by Tom Lehmann

The Trade Expansion extends Dice Realms, adding a new die type, 9 die faces, 5 lines of related die faces, and 8 events that modify the Fate Die.


Dice Realms: 2nd Edition adds a twelve-page player guide with rules for co-operative and solo play, two mini-campaigns, and six new set-ups designed to work in both competitive and co-operative play. Here is a sample co-op set-up:


The Trade Expansion adds another two mini-campaigns, plus four set-ups especially designed for co-operative or solo games, as well as ten more set-ups featuring the new tiles and events. Here is a sample mini-campaign:


To get these rules to owners of the first edition of Dice Realms, the player guide and other items added to the second edition are provided in the Trade Expansion, which is both an expansion and an upgrade kit for first edition owners.

(First edition owners who don't buy the Trade Expansion can access the new Dice Realms: 2nd Edition content by downloading the player guide from the Rio Grande Games website.)

Flourishing Trade and Challenging Events

The Trade Expansion puts a spotlight on Dice Realms' commerce line (orange coin faces) by adding one orange trade die per player to the common dice pool.


These dice initially have six 2-coin Prospector faces and can have only orange die faces on them, either upgraded commerce line faces (Miner or Mine) or faces from the three new orange lines added in this expansion: Mining, Debt, and Gems.


Even if one never upgrades its faces, a trade die is still an interesting option for one's first die purchase since a guaranteed 2 coins rolled every turn can enable players to rapidly acquire more dice.

This theme of commerce and increased prosperity is echoed in many of the faces and lines in this expansion:


In counterpoint to this are events that modify the Fate die and convey how tumultuous and uncertain life was in late medieval times:


Nobles, Outlaws, and Gems

In expansions, I provide both variations on previous mechanisms and new things. In the Trade Expansion, I added a face that gains a set-a-die token (which normally is quite expensive to buy at 4 coins); a way to sell back extra dice for VPs near game end; a way to convert upgrades into coins; and an attack that interferes with saving a coin from one turn to the next.


As a counterpoint to the Outlaw's attack, Gems can possibly refill or leverage your saved Treasury coin.


The Invaders Are Coming!

In the co-operative game, in addition to the Fate die, an Invader die is rolled every turn, attacking all players. Players can co-operate against the Invader by shielding each other from attacks and, at the end of each round, by sharing grain with each other in anticipation of who might need grain next round to deal with Winter, overcome pillage attacks, or buy more dice.

To win, however, every player must beat the Invader's point total, which consists of 6-10 points for the Invader die's faces (this varies with the chosen difficulty) and the VPs that this die rolls during play. These VPs are taken from the common VP pool, becoming a timer on game length.

Thus, while one player might initially defend for the others, in order for the players to win, that player must find a way to gain VPs later, often requiring another player to step up on defense after upgrading and acquiring more dice. This sharing of defense, grain, and VP responsibilities in the face of time pressure gives players plenty to discuss and strategize.


The Invader die uses faces from the base game's Pillage and War lines, with only the faces' attacks, shields, and VPs being relevant. As the difficulty increases, the number of faces that drain VPs goes up, making for increased time pressure as well as more and nastier attacks to deal with.

I originally posted draft co-op rules on BGG. During the Trade Expansion testing, we refined them, adding both the ability to transfer grain among players and to attack the Invader (when it doesn't roll a shield). A successful attack on the Invader shifts 1-3 VPs (depending on the attack type) from the Invader's VPs to the common VP pool, buying the players more time. We also tuned the set-up for two-player games, adding more VPs to the common pool.


Testers enjoyed these co-op rules. For players who dislike player vs. player attacks, the co-op games bring defense considerations and attack faces into play, allowing them to make use of and enjoy these elements of Dice Realms. Figuring out how to effectively score a large number of VPs under time pressure tends to really improve players' skill in later competitive games.


Players can further tweak Invader difficulty and game variety by adding Events (such as Raiders) to make a nastier Fate die for players to contend with alongside the Invader.

Designing Mini-Campaigns

As we tested various Event/Invader difficulty combinations, I saw an opportunity to add mini-campaigns suitable for an evening's entertainment, each consisting of three linked games.

These mini-campaigns have a three-act structure, comprising an Invader at Medium difficulty and a mild event; an Invader at Easy combined with a nasty event, such as a harsh winter or Plague; and an Invader at Hard with an intermediate Fate die. This produces three games with medium-slow-fast tempos for the Invader attacks, VP drainage, and overall game speed, coupled with a contrasting light-nasty-medium pressure from the Fate die.


Each game grants an award (keeping a die face or an extra set-up upgrade) for finishing it, plus either a small bonus or a set-up penalty for the next game based on whether players won or lost the previous game. To win the campaign, players must win the third game.

Providing experience awards independent of wining or losing reduces the incentive for players who lose either the first or second game to simply restart the campaign. They can do that, but often the psychology of "We can beat this!" kicks in and it is quite satisfying to overcome an extra penalty due to a close loss in an early game before triumphing in the final game.

The Trade Expansion adds two more mini-campaigns featuring its new tiles and greater selection of Fate die faces.


With four mini-campaigns across both products, I feel confident that players who enjoy them can design more by following this general template. Enjoy!

Solo Experiences

For the solo player, I modified the Invader co-op game, starting the solo player with a third die and six initial upgrades so that they can both defend and expand against the Invader (as they don't have any other players with whom to divide these tasks).


To ensure proper pressure on the player, the Invader attacks twice in the solo version (instead of attacking every player once). In the earlier posted draft rules, the Invader also took their VPs twice, but testing revealed that this was too strong an effect at Medium and Hard, so instead I changed this and redid the solo set-up to provide a more consistent experience as a solo player goes from Easy to Medium to Hard.

The result is a challenging and interesting game that allows a solo player to enjoy the co-op tile set-ups and mini-campaigns. However, it doesn't meet the other solo need, namely to provide some sort of opposition to play the regular game against.

For this, I invented a second solo version in which the Invader die doesn't attack but simply serves as a game timer, removing VPs from the pool. In this version, the solo player's dice set-up is the same as in the standard competitive game. Attacks to slow down the game timer can work, allowing solo players to explore the full range of possible tile set-ups.


Calibrating game difficulty, however, was harder as a solo timed game might be easier or harder than the solo invasion game depending on which tiles are randomly drawn during set-up. In particular, the timed solo's Hard difficulty can vary drastically.

An experienced player can generally beat timed solo on Easy or Medium just by using the faces of the five standard lines always in play. In Hard mode, this is almost impossible. Instead, one must carefully study the faces on offer to find some point of leverage, either a way to score a huge burst of VPs in the final round, a quick route to obtaining more dice, or an attack to slow down the invader and lengthen the game.


For example, consider a set-up with both Wine (from the expansion) and Bandit. Wine can provide a huge burst of VPs: 3 Winery faces rolled (or set) on the final turn will provide 27 VPs. Each Bandit attack — when the timer die doesn't roll a shield — transfers 2 VPs back from the timer's VPs to the common pool, probably extending the game by a round. Without Wine (or a similar tile), a Hard game will probably end too quickly unless Bandit is used to slow it down. With both, Hard mode is definitely winnable. Without either (or other faces with similar properties or good synergies), Hard mode is quite difficult to beat.

Is timed solo's Hard mode too difficult? Well, in co-op designs, you want the game to provide a real challenge. Ideally, the players narrowly lose their first game or two, see ways they could have done better, and play again to beat the system. As their skills improve, they can add more challenges and enjoy the tension of constantly being on the edge of success or failure.

Some solo players enjoy a serious challenge and want to improve their skills. Others, perhaps because they lack other players for shared camaraderie during losses and to suggest ideas for doing better, become frustrated when the difficulty is too high.

As a designer, I try to both design skill-testing games and avoid player frustration, so I find this aspect of designing solo games tricky. Here, I believe Hard mode has to be the way it is — to make leveraging the tiles on offer vital to the solo experience, as it is a key aspect of the game — but I expect that Hard timed solo will draw some complaints.

Behold a D6!

The biggest surprise for me with the original reception of Dice Realms was how many reviewers didn't seem to understand how a six-sided die works in a dice-crafting game.

