Dice

Tabletop baseball simulation game.

In 1971, Time Inc (owner of Sports Illustrated magazine) published their first baseball game. It included about 20 players on each at-that-time current (1970 season) baseball team, presented on tri-fold color charts. The following two years, they released new editions to cover the most recent season. For 1972, they switched to teams of 25 players each on single double-sided color charts. In 1973, the teams roster size was reduced considerably and the player charts were presented on individual player cards with no color coding.

Also in 1973, they released their All-Time All-Star Baseball game, in the style of their second edition (1971 season, 1972 publication, color charts). It included each of the original American League and National League franchises, each with the 25 "best" players from that team's long history. This was a smashing success amongst tabletop managers, but was apparently not enough to sustain the enterprise and was the last new baseball product produced by Time Inc in this line.

The All-Time All-Star edition was altered to match the individual card format and relabeled as Superstar Baseball. This was later transferred to Avalon Hill when they picked up the entire line of sports games from Time. This also granted Avalon Hill the right to use the words "A Sports Illustrated Game" on any Avalon Hill sports product, even if it wasn't part of the original Time, Inc line of games, which led to some confusion for titles such as Baseball Strategy, Football Strategy, and Pro Golf.

Special dice with results ranging from 10 through 39 (often called 10-39 Dice, see How to make a set of SIBB dice -- A Tutorial) were required to play this game, and sister games in the original Sports Illustrated sports simulation line.

"Welcome, girls and boys. My name is Rattlebones, and you have been cordially invited to spend the day at my Fabulous Festival of Dice! Play games! Win prizes! Ride the train! I'll be wandering about the park, and if you're the first one to find me, you win! Won't that be delightful?"

Rattlebones is a game about transforming dice. You start with standard six-sided dice, and throughout the course of the game you can remove sides and replace them with other sides that let you do all sorts of wonderful things. Every time you score points, you get closer to finding Rattlebones and, er, winning the game. Yes, winning! It's an experience to six-sided-die for!

Pandemic: The Cure, a dice-based version of the popular Pandemic board game, sets up in less than a minute and plays in 30 minutes. As in the board game, four diseases threaten the world and it's up to your team to save humanity. You and your team must keep the world's hotspots in check before they break out of control, while researching cures to the four plagues.

Players roll dice each turn to determine the actions available to them. They can fly and sail between the six major population centers of the world, treat disease in their current region, collect samples for further study, and exchange knowledge to help them in their goal of discovering cures. Each player takes on a different role that has its own unique set of dice and abilities — and players must take advantage of their specializations if they are to have any hope of winning the game. The Dispatcher, for example, can spend dice to fly others around the board, while the Medic is particularly adept at treating disease. Players can roll their dice as often as they like, but the more times they re-roll for the perfect turn, the more likely the next epidemic will occur.

At the end of each turn, new "infection dice" are rolled to determine the type and location of newly infected populations. If any region on the board is infected with more than three dice of a given color, an outbreak occurs, spreading disease into an adjacent region. If too many outbreaks take place, too many people get infected, or the rate of infection gets too high, all the players lose. If, however, the players can discover the cures to the four diseases, they all win and humanity is saved!

Game description from the publisher:

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an exciting all-new co-operative game of adventure in which you join Bilbo Baggins and his thirteen Dwarven companions on their journey through the Lonelands and Misty Mountains, encountering Goblins, Trolls, and other dangers that seek to put an end to their adventures. Traverse your way through two boards, each more difficult than the last, with the goal of coming out alive and prepared for the dangers that lie ahead. Your accumulated points at the end of the game will be your team's mark for finding out how good of a Company you really are!

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug , although it is also a stand-alone game, can be used as an expansion to this game.

Game description from the publisher:

It is 1926, and the museum's extensive collection of exotic curios and occult artifacts poses a threat to the barriers between our world and the elder evils lurking between dimensions. Gates to the beyond begin to leak open, and terrifying creatures of increasing strength steal through them. Animals, the mad, and those of more susceptible minds are driven to desperation by the supernatural forces the portals unleash. Only a handful of investigators race against time to locate the eldritch symbols necessary to seal the portals forever. Only they can stop the Ancient One beyond from finding its way to Earth and reducing humanity to cinders.

Elder Sign is a fast-paced, cooperative dice game of supernatural intrigue for one to eight players by Richard Launius and Kevin Wilson, the designers of Arkham Horror. Players take the roles of investigators racing against time to stave off the imminent return of the Ancient One. Armed with tools, allies, and occult knowledge, investigators must put their sanity and stamina to the test as they adventure to locate Elder Signs, the eldritch symbols used to seal away the Ancient Ones and win the game.

To locate Elder Signs, investigators must successfully endure Adventures within the museum and its environs. A countdown mechanism makes an Ancient One appear if the investigators are not quick enough. The investigators must then battle the Ancient One. A clever and thematic dice mechanism pits their exploration against monsters and the sheer difficulty of staying sane and healthy, all within the standard game duration of one to two hours.