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Dune express: an epic dice game

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Mon, 03/08/2010 - 22:36
larienna
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While browsing board game geek, I stumbled on a game called "DUne Express":

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42617/dune-express

It's a free print and play game that tries to remake the old dune board game by replacing all the tactical actions of the game with a simple yatzee style dice game (or to court the king). In the end, it creates a game that has all the strategic aspects of the original board game and that can be played in 30 minutes instead of an hour.

Many people made variants and improved artwork that greatly makes the game better, by looking at the game, I think that the designer actually made a new type of game that I intend to call: Epic Dice game.

Because if you really thinks about it, you could probably convert all very long epic games using a similar system. For example, it could be possible to convert civilization or twilight imperium as an epic dice game that could be played in 30 minute. That could be awesome, imagine, I could play TI during lunch time.

I currently have 2 epic games of mine in design and I thought it could actually be easier to first make dice game out of them and later make the long and complex game.

So what do you think?
Does epic dice game seem to be a new game type like Dominion did?
Would you like to see other games being converted as epic dice game?

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Tue, 03/09/2010 - 07:05
#1
scifiantihero
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Haven't looked . . .

. . . at dune express before.

I imagine that if a dice mechanic was fun and tense it could make a good game! I can't imagine TI becoming better by being reduced to dice, however.

What sort of game do you have that you think might be a good dice game?

:)

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Tue, 03/09/2010 - 12:04
#2
larienna
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TI could be easily converted.

TI could be easily converted. THe only difference is that the number of dice rolled need to vary with empire size which is not the case in dune.

You could have on the faces:

Research: Increase research level which increase odds in battle.
Production: Place new ships into play
Logistic: Move ships on the board.
Imperium: Claim higher ranking titles at the council,
Espionage: Protect your empire or distrub other players.

Having more systems could increase the number of dice you roll. Or some system could give you a specific free result.

You will need X victory points to win which is equal to the nb of system you control + your title level at the council.

COmbat would be very simple, roll 1 die for each ship you have, each die below or equal to your technology level kills an enemy ship.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

As for my game, they are the same type of epic game. One could be comparable to Twillight imperium, the other is comparable to civilization with magic.

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Tue, 03/09/2010 - 13:05
#3
scifiantihero
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Sounds pretty neat.

Maybe the role selection mechanic could turn into some kind of dice selection mechanic. Maybe there would be two or three of, say "logistics dice," and when you chose to roll them, the other players would each get to . . . trade one of their planet dice to roll a logistics dice . . . or something.

Hmm . . . :)

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Wed, 03/10/2010 - 12:44
#4
larienna
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I worked on the design

I worked on the design yesterday and it seems very nice, almost everything is there.

Selecting which dice you set aside determines indirectly which role you would have picked up.

Regular: Dice would have 6 faces:

Technology: Increase your tech level, better to attack or defend
Production: Place a fleet into play
Imperial or Politics: Acquire titles at the council.
Espionage: Make other player discard dice.
Trade: Exchange dice roll with other players.
Logistic: Move fleets and invade.

You roll 1 die per system you control, 2 dice for your home system and mecatol rex. Roll up to 3 times and keep dice aside.

At the end of your turn, you can place in reserve up to 1 die of each type which could be used on the next turn, or traded with other players for credits which act like a wild result.

There are other features like the leader die which allows to change the orientation focus of your race.

The map would be 2 ring wide and it will not be modular. The map is always the same, there is no unique planet.

Each system gives 1 victory points, mecatol gives 3 victory points, imperial title gives VP = to their level (1 to 5) and conquering opponent's home world makes you acquire all his system victory points. You need X victory points to win. The value is relative to the number of players.

This is basically it. I need to define how the battle works, make some probability average test and there are some missing features like political cards substitution, domain counter substitution to determine. Besides that everything seems there.

I'll post more elaborate rules, probably on the TI3 forum, when I'll have some time to comlplete it.
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Here are other fantasy flight games I though that could get converted pretty well:

Battlemist: Die face ideas: Questing, Production, Magic, etc.
Starcraft: Die face ideas: Attack, Build, Research.

