So, last Saturday, we sat down and played Quarriors Dice Building Game
Are you familiar with Dominion
This game is very much like Dominion (or other deck building games) except that this game centers around dice. (Seriously, this game comes with more than 100 dice.)
Everybody starts off with the same 12 dice in a bag (8 of one, 4 of the other). Then go around the table pulling 6 dice (blind, you don’t get to choose) from the bag and purchasing dice from the field. If you get enough “quiddity” (mana, spell points) you can buy a creature, a spell, or dice that will help boost your throwing power (the portal die gives a 50% shot at pulling two more dice from your bag and adding them to your roll this turn). The game starts slow (as all of these games do) but, eventually, you’ll move from buying “assistants” and goblins to buying wizards and dragons.
On top of that, each spell and creature has three different possibilities. There is the vanilla version, the “strong” version, and the “mighty” version. Each spell/creature has different abilities (sometimes *VERY* different abilities) and so when you shuffle the deck to see what creatures you’ll be playing with, you’re likely to never get the same seven creature variants as you got last time. (We played three games with entirely different cards each game and we probably saw half of the potential creatures).
Now, if I had a complaint, it’d be that we played three games with each of us having a shot at being the person who went first… and, in each game, the person who went 2nd won and the person who went 3rd was the goat. Now, we’d probably have to play another 10,000 games to see if that was anything but luck (I mean, everybody had a 1/3 chance to be anything, right?) but, as small samples go, that one was striking.
I’m excited to play again, however. I really want to see what the dynamics of a 4 player game look like. If your gaming group regularly has nights where only 3 or 4 people show up, you should get this. No two games are going to be the same.
So that’s my recommendation for you this week.
Plus, it has SOOOOOOOO many dice. And they are all different colors! And some are translucent! and some are opaque! And they have wacky things engraved on them! And you get to rattle them in your hand and rattle them in your dice bag and well, if you are in it for the shiny rather than being a srs Gamer Dude, you will have a ton of fun with this game!
I need this game. I have to have it.
IT MUST OCCUR.
You will love it. I found the game to be very fun and I am not convinced about the three player effect we had. Four player should be a hoot too.
Sounds like a good idea. The dice rolling would add a vital additional level of chance to the game which would help elevate it over dominion. Dominion is great for ametures and beginners but then people go read tips on the internet and it turns into a cold relentless math game. Ugh. Shudder!
Each monster die has a 50/50 shot of giving you a monster (of one of 3 levels). The other options are likely quiddity or a special ability (like the ability to re-roll the die or to grab a new die from your bag and roll it… stuff like that). So even if you get the biggest baddest monster in your pool on turn 1 and get to roll it on turn 3… maybe all you’ll get is +1 mana.
Of course, maybe you’ll get 8 victory points.
Sounds awsome!
Dominion is great when you play with cardsharps, and don’t take it seriously.
I find Dominion boring. For the most part, your are playing solitare and just barely paying attention to what you opponent is doing. I even played one game where most of the “harm your neoghbor” cards where picked and while it was better, it still lacked the interaction between players.
Quarriors is much better, your creatures fight each other and other things to mess with the dice and buying mechanics. You actually feel like you are in a competition instead four separate games of solitare. This is a vast improvement over Dominion.
No, the more experienced the players are with Dominion the worse it gets. The cards have weight and value. Harming others almost invariably isn’t as valuable in VPs as helping yourself is and the two are often mutually exclusive. In the games with vetrans the mileau of available cards is very swiftly identified: most valuable, second most valuable etc… The game then progresses with the most valuable (depending on the hand) cards being acquired, then the second most valuable. The only break in the monotony is disruptions caused by trolling or inexperienced players.