new "BoardGameGeek search" feature under the system menu should make obtaining a URL for a game's entry very easy (and it even opens up a new window so you don't lose your text). Also, please try to give a little text explaining how exactly such-and-such mechanic works in such-and-such a game; if it's a good enough example to mention, it's worth explaining to the folks unfamiliar with the game how the mechanic works so they can understand why it's a good example.

Again, sorry to annoyingly carp on this and other issues; just using our early discussions to try to set up patterns for the future discussions. Obviously, any of these "protocols" is subject to revision and input!

-Jeff

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