Skip to Content
 

A weird idea for replacing dice

11 replies [Last post]
X3M
X3M's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/28/2013

Tell me if I am on to something, or am doing something entirely ridiculous. ;)

For a lot of RPG fans, this could be a new approach.

Some games have altered modifiers to the dice. Other games replace D4 or D6 with a higher tier like D8 or beyond. Bottom line is, when your character gets stronger, it will have alterations one way or another.
Each way has it's own positive or negative effects on the game or game design.

But what if, each player has a black bag with little flattened marble's in them? And each marble has a number written on it. Going from 1 (or 0) to 15 or whatever.
Let's say to mimic D6 we have 6 marbles with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
When grabbing a marble, we mimic 1D6.

The good part is, our character might become stronger. And we simply want to go from D6 to D7. With adding a marble with number 7, we can do so.

Well, I am sure some have had this idea before.

The good part is, we can now easily create chances like something out of 7, 11 or 13 or any prime number.

Your thoughts on this?

Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
sounds fun

Sounds fun enough. You could do a crap load with this. But again, while in combat would you rather roll a quick die or scramble through a bag? If you somehow made it fast and fun. Possibly still using dice just to make it fast. i.e. pick a marble, value is two. Roll the dice and you add that many to the dice. Maybe even this is overcomplicating it and falling away from the original design.

I don't think it would be fiddly though. For the most part anyway. But combat would need to be interesting and engaging.

Dralius
Dralius's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/26/2008
I can see this working well

I can see this working well for players if there is only one die your emulating. If You have to have a bag for attacks, one for saving throws, one for skill checks, etc... that would be alot of bags.

X3M
X3M's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/28/2013
Well, one bag or 2 for each

Well, one bag or 2 for each player. (Attack and Defence)

Perhaps custom events in it as well. Something to earn, then put it in the bag. And perhaps you can get it out by chance and use it.

When I think about bags with marbles, it occurred to me that the table can remain relatively clean. All you need is a box with drawers for the marbles that are not used.

Now a brainstorm for a game:

Hmmm, this calls for hats. Wizard hats. Each player has one. The story is; player is an inexperienced mage.
Going through some sort of dungeon. A monster! Time to do some magic! So the player picks a marble. Some marble's do damage, perhaps you may pick 2 or 3 marbles. Choose the one(s) you want to use and put all back, or some, if allowed.

It would be fun to have your hat filled with a lot of different coloured dice. I think it would look fun too.
Of course, gathering a certain mana colour will make you stronger in a certain way. Each player could be having its own task.

Of course this game can be done with cards. But it allows for a funnier approach. And a hat with 20 marbles is better than a hand with 20 cards.
Cards have to be shuffled as well, while a hat makes this easier.

Of course, now I got a list of questions.
- What would be a nice maximum amount of marbles in a hat?
- How to do the dungeon, or other terrain? (I think squared fields and players walk 1 at a time. Unexplored terrain will be laid down when needed)
- Mana that can do something and mana that will make that something stronger.
- Summoning creatures?

Where players could specialize in?
- Red = Blood Mage
- Orange = Fire Mage
- Yellow = Wind Mage
- Green = Nature Mage
- Blue = Water Mage
- Purple = Omni??? Mage (specialized to have a bit of everything, don't know a name for it)
- Brown = Earth Mage
- White = Priest Mage
- Black = Demon Mage

I think it would resemble MtG a bit in certain area's. But the player would be in the field instead of behind a pile of cards.

JewellGames
JewellGames's picture
Offline
Joined: 06/03/2012
Ideas

I think this could work. I have had a similar idea but with chips in bags.

firstcultural
Offline
Joined: 09/11/2014
A bag with different marbles,

A bag with different marbles, perhaps some black and some white, and maybe a couple red ones, with different outcomes based on colors drawn, would add a lot of atmosphere to the game. It reminds me of many a fairytale where the main character faces such a test. It's more time consuming than dice, so save it for a few crucial actions.

X3M
X3M's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/28/2013
A one time grab for each

A one time grab for each round is what you need.

When you level up, you may take 2 or 3 marbles. Discard 1 or 2. Eventually, you can combine marbles.

Let's say one marble says fire storm. It does 1 damage.
But if you add 1 air and 1 fire marble, the damage could go up to 6 (thats +2 and +3).

If the magic user does not have these marbles amongst the 3 that he/she picks.
The magic user has a choice, using the fire storm marble, or put it back in the bag and hoping that next time he/she grabs the required marbles to boost the damage.
Once used though, the marble goes to the graveyard. That is why the players have to choose wheter or not to use.
There will also be magic that they can grab things out of the graveyard.

Thus I have 2 kind of marbles.
1 - Marbles with an effect.
2 - Marbles that can give a boost to the effect.

Yeah, I think I am going to work this out some more.

What about facing monsters? Should I do some RPS effect on them?

devaloki
devaloki's picture
Offline
Joined: 01/15/2014
X3M wrote:Tell me if I am on

X3M wrote:
Tell me if I am on to something, or am doing something entirely ridiculous. ;)

For a lot of RPG fans, this could be a new approach.

Some games have altered modifiers to the dice. Other games replace D4 or D6 with a higher tier like D8 or beyond. Bottom line is, when your character gets stronger, it will have alterations one way or another.
Each way has it's own positive or negative effects on the game or game design.

But what if, each player has a black bag with little flattened marble's in them? And each marble has a number written on it. Going from 1 (or 0) to 15 or whatever.
Let's say to mimic D6 we have 6 marbles with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6.
When grabbing a marble, we mimic 1D6.

The good part is, our character might become stronger. And we simply want to go from D6 to D7. With adding a marble with number 7, we can do so.

Well, I am sure some have had this idea before.

The good part is, we can now easily create chances like something out of 7, 11 or 13 or any prime number.

Your thoughts on this?

It's almost like a form of deck building. I really like this idea.

devaloki
devaloki's picture
Offline
Joined: 01/15/2014
Also, I've seen this bag

Also, I've seen this bag mechanic done for another game called "Serpent's tongue" where it was used to control the AI of enemies

X3M
X3M's picture
Offline
Joined: 10/28/2013
Thanks, going to check that

Thanks, going to check that out.

Tbone
Tbone's picture
Offline
Joined: 02/18/2013
thought.

You could even skip the bag and have almost like a bowl or cup type deal. Of cours you would have to close your eyes but it would be a lot easier than rummaging through a bag. You could even have multiple and it wouldn't be an issue. Or just role them on the the board like yahtzee and the ones that land on the right side get the bonus. Maybe both sides of the marble/chip have a bonus but one is better than the other. I'm very intrigued by this idea, I hope you find it useful in one of your games.

larienna
larienna's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/28/2008
Personally, I don't see any

Personally, I don't see any problem in using incrementation of even values like d4, 6, 8, 10 and 12.

If you want odd value, there are some 5 and 7 sided dices. They might be hard to find but possible.

If you are going for the bag, why not use a customizable chip set a bit like "puzzle fighter" (Or a similar name) that was a deck building fighting game with chips instead of cards.

You could mix up attack and defense chips together, or give double functions to each chips (Defense on one side, attack on the other)

Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut