One of the most underplayed games that I’ve come across on Goldtoken is the Dice Paper variants – Dice Paper Football, Dice Paper Basketball, and Dice Paper Hockey. Which I find strange because they are not much more difficult to play than Dice Pipe. Granted, I thought the rules were poorly explained when I started playing and this might be keeping people away. These games are not difficult games and, once one understands the rules, these are very fun games to play.

Basics

• The object of the game is to score more points than your opponent.

• Your goal/basket – the one you have to defend from your opponent – is always on the left side of the board.

• The goal/basket you are trying to reach to score a point or points is always on the right side of the board.

• For each move a die is rolled and the result is between 1 – 3. That is number of moves one can make on their turn.

Moving

The movement rules are the trickiest part of the Dice Paper games, but, it only takes a little time playing before they’re completely understood.

• As the ball/puck is moved in the Dice Paper games, a trail of the past moves is made. One is never allowed to move such that a new piece of trail would retrace an older segment of the trail.

• You cannot finish your turn on any of the points along the outer edge of the playing field. In Dice Paper Hockey you also cannot finish a turn on the three points that make up the front of the either goal.

• You cannot finish your turn on a point that has been already used.

• You can pass through a point that has already been used as long as you don’t retrace a trail already there and can finish your move on an unused point.

• You can move to a point along the outer edge of the playing field as long as you don’t retrace a trail and have the movement to finish your turn off the edge on an unused point. While on the edge, one is not allowed to move along the edge but must “bounce” back onto the playing field.

Scoring

The obvious way to score a point or points is to move into your opponent’s goal/basket. In Dice Paper Basketball scoring a basket will yield 2 points. In the other two variants, reaching your opponent’s goal will yield 1 point.

The other way to score a point is maneuver the ball/puck on your turn such that your opponent cannot reach an open point to finish their following turn. The corners of the playing field are where this occurs the most often.

Strategy

Trapping your opponent into a corner where they cannot move to an open point on their next turn is probably the more frequent way to score a point in Dice Paper Hockey and Dice Paper Football. It’s less frequent in Dice Paper Basketball because making a basket is easier.

Threatening your opponent by scoring one way may make your opponent move such that scoring the other way becomes more easy. For example, if it looks like you are driving your opponent into a corner by their goal then your opponent may move away from the corner and out towards the front of their goal, making it easier to score a goal by moving into their goal.

In Dice Paper Basketball, since a basket yields 2 points and trapping your opponent only yields 1 point, trying to score a basket should be the priority.

And this is where I’ll stop for now. I’ve been testing a few ideas that might or might be worth mentioning in the future. Hopefully, this is helpful to the new player; but, if it still sounds too complicated then just try playing a game or two.