Dragon Dice (1997)

Date Reviewed: 9-25-02

Critical Kobold Rating:  (3 out of 5 Dice)

 

Dice, Dice, Baby!

5/13/2005  NOTE: The review below originally stated that the game Dragon Dice was no longer being produced after the product line was axed by Wizards of the Coast. However, this kobold was later contacted by SFR, Inc., the company who has purchased the rights to the game from WotC. SFR, Inc. has now made Dragon Dice available again! Check out their website at www.DragonDice.com for all the info!

Overview:

     This game is a dice-chuckers fantasy come true!  This game is about dice. Just… dice. Everything is done by tossing handfuls of the little plastic markers all about the tabletop. Melee, ranged attacks, defending, moving, spellcasting, using special abilities… they all involve dice. Dice, dice, dice!

     Each player brings a set of Dragon Dice to the game. Your scads of six-siders are your armies, with different colored dice representing various races of creatures (such as goblins, elves, dwarves, amazons, etc). Your d6’s come in three sizes, with larger dice having more Health (hit points) than smaller ones. Players decide before the game how large a battle they want to fight by determining how many total Health Points their armies will have. Players then create a force using whatever dice they wish whose Health equals that number. This way, one player may design an army of many small dice, while his opponent may design an army with fewer, but larger (and therefore more powerful) dice.

     Instead of pips or numbers, the die faces have symbols on them. Each die has an Icon on one face. The Icon is a picture of the creature that the die represents, and it also indicates what Unit that particular creature belongs to. Units may be such things as soldiers, spies, archers, mages, cavalry, etc. You can mix and match unit dice to suit your whims. The difference between units is that soldiers will have more faces with melee strikes on them, mages will have more faces with spells on them, cavalry will have more Movement faces… you get the idea.

     The remaining die faces have symbols standing for combat or magical strikes, defensive blocks, movement rates, or perhaps special abilities. A die face may have one or several images on it; multiple symbols mean multiple successes. Larger dice have more images per face as well as more Health. Any action your army wishes to take during your turn is done by rolling all the dice in your army. (A substantially large army may have gloriously thunderous sound effects accompanying any action!) Any symbols that support your current action are added up, and your success is determined by how many appropriate symbols you rolled.

     For example: If Kris wants to melee attack Jeff’s elves with her vast undead legions, she rolls all her six-siders. She then adds up every dice face that shows the “Melee Hit” symbol, and because she's attacking, she ignores any other rolls showing any other symbol besides melee hits. Her total rolled melee hits is the amount of damage she inflicts on Jeff’s army.

     All of Jeff's embattled forces then roll as well, and any "Blocks" are totaled for his rolls. These blocks cancel hits from Kris' army on a one-for-one basis. Jeff also ignores any die face that is a symbol other then a block.

     A turn is broken up into simple “phases”, such as movement, attack, and reinforcement phases. The goal (aside from crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women) is to conquer two Terrains to win the game. Terrains are represented by eight-sided dice. The color of the die indicates what type of terrain it is (coastland, flatland, highland, or swampland). The numbers 1-8 represent distance; when your army occupies a terrain and the d8 is set at a long distance (1-4), only magic or missile weapons are useable. At closer distances (5-8), melee and special abilities are options. All armies occupy a terrain; if your army controls the terrain it’s in, it may change the 8-sided die face to make the distance longer or shorter for future battles.

    The advantage to this is that some races are better suited for certain distances. Elves like missiles, and will probably keep the distance long to pick off approaching invaders with missile fire. The type of terrain also affects your army; Amazons use chariots to zip around, and therefore prefer flatlands so they can best use their Movement dice.

     There are other dice involved (yaaaaaaay!). Monsters are represented by d10 dice, and the fearsome dragons are d12’s. There was also an expansion set released, entitled Magestorm!, which introduces magic items and artifacts into game play, represented by d4’s.

     As a final note, I will point out that Dragon Dice is a collectible dice game. This means that like the plethora of ccg’s out there, Dragon Dice come in sets with random assortments of dice of varying rarity. Small dice are common, medium are uncommon, and large dice are rare. Collecting an entire set may be a matter of trading, winning, or buying buttloads of the booster packs.

The GOOD:

     Dragon Dice is just freakin’ fun! For those of us addicted in some sick, demented way to amassing dice, this is the Holy Grail of entertainment. Scooping up handfuls of multicolored dice and hurling them down again for an hour makes for a gleeful, if bizarre, past time. The basic rules of play are simple, and it’s merely a matter of rolling and counting to resolve any action. As simplistic as that sounds, the nuances of the races (strengths, abilities, weaknesses) and the effects of terrain make the use of strategy and tactics a vital consideration for worthy generals.

The NEUTRAL:

     If there are multiple gamers, and/or large armies involved, the play area gets a mite crowded. Rolling so many dice so often obviously generates many opportunities to accidentally mingle or lose dice, or rambunctiously scatter your adversaries’ dice (“Whoops! So sorry about your dwarves!… heh heh!”).  I suggest having a separate rolling surface for bigger battles, perhaps a shoebox lid or some such thing.

     Also, the magic system is a slower game mechanic than the rest of the system. When using magic, players roll for magic successes, then they may use their magic points rolled to “buy” spells from a list. The spells have many effects on game play, but it’s sometimes bothersome to keep track of which spells are affecting whom and for how long. You may honestly need to write sticky notes and place them on armies to track magic effects. (There's an accessory, the Dragon Dice Shield, which provides little cards with the spells on them, so the cards may be stuck with the army the spell is affecting, so that helps. But of course, you need to purchase this accessory separately.) Terrain also affects which schools of magic can be used while occupying that area.

     The magic may be exciting in shorter games, but still, it slows game play considerably more than any other aspect of the mechanics. When I play, I don’t use the magic rules as written, and the game flies along much more quickly… but those of you who want more of a tactical tabletop game approach will appreciate their inclusion.

The EVIL:

     As much as I like the game, I’d be a duergar’s uncle if I didn’t mention some distracting issues. Firstly, it’s often very difficult to tell what Icon you’re looking at. Is that Firewalker die that I just rolled a Nightsbane or a Shadowchaser unit?

     Not easy to tell when they’re just little faces cut into a plastic die. Especially when you’re rolling 12 of them.

     And while the dice are of three different sizes to represent power levels, it's sometimes hard to notice the size difference in a large pool of dice. A player may accidentally remove a medium die to represent casualties taken, when they really meant to remove only a small die. Doing this too often will seriously cripple your forces.

     While the original set contained four races, the expansions brought this to easily a dozen races, last I counted. (Not including dragons, promo dice, or magic items from Magestorm!.) Trying to keep up with what symbols mean what on every army’s dice is nigh on impossible unless one plays constantly. You’ll need a reference sheet handy to resort to often, if you play with mixed armies.

     Overall, I recommend Dragon Dice as an enjoyable time-waster once in a while. The mix of strategy and blind luck of the dice make for an unpredictable game session, and the ability to manage the size, and therefore duration, of the game is a bonus. Designing armies using the infinite combinations available can be a hobby in and of itself.

     Plus, they’re so damn cute!

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