When: Saturday, Feb 8, 2003, 2:30am

Who: Me

Notes:

I just had a great round (playing against myself) where we tied, and in the next round lefty-me and righty-me both had 16/20 rolls, and righty-me raised a stone, forcing lefty to add a white stone and reroll his 16/20. As it turns out, lefty rolled a 20/20 and won the substantial carried-over pot.

The game should be sold in three-player sets, with 6D6, 3D20, 6 whites and 12 blacks. Three is a great number of players for a game with so many pieces. Two can play using the same set, starting off with 2 or 3 whites and 6 blacks each. The third setup lets a passerby join in, and to decrease the barrier to entry. With two people who know how to play, the third person catches on quhickly.

Two 3-sets can be combined to make a 4-6 person game, follwing the same rules. I need to test how the pacing of such a game goes. I currently have 5D20. I'll need to pick one more up. I barely have enough black stones for a 6-person game of 4 blacks stones each. This might not be enough.

I think the ideal number of stones, combined black and white, should be triple the maximum possible to lose in one round. The balance point would be if the initial count of stones was equal to the maximum losable in a round times the number of players. This is just a guesstimate, as it depends on how often the max is reached vs no raising, or folding early. Testing is needed with a larger group than I have hands.

A round is too short for a real game, so it needs to be part of something bigger. Perhaps it goes Hands->Rounds->Games, and you have to win a number of games. Also, the 20 seems too large a number. The small differences in 2D6 rolls isn't weighted enough. I'm going to try switching the D20 to a D12 and see if it works.

• D20 replaced by color-matched D12 - The first, 'hidden' roll is 2D6, and the second, 'public' roll is a single D12. Each player also has a D4 with a matching color, to help people remember which die is theirs.
• Added a 4-sided counter to track number of games won. - the D4 increments by one when the player wins a round (when they have all the tiles). Then the tiles are again evenly distributed and gameplay starts again.
• Getting the D4 to '4' is the new win condition. - Shorter games can be played by playing to 2, or just playing a single round.