Saoirse DulipThe other half of today’s Mail Day is a nice set of some new DragonDice. This should round out at least my collection of armies so choices can be made easier.
Steve PowPlayed Dragon Dice (from @sfr_inc ), losing with my Firewalkers to some Coral Elves. First try with them, and definitely know some ways to improve my play for next game. #dragondice #boardgames
A couple of weeks ago, managed to play my first real games of Dragon Dice (from @sfr_inc). My Frostwings handily defeated some Lava Elves. #boardgames #dragondice
William MooreThis rules variant is a way to enhance games of Dragon Dice ®. The rules are intended to be light enough that it does not interfere with the game of Dragon Dice ® itself but provide enjoyment to players. As such, it will be a layer on top of the regular rules. Without boring the reader, the assumption is that players have knowledge of the rules of Dragon Dice ®. Therefore, this document will not go into the gory details. Just what’s being enhanced!
Basic Rules
As mentioned the variant is still Dragon Dice ®. When you construct your initial armies, you can use any die you want. However, your initial construction force size is 24 points. This is what is called your dice pool and is what you draw from to build your force for each game. From here on out, the only way to gain additional dice is through gaining badges.
You Need Some Stinkin’ Badges
Badges are acquired through victory conditions. If a player wins by controlling two eighth faces, they will gain 3 badges. If they win by eliminating the opponent entirely, they gain 6 badges. If a player loses but gains the 8th face, they gain 1 badge. Finally, after the match, a calculation is made by both players to determine how many badges that player gains from attrition.
To do this, first calculate the number of points a player reduced the forces of their opponent by, for example through eliminating a magic item, killing a unit, or burying a unit on their opponent. Next, the player divides that point value by 2. Add this amount to the total badges earned.
So you’ve got badges. What do you do with them? You buy dice. For every 3 badges, you can bring in 1 point of dice into your dice pool. That’s great! How do you handle medium equipment? Simple. They’re worth 2 points for the purposes of the dice pool from which forces are drawn from. For the purposes of force construction, they follow the official rules.
Role-playin’! (a.k.a. The Gathering of Commanders)
Some would think it necessary to include a kind of role-playing element to this variant. I’m one of them! So, how would role-playing work? You take on the role of a general of the army and role play with other generals. This is a bit different than having say levels and whatnot. Your prowess is in the dice you’ve collected. What about character sheets, names, species, and everything else? Feel free to develop all that. Just abide by the rules of the group that you have joined.
There are a number of things that you can do during the role-playing part of the session. You can drink grog. You exchange badges for dice. You may loan or give badges to another player out of the kindness of your own black heart. Finally, you can even trade dice. Pretty much if you think it and it’s allowed by your group, you can go for it.
Outta Dice!?
A player continues playing until they surrender all their forces to someone or all their dice are defeated, thereby forfeiting their rights to be a general. So, what do they do now? Well, they assemble another 24-point force and start from scratch. If you’re role-playing, feel free to consider using the same general. You can even say “I escaped” and come up with a (un)believable tale.
License
Copyright (C) 2023 William Moore
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3
or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;
with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
A copy of the license is found at https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.html
https://caranmegil.com/2024/03/10/dragon-dice-some-campaign-rules/
In Dragon Dice, there is a type of “unit” called Dragonkin. In the game, dragons and dragonkin are summoned. Great! Except, they really should be played as units. This short blog entry describes how I propose changes allowing them to be played as units. This will not discuss the mechanics of the game. Instead, if you want Dragon Dice instruction, see the link earlier.
Building a Force
There is no longer a 1/3 of health worth of Dragonkin that are brought into the summoning pool. Instead, the forces will comprise entirely of Dragonkin units or some combination of Dragonkin and non-Dragonkin dice.
Equipment
Dragonkin may carry equipment. The same rules apply for equipment in force construction and carrying as in the Dragon Dice rules.
Death and Resurrection
When a Dragonkin unit dies, they do go to the graveyard. To bring them back, they use the same one as other species.
Actions
They can do anything that a regular species can, such as cast magic. However, due to the lack of magic icons, they may only generate from IDs. If they want to bring a Dragonkin unit back from the dead, they can!
Special Abilities
These are already stated for dragonkin in the rules. However, it needs to be noted. First, they retain their autosave ability. This means that for every health of dragonkin, a save is provided for every point. Second, the large and champions have breath attacks with damage equal to their total health.
A Few Parting Thoughts
This is in flux and the blog entry will be updated as these rules progress. When this happens, I’ll note an update section.
The elements are calling the citizens of Esfah. However, some are hearing their call differently. They have risen up against their leadership and formed new alliances that cross species to overthrow the current hierarchies. In response, the leadership have formed alliances, or none at all, and are countering the militants who are taking control of the land. Can you, with the aid of other commanders, capture the terrain from the vile militants?
There is this great little game originally from Lester Smith and produced by SFR, Inc. with beautiful dice called “Dragon Dice®”. I appreciate the dice and the concept so much that it seemed fitting for there to be house rules.
The Militants of Esfah rules are a collaborative capture the flag style game and present an alternate way to play the game! Unless stated otherwise, the standard Dragon Dice rules are used.
