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Dice vs dry erase marker

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Zodiak Team
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Ok so I had a crazy idea.

My game Zodiak Legends uses a dice based mechanic to define combat, defense, and magic. When you start the game you have 3 units (characters/monsters) that will serve as your only line of defense. The point of the game is to defeat your opponent's 3 units in order to win.

Up until now I've been placing dice on these units to show their current stats. These dice resembled the current level of each specific stat so when you eventually leveled up all you had to do was rotate a stat's die to the next highest number.

There is just a few problems with this design.

1. It takes a little longer then I would like to set each card with their 3 dice.

2. When rolling the main Combat die it sometimes hits the Unit cards thus rolling their stat dice everywhere

3. As a Unit's HP is lowered the card is rotated so dice are always being shifted around

Pros:

The 3 demensional stats are easy to see no matter where other players are sitting

level caps are easy to identify because the dice are numbered 0-5 so once a stat his 5 you know it's maxed out.

What I'm thinking of doing is getting rid of the dice and removing the original stats all together and instead leaving the 3 stats blank. Then lettign players use a sharpy to put in their own desired stat.

This new design would work sort of like D&D or other RPG games. Each player will have a predefined number of distruptable stats to give their units. For example lets say at the start of each game you have 7 stat points you can distribute between your 3 units. You can choose how much SP the attack, defense, and magic each unit gets as long as you use up all 7 stats without goign over.

This in theory will work out pretty well without breaking my game because when I design each set of units I do my best to keep all their stats within a total of 7. This will also help players try out different strategies and customize their play style. I do lose the 3 dimensional visability of the stats but it'll cut dwn the mess and setup of the game as well as cost.

What do you guys think? Will dry erase work or do you see some issues with this design? Also how well does dry erase work on playing cards?

For an example of my layout take a look at this post: http://www.zodiakuniverse.com/?page_id=35

The numbers in the different color boxes are the stats I'm talking about. If I go with this new Idea I'll leave those boxes blank to be filled in by the players for now on.

Corsaire
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Joined: 06/27/2013
Minor terminology correction:

Minor terminology correction: Sharpies are permanent markers :)

Probably my biggest complaint about dry erase markers is the insidious detritus. If there are regular paper products in the box with what you write on, they will slowly accumulate a permanent discoloring and once cards wear a bit as they will with erasing it will get into the playing card stock. Your players will also need to keep something to erase with handy, and you have to have some concern about shelf life of the pen as a game component or a mad new player problem if you don't include one.

For your setup, numbered chits like Talisman uses might be ideal.

Zodiak Team
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Joined: 09/09/2012
Well being that this is a

Well being that this is a non-collectible card game maybe it'll be good thing that cards will slowly be destroyed due to dry erase marker over time.

-I'm joking

To be honest players can avoid the problem of ruined cards by using card sleeves and writing on those (why you wouldn't sounds a bit crazy to me).

Also I'm doing this to help cut costs of the dice and make the game a little more customizable.

How are the numbered chits in Talisman? I'm not familiar with it.

Corsaire
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Joined: 06/27/2013
They are small colored thin

They are small colored thin chits, maybe 1/2". Green for life, blue for craft, red for strength, gold for gold pieces. The life, craft, and strength come with the numbers 1-4 printed on them. You start with a base number and add to it through encounters. Myself and the other nerds I used to play with wouldn't use the 3 since the others made it binary counting.

You can see some blue chits here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/224105/talisman

questccg
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Illogical

Corsaire wrote:
...Probably my biggest complaint about dry erase markers is the insidious detritus. If there are regular paper products in the box with what you write on, they will slowly accumulate a permanent discoloring and once cards wear a bit as they will with erasing it will get into the playing card stock. Your players will also need to keep something to erase with handy, and you have to have some concern about shelf life of the pen as a game component or a mad new player problem if you don't include one...

I also experimented with dry ink markers and found that the result was *unsatisfactory*. Mainly because I was unable to bundle both card sleeves and the dry ink marker with my game. If these are components that are REQUIRED for playing the game, why are they not included with the game?!

The other thing I noticed was that even dry ink markers left marking on card sleeves. Like if I drew a "O" (Circle), I would wipe it away and notice that the markings were on the sleeves themselves not ink!

I changed the game to remove these components since it just seemed illogical to try to tell people to go out and buy additional components for the game...

Zodiak Team
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I wouldn't make the game

I wouldn't make the game unless I knew I could inclue a dry erase marker in the set.

Shoe
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Joined: 12/21/2012
Sounds like to me sliders on

Sounds like to me sliders on a card might be a good solution for this

Zodiak Team
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Joined: 09/09/2012
I'm not looking to over

I'm not looking to over complicate this. My game is done and made I'm just looking to simlify and cut cost. I'll either use dry erase or stick with the dice lol.

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