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Wed, 03/10/2010 - 13:36
#5
infocorn
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I like the overall concept

I like the overall concept here. Do you care if I use it and tinker a bit? I've been trying to find some ways to do a card-less CCG (stupid CCGs).

The thinking is that that one could be very flexible with a limited set of materials and that would take some of the "chase rare" and "game for millionaires" strategies away from the game. I hate that; it's the primary reason I stopped playing any kind of CCG with most of my people...

yes, that sounds rather Piecepack, but I think to make what I'm percolating on go smooth, everyone would need more than four dice.

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Wed, 03/10/2010 - 15:27
#6
scifiantihero
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I, too . . .

. . . got to thinking wayyyy too much about this subject.

Have some rough ideas. Might test them and see what happens!

:/

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Wed, 03/10/2010 - 15:31
#7
larienna
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Quote:I've been trying to

Quote:
I've been trying to find some ways to do a card-less CCG (stupid CCGs).

You could make non-collectible card games!
Else dice could do the job, but you are more limited in the amount of special abilities due to the limited space on the dice.

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Wed, 03/10/2010 - 15:40
#8
infocorn
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I've done NCCG before. While

I've done NCCG before. While I like the "all in the box" mentality, I also miss being able to make a specialty deck flexibility. It's more unpredictable, see?

And my thinking as I spitballed on this all dice idea is that you could use thinking like the game Shut the Box: do I use the SUM of the dice or do I bank individual faces? The thinking is that players get an a la carte (ala card?) and can "deck build" based on the list, with some having a "X points" value and others having a "# of a kind" cost.

If you limit it to d6, and add one per round to a max of 5, you could based only on value outcomes, end up with 74 possibile abilities. This doesn't even take into account abilities creating "impossible rolls" (e.g. a "1" on 2d6), which then would bump that to 84 if my math is right. Then you could go just hog wild with "total roll" to a max casting cost of 30 (again, limiting rolls to POSSIBLE totals without factoring in "impossible" rolls like 42 on 5d6 for example).

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Thu, 03/11/2010 - 03:18
#9
Traz
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all dice games

I'll be bringing my COMBAT LINES to the Sacramento CONQUEST CON next weekend. Finally worked all the bugs out. I haven't changed the rule sheets over on BGG, but you can get 90% of the gist of it there-

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/4349102#4349102

-none of the basics have changed. Feel free to borrow if anything you see helps what you are doing.

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Thu, 03/11/2010 - 12:30
#10
larienna
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Those special dice from the

Those special dice from the game you took them gave me an idea for another of my game design.

I wanted a combat system for a civ like game where players could make decision during battle without needing to have a side board for resolving them. The other problem is that I wanted to have a game with various kind of units, magic spell and tactical decisions (like manuvers, ambush and traps). But i could not find a good mechanic that would work well to manage all these special effects. I tought of using cards so far.

With a dice mechanic like this, I could make each unit type have it's own die. Or maybe each unit have a result table, players roll dice and place the die on the unit, spell or tactic card (requires less unique components). Players will have to set aside a certain number of dice every turn which represent your strategic decisions. I might even allow the opponent to set aside one of the dice you rolled to represent the idea that he has successfully avoided your strategy.

I could make dice of various colors. Like a color for Units, magic, strategy. Magic die must be placed on spell cards, unit dice on unit cards, etc.

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Sat, 03/13/2010 - 21:14
#11
Traz
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make, shmake

Just look on BGG for all the different collectible dice games out there, decide which one would work best for what you are doing, then look on ebay for someone getting rid of theirs [I don't believe any of the CDGs are still in print - just find one that's been gone for awhile], then adapt them to your game, that's how I created COMBAT LINES. Never even bothered to look at the rules to the original, and came up with a great game.

In this way, dice are much more versatile as prototypes, simply because the image on the die is ICONIC, which means you can pour any meaning you want into it.

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