I truly hope you enjoy them and buy some dice from SFR, Inc. because it’s difficult to play Dragon Dice® with out, well, Dragon Dice®.
Objective
The objective of this game is for the non-shadow players to collect two-thirds (rounded down) of all terrain brought to the table from the shadow player.
Basics
As mentioned earlier, all games follow the standard rules. There will be the standard set up of each player’s own force. Also, each player will construct 1 more force that will serve as template forces. More on this later! Each player will bring 2 terrain dice to the game. A horde roll between the non-shadow players determines the starting terrain.
Each player takes turns as the shadow player. This includes choosing the force that will be encountered. So, if a new terrain is placed on the table, more on this later, the current designated shadow player chooses a terrain not in play and the force encountered there. The current shadow player is designated based on turn order. So, second player in the turn order is shadow player for the first player, third is for the second, and last has the first player as their shadow player.
Once the shadow player is defeated either in combat or the terrain is moved up to the 8th face, add another terrain. If the shadow player still has an army, their army retreats to the new terrain. If a shadow army is defeated, the current shadow player chooses one of the template armies and places it at the new terrain.
In any case, if there are more terrain, move the players to that terrain, as well. The players or shadow player may at any time return to any previous terrain and capture it, so it might be good to leave some units there.
Implemented House Rules
In addtion to the base game rules, there are some house rules developed by Josh Cavalchini.
There are two house rules implemented by Militants of Esfah that are related to turn order and marches. The house rules for first turn, which means on the first turn the person who wins the horde roll may only do one march, are implemented. Additionally, the house rule that is implemented is that all armies must march.
Another set of house rules implemented are the reserves modifier die. You’ll need a separate 6 sided die that is place in the summoning pool area. The first turn after the player has dice in the reserves, place the die next to it with the “1” side up. Every turn after, the die is incremented by 1. All die rolls are modified by the value of that die. For example, if the die is 3, all rolls are modified by 3. Once all dice are removed from the reserves army, the die returns to the summoning pool area.
Next, magic rolls may be performed at any face on the terrain. However, at non-Magic faces, only Reserve magic may be cast.
The final house rules are surround dragonkin. First, dragonkin are now units and are treated as such with all their effects in play. Second, this means they may go to the graveyard, cast magic, and carry equipment. Next, no longer will dragonkin be part of the summoning pool. Finally, bringing back dragonkin are simple. They may be brought back with the elemental spell “Resurrect the Dead”. They may also be brought back by Eldarim ability “Dragonkin Handlers”.
Game Conclusion
Once all armies are defeated or all terrain are captured. The shadow player wins if they are the only surviving army or has captured all terrain. If the players capture at least 2/3 (round down) collectively, they win.
Floating around the world of Esfah are the Eldrymetallum works of the commonly called “Gnomes”. They slaved away using this star born metal and crafted many unique and powerful artifacts and items. One such thing is a simple, purple cube called the King’s Die.
Long ago in a city far, far away there was TSR and they were promoting this promising game called “Dragon Dice”. Part of this promotion, many specially molded dice were made. One of which is the King’s Die. This purple and majectic construct had a flaw that it favored the first 5 species of the game more. Also, people either threw away or hoarded them. Nothing’s wrong with the latter.
So, now that more and more are surfacing again in the world of Esfah (our world, too), there comes the question of what should be their power? Should they be discarded and set aside as relics of the bygone wars?
I say no! Sure, they’re not officially allowed in game play. But, we can, for those lucky enough to possess one (or more) of them, come upon an understanding of rules for the game.
So, here is the meat of what I’m proposing for the purple, marbled plastic cubes: grant one ability of the species allowed on the rolled face.
Here are the rules:
At the beginning of each turn and after the Expire Effects phase, a player may roll the King’s Die and apply one ability of the species shown on the die or one ability of any species of Esfah in the event the TSR shield logo is rolled. If the die is rolled, they must apply this effect and skip any effects of the Eigth Face phase. The effect is applied until the beginning of the next turn.
Nifty!
There is a cost: the King’s Die is now worth 6 points during construction of your force.
I hope that you all enjoy this variant. If you have suggestions and criticisms of it, drop me a line on the Discord! Heck, if the game interests you even in the slightest, check out the Discord.
Lester SmithRacing Thanatos
Slooowly recovering from this intestinal flu bug. Sleeping most of the time. It's taking a toll on my limbic system. Which is to say that inactivity triggers my clinical depression.
Not complainin'; just reportin'.
Meanwhile, the bookmarks continue to do well. The Bookmark Dragon Dice RPG has become a DriveThruRPG Copper Best
https://lestersmith.com/2024/01/racing-thanatos/
#Announcements #BookmarkNoHPRPG #D13RPG #D6xD6RPG #DragonDice #GameDesign #RoleplayingGames
gbtdiceBlack golden metal solid dragon dice are ready for your messiest adventures. 🎲🌟
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We're awfully fond of these copper purple metal solid dragon dice. 😻🥰
👉Grab the set: https://gbtdice.com/products/copper-purple-metal-solid-dragon-dice-set
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