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New Print & Play game: Loot Boxer!

I've been wanting to design my own Roll & Write game ever since I learned about the ROLL & WRITE DESIGN CONTEST from the Board Game Geek forums. However, coming up with an idea tends to be more difficult than expected, and it's not like inspiration works on command.

Spoiler alert!

Yesterday, I was reading about charts and dice rolling probabilities in RPG games. This happened because I recently played a USR RPG solo session, in which the monster chart I had designed proved to be incredibly overpowered, having all my characters die in a glorious Total Party Kill scenario.

The article I had found, titled "Encounter Table Bell Curve", mentioned an example using a 1d4+1d6 roll and explained the rarity of all possible results in terms of percentages. AAAAND that's when inspiration hit!!

ME: "Hey! Common, uncommon, rare, very rare... that sounds like item tiers in a game! IN FACT, Assasin's Creed Odyssey (which I've been playing ad nauseam as of late) sort of uses those categories. It's like when you get those damn loot boxes that give you random items! Like in Injustice 2! OH HEEEY!"

And so, the idea for my game was born: A roll & write game about unboxing loot crates! I took some pen and paper and started jotting down the purpose of the game and its possible dynamics.

Then, as all things fell into place, I started looking for information on loot box' categories, item tiers & video games, and most importantly: types of dice rolls I could use to generate nicely balanced bell curves! What I discovered was that rolling 1d4 plus any other die resulted in four categories of probability that could fit common, rare, epic, and legendary tiers! Also, they adjusted nicely to 6 different types of possible "loot boxes" if I used all 6 different types of polyhedral dice in combination with said 1d4.

With this info ready, I proceeded to work on the next step: designing how the game could look like. Again, I put some pen and paper into action! In a matter of minutes, I had my first game sheet "prototype".

Unfortunately, it was too small, so I roughly drew a bigger one I could actually use to test the game. And, I did. I started playing based on what I had envisioned. My first game showed me I had nailed the item prices, but the loot box prices were too high (except for the "common" loot box; 10 coins was a good deal). I settled on increments of 15 and 20 to establish the new loot box prices. This time, the system worked nicely!

I reviewed some visual details from the game sheet and transcribed my "loot box" contents list before playing again. My final score was of 60 points. It all worked as I had intended to, and I actually enjoyed how the game's dynamics functioned. It DID feel like opening loot boxes! This gave me the green light to proceed to the last step of the process: digitalize the game! I used Photoshop and Google Docs.

A couple of hours and revisions later, Loot Boxer: The P&P Roll & Write Game of Epic Unboxing! was born!!!

I've made the game available at DriveThruRPG as Pay-What-You-Want document (so, it's free, but donations are accepted).

You can get the game here:

 
I've already requested to add it to BGG's Database to make it a Print & Play entry.

I printed my copy today, and I must admit I'm feeling quite happy with the results (although I've noticed it may be time to recharge my printer's cartridge).

Playing it is as easy as ticking the boxes. I'm using an erasable marker for ease of use and replayability.

Opening several loot boxes simultaneously is as easy as rolling all dice together. Here, you can see I was opening a common and a silver loot box.

One of the best moments of my game session was opening a gold and a common loot box, AND GETTING TWO SIMULTANEOUS LEGENDARY ITEMS!!

My final score was a fantastic 370 points! Waaaaay better than my first try, which ended with a score of 60.

I timed myself as I played, and it took me around 30 minutes to reach the game's goal.

So, here you go! My very first roll & write game. I hope you enjoy it, and I definitely won't mind if you give it a try. Question is: Can you beat my score?

P.S. The game also includes a female character sheet in case you want to be a gal.
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