Dice Forge

Dice Forge is a game designed by Régis Bonnessée and published by Libellud in 2017.

The F2F rules for this game can be found here. These postal rules by Jim Reader 2020, updated by Richard Smith 2023.

Introduction

This game can be played postally as a four-player game using the Hare and Tortoise rotating first player system, although some provisional orders will be needed.

The turn report requires quite a few tables, similar to those in this web page. Sample tables are provided in this Word document.

For the postal game there are 8 turns and each turn will run as follows:

Postal Turn Structure

Each postal turn comprises 5 (rather than 4 when playing F2F) sub-turns. On each sub-turn all players get a divine blessing roll, but only the active player can perform actions.

In the turn report, except for the first turn, the table below is used twice. Once at the start to report the results of each sub-turn in the previous round, then again at the end to inform the players of next turn's dice rolls.

Previous Round Results Table

In this case r1 and r2 will be resources received (usually 2 resources but can be more or less). If the active player invokes The Elder, The Guardian Owl, or The Silver Hind this is reported in the Reinforcement colummn. The next column contains the results of making an offering to the Gods or performing a Heroic Feat (see later). The final column will be another offering or feat if the player has opted to play 2 sun for this.

Not included in this table are oustings and feat cards that require interactions, as these are dealt with after the 5 sub-turns, see later.

End Of Round Table

The player who gets two goes now gets rotated. The values of x and y are numbers e.g. 2,5 corresponding to the faces rolled (by the GM) on die 1 and and die 2.

Divine Blessings

The postal game can be played with all four players getting the same roll each sub-turn, or each player getting a different roll. The same roll option reduces the luck element but does mean players getting very similar income until their dice diversify. The first game in VP will be using separate rolls.

For dice faces on which players have to choose a resource, they can specify this choice in their orders. If they don't do so, then any standing orders for the face they have submitted will be used, if no standing order, the default is to take glory if available, else the resource which has the lowest number on the Hero Inventory.

Player's Dice

This table shows the dice faces as they are for the start of the next round, for use with the new rolls.

Player Details

This is made up of the player's location and the Hero Inventory showing resources, cards and tokens owned by each player. Note that it is possible to get more storage via The Blacksmith's Chest.

Player Actions

Players should submit their orders for their actions each round. Each turn, a player may either visit The Temple to make an offering to the gods, or The Islands to undertake a heroic quest. A player may choose to spend 2 sun to take a second action (e.g. Player one orders to visit The Temple, then pays 2 sun to undertake a heroic quest). These orders can also be made provisional. (e.g. Go to Islands and pay 6 moon shards for the Cancer card - if I receive more than 2 sun, pay 2 sun for an additional action, and go to The Temple).

In most cases, players will have a good idea what they have in their inventory when it comes to ordering actions, so any conditional orders will be fairly simple. However, for the second actions on sub-turn 5, it is likely that more elaborate conditional orders will be needed. Just as well each player only has to do this twice in the game.

The Temple

Players may go to The Sanctuary to buy multiple die faces on their turn but may not buy from the same cost position in a turn. (e.g. a player may buy a 3 gold face costing 2 gold and a 1 glory +1 sun face for 4 gold but cannot buy two 4 gold faces costing 3 each).

The Sanctuary

The Gardens

Die faces in The Gardens are obtained only as a result of heroic feats and cannot be purchased.

Heroic Feats

Players may go to the Island and take a card from the list below. A player moves their piece to the position shown and pays the appropriate cost to take the card. If another player is in that position, they are displaced back to the start position and receive a divine blessing (extra roll of both dice), see later. The effect of each card is also shown below.

Alternative Cards

The table above uses a selection of the standard and advanced cards suitable for postal play. At set up time, the GM may substitute any of the alternative cards as described in the Hero Aid PDF.

Oustings

In the F2F game, when a player is ousted from an island, he receives a divine blessing immediately. In the postal game this happens at the end of the turn so the player knows what he gets. If there is more than one ousting they happen in the sub-turn order.

Interactive Cards

For postal play, to avoid excessive conditional orders, the effects of the Minotaur, Tenacious Boar and Satyrs are applied at the end of the postal turn (after the oustings). So a player getting the Tenacious Boar can specify in his next orders which face will be replaced. Players will not have to supply conditionals in case they get Minotaured before their action, and they can choose which resources to lose in their next orders. The player playing Satrys will be presented with the faces available to choose in the turn report. If more than one of these happens in a round they take place in sub-turn order.