Outline of hypothetical future multiplayer Dice Quest
Posted by Rob Herman at April 1st, 2008
My idea for this is a little different than the solo Dice Quest.
There are 6 resources–one corresponding to every number.
Phase 1: Everyone rolls their dice in standard Yahtzee/To Court The King style. After all your rolling, you get to “harvest” any one resource; for example, if you have four 5’s, you can take four of the resource that corresponds to 5.
Phase 2: VPs are awarded. Four of the resources award one VP each. They then decay in different ways. Throwing out random ideas: one is a blind bid, one goes to the winner then the winner loses one, one goes to the winner then everyone loses half, one goes to the winner than the winner loses the second place’s total.
Phase 3: New abilities are gained. A certain number of abilities will be revealed, and they will be distributed somehow–maybe auctioned off, maybe purchased for a flat fee starting with the player with the lowest score. Resources are used as currency to buy abilities–any can be used for this purpose. Most abilities would be geared towards modification rather than extra dice; the target number of dice is 4-8 rather than 3-12.
Of the remaining 2 resources, one counts more (probably double) for buying abilities, and the other is spent to allow you to “harvest” a second number. For example, if your roll is 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 2, you can spend one of these resources to harvest four of the resource corresponding to 5 and two of the resource corresponding to 2.
For some reason, the game is not “speaking” to me right now so I’m not going to rush out and flesh it out. One specific issue I see: In both Yahtzee and TCtK, watching other players roll the dice is boring. I would like to have everyone roll the dice at the same time, but with such a strong area-majority foundation, waiting until you saw what the other players doing would be a great advantage in many cases. One possible solution is to roll the dice in secret. Another is to roll in a specific predefined order, maybe based on score.
I’m more excited about the solitaire game because the action is nonstop! I’ll flesh out this one only if I get further inspired or bored.
Wow, Rob. You play a game ONE TIME and come away with ideas for two new games. That’s a pretty impressive ratio.
I like both ideas, though I can see the issue with the downtime during multi-player games. I’m now thinking about a 2-player wizard duel game — there’s no downtime if you’re both rolling the dice at the same time! (You would have to take turns freezing your dice, of course.)
I’m still trying to work out the details (and figure out whether it would actually be playable), but here are some highlights:
* Each round is decided by the number of matching dice you get (five 6’s beats five 5’s, but six 1’s beats five 6’s), and the winner gets points based on the margin they win by.
* The loser of each round gets a new power. Winning a small victory may not be worth it.
* Getting other combinations (a straight, a certain number of even dice, etc) can summon “demons”. The demon gives you a new power, and ends the round immediately without either person getting points. Of course, trying for a straight and failing would give the other wizard a huge victory. Also, each demon is only available to be summoned once.
* Because both players have dice out simultaneously, you can have powers that hurt the other player in addition to ones that help you.
* Each player has three markers, labeled “1″, “2″, and “2″. Each round, you choose one of the markers and freeze at least that many dice. This enforces quicker development than To Court The King (where you only have to put aside one die per roll), but still allows some variety. I don’t know whether this means that you only get three rounds, or if it means that on the fourth round (without a marker) you have to freeze every die left. (Also, there may be a power that gives you an additional “3″ marker, if the game goes on long enough.)
I think that that last idea may work well for your solitaire game.
I never played TCTK and rarely play yahtzee that being said: If you wnated the game to be VERY different and elminate watching other people roll and sort dice you could have one person roll ALL the dice for everyone the develop a system where people pick the dice they want out of the pool competeing with other player to get the die they want. Try playing yahtzee this way it is a much more interactive game than normal yahtzee.