Roll Player Review: What’s Your Role?
Intent: Inspire you to try playing Roll Player!
Have you ever created a character? Well, heroes and villains don’t just appear, they’re created. In this game, it is your role to create the ideal adventurer for the circumstances you’re given. Are you up to the task of character creation? Roll Player is designed by Keith Matejka, illustrated by JJ Ariosa and Luis Francisco and published by Thunderworks Games. In this 1-4 player dice rolling and card drafting game, you will be competing to create the best character. You will influence the attributes and alignment as you place dice and buy market cards, enriching your character with armor, skills, weapons and traits. Who will you create?
Overview
Throughout each game you play, your ultimate goal is to create a better character than your opponents by earning the most reputation stars. You’ll get a character sheet with specific race and modified attributes, a class card, a backstory, and alignment card. You’ll draw dice depending on your player count and begin your game by setting those dice up on your attributes, which include: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma.
Each turn dice will be drawn from a bag and placed increasing order on the initiative cards, you’ll then take turns picking a dice and placing it in one of your attribute spaces and taking the corresponding action, which differs track to track. Essentialy, this helps you move dice, adjust values and ultimately reach some of your goals to achieve the most reputation stars.
Now after placing dice, depending on which initiative card you took, you’ll have the opportunity to buy cards from the market. These cards are armor, traits, skills and weapons, which all help your game in various ways. You'‘ll then shift the first player marker, draw dice and repeat the process until everyone’s attribute tracks are completely filled.
Now it’s time to score your Reputation Stars. Depending on your class, backstory, and alignment you’ll have goals to reach for in regards to dice placement on your various attributes. Beyond that, each die of your class colour will gain you another reputation star, as well as various armor and trait cards as well, so keep an eye on that market as it is important. Will you be the most reputable among your friends?
First Game Impression
To be completely honest, I did not know much about this game going in. Everyone that has played it has said phenomenal things, so I was eager and excited but beyond there being dice I did not know much about the mechanics or the core goal of the game. My prediction was some sort of quest and adventure with lots of dice being rolled, so I was surprised when I realized the game is centred around creating the best character.
What won me over immediately is the vast amount of different cards providing what seemed liked really immense replayability. A wonderful touch as well is that each character sheet has a male and female side, it’s not often that board games have the ability to be played with all female characters so that instantly made me happy.
The actual gameplay was everything I wanted, both Tylor and I have a math background and actually met in math class so this game was super up our alley as it was essentially number and point optimization while multitasking with various market cards and goals. I began to see the various strategies I could take and how I could sacrifice certain rows to create an even more optimal condition for myself and my brain was just extremely satisfied.
It was a close game, but I did end up winning the first and we were eager to dive right back in to see the various characters we can make and bring to life.
Thoughts After Five Games
I love the balance of immersion of the theme and mechanics in this game, most of the time my brain is focused on the mechanics and optimizing but every now and then I realize I am dealing with a Brawler Bard that is a Truth Seeker. Certainly tickles my funny bone, as I imagine this individual brawling individuals trying to uncover the truth and then writing songs about his various adventures.
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed this game, each time we played felt different, there were many surprises in scoring and strategies. There was a time where I did so well in the attributes, backstory and alignment but Tylor ended up winning due to armor and traits. You also don’t really know who will win until the end, which is always nice as each game feels competitive until the very end.
The luck of dice rolling is mitigated by various attribute abilities and some market cards so there’s always ways to get around the luck element but rolling that perfect number you need or getting the precise number and colour combination always feels great. I’m also not huge on solo gaming, but I did play the solo in Roll Player and it was such a pleasure. Overall, this game left us satisfied and ready to come back for more. At this rate we can create a whole range of characters for a full city!
MERIT Report Card
Overall Letter Grade: A-
Strengths: Powerful mix of theme and mechanics with immense replayability. The potential of various combinations is endless. This game is bound to leave an impression on the folks you introduce it to, as building a character is quite an impactful experience.
Areas of Improvement: Being able to “save” or be able to record the characters you’ve created and even the reputation you’ve obtained would have elevated an already great game for me even more. Always nice to reflect on accomplishments.
Memorability: A-
Did this experience stick with me after playing this game?
Absolutely! You get to make a character and see them grow, see how their attributes shape up and watch their development and be able to influence it in the best way possible. I often think about the combination of Race, Class, Backstory and Alignment that I’ve received and wonder if a character like that exists in literature or other various forms of entertainment.
How does this game resonate with the folks we introduce it to?
We unfortunately have only been able to play this at two player but are stoked to introduce this to more individuals. This year we started our first Dungeons and Dragons campaign and showing this game to those who love role playing games I think would be particularly fun because the character creation definitely shares similarities.
How many memories can be built from this game?