Some reviewers placed a single face on offer on a die, then complained that they never rolled it. If your strategy involves rolling a specific face, put two of them on a die and spend your free re-roll when that face doesn't show. If you do, you are better than 50% to roll that face every turn. If you want a higher chance of rolling it, place three copies on a die and you are 75% likely to roll it every turn. That's the magic of dice specialization in dice-crafting games.


Between dice specialization, one free re-roll each turn, re-roll faces, cheap re-roll tokens, and more expensive set-a-die tokens, Dice Realms offers players plenty of control over their dice. It's not complete control, except in cases like the "Great Cattle Roundup" above in which 12 coins per turn buys three set-a-die tokens so what you roll on these three dice is irrelevant. Dice Realms is still a dice game, but it has far more control than many reviewers realized.

Some reviewers compared buying a die face to buying a card in deck-building games, saying that in a deck builder, you're at least guaranteed to see that card once per time through your deck. That's true enough, but dice are not cards and this ignores the fact that you can potentially roll a given face many times, starting on the very next turn after you buy it instead of having to wait for your deck to re-shuffle, then seeing that card only once per re-shuffle.

Other reviewers made a joke out of dice specialization, talking about building an all-grain die and so on. This ignores the fact that every time you cross-grade a face to a different line (such as commerce to farming) instead of upgrading within that line, you are effectively giving up 1 VP. The trick is to specialize your dice just enough to get consistent results, while still gaining lots of VPs by upgrading useful faces within their lines.

And, of course, you need different specializations at various times: early upgrades to get going, coins to buy more dice, grain to feed them, defense if attacks occur, VP faces in the endgame, plus whatever key faces from those on offer that you are basing your winning strategy upon.

The player guide provides a tutorial that walks players through several dice-specialization examples. I figured that if so many reviewers failed to understand the game, then some players might also appreciate insight and assistance in dice crafting. (Players who prefer to figure out stuff on their own can simply skip over that section in the guide.)


For example, here's the six faces of a die specialized for both upgrades and defense, using two different re-roll faces to ensure that you're 75% (using your free re-roll if needed) to get whichever one you need every turn.

It Was the Worst of Times

The late medieval setting of Dice Realms is woven throughout its tiles, the Fate Die, and events: Almshouses relieve misery; Local Heroes provide defense; Quarantines help one resist and recover from the plague; and Grain Trade lets you convert grain into coins or VPs; and so on.


As such, I didn't feel it required extensive flavor text or introduction. This, too, drew complaints, so the player guide includes two pages of historical background and design notes.

Understanding how uncertain medieval times were is furthered by two Trade Expansion events: the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (the nastiest event in the game) and the Wheel of Fortune, the symbol of unpredictable medieval life.


Claus Stephan and Martin Hoffmann's illustrations for these event tiles are unusual: a more naturalistic depiction of the Four Horseman as a pillaging force, and the Wheel of Fortune as a painted fresco within a church.


I hope these historical notes will help players understand how, as rulers of medieval realms, they must contend with both fate and uncertainty.

Wait, There's More!

Dice Realms: 2nd Edition also provides a variant first game set-up for players who dislike player attacks.


Both 2nd Edition and the Trade Expansion include storage sheets to help players organize their die faces in the storage trays. (The first edition storage sheets were previously available as downloads, but now storage sheets are included with the base game.)


We also included a duplicate set of the five standard Fate die faces in both products. These faces are constantly in use and suffer far more wear than the other die faces. 2nd Edition owners who also buy the Trade Expansion will get more copies of these faces than they will need, but we felt it was important for first edition owners to be able to get these faces via the Trade Expansion.

Finishing Touches

Joe Huber helped me develop both the co-op game and the Trade Expansion. Veronica Boyce organized testing and development sessions of the mini-campaigns.

Mirko Suzuki, Claus Stephen, and Martin Hoffman all pitched in for the production work on both of these products, making sure that everything dovetailed together correctly across them.

Thanks to everyone for all your hard work!

As always, Jay Tummelson of Rio Grande Games provided both encouragement and support.

I hope players will like both Dice Realms: 2nd Edition and the Trade Expansion, which together open up many new ways to play Dice Realms, along with new tiles and strategies to explore. Enjoy!

Tom Lehmann