Breaking tabletop games with funny shapped dice!

[MoonSong]

My family isn't big on rpgs, but they have open access to my dice collection. The other day they took a couple of d8's instead of the pair of d6's that the Juego de la Oca is normally played with. (This breaks the game, because rolling a 9 on your openning roll is an instant win in la Oca. The game itself prevents it by having special rules for rolling a 4 and a 5 and a 6 and a 3, but once you get a pair of d8s you can also roll 8 and 1, and 7 and 2) Once I joined on the fun, we started to go to pretty fun places and odd happenings began. Play with a D12!, Play with a D20 for an extra fast games! Start with a single d8 and dump to a smaller size whenever you roll max, and bumping one size if you roll a 1, when you roll a 4 on a d4, the next turn you advance one step and return to the d4. Rolling a 1 on a D20 means that next turn you auto advance 20 and return to rolling. (This ended in a nobody wins scenario because the game turns extra swingy without the comfort of a 2d6 roll)

We then moved to ladders and chutes, with that dice rolling (falling on snakes recharges your dice up, while getting on a ladder reduces your dice). And now I'm weighting which game could be fun to break next. Which games should we try? Risk, Monopoly, some other game? Which games can be broken by having extra or less swinginess, an extended range or a reduced one?

 

[Richards]

My first thought was Yahtzee with 5d8, although you'd need to make your own score cards, since you'd now have to account for 7s and 8s at the top half of the sheet. And it would be more difficult getting a full house, 3 of a kind, and 4 of a kind (not to mention a Yahtzee) when there are now 8 options for each die to land on. Of course, you could go the other way and use 5d4, but that would make a large straight impossible (unless you decided a large straight was four in a row and went to 3 in a row for a small straight).

Johnathan

 

[Blue]

My first thought was Yahtzee with 5d8, although you'd need to make your own score cards, since you'd now have to account for 7s and 8s at the top half of the sheet. And it would be more difficult getting a full house, 3 of a kind, and 4 of a kind (not to mention a Yahtzee) when there are now 8 options for each die to land on. Of course, you could go the other way and use 5d4, but that would make a large straight impossible (unless you decided a large straight was four in a row and went to 3 in a row for a small straight).

Johnathan

I wonder if increasing the dice sides by +33% would be offset by increasing the dice rolls by +33% - in other word using d8s but also moving up to four rolls.

We'd also need to rejigger the threshold for the top bonus. And the total point inflation will make other points relatively, such as the yahtzee itself. On the other hand, with two more sets of rolls (sets of 7 and sets of 8), there's more chance of filling in some of the hard-to-get ones like that yahtzee instead of taking a zero.

 

[Eltab]

I see using d4s in Monopoly will give whoever goes first (or gets out in front on the first turn) the motive to buy everything he lands on and use everybody else's rent payments as funding to keep it up all the way around the board.
It might make for shorter games.

 

[Bohandas]

My first thought was Yahtzee with 5d8, although you'd need to make your own score cards, since you'd now have to account for 7s and 8s at the top half of the sheet. And it would be more difficult getting a full house, 3 of a kind, and 4 of a kind (not to mention a Yahtzee) when there are now 8 options for each die to land on. Of course, you could go the other way and use 5d4, but that would make a large straight impossible (unless you decided a large straight was four in a row and went to 3 in a row for a small straight).

or if it wrapped around (ie. 12341, 23412. 34123, and 41234)

EDIT:Nevermind, that's effectively the same thing, isn't it?

 

[Deset Gled]

I see using d4s in Monopoly will give whoever goes first (or gets out in front on the first turn) the motive to buy everything he lands on and use everybody else's rent payments as funding to keep it up all the way around the board.
It might make for shorter games.

D4's in Monopoly would really screw with things. It would result in less cash in the game, which would lead to more auctioning and slower building. The red monopoly would go down in value and the railroads would go up. Could be fun.

How about Catan with a d12? That will change up the resources and planning quite a bit.

 

[Eltab]

I see using d4s in Monopoly will give whoever goes first (or gets out in front on the first turn) the motive to buy everything he lands on and use everybody else's rent payments as funding to keep it up all the way around the board.

I see the quote. Were you looking for the Reply button?

 

[Deset Gled]

I see the quote. Were you looking for the Reply button?

Might be a spam bot. I've seen this before where they copy other people's posts to try and appear real before they post links.

 

[Eltab]

Might be a spam bot. I've seen this before where they copy other people's posts to try and appear real before they post links.

I ... think I'm flattered? That I was found to be quotable.