Anyone ever played it?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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There was one year that I seriously collected the little things. I spent way more than I should have, and ended up with, oh, three large tackle-boxes full of them.
That, as it turns out, was nothing. At Gen-Con that year, I saw several DD afficianados wheeling entire toolchests full of dice.
And it turns out that an army full of 1-point mountain dwarves still beats anything else.
To my circle of friends, the game was never ... quite ... fun. A new race or the Magestorm expansion would come out and it still wouldn't be quite fun. Eventually, we designed our own game, baed on a map with territories that had monsters you defeated for treasure, with which you could improve your own troops or buy mercenaries. We called it "Esfah, a Fun Game to Play with Dragon Dice".
I bought about two hundred dollars' worth of dice when they first came out (back when I was getting a $5 a week allowance, that was a BIG commitment), and, to this day, I've played an actual game, following the actual rules, ONCE. The rules were far too complicated for my brother and I to understand, so we just took turns rolling the entire set to see who could get more attack icons. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I gave myself an ultimatum: Play at least one single game following the actual rules, or get rid of the dice. So I spent a few days reading all of the various rulebooks I had amassed, and convinced two of my friends to play it with me. We played one game.
Now, a couple years later, I was describing the game to a new friend of mine, and he loved the idea of it. But upon trying to find an updated set of the rules, the latest (user-compiled) rulebook is like A HUNDRED PAGES or something like that. And it doesn't help that even after reading the rules, I still don't know how a session is supposed to go, and I don't know what units are good and what aren't. I would love to have a local Dragon Dice group or something (and apparently there used to be one right by where I used to live, several states away from where I am now, and I just never realized it!) but I've got no such luck.
Anyone know if there's, like, a list of rare or useful units? I don't even know the first thing about strategy when it comes to this game.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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UltimaGabe,
The problem with coming up with clever strategies with various different forces, and using giant 3-point dice and big monsters, is that 1-point dice have two major advantages in the game:
1) There are a lot of them. That means that, when they roll, they get closer to a statistical average of results, more often than not. For example, let's say your army is fighting against mine in melee range. You have some big 3-point dice, and I have a lot of little popcorn. Now, you get some special effects when you roll certain faces, and you do 4-points worth of damage when you land a damage-dealing blow. But you don't land that blow all the time. Meanwhile, I've got lots of piddly little dudes, and if half their faces do damage, then I can count on (number of dice)/2 points of damage, consistently. Likewise, you get four saves per die, if you happen to roll saves. Meanwhile, I'm rolling an average number of saves, almost every time.
Sooner rather than later, your luck will run out: you won't do much damage, or you won't roll many saves, or you won't roll maneuvers when you need to.
2) They're super cheap to resurrect. One of the keys to a Dragon Dice fight is outlasting the opponent. And that's easy, when your spellcasters can bring one or two of your dudes out of the graveyard every turn. Once a big 3-point or 4-point monster dies, it's pretty much out of the fight.
I'm not sure what quality of the dwarf dice was so superior. Doubling maneuvers is cool. Gold magic is helpful. But other races get col stuff, too. In any case, the top four contestants in the Dragon Dice tourney all had all-dwarf armies.
I'm thinking that for all of you, that experience was under the old rules. If you didn't know, SFR brought the game from TSR/WotC/Hasbro 11 years ago. SFR was founded by a bunch of Dragon Dice players. It's still running, and still making new dice for the game. But more importantly, SFR completely rewrote the rules to fix the game play. All-common armies for example are a thing of the past. They still can be played, but they just can't stand up to other army combinations. If you are interested, go to www.sfr-inc.com and see what's there.
There was one year that I seriously collected the little things. I spent way more than I should have, and ended up with, oh, three large tackle-boxes full of them.
That, as it turns out, was nothing. At Gen-Con that year, I saw several DD afficianados wheeling entire toolchests full of dice.
And it turns out that an army full of 1-point mountain dwarves still beats anything else.
To my circle of friends, the game was never ... quite ... fun. A new race or the Magestorm expansion would come out and it still wouldn't be quite fun. Eventually, we designed our own game, baed on a map with territories that had monsters you defeated for treasure, with which you could improve your own troops or buy mercenaries. We called it "Esfah, a Fun Game to Play with Dragon Dice".
At the Kingmaker game I ran this weekend, we were JUST discussing Dragon Dice!! I had a smallish set, we all played and had a great time. However, we all lost our dice over the years, and to this day I have a hard time remembering any of the rules or even, embarrasingly enough, how we all had so much fun with it, considering that the bolded part was quite painfully true. I would love to get into it again, provided the dice being sold for it weren't too expensive.
I'm thinking that for all of you, that experience was under the old rules. If you didn't know, SFR brought the game from TSR/WotC/Hasbro 11 years ago. SFR was founded by a bunch of Dragon Dice players. It's still running, and still making new dice for the game. But more importantly, SFR completely rewrote the rules to fix the game play. All-common armies for example are a thing of the past. They still can be played, but they just can't stand up to other army combinations. If you are interested, go to www.sfr-inc.com and see what's there.
Thank you very, very much for this! I'm going there right now to see what they have!!!
I finally got to play the game again yesterday, with a friend who was just learning the rules. It was a blast- it got really intense once we both got the hang of it. I'd love to join a group or tournament in my area, but alas, there seems to be nobody. :-(
Anyone ever played it?
I bought scads of dice when it came out from TSR and then again later after the new gang took over, but it was always hard to find players.
There have been severals substantial sets of errata over the years too; so, make sure that you are playing the same version of the game.
In service,
Rich
I'm thinking that for all of you, that experience was under the old rules. If you didn't know, SFR brought the game from TSR/WotC/Hasbro 11 years ago. SFR was founded by a bunch of Dragon Dice players. It's still running, and still making new dice for the game. But more importantly, SFR completely rewrote the rules to fix the game play. All-common armies for example are a thing of the past. They still can be played, but they just can't stand up to other army combinations. If you are interested, go to linky and see what's there.
I bought a set of these and still have them sitting next to my Zartan and Dreadnaughts figures.
I never got to play them though, the rules were in a different set and the FLGS had empty shelves when I got back. :) I will try the new link though (added to the above). thanks