Roll Player (and Monster and Minions) First Impressions

Roll Player: Imagine if all of your qualities were determined by the roll, and placement, of dice…

If any game will build your character it’s this one!

Mighty heroes don’t just appear out of thin air — you must create them! Race, class, alignment, skills, traits, and equipment are all elements of the perfect hero, who is ready to take on all opposition in the quest for glory and riches.

My first impressions of Roll Player including a brief overview of gameplay followed by my positives and negatives and final summary.

Roll Player: Monsters & Minions First Impressions

Four months after playing Roll Player for the first time (See above), I got to play it again but this time with the expansion. This expansion adds a few things:

Firstly, clear boost dice that are numbered 3-8. They don’t count as a colour but they help get those big stats that need 17 or 18.

It also adds a new Market card called Scrolls and Experience points but combat is where this expansion is at. After buying or discarding a card in the Market phase the player can choose to go on a hunt.

This is where you look at the top card of the Monster deck, which is revealed.

You get 1 combat die (a D6) and extra dice depending on what this particular Monster says. The Giant Spider above gives you an extra die for each skill card you have. Obviously, each Monster is different and includes things like having a certain number of a certain colour dice on your character.

You can also “Hire Mercenaries” by paying Experience Points and/or Gold for extra dice.

Monster Fight

Then you Roll the dice and compare your total to the Monster, XP can be spent to reroll any dice. For example, if you get 11+, you keep the Giant Spider card as a trophy and gain 3 XP.

Some results will see you not only not gain the Trophy, but you can also gain Gold and injury tokens.

When you gain a Trophy for the 1st, 2nd or 3rd time you’ll look at one of these cards in order.

The first is Location, the second is Obstacle and Third Attack. These give you clues as to what the end battle against the big bad will entail.

Our Big Bad was the Dragon and we found out that you get an extra die against it if you have 2 or more trophies.

You can view these cards at any time once you’ve viewed them, you just need the matching token you get as a reminder.

End Game Fight

At the end of the game, you all fight the big Monster.

Players will gain the bonuses from the Location cards but only if they saw them during the game. Then players Hire Mercenaries as normal and roll against the chart on the Monster.

The higher your roll, the more points you score. Injury tokens deduct -1 from your roll total as standard in this fight.

Apart from that, the game plays the same.

Roll Player: Monsters & Minions Summary

It’s very good. It adds a fair bit without detracting from what is a good game.

The bonus dice are useful and my character let me use them as a wildcard for colour too, bonus.

The fighting is good and gives you something else to do each round. It’s another thing to consider when drafting a die. So maybe you need a 4 or 5, colour doesn’t matter… But, the Monster currently on the deck gives you +1 die for each Red die you have. So now, a Red 4-5 is worth more.

Then you have to consider the turn order for that die which will determine if that Monster will even be there by the time you can fight it.

Plenty to think about. Very good expansion. Not required, but very good. Roll Player is a rival with Sagrada for a recent dice placement game

Jesta ThaRogue