Photo by Robert Coelho on Unsplash
So.
What is a Roll and Write game, and what are it's advantages?
The roll and write game predictably has a play flow that usually goes roll, then write. Each player will have a page that they make decisions on with regards to the roll that was just made. They log these decisions by writing them on the page. During the game (or at the game's end) these decisions are tallied up to see who scored the most points with their specific decisions.
Consider the game "Welcome To...", where players act as real-estate moguls building up homes in a suburb somewhere. Each player is given a page with a visual representation of the suburb and the lots you can fill, each with their specific buildable elements. Additionally, the page tells the players the rules they must follow for home and home accessory placements, the limits to where and how these can be placed, as well as what combinations yield point multipliers at the end of the game. Depending on how players lay out their suburb, they could make a ton of points or make a rather measly amount.
The advantage to this type of game is that it is quite flexible in its applications. You could represent nearly anything in this format, with a particular note to more managerial roles such as running a real-estate company (Welcome to...) or waging a war (Twilight Inscription). The downside is that the scoring systems have a tendency to become complicated as a big part of the engagement is figuring out the logistics of what your trying to do. There needs to be a certain level of complexity to make the game engaging, but there is a fine line of competing calculations that the designer must walk to achieve just the right amount of engagement, while not overwhelming the player with "fancy mathematics"
To this end, using clear imagery, easy to read legends and logically natural play space associations (placing the legend for ship building on the area of the sheet where ship building is logged for instance) is paramount. You want the player to be spending most of their time making their decisions rather than trying to suss out what decisions can even be made.
Additionally, for a more entry level version of this type of game, avoiding calculations that could require a calculator is recommended. At higher levels players tend to know what they're getting into, bringing their calculator apps or other tools with them to the game. (kudos if your game manages to do fancy mathematics in a way that is easily parsed and represented with tokens and a game sheet legend)
A quasi strength/weakness of this game type is that it naturally leans towards players doing self management and spending a lot of time in their head working things out. The format is conducive due to it being a best performance style game where turns traditionally play out simultaneously, with players marking their decisions on their sheets at the same time and the next roll beginning after all the players have confirmed what they have written.
This means that turns can go pretty quickly, and players can help each other out with each others calculations if need be. That said it also means that player interaction can become less common as players don't have a natural reason to interact with each other. You see, all of the player's decisions are isolated to their own sheets. They're playing their own game by themselves, that only really becomes socially interactive when they compare points with each other.
This is not to say that players can't socialize during the game, but again, it is impeded by the fact that players will naturally want to do the calculations in their own head, and may need to be silent for a while to figure out just what it is they are going to do. In that light, it may be prudent to encourage players to help each other out if that is aligned with the game's theme. Layering on an additional element that promotes direct player interaction could help with this as well.
One other element of this type of game is that because every player has their own sheet, its a lot harder to detect if anyone is cheating, although as a general rule, board games require a bit of an honor system between players to function properly so this is something of a moot point.
Though I have listed many stress points for this type of game, it should not be construed as a poor format of play. It is simply one that requires a good deal of thought from the designer when it comes to how to make it work for their players. As stated before, it is an extremely versatile format and can represent all manner of themes and concepts with its trappings.
So how about you dear reader? Have you ever played a roll and write before? Do you have a favorite one? What would you like to see done in the this realm of play? Comment below, inquiring minds want to know!
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