IN DEFENCE OF DICE

Randomness in games like Pandemic is rare or at least limited, so adding something the feels more like a wargame to the basic premise of the system is a surprise, despite outings like Pandemic:

Fall of Rome. Justin Kemppainen explains why it’s a thematic boost to the game to include dice.

“The advantages that we’ve come to with dice is not only do we have pretty low variance dice in this, but for a game that’s aiming to be a little bit spectacle driven, it makes a lot of sense,” says Kemppainen. “Rolling two dice, because rolling one never feels great, just creates those moments of tension and excitement,” he continues, “maybe I could have wiped out this group of ghouls over here. And the fact I didn’t was because you don’t get the highs without the lows. The game didn’t have dice for the longest time, but we were missing a spark. It’s a point of drama and a point of mockery too when it goes wrong.”

The dice add a natural drama to the game, where clearing and area or not come down to just how well you roll. You can’t get drama without a little bit of chaos. “And fortunately Matt Leacock himself already added dice to a Pandemic game, so we can just blame him,” laughs Kemppainen.