Dices in board games - Which games did it right/wrong?

[Tex]

So dices in board games can be a bit of a hit or miss, at least in my book. In some games it works very well, and it others, I truly hate their presence.
Games where I enjoy dices, are games that work around them in a way, as well as stays fairly short to medium in length & complexity.. The dices can be upgraded, manipulated (f.ex with cards) and other tricks.
For heavy and complex games it's more of a slippery slope.

I like how dices work in Valor and Villainy, Imperial Assault for example.

Valor & Villainy: Minions of Mordak (2020)

0.00 star(s)

• Designers: James Van Niekerk

I dislike how dices work in Risk, Monopoly for example.
Not really a big fan of dices in ROOT either. Sure, you have ways to adjust them, but the factions are so incredibly asymmetric that I would have loved to see a unique combat deck similar to in A Game of Thrones Board Game.

 

[Ja sa bong]

I think King of Tokyo is fun, with lots of different dices. You'll have a dice pool with values for attack, health and points.

In Merchants & Marauders it also works well with lots of cards, items and other things to manipulate the values.

 

[Oni]

I haven't played this game yet, but "Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria" did dice right: high value rolls are stronger, but lower values give great discounts for purchasing stuff. So it's a win win situation. All your dice can be put in good use.

 

[Tex]

I haven't played this game yet, but "Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria" did dice right: high value rolls are stronger, but lower values give great discounts for purchasing stuff. So it's a win win situation. All your dice can be put in good use.

(Haven't heard about the game, so had to look it up. Looks cool!)

This is definitely a nice implementation. No roll is wasted! Can you buy and combat (so using any die result) in the same "phase"? I suppose you will sometimes wish for higher or lower rolls depending on if you primarily want to combat/buy?

 

[Oni]

(Haven't heard about the game, so had to look it up. Looks cool!)

This is definitely a nice implementation. No roll is wasted! Can you buy and combat (so using any die result) in the same "phase"? I suppose you will sometimes wish for higher or lower rolls depending on if you primarily want to combat/buy?

The game is an action selection game.

You place a worker, you get a die and you perform a buy action with the discount (a 6 die has 0 discount, a 1 die has 5 discount).

Once you have a group of dice in your base, you can use the worker to use them in battle where you want high values.

So yes, the dice must be used in different phases, but the interesting aspect is that you end up using the same dice in both phases (first buy, then fight).

 

[Tex]

The game is an action selection game.

You place a worker, you get a die and you perform a buy action with the discount (a 6 die has 0 discount, a 1 die has 5 discount).

Once you have a group of dice in your base, you can use the worker to use them in battle where you want high values.

So yes, the dice must be used in different phases, but the interesting aspect is that you end up using the same dice in both phases (first buy, then fight).

Yeah that sounds pretty good. Thanks for detailing it for me

Image for those wondering about these mentioned dices: