The purpose of this post is to start a discussion on what constitutes a “roll” and whether rules documents should better define it.
I’ll start with some examples of situations that could occur and could warrant UDE being proactive in creating documentation.
Examples
1. Sometimes when people are shaking the dice about to roll, one will escape their hand. I can’t think of an occasion where they didn’t reflexively pick up the die, add it back to their hand and continue to shake/roll. There doesn’t really seem to be any policy to support this though. What if the die slips out, lands on a crit and the player noticing this immediately releases the other dice instead of picking it up? The reverse could also occur. One slips out, the opponent notices it’s a failure and wants it to count and have you roll the rest.
2. What if a player rolls 1 too many dice but they were all successes or failures? Do they simply remove one or does the player reroll?
This is actually happening frequently due to Kael’thas’s ongoing ability. Players are rolling one too many die.
3. What if a player rolls 1 or more less than they should? Is it appropriate to grab extra dice and roll or should they reroll them all?
4. What about someone wanting to roll one die at a time? There’s nothing in the rules against this although doing it could really slow down play.
5. Sometimes we play on maps with creases and dice will fall into these creases. Most people tend to agree that if a die lands in crease it’s a reroll despite whether it’s leaning heavily towards a number or not.
6. What about a player rerolling a die and hitting another die and changing the result? Maybe it’s not even a reroll. Consider someone needing to roll a 10 dice attack but they don’t have 10 dice so they pick up however many they were short, roll them and they collide changing the result of other die? This may be a stretch but maybe it deserves mentioning?
7. When you roll does it matter what distance your hands need to be from the game board?
For example, I knew a guy who played Risk that would curl a die in his pinky finger with a 6 facing up. When he went to roll he would make a rolling hand motion so the other dice were properly randomized while the die he had hidden in his pinky would effectively be placed on the game board as a 6. There was enough motion in his hand that it couldn’t be detected. My point is there isn’t a rule that your hand can’t be touching the game board when you roll dice. The reverse is I can’t imagine requiring any great distance as the dice would go everywhere.
Are there other scenarios that people can think of?
Solutions if any?
Do you guys think there should be policy documentation defining what constitutes a roll?
If so, any ideas?
Our local play group has a policy that addresses some of these concerns. It’s an “all dice must be rolled together” policy. With that said, if 1+ less is rolled than should’ve been, I believe we simply roll the extra dice, but maybe a stricter guideline is simpler? Of course there are exceptions when someone doesn't have enough dice. In these cases it's specified and acknowledged before the roll.
On a side note a friend of mine suggested it would be nice if UDE sold Yahtzee style cups for rolling dice. Perhaps they could sell them, make them purchasable with points or stock them in hobby league kits? Perhaps UDE even supplies them for use in top8 matches to protect the integrity of the game.
Thoughts?
Level 3 - WoW TCG Rules Knowledge
Level 2 - Player Management