Duel Dice is a dice centered TCG. Unlike most Trading Card Games, the main focus is on the dice with the cards supplementing each round's dice rolls. To play you only need 3 items:
A Deck between 10-20 Cards called your Inventory
Two d20 dice
The game can be played with between 2 and 5 players. Just the more players there are the more each player has to keep track of.
Each Card has a Life Total value on it between 30 and 100.
Card Types
Equipment Cards -
Equipment Cards are mainly used to alter your attack and defense values(figured by the d20s each round).
You can only have two equipment cards on the field at any time.
Item Cards -
Item cards can be used to enhance your attack, defense, Life Total, or even your Reserve(Hand) size. Each Item Card has a condition that must be met to activate it.
Spell Cards -
Spell cards give special abilities.
Game Setup
Each player(also known as a Knight) shuffles their Inventory.
Each Knight cuts the Inventory of the Knight to their left.
Each Knight then draws one card. This card is their starting Life Total. It can be anywhere between 30 and 100.
Game Phases
These are the phases of each turn. Pick a person to start each Phase and go clockwise till you reach the starting person. Once this happens start the next phase.
Phase 1 - Initiation Phase
During this step each Knight chooses a Target for this Round.
Phase 2
During this phase all Knights roll their Attack(red) and Defense(silver) dice.
Phase 3 - Draw Phase
Each Knight in turn chooses to either draw a card or not. This Phase is optional.
Phase 4
During this step each Knight decides what to do with the card they've drawn. If it's:
- Equipment - Check to see how many they have in play.
- None - They can play it.
- One - If the equipment card is not the same as the one they have down they can play it.
- Two - To play it they must discard one of the equipment cards in play. The remaining card in play can not be the same as the one they're playing.
- Item - If the condition on the Item card has been met they may play it.
- Spell - This card's effect can be played immediately.
If the card was not used this turn it is placed in the Knight's Reserve(before then it does not count towards a Knight's Reserve size. If the Reserve is over 3 cards(unless altered by another card) then cards must be discarded till only the maximum size remain.
Phase 5
During this step Knights calculate their attack and defense values.
Then they compare their attack value against the defense value of their Target.
If their attack value is higher than their target's defense value the difference is subtracted from their Target's Life Total.
If their attack is the same as or lower than their Target's defense value then nothing happens.
Phase 6 - Standby
If a card's condition waits for the standby phase than activate it now.
Phase 7 - End Phase
This is the last phase that is used to determine the status of each Knight.
If two or more Knights still have a Life Total than repeat Phases 1 - 7.
Standard Rules
Deck/Inventory size must be between 10-20 cards.
There can only be a maximum of 3 copies of any one card in an Inventory.
Only one card may be played per turn.
Common Terms
Inventory - Your Deck
Knight - Each player
Reserve - These are whats in your hand. A drawn card does not count towards your Reserve until the end of Phase 4.
Round - Consists of 7 Phases
I know I'm forgetting some things so feel free to ask questions and I will update this as needed.
Comments
Updated
I updated some of the wording and added a few things.
Seems highly variant
using d20's and having life totals range from 30-100 makes it sound very variant.
Can a knight be attacked in the same round by multiple people? When/how are Targets declared?
What's to prevent someone from drawing 30 life on the first turn and then getting ganged up on in that first turn because they're so weak? It probably wouldn't be very fun for that person.
I don't know what the Standby phase is for.
A few examples of some of the cards would help. For instance, if there's a card that says, "Gain 5 life for every Knight attacking you" that would mitigate my earlier concern. If there are cards like "Redirect someone else's Target" that would be fun also.
My primary concern right now is the variation - might be better to roll 2 (or 3) d6. You get a bell curve rather than a flat distribution. But that's more of a personal bias.
Answers to your questions and concerns
Can a knight be attacked in the same round by multiple people? When/how are Targets declared? What's to prevent someone from drawing 30 life on the first turn and then getting ganged up on in that first turn because they're so weak? It probably wouldn't be very fun for that person.
Yes, multiple people can attack the same target. Targets are chosen at the beginning of each round. We're still working on a response to this.
The Standby Phase is for card effects that need to resolve after damage is dealt but before the status of each Knight(Dead or Alive) is determined. Good example is the Revival Gem. Its Condition is "If your Life Total is 0 during the Standby Phase." The Effect: "Bring your Life Total to 10."
There is a Spell card called Reflect. Basically its effect is that you redirect damage dealt to you back at its source. Thats the only one we have so far.
We've actually attempted a few playtests with d6, d10 and d20. Mind you this was before the cards were introduced but with just dice the games seemed to drag on and on with anything lower than d20. Games are meant to be quick.
2 to 20 players seems rather
2 to 20 players seems rather large a range, what playtest data do you have to back the maximum number of 20 players? seems like a rather long waiting time between the end of my turn and the start of my next turn
is there any reason for a player to not go for the maximum values you have projected? when is it more helpful to have 30 than 100 health? when is it more helpful to have 10 than 20 cards? for that matter, what happens when the deck runs out?
is there a reason a player would not want to draw a card on their phase 3 draw phase?
are there any exceptions to wielding 2 of the same equipment? say i want to wield 1 sword one each hand instead of 1 sword 1 shield
i do not understand phase 7, are you saying to end the turn and pass it to the next player that is still alive, or for the player who just played from phase 1 to 7 to repeat their turn?
will another player be able to interrupt your attack? will players be able to gang up on one player?
is a player that runs out of lifepoints still able to participate in the game passively, or is the player out for good?
having an 1 dice for attack and 1 dice for defence per player seems unnecessary since each side will only be accounting for 1 attribute at any one time. if you are assuming each player will bring their own dice, all that needs to be mentioned is when a player is rolling for attack, and when a player is rolling for defence
Well
I've found that playing with just the dice the game becomes more about strategy the more players you have. Obviously once the cards are finished its going to be updated once the new playtests are done with cards. Each Phase is done by all living players so I guess its more acurate to call them Rounds than turns.
One thing I'm trying to do to limit stacking ones deck is balancing out the stronger cards with lower Life Totals. Again its going to be about strategy, how many cards in your deck are you willing to risk to get higher life totals. We're trying to make it so players have to find a balance between lower strength cards with higher life totals vs stronger cards with lower life totals. And that also plays into deck size. Say you have an end all combo and you weight the rest of your deck with lower strength higher life totals. Again its all about strategy and what each player is willing to risk to get what they want.
It falls under the maximum reserve size and limited deck. Basically think of it in rpg terms, what happens when your inventory is empty? You have to rely on what you have and it limits your options.
We've been mauling that one over because yes it is possible to wield more than one weapon at a time. We've been considering special text on certain cards like weapons that circumvent the game rules similar to cards that allow you to increase your reserve size.
Basically since every Phase is done by all players this is basically when winners are decided or if its decided there isnt a winner yet to continue playing.
As far as interrupting attacks, yes there will be spells and items that allow you to interrupt another players attack or even circumvent their defense. As for the other question I'm unsure what you mean.
There are special Item cards, like Revival Gem, that can bring a player back from 0 before the End Phase but we're still unsure if we want to allow players to continue on passively after they have lost. It's definitely something we will be considering now so thank you.
The reason for having both is because since everyone plays in turn each phase both attack and defense needs to be determined each Round(formerly turn).