Dice Pie (vers.1.0)

I left setup-cards out. Player_1 chooses cursed color and writes it down. Player_2 decide what's the lucky number ( usually 6 or 5, sometimes 4 ) and writes it down. Luck and curse is applied to player_1 and player_2 in the end.

The results of a test were depending on splitter's courage, good or unsatisfactory. If both players split cautiously, the results tend to form almost same numbers most of the counts. With a cautious split I mean for example 2 4, 1 1 6 (non cautious 1 1 2, 4 6). If splitting is done boldly, it's possible to guess opponent's hidden information.

Sorry I did not follow the rules vers 1.0 !

- regzr

Latest version sounds good to me. Tactical set-up is obvious. Rules are easy to comprehend.

There's one sentence in the rules that worry me.
"he cannot put one color in both groups"
Can it happen that five or even six dice are the same color?

Another worry is only a slight adjustment. Usually players expect rare luck during play, but also something to fear. What's the scary fate in this game?

This mechanism, split and choose, even prompted me to sketch a variant of your game.
Image http://www.bgdf.com/node/7086

-regzr

Ok, please bear in mind that I’m not entirely sure how this game fully works. I couldnt fathom what the number and colour cards actually did in the game. So this will be my proposal for how the components could be used to create a game with a similar flavour.

First off I would scrap the 4 set up cards and then I would scrap 4 of the colour variations for the dice along with 12 of the dice.

Components

12 black dice and 12 white dice

6 black cards featuring the numbers 1-6
6 white cards featuring the numbers 1-6

Gameplay

The 12 cards are shuffled together.

The black cards with even numbers are curse cards and the black cards with odd numbers are lucky cards. Conversely, the white cards with even numbers are lucky cards and the white cards with odd numbers are curse cards.

Round starts

Player 2 pulls 6 random dice out of the bag and rolls them. After rolling the dice player 2 has the option to re-roll any one dice or return any one dice to the bag - drawing a new dice from the bag and rolling that to add to the active dice pool.

Player 1 picks a card.
Player 2 picks a card.

Player 1 has the option to switch the card they just drew with any card in Player 2’s hand – unseen of course.

Player 1 chooses a dice for group A or B
Player 2 chooses a dice for group A or B

Repeat until two groups of 3 dice have been formed.

Player 1 gets to choose which of the two dice groups they will keep. The dice group that they choose not to keep will go to Player 2 by default.

However, if Player 1 chose to switch cards earlier in the round (and player 2 didn’t re-roll a dice when they had the opportunity to do so) then Player 2 is given the option to switch one dice from their group with one of the ‘kept’ group that now belongs to player 1.

By the end of the game each player will have 6 cards containing a potential mixture of curses and lucks. This will stretch the curse/luck element out from a single draw to 6 draws which should dampen its effect a bit.

The curses and lucks will also be linked to specific dice results. A player could be holding a black number 2 dice (even = curse) but it would have no effect if they didn’t have the black number 2 card.

More importantly, as the game goes on both players will gain information about what cards the other player has drawn.

The players will know what cards are in the curse/luck pool and what cards are in their hand. Through a process of elimination this will give them an idea about what cards their opponent could be holding.

When all the cards have been taken each player will know exactly what curse/luck cards the other player has – because they will be the cards they don’t have in their hand.

Each player will also have 3 groups of 3 dice and 6 dice will be left in the holding bag.

Why did I reduce the dice from 36 to 18?

If multiple rounds are played and a cumulative score is used then it makes no difference if you have 6 dice rolls in a round or 2 rounds of 3 dice rolls.

Having 6 dice left in the bag at the end of the round will also introduce another hidden element and make the re-roll option more attractive as the players will want the dice that match their cards on the table in groups.

More importantly using 18 dice and leaving 6 in the bag would mean a production expense of 24 dice instead of 36. In conjunction with the card reduction from 16 to 12 this could reduce production costs by a third.

Black and white dice are also more freely available than coloured dice and minimum order quantities could be achieved easier - resulting in economies of scale which might be difficult to secure with multiple coloured dice. Oh and black and white printing is cheaper than coloured printing for the cards.

If I had to add a quick theme to the game I would call it Pies & Dies

The dice would be red and green – representing apples and cherries

To complete a pie would take 6 dice points of the same colour – representing 6 pieces of pie. In order to bake a pie the player must have exactly six spots of the required colour available to them.

They couldnt bake a pie if they had a 2 spot apple die and a 5 spot apple die for example, because this would give a total of 7 spot apples which is 1 spot over the requirement of 6.

When the game reached its conclusion, each player having 9 dice at their disposal from three groupings, the players would divide their dice to bake the most pies.

Any remaining dice would be placed to one side. These remainders wouldn’t count towards the players point total unless they happen to be holding a curse or luck card that matches any of the remaining dice.

If this should happen to be the case then the player would either add or subtract the stipulated points to/from the total they received from the complete pies they made.

So if they happen to have a white number 3 dice and a white 3 card in their hand then they would deduct 3 points from their total.

Err not white, red or green – but you get the idea :)

Other pie combinations could also be possible. All even spot number pies. All odd spot number pies - although these would have to have a spot maximum of 5 or 7 instead of 6. Or even poker pies, 3x2 spots, 2x2 and 2x1 spots, 4x1 and a 2 spot and so on.

In respect to the cards these would simply show pictures of apples and cherries in the required groupings 1 apple for 1, 2 apples for 2 and so on.

The luck numbers would be represented by healthy apples and cherries and the curse numbers would be highlighted with worm riddled apples and cherries.