This game includes these rules, 11 dice, and a cup to hold them in. You’ll need a pen and paper to keep score. Two or more can play. The first player is the one who is wearing the finest wool garment, or the one who won the last game.
On your turn, shake the cup, take five dice from it without looking, and roll them. Each one is a field full of grass, clover, and sheep. The greener the dice, the more clover and sheep there are.
The dice have four symbols:
White Sheep – your sheep wander around the field.
Black Sheep – another sheep wandered into your field and ate all the clover! Instantly reroll all rolled Clover dice before setting any aside.
If you rolled Sheep dice but no Clover dice, your turn is over, and you score nothing. Pfft, ewesless.
Clover – your sheep ate some clover. Set one or more of the Clover dice aside. You can choose to stop and score them or keep going and continue your turn.
Whenever you’ve set all Clover dice aside and want to keep going, make a note of how much Clover your sheep ate, and then pick them up. Put one of the dice back in the cup and reroll the others. If you’ve put all five dice back in the cup, stop and score 1 for each Clover your sheep ate. It’s the next player’s turn.
Grass – your sheep ate some grass.
Sheepdog – your sheepdog corralled the sheep. Instantly reroll all rolled Sheep dice.
Play until someone reaches 50 Clover. Then finish the round. Whoever’s sheep ate the most Clover at the end of that round is the winner. If there’s a tie, the leaders (only) play a tiebreaker round.
Comments
Needs more clarity, but
Needs more clarity, but interesting idea.
"Whenever you’ve set aside all Clover dice, make a note of how much Clover you have. Put one of the dice back in the cup and then reroll all the Clover dice. If you’ve put all five dice back in the cup, you must stop and score all Clover you have. It’s the next player’s turn."
This rule needs more clarity. "Reroll all the clover dice." Does that mean, "Reroll all the remaining dice you didn't just put in the cup, according to the normal rules for rolling, above"?
So the game starts with 5, and then if you match them all you're continuing using 4, then, 3, 2, 1?
"Black sheep" means "instantly reroll just the clover dice I just rolled without scoring anything"? Or "reroll clover dice you've put aside"?
If I roll 1 clover and 4 sheep, I'm fine?
You choose which 5 dice you take from the cup, or it's random? (and why is it a cup, and not just a spot on the table? Usually the cup is used to ROLL dice in this sort of game).
Is this playtested? Or is there a probability model for it? I'd think you don't frequently get much past the "I've set aside all my dice" rule before it becomes a very bad bet to roll.
Yes. It’ll be 5,4,3,2,1.I
Yes. It’ll be 5,4,3,2,1.
Sorry, I thought it was implied reroll rolled Clover dice since Sheepdog right below it has same effect but for Sheep (which aren’t set aside). However, I’ve clarified that rolling a Black Sheep forces you to “install reroll Clover dice before setting any aside”.
Yes, if you roll 1 Clover and 4 sheep you’re fine. This is where the strategy of not always setting aside all your “safer” Clover dice comes into play.
Choose any five dice. I’ve changed it to dice pool but similar game comes in a cup but hardly ever use it for roll assistance purposes.
It’s been digitally playtested a bunch. It’s rare to go past 2nd or 3rd wave but not impossible. It all depends on which five dice you originally chose, which die you chose to return after each wave, and of course...luck.
JewellGames wrote:Sorry, I
My general advice on rulebooks is to avoid implying anything :)
Even if it makes sense right now, what if you reorder things later and never think about that part of the change? What if you remove Sheepdog, or change what it does...
And anyway, better to be explicit.
Assuming that people can come
Assuming that people can come to a reasonable choice for their five dice, are they likely to change that choice much, ever, or just stick with it? I'd think (a) I wouldn't have a great idea of which dice I wanted, and (b) if I did, I'd always choose those.
Avoiding the cup as part of your COGS is probably good if you can avoid it. I did a dice game a few years ago and they were pretty pricey and very hard to label.
Your color coding scheme is troublesome. I get the thematic aspect of it, but those dice are really gonna look very similar in practice. Though the part where I always will choose the same five might mitigate that ;)
There is one thing that bugs me...
Shouldn't the TITLE be called: "Rolling in Clovers"...? With an "s" at the end???
"Rolling in Clover" sounds weird and doesn't seem to make sense with the game... You're not trying to get ONE (1) Clover, you're trying to get several Clovers!
questccg wrote:Shouldn't the
"Rolling in Clover" sounds weird and doesn't seem to make sense with the game... You're not trying to get ONE (1) Clover, you're trying to get several Clovers!
"Rolling in Clover" is an expression. "Doing really well".
I'm not sure if clover = $$, or if it's from a literal situation of an animal doing that, but it's an expression :)
Yeah it’s a play on the
Yeah it’s a play on the expression which draws it literal roots from livestock grazing clovers (which they love).
You could always pick the same five every time but are you going to pick the same dice when you’re ahead vs when you’re behind? Isn’t part of playing the game discovering and learning strategies?
I think it’s easy to overcome the coloring issue with a good range of color and possible patterns. Also, the dice can be inspected by the player, each have different symbols and clover distributions.
I see... makes sense
I'm not sure if clover = $$, or if it's from a literal situation of an animal doing that, but it's an expression :)
Ahhh, now I understand. Sorry for my ignorance, but I'm not Irish or Scottish and was not aware of that "expression". Since it's an expression, I guess it's okay to call the game that.
