- Give 3 dice to each player, roll them
- Order dice from high to low, and compare the highest, then the second and so on. the higher wins (6/2/1 wins 5/4/4)
- Take one die from the winner, and give it to the player that goes last in the "actual" game.
- Keep track of number of dice for the next game
This game is a Campaign1 Game to determine the first player in a game night (or in course of multiple game night session with same group)
You need 3 d6 per player2, so for 5 players it will be 15 dice and a campaign tracker sheet (if you want to keep track of the status on multiple game nights) you don’t need the campaign tracker sheet if you don't want to use it for multiple game nights.
Also, this is obvious, this method is useful for the games that have turn order, and has no systematic method of choosing the first player. For example Rajas Of The Ganges3 has turn order, but the first player is determined by the dice rolling in the game, so this method is not needed there. But then you can do the resolve phase even when the game has its own method to keep it fair.
Before each game, all players roll all their dice (or any combination of them, it is the player decision, they cannot forfeit entirely but they can play with less die if they want to, the minimum is 1)
Players can re-roll all their dice, by removing one die, this die cannot be used in this round anymore, but will be used in the next game (the die is not removed from the players collection).
Then each player places their die in any order from left to right, they are not allowed to change this order anymore. It makes sense to go from higher to lower, but a player can decide any order, this happens simultaneously, so no one is allowed to see other player’s dice before ordering their own dice.
Then the first die on the left determines the first player. The higher die wins. If there is a tie, the second die is the tie breaker, if the second is a tie, then the third breaks the tie. If one player has less dice, then the missing dice are zero, and the player with more die wins if all the first dice are equal.
But if all have the same number of dice, and all of them are the same, then all tied players roll the LAST die (the die on the right) until one of them rolls more than the rest, then all stop with the new die as the last die, and the one that is higher than the rest wins this tie.
If the game only needs the first player and the rest is determined by the player position4 then go to the Resolve Phase, but if you need the order or you want to arrange sitting order5, then you can determine the next winner by the same system, ignore the first player, and find the second one with the same order. If the last die is rolled as a tiebreaker before, it stays as it is in the last tiebreaker roll.
In this phase, the one that wins the game, gave up one die, and the last player (the one who actually plays last, even if their place in "The First Player" Game was not last) receive one die.
If the game is 6 players or higher, the first two players give up one die each and the last two players receive a die each. If the second player has no die to lose, then the second to last player receives nothing (also check the Reserved dice section if you are playing in campaign mode).
There is a chance that the first player loses all their dice, in this case, they are not going to participate in the next selection and if the game order is not determined by the sitting position5, they will be automatically the last player and receive the die again, but in the games that the order is determined by sitting position4, then the player might not be the last player (even without any die), then they have no dice in the next games as well.
In a rare case that two or more players have no dice, and the order is not sitting related, all of them receive a temporary dice to fix the order, they lose the die after the order is determined.
If the game night has more than one simultaneous games, the player in each group play "The First Player" game separately with the same set of dice that they have. If they obtain or lose dice in a game, and later on they change the group, they continue with the dice they have.
If you have access to something to use as a plus one token then you can use this variant. These tokens are used to add one to a single die. Only one token is allowed to be used on a single die in each round, and dice can not go more than 6, and player can use their token any time during the game, on any one of their dice, even after rolling the tiebreaker roll on the tie breaker die.
Also these tokens will be discarded at the end of the session and will not carry over to the next session if you are using the campaign mode.
This token only works when there are four or more players. The player before the last one that receives a die, receives one token.
In this phase, if you are using the plus one variant, you have to discard all your plus one tokens.
If you are not using the campaign mode, then return all the die to the owner and you can start fresh next time.
If you are using the campaign mode, at the end of the session, you need to keep the number of dice that each player has in the campaign tracker sheet. It can be a piece of paper with a table like this:
| 23/01/17 | 23/01/24 | 23/01/03 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forud | 3 | 1 | 2 | |
| Eli | 4 | 4 | 4(-1) | |
| Bita | 2 | 4 | 3 | |
| Reserved Dice | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Or you can use a simple spread sheet (Google sheet or any other similar) or even a note each time.
Each time that one player misses the game night, remove one of their dice and add it to reserve.
In this case, for the six players variant, the second player will not lose a die, but one of the reserved dice goes to the second to last player.
Also you can give a die from reserve (if there is any) to the player before last in 4 and 5 player, instead of plus one token in the variant that is explained above.
When there is a new player, then the player receives 3 dice, and play as normal.
This is a friendly game. Player can give each other one or more of their dice, but they should not go to zero die in this case.
Also if you are using the plus one variant, you are allowed to give your token to some one else.
This only can happen BEFORE or AFTER the game, after players are rolling the die, no one can give a die or plus one token.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Footnotes
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I am pretty sure all of us need a new campaign game, since there is a shortage of them in this era. ↩
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A dice app works if you don’t have enough dice. ↩
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To give the credit, I thought about this method when I played Rajas of The Ganges the other day. ↩
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Many games choose player order based on sitting position, like a classic Ticket to Ride, or a game of Wingspan. ↩ ↩2
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In some games like Brass: Birmingham or Messina 1347 or Gaia Project, you can choose the player order in any form that you like and ignore the sitting position, there is some sort of a turn order track in the game. ↩ ↩2