Design Tip of the Week #25 (Why Not to Have Custom Dice in Your Game)

Tell me about this series.

The first part of the series was about how to make your own custom dice at home for a fairly cheap price with minimal effort.  You can find it here:

http://mvpboardgames.blogspot.com/2014/11/design-tip-of-week-23-how-to-make.html

The next part of the series covered a few reasons to add custom dice to your game:

http://mvpboardgames.blogspot.com/2014/11/design-tip-of-week-24-why-have-custom.html

This week we are going to cover why you wouldn't add custom dice to your game.

Take us back.  What was your first negative experience with custom dice?

The first game we ever designed was called Squires.  It has evolved and morphed since then into Bastion, but we have been working on it for years in various forms.  We were so excited about the game and took it to a convention to pitch it to a publisher for the first time.  It had 25 custom dice in 3 different molds.  After looking at the components the publisher didn't even let us get into a pitch.  We turned them off before even getting a chance.  There were too many components, and specifically too many custom components. 

At that time having that many custom dice was just out of the question unless you were Fantasy Flight.  Even now when FFG produced BattleLore they only included 4 custom dice in the box.  If you want 8 more you have to pay $10 for them.  Cost is probably the primary issue when it comes to custom dice.

There are exceptions to every rule though, and Marvel Dice Masters and Castle Dice have shown that you can have lots of different custom dice and still maintain an affordable price.  I think you have to be careful though.  It isn't just the cost of the dice, it is the cost of the dice in addition to everything else you are adding to the game.

So if cost isn't an issue, what else?

Accessibility can be an issue too.  We talked last time about how custom dice can make games simpler, but that isn't always the case.  If you need a result that is randomized between 1 and whatever number, a standard die will work just fine.  You don't need to make something fancier just to have it fancier.  Also, adding symbols could confuse things.  If you symbol represents a 6, then just leave a 6 there.  Sounds simple, but I have seen lots of examples of Cthulhu symbols or whatever else on one side of a die just to make it look cooler.  It can be confusing, and people often need to look at the other side of the die the first few times to figure it out.  Sounds simple, but it could slow your first game experience down.  The first impression could be the only one you get. 

Another thing about accessibility is using symbols people are comfortable with.  If you do choose to use custom dice then don't use a POW symbol as a miss.  Most people associate a POW or Sword symbol as a hit.  Make sure you are familiar with conventions before adding custom dice to your game.

Anything else?

Sometimes standard dice do the job better than a custom die.  If you have changing values for things it may be simpler to use a standard die.  For example in one of our next games we have die that level up as the game goes along.  At first you only hit on a 6.  Later you may add a 4 or a 5 to that type of hit.  Maybe you add another 6, so your 6 results do 2 points of damage.  This would be very hard to do if you used custom dice.  You could have different symbols, but in this situation they would all have to basically mean the same thing. 

Another more common example is monsters in a dungeon crawl, or roleplaying game.  You can have several monsters that behave very differently using the same few die.  This one hits on 3-6 and the other one hits on 5-6.  And you don't have situations like you have in Descent or Star Wars: The Queens Gambit where people are asking "where is that green die again?"

Lessons Learned.

Don't use custom dice in your game if:

• Cost is an issue - Maybe you already have too many components, or the game is too simple to justify a higher cost
• It complicates your game - If your game would be easier to understand or play without custom dice, leave them out.
• Standard dice would do the job better - Sometimes custom dice aren't as flexible as standard dice.  There is a reason so many games use standard dice, they are very versatile.  They could determine your income in one phase and tell you how far to move in the next (not saying to do this in your game, just an example).

What's next?

 That's it for this week, next time I am going to talk about getting through that 100th playtest of your game, and how to keep if fresh.  Until then, I am Peter, keep designing great games.