The best part about dice games is that anything can happen, getting that perfect roll just feels so good. I find there were definitely some grand moments, collecting various armor cards or aiming for that perfect alignment, attribute and backstory score is always fun. It’s the type of game where you have everything in mind with how you want it to go but you’ll need to readjust, adapt and find new strategies based on the dice you acquire.
Education: A-
Now most board games have a math element in it so I usually don’t talk about it in this section, but I will for this one as the attribute tracks are essentially a big math puzzle. You’ll have values you’re aiming for as you place dice, some exact and some a range. The attribute tracks have various abilities as well, meaning you’ll need to plan on how to optimize the numbers you’re given and you’ll generally find yourself adding rows up over and over trying to create that perfect combination. Not everyone enjoys that aspect in games but I personally love it! Even if math is not your forte, give this game a shot as it might be a fun way to improve the speed of your basic addition and subtraction.
Planning and thinking ahead are critical education elements of this game, each turn you’ll be evaluating the balance of your attributes. You may have to take a die with early initiative that doesn’t really help your attributes as there may be a card in the market you desire, which you know will be taken if you don’t have first initiative. It’s challenging but that’s what is so exciting, your brain feels stimulated and well exercised every second of this game and you learn and are able to try different strategies and be able to grow from your mistakes. The reason I love board games so much is that a mistake usually only yields in a loss, in a grand scheme of thing a loss in a board game is a small sacrifice to developing your critical thinking and having the ability to apply it in real life situations.
Beyond thinking about your own optimization you may want to see and keep an eye on what everyone else is doing, as if someone’s aiming for a specific armor type, it may not be the best idea to go for it, and it’s always nice to keep in mind what type of dice individuals need as you might even be able to predict who takes what die in the initiative order, which will certainly play to your advantage.
Replayability: A
The replayability in this game is absolutely wonderful, have a different combination of class, backstory and alignment already is plenty yet the designer decided to add these wonderful market cards that influence heavily how this game is played and provide alternate ways of scoring points and evening winning. Losing an attribute? Well buy this market card that gives you reputation stars for having a low score in that attribute.
I enjoy that there is some consistency with player order but competition as well with deciding which dice to take as if you take a higher numbered one you may not get a chance to get the card you want at the market. It’s a game I can see us playing over and over, as each time we play it’s an entirely new puzzle with a new character and a new arrangement and order of market cards.
The formula for replayability is simply superb here, I’m sure there may be tiny elements that could push it and make it even better with maybe more boards of different races but I was super satisfied and can see this game staying in our collection for a long time due to the replayability alone.
Imagination: B+
I’ve said this already but I really admire the balance between the theme and mechanics. Although majority of the game is spent in the mechanics the imagination aspects of this game are wonderful.
Every time I’ve built a character I was intrigued, attached and excited about them. I even took that character away from the table and game them some thought, which is a win for the game for sure.
I love the alignment chart as you can make your character slightly evil throughout the game but end up good, and play around with a sprinkle of chaos. I do wish there was a bit more to it, we built these wonderful characters but now what next? I do think Roll Player Adventures may answer that question though so kudos to Thunderworks Games for continuing to expand and grow the story.
What would elevate this game currently is almost a sheet to remember all the characters you made, maybe giving them names and just reminiscing as a score sheet almost. It would also be fun to take all those characters and imagine a world in where they all exist together!
Target: B+
Overall, this is a game that I can see many individuals enjoying. It’s easy to grasp and not difficult to teach and really appeals to the masses. There is quite a lot of math, which can be a bit off-putting to some but fear not as it’s an inviting and engaging experience. I do have to say, I wouldn’t have guessed the premise of the game just by looking at the box.
Now, after discovering the glory of this game it has become an experience I want to share with others. If dice rolling, strategic puzzles and optimal utilization are elements you enjoy, this game will definitely appeal to you and you should certainly check it out.
Tylor’s Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Initially, I didn’t think I fully understood what the game was about. I had this misconception that we would be duking it out against one another and battling to become the greatest hero. However, this game takes you a load of steps back to the basics of character creation. It reminded me of DnD character creating, except much easier and random!
Overall, this is a great mix of thinking ahead, random luck and strategy that is has me hooked! It is relatively straight forward, has a relatively short play time, and a lot of variability through the characters, classes, and alignments. I’m excited to play more of this game and I think it will be even more exciting at a higher player count.
Final Thoughts: An elegant mix of mechanics and theme. Each turn is engaging, each choice is meaningful and ultimately the entire experience is a puzzle you’ll want to solve over and over. If you enjoy games like Sagrada and dice drafting, this one should definitely be on your radar. The replayability is immense and you’ll find yourself lost in the characters before you know it, making your own world with all the characters you’ve created.
MERIT Report Card Letter Grade: A-
Note: A copy of this game was provided to us by the publisher.