Star Wars Coalition


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PREVIOUS OPINIONS - Dice. Not in a card game.

Annakin Starkiller:

Let's see. Let's talk about one of my least favorite subjects, Dice. I really don't like dice, not in a CCG/TCG. I don't think they belong in the game of cards. What I really like about Decipher's CCG was that, that it did not have dice. It strayed away from it and it was a very successful game. It relied on a player's ability to build a deck and win with it. If a player did not win with his/her deck than that meant they had to go back and take a longer look at it. In WotC's TCG, the dice determine the winner. Yes, there are a lot of factors in play, including Mission and Battle cards but, in the end, I think the dice have 85% - 90% chance of you winning or losing. If you roll bad dice and get bad numbers it is going to affect your game. You can be a bad dice roller and it's not your fault, it's just the way it is. There is no real way of determining the outcome of your dice (unless they're loaded) and most of the time, unless you're rolling some heavy hitters, you're not going to get much. Ok, if you roll 2 dice you have a 50/50 chance of hitting something but, you also have a greater risk of rollin nothing. The more dice you roll the better. So, that is why many incorporate power up cards, to help boost up the dice roll but, that doesn't always help. Believe it or not, I have seen people roll 12 dice and get nothing but air. It's that bad. It doesn't happen all the time but, with 12 dice you're probably going for the big guys and you're so confident you're going to hit something you create a whole game plan around the fact that you will probably get at least 3 hits. Well, with a wiff like that, it really put a damper on your day and don't tell me it doesn't mean the game. Fine, some (maybe even many) can try and recover from something like that but, it will be difficult, especially when it messes up your whole game plan. Now you have to create a new one. That's not the only thing that can mess up a game plan. Dice also serve to give "build points" in the game of SW: TCG. The problem with that is that sometimes you're not controlling the dice roll on this one. See, in this game, the lightside player rolls the die for "build points" and whatever he/she rolls you both get. Well, if he/he rolls a 1, you're shit out of luck. You can get an extra 1 build if you have "units" (that's what they are called in TCG) in all arena (areas of play). Many have come to incorporate build adders, or units that will add to your build points by tapping them to use their ability. There are a few cards that can do this. But what has the card gaming world come to when you add cards to help you get what you should already have? And what do we get when we have dice in a card game? Well, TCG comes with it's own mat, yes a mat, where you can place your cards. There are no locations or weapons and units do not move so, if you really think about, you have all the elements of a board game. 1) Mat (= board), 2) cards (most board games have cards: Life, Monopoly, Clue, etc.) and 3) Dice (c'mon, most board games have dice). Grant you, most board games have movement in them but, when you hear about a game with a mat (sometimes referred to as the board), cards and dice you really think, board game. Dice in a board game though, really don't add the randomness that dice do in a card game. So, do dice really belong in a card game? I don't think so.