Post by Chris Bissette in Dice substitute for Jenga towers

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This is a very interesting mechanic, though as you say - 100d6 is a hell of a lot to manage!

I've been given another suggestion via Chris Sims on Twitter that I wanted to share, along with one of my own. Chris' is:

Start with 9 tokens. When instructed to pull from the tower, instead roll the die. If the die shows 6, you lose one token. If your number of tokens falls to between 5 and 2, you lose a token if the die shows the number of tokens you have left or a higher number. When you have one token left, you still need to roll a 2 or higher to lose a token. So, for instance, if you have one or two tokens left, a roll of 2 or higher causes you to lose one token. When you lose your last token, the “tower” falls.

That led me to what may be a simpler mechanic. Start with a counter that you set to 30 (the average number of pulls in a Jenga game - but you could set this to anything you like). When you're instructed to pull from the tower, reduce the counter by 1 and roll a d6. If you roll equal to or higher than the counter number, the tower falls.

Realistically you don't start rolling until the counter hits 6, obviously.

Keep the ideas coming!

Speak the Sky3 years ago(+2)

Yeah, that's why I say to use a dice-rolling website or discord dicebot—the number of dice doesn't really matter then.

Here's how Chris Sims' idea works out in practice:

It gives a good curve of average results, with a difference in the story it tells in each game:

Where the 100d6 mechanic usually has a drawn-out tense ending, the token mechanic sharply curves to the end with a sudden disaster (because the probability of rolling over the number of tokens increases as tokens decrease). It can also randomly plateau earlier, like a moment of stillness, calm before the storm. It might be more swingy, but I'm not sure.

Your method is obviously gonna be a lot more consistent—you get 24-30 pulls. The action is always gonna happen over at most 6 turns. People can set exactly how many pulls they get before the risk kicks in (by changing token count) and set exactly how many pulls they get once that happens (by changing die size).

I think I still prefer mine, since it's both simple and dynamic, but the others have their advantages if people want a different story progression, more control, or for the mechanic to get out of the way until the final stretch.

itch.io

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