It's been a while since I posted here but I am back with a new game and a new question.
My latest creation is a space mining game where you roll the dice (2d6) to mine a claim and get the resource according to what the claim lists for that number.
Example:
Mars IV (Zone 1)
2,3,4,5 Iron
6,8 Aluminum
9 Silver
10 Platinum
11,12 Wolfram
In playtesting I found that players liked rolling their own dice to mine (as players had a sense of ownership over their rolls). However, it introduced (in my opinion) an uncomfortable amount of luck.
The other option is to have a set die roll for everyone. It would reduce the luck factor by a lot, and make the game go a little faster, but players would lose a sense of ownership (and perhaps fun).
I'm leaning toward the latter, as the game as-is is rather complex in its decision making and would appeal more to a hardcore gamer.
Does anyone else have experience with this sort of trade-off?
If it's more fun for each player to take a turn rolling, then make it part of your game. A single roll each round to determine the economic performance of the entire game is about as exciting as a weather report, unless you are making Settlers of Catan.
Of course, it takes more time for every single player to roll and figure out what exactly the consequences are.
Maybe you can attach the single dice roll to a player's role. Each turn, players choose different roles (like in Citadels or Puerto Rico) and one of the roles gives the player the ability to roll the dice (and maybe the privilege of choosing whether or not to re-roll).
I was afraid you were going to say that. Better to keep all the fun you can.
The way I am adding value to less valuable materials is to make them more ubuquitously required for crafting devices and building buildings (in the expansion). As is, more rare materials give bonuses to your miner which tends toward an unchecked system of growth.
Players are also allowed to rig the market on one particular resource per turn. If that player has more resources of any one type than any other player that player can rig the market on that resource. As is, rigging the market doubles the price of the resource that turn. I could make it so that for lower value materials rigging the market gives more.
This was my first playtest and not all of the rules were solidified. One major problem was that players started with too little money, which severely limited their options. Any resource that gave a significant amount of money was a godsend.