Reply: The Castles of Burgundy:: General:: Re: Not sure we would enjoy the game

by SJS1971

danieldukai wrote:

often including mechanisms I don't like.

Dice rolls is one of them

I don't really think of dice rolling as a mechanism exactly. Dice rolls are ways to implement a mechanism.

For example, one mechanism in COB is tile placement. A dice roll partially implements the constraints on the mechanism.

In my head, dice rolls can be annoying or they can be interesting depending on what they are implementing.

In Monopoly and Clue, dice rolls are part of a movement mechanic that many gamers find annoying, in part because it breaks the immersion of the game. (I'm a detective but for some reason I can only move one space this turn, and 6 the next.)

In Catan, dice rolls are part of a resource acquisition mechanism that many gamers find annoying because you are mostly helpless to control it. However, it's also linked to known probabilities, so you are incentivized to claim certain hexes (6s and 8s) over others. (This is similar to Istanbul where you know the probabilities of using the tea house or black market when you select those locations.)

In COB, dice rolls are part of action selection and also constrain the actions selected. Because you have 4 actions (tile acquisition, tile placement, selling goods, obtaining workers), 2 dice, free actions with silverlings, and dice modification via workers, I rarely feel like the dice cost me the opportunity to do something useful. More often if I feel stuck I blame myself for not going after workers earlier or hemming myself in with inefficient tile placements or not anticipating the tiles my opponents wanted. YMMV, but the use of dice in COB and, say, Marco Polo, don't feel like capricious game play but rather tactical game play which I tend to enjoy.