**Slight Update** Just found out that Devil's Dice is taken... as is Demon Dice.... gonna have to think of a new name =/
Players: 2-4
Materials: 5 smaller six sided "Soul Dice" for each player and 2 bigger six sided "Spell Dice" to share.
In Devil's Dice, you take on the role of an insidious devil who is competing with other devils over the accumulation of human souls (represented by six sided dice).
To start, each player takes their 5 Soul Dice and rolls them. All of these dice are arranged in groups of same numbers (1-6) in the middle of the table. This is Limbo, where souls wander and are easy pickings for devils and the like. Make sure that the total value of these dice is 21 or higher, if not re-roll all of them until there is a total value of 21 or higher in the middle, this is needed for the victory condition.
Each player then rolls the Spell Dice and adds the numbers together to determine who goes first.
On your turn, you roll the two Spell Dice. Each separate die represents a value of soul you can influence. For example, if you rolled a 2 and a 5 on the Spell Dice, you could move one 2 value soul and one 5 value soul out of Limbo and to your control, which you would place in front of you. You may also move souls under your opponent's control to Limbo, so in the above example you could take a 2 value soul from Limbo and have your opponent put his 5 value soul back in Limbo with the same roll.
When you roll doubles, this allows you to influence two souls of the same value, or one soul of the same value twice. For example, if you rolled two 3's on the Spell Dice, you could take two 3 value souls from Limbo, or you could move one 3 value soul from your opponent's control, to Limbo, then to your control.
You do NOT have to move a soul if you do not want to.
You win when you acquire a total value of 21 souls. This is the highest level of power a devil can achieve, so you may not bring your total above 21, it has to be exact.
Here's where things get interesting... the reason why they are called the Spell Dice, is because with them you can cast a wide variety of spells depending on what you rolled, and the values of the souls under your control. Each numeric value (1-6) has its own spell associated with it which will require you to have an exact number of those values between your roll and the souls under your control. We haven't worked out spells for each value yet, but some examples are listed below:
Five 1's: Mirror Image - switch one soul die with any other player, then influence.
Four 3's: Rejuvenate - re-roll all souls you control, then roll the Spell Dice again and influence souls.
Two 4's: Force Bolt - re-roll any one die on the table, if it is a Spell Die you may influence a soul of the new roll.
Three 6's: Armageddon - re-roll ALL dice on table except the Spell Dice, you do not influence this turn.
This adds a bit of excitement to the otherwise mundane task of moving dice around the table. It's even created some awesome wins, like just last night I won a game because someone else cast Armageddon and I re-rolled 21 on my soul dice.
Anyone have ideas on other ways to manipulate the dice with different spells?
There are a few factors that can lead to a longer game, such as having mostly low value souls in Limbo which would require you to gather most of the dice to win... thus creating the tug of war effect you're talking about. We actually increased the number of dice for limbo a couple times before we started seeing a good enough spread to give everyone plenty of options. Also, hopefully with the full list of spells this problem would be eliminated by constant re-rolling and changing of the soul values.
Our games have usually taken 15-20 minutes with three players. Though we've seen both sides of the extreme before: one game that lasted only a few rounds due to amazing spell rolls and one game that ran almost an hour long. From what I've seen with other such luck games, this is bound to happen every now and then. We've had games of Zombie Dice and Martian Dice last an hour before.
As far as the name is concerned, we've been calling this game "Devil's Dice" since Jared, one of our designers, made it four years ago. It didn't have the spell mechanic back then and was more meant to be a bar game between two people that didn't require a lot of attention so they could still socialize. We had never really thought about publishing back then, so we never bothered to check the name. Thinking about Necro Dice, where you play necromancers collecting souls. That way the names and spell mechanic stay relatively close to our original theme.