A couple of ideas collided while I was in the shower and produced what I think would be an interesting game, or at least the core of one. Before I fancy it up, though, I want to make sure I'm not putting jewelry on a pig. That's why I decided to run it past you folks.
The theme is battling monsters, similar to Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh. It's played with special dice, which have three sides one color, two a second, and one a third (though for playtesting I can use a mat that assigns the numbers to colors). There are four colors from which a die can choose its three, giving a total of 24 battle monsters. Each player has four identical dice representing his monster. (Monster choice comes in at a higher level than I'm currently considering, but obviously some will be stronger against others in a complex rock-paper-scissors relationship; there's also the possibility of teams, tournament structure, and the like.)
To play, the two players decide who will go first however they like, then both roll all their dice. The attacker picks some number of his dice that show the same color; that color (say, blue) and the number of dice (say, two) are his attack. (He need not choose all the dice of that color if he wishes.) The defender then picks some number of his dice that are the same color. He need not (and in some cases may not) choose any dice, and he may not choose more dice than the attacker did. The defender's monster takes damage according to the difference in the number of dice chosen (three attacking versus one defending means two 'damage points'), all the dice chosen are re-rolled, and the players switch roles. Play continues until one monster takes a certain amount of damage, at which point it is defeated.
My question is, would this be an interesting game to play? I'm trying to set up a program to analyze the effectiveness of different strategies (always do as much damage as you can and prevent as much as you can; save up for an attack of four dice in your most common color; save dice in your attacker's most common color to use as defense...), to make sure there's no One Great Strategy (making the game uninteresting to play), but it's taking me a while. Maybe someone else has already done some work in that field and can share his results. More to the point, does anyone besides me think this would be fun to play? Would you add other elements to the basic battling, or alter any of the core concepts? At the moment, I'm still in the 'brainstorm' stage, so anything you can toss out helps.
Deviant: All four dice are one big monster. Damage doesn't affect the dice, but is instead tracked on a counter. I'm inspired in this by the Japanese pokemon battle dice game, which uses zap dice-- I don't know what FOR, as I don't read Japanese, but it appears to involve not only rolling the dice, but rolling a pokemon-shaped cube (cube-shaped pokemon?) and consulting a chart to determine what attacks you can perform.
As for strategies, they consist, at the moment, of things like 'always do as much damage as you can', 'save dice in your opponent's best color for defense', 'roll dice that aren't your best color until you can make a four-point attack', 'attack against your opponent's best showing color to convince him to roll them and break up the group', and the like.
How one monster is stronger than another? That's in the colors. A monster whose dice are RRRGGB will have a distinct advantage over one whose dice are GGGBBY; it has some defense against all of the latter monster's attacks (except the yellow one, which will tend to be weak), while having a strong attack (in red) that can't be blocked. On the other hand, RRRGGB and RRRGGY will be a very even fight, while RRRGGB and YYYBBG will lead to a mutual pummel-fest as neither can defend well against the other's best attacks.
DarkDream: A simple example is this. I have a monster with RRRGGB on its dice; my opponent has YYYBBG. We flip a coin and I get first turn, so we roll our dice. I get three reds and a green; he gets a yellow and three blues (an odd result for him). I want to hit him hard, so I choose my reds; he doesn't have any reds to block with, so he takes three points of damage. I also reroll my red dice, getting a red, a green, and a blue (in addition to the green I already had). He doesn't roll any dice, but it's now his turn. I couldn't block the yellow, but he decides to use all three of his blues; I have one blue I can block with, so I do. I take two points of damage and reroll my blue, getting another blue; he, on the other hand, gets a yellow and two greens (lucky!). Now I have a red, two greens, and a blue, while he has two yellows and two greens. It isn't looking good for me; I can do, at most, one point of damage to him next round, and he can do two unblockable points of damage back...
stumps: The point of rerolling the dice is that you're probably not going to get the same colors you had before, so you can't just make the same strong attack again and again. (You can also choose to make weak attacks to reroll dice not in your best color until all your dice match, or not make a defense in order to save dice you plan to use in a big attack next turn.)
All: I've considered having special symbols on the dice. The Japanese game does this, having some dice with multiple symbols on a side (in my version, that'd be a side with two colors, or even one that counts double). Since that appears to be a popular suggestion, though, I'll consider it. (Maybe a symbol that can only be used for defense, but is a wild card in that respect, making a monster a strong defender... or contrariwise for a strong but somewhat fragile monster. Any other suggestions?)