Malta Convoy, a Free Solo Dice Game

Roll the dice for the make-up of your convoy, length of trip, and many other attributes. All you need to supply are one or two 6D dice and pencil and paper (Or use the included map). Roll for your beginning attributes and as you progress you will be rolling for possible enemy contacts. See the second page for complete rules.

An alternative game that is a bit more sophisticated that uses ship miniatures can be downloaded from GHQ.

Properties for my Dreadfleat Ships

These are the proposed properties for my Dreadfleet grand alliance and cogs. See my previous post relating to this topic, Components needed for a Simple Game.

Die Roll
1-3:    In disrepair
4-6:    In repair

Die roll	Situation
1	Worm ridden: the first bad storm, cannon shot at the waterline, or hitting of a reef this ship will take on water and sink.
2	Be barnacled: barnacles slow down a ship and make it hard to maneuver the craft. This ship needs to be careened at the first possible opportunity.
3	This ship is in disrepair, this could mean the rigging needs over hauling or that the sails need patching. At this point any stormy weather will cause problems that will have to be addressed thus either causing deaths, injuries, or slowing down the vessel when speed and maneuverability is needed most.
4	After coming out of a storm and needing some minor repairs, which are underway, these minor nuisances do not affect the maneuverability of the craft.
5	The captain runs a tight ship and this ship is in good repair.
6	This ship, just coming out of dry docks, is in excellent repair.

GearWorld’s Dynamic Phases

I previously made a post on the five phases of play. Within I mentioned that several of the five phases are dynamic. The Production, Trade, and Transport phases or GearWorld are dynamic phases, meaning that during these specific phases determination of whether these phases will be resolved are determined by a die roll.

Die Rolls

1-4: Players resolve the phase
5: Players do not resolve the phase
6: The first player determines whether or not players resolve the phase

If the phase is skipped players proceed to the next phase.

Mystery Dice

A couple of weeks ago my wife was out looking through the offerings at a local yard sale and came across a set of games. The light wooden case, that measure 11” square has a checker/Chess board printed on one side and a Backgammon board on the other. Inside the box there were components for checkers, backgammon, chess, and dominoes. There was also a desk of playing cards, two dice cups, each containing a set of dice. The one set I recognized as for playing backgammon, but the other set is a mystery to me. Can anyone identify what game these dice are used in?

RPG’s and Twenty-Sided Dice

I have been reading through several RPG’s and realized I will need a few sets of twenty-sided dice. The d20 (twenty-sided dice) mechanic is a role-playing game system that was first published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast. I came across the GM DICE site that offers dice of all sorts. GMDice also offers miniatures for RPG play and several games.

Situation Dice Rolls

Given two six-sided dice and wanting to provide as many different situations for my pirates Move, Shoot, or Explore actions I figured all the dice roll possibilities for these two dice.

Dice Roll	Situation
1 + 1	2
1 + 2	3
1 + 3	13
2 + 2	4
2 + 3	5
3 + 3	6
4 + 1	14
4 + 2	15
4 + 3	7
4 + 4	8
5 + 1	20
5 + 3	22
5 + 2	16
5 + 4	9
5 + 5	10
6 + 1	21
6 + 2	17
6 + 3	18
6 + 4	19
6 + 5	11
6 + 6	12

Risk Dice Roll Examples and Probabilities

When teaching someone how to play Risk for the first time, often learning how the die work causes considerable confusion.

This chart taken from the official Risk rules sums up the process.

And then there are the probability of die rolls and the chance of your success (or demise).