Makes much more sense now. Thank you for clearing that up!
JewellGames wrote:Yeah it’s a
Clover is almost always an uncountable noun, like heather and hay. Definitely more weird to pluralise it in your context. :)
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from...
H.W Longfellow
The Frogs got Home last Week --
Are settled, and at work --
Birds, mostly back --
The Clover warm and thick --
Emily Dickinson
One more....couldn't resist this one! :)
There was an Old Person of Dover,
Who rushed through a field of blue clover;
But some very large Bees stung his nose and his knees,
So he very soon went back to Dover.
Lear
I'm not a huge fan of sticker
I'm not a huge fan of sticker dice, unless you're set up to print the sticker sheets, which maybe you are. Sharpie makes paint pens which are great for drawing on dice, if you go that direction.
3 Words: The Game Crafter
The Game Crafter allow you to order blank indented dice and create stickers for them too... So maybe that's @Gregg's plan... IDK — it's a possibility.
BTW @Jason I'm glad you've decided to stick around BGDF and participate... Many people just come on to advertise their Kickstarter or stick around during the 30 days trying to get more backers or market their game some more (and then they disappear/fall off the face of this earth...) LOL
I'm sure everyone really appreciates your opinion on the many topics you've participated on...
And of course, the other designers contribute too, by commenting on your previews for H&T (which seem to be progressing steadily).
Cheers!
Jay103 wrote:I'm not a huge
Yeah that was just and example for prototypes. I was merely showcasing that the green colors can be discerned even with the limited indented dice choices. Imagine having access to any custom color base and ink.
I had an idea — with all this talk about dice
@Gregg: here's my idea. Maybe you could implement it or not... It's just an idea that I had while starring at the image with all the dice colors.
So my idea is something like this:
Instead of being "random" you select five (5) dice of your choosing. Each dice has a specific amount of "pool" points.
Based on the number of "pool" points the player chooses, the opponent gets to choose a certain amount dice matching the "pool" points (or less).
The goal of the opposing dice is to "include" players in the opponent's turn. Otherwise it's more of a "wait-until-its-your-turn"... Which can be boring for the other players.
That roll affects the what happens on that turn.
Example #1: if you roll the "Wolf" dice (and get a wolf), all the Sheep get eaten and you earn -2 VP for each one. With odds such as 1 in 6 (17% chance) Add multiple dice to increase the odds.
Example #2: if you roll a "Goat" dice, all the grass gets eaten up, none left for the sheep, earn -1 VP for each Sheep you rolled. Imagine different odds for the "Goat", like 2 out of 6 (33% chance).
Example #3: if you roll the "Leprechaun" dice, one Clover gets stolen. For each "Leprechaun", steal one Clover. Imagine 3 out of 6 (50% chance) of it happening.
Just ADD some other effects that can allow you to include the other players. Maybe co-op with the opposing players deciding what dice to use and how to use their "pool" points.
Anyway just some ideas — for including other players in the turn. Makes for deeper strategy too...
Cheers!
Note: By allowing the player to "choose" his dice, it contributes to the "pool" points and therefore there is an additional level of Push-Your-Luck. The more "pool" points the opponents have to use, the harder it becomes to earn Clover points by simply rolling the dice.
The higher the rewards, the higher the risk of losing points and falling into a negative count for that roll. This allows a "catch-up" mechanic too where the leading player may not win because of the "negative" scoring that is possible using some of those "opposing" dice.
Just another quick comment
I had other ideas ... but I don't want to mess with your design.
Like for example, you say the "Sheep" eat the Clover. So one idea was that you needed to match pairs of dice (Sheep + Clover) to score points.
Another idea was that there would be type of dice: sheep (white), grass (light green) 1 point value and clover (dark green) with 2 - 4 point value (based on leafs). And you had to choose what dice to roll in one turn to try to score a certain amount of points (given 5 or 6 dice). The better the odds, the more "pool" points for your opponent and the chance to "steal" points (with the Wolf) or lose points (with the Goat), etc,
But they're just ideas... I don't know if they would work in practice and you already have a design for PYL.
JewellGames wrote:Jay103
Yeah that was just and example for prototypes. I was merely showcasing that the green colors can be discerned even with the limited indented dice choices. Imagine having access to any custom color base and ink.
Warning #2, though a small one: If you're not choosing a stock color, even for dice with custom printing, they're going to charge you extra. Maybe it's just a $60 color matching charge (what I'm paying for a 22mm grey die, but I REALLY WANT THAT DIE), or maybe it's a bit more per die.
questccg wrote:I had other
[ a lot of other stuff ]
Like for example, you say the "Sheep" eat the Clover. So one idea was that you needed to match pairs of dice (Sheep + Clover) to score points.
You're spec'ing a completely different game, you realize :)
Held my tongue
That's why I didn't write a detailed response... Just a quick overview of what came to mind. Based on what I read in the OP and the discussions that followed...
It happens that sometimes when other designers "Say things" about their idea, that I can sometimes go on a tangent. So I'm not going to do that, and just stated "briefly" what came to mind (re-reading the OP).
I'm going to take all the
I'm going to take all the feedback you gave me and see what I can do. I''ll test some of the mechanics.
Something as simple as giving the opposing players the black sheep die (which forces you to reroll clover dice) could work.