Lords of Waterdice

LordsofWaterdice

Here's a silly idea. What would happen if you took all the worker-placement spaces of the Lords of Waterdeep board and made them dice faces instead?

Download this PDF and try it out at home. The doc includes sticker templates for 16mm dice and big chunky print-and-fold paper dice. Print a set of dice for each player.


Here are the tweaks to the original game:
  • There is no board. Place all decks, quest cards and building tiles on a central play area.
  • There are agents but they're not used in the traditional manner. Players just have a number of turns in the round equal to their agents. So, players may have agents leftover at the end of the round.
  • On your turn, you may play an agent onto another player's building, roll your dice or accept the previous player's offer (see below).
  • When you use another player's building, put your agent on that building as normal.
  • Any buildings or intrigue cards that allow you to copy another player's actions work as normal.

How to use the dice:
  • If you roll, each die face corresponds to the basic spaces of the original LoW board.
  • Choose one of the actions, resolve its effects, and end your turn.
  • There is also a "reroll" face, which allows you to reroll both dice.
  • Whichever action you choose, the other action will be available to the next player. This is called your "offer."
  • If you accept a "reroll" as an offer, it means you may roll your dice and get one free reroll.

I haven't tested this, but here's what I think might happen. There is less concern about the scarcity of positions, especially since multiple players could take actions in the same round that would otherwise be cut off in a normal worker placement game. Instead, the tension is between randomness and order.

You're not sure if you'll get the specific action you actually need to take. This makes buildings the safer choice, since you know for sure that they're available. The offer mechanic also mitigates some of the randomness, but still allows some bargaining and table talk. "Come on, you don't really want those fighters. Take the gold! C'mon!"

Generally, I split up the actions on the dice into resource acquisition and card play. I didn't really follow any more guidelines than that. I just thought about what might be a tense decision between short-term gains or long-term plans.

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