You Can Roll Dice
For MAGFest 2026 I wanted to bring something to the event beyond just my jam game. I had previously been intrigued by (but ultimately did not participate in) another jam about designing a game that just barely fits the genre of TTRPG.
You Can Roll Dice, or at least the version I intended to submit to said jam, was a set of instructions to set up a display such as the one I brought to MAGFest. I don't have that original document, but here's my best approximation:
- Place down a dice box, tray, or tower. It should be in a place public enough that people will walk by and see the game, but private enough that players feel comfortable engaging with the game in any way they feel.
- Place some number of dice inside.
- Place a sign nearby encouraging players to engage, but do not prescribe any expectations of play. I recommend "You can roll dice."
Something that I put a lot of thought into was what the sign should say. "You can roll dice" felt like the perfect invitation. Mainly, it's a factual statement. Of course you can roll dice. It isn't even specifying that you can roll these dice, just about rolling dice in the abstract. But even still, maybe "roll" is too much of a prescriptive action for players. There are other things you can use dice for. Maybe the sign implies that a little bit.
So what's the point? Why would someone want to set up or play this game? Well first, I think the draw of dice in a tray (with the right audience) is enough to get people to roll dice. It might not be extremely fun or engaging, but people like rolling dice. As for why you may want to set up such a game, maybe you're a kind soul and want to give people an opportunity to roll dice. But I'm a little bit kooky so obviously I have some kind of hidden agenda behind this game.
WARNING: This is the point of no return. Once you read beyond, you can never earnestly engage with this game.
Okay, so why did I set up You Can Roll Dice at MAGFest? I went into this event with a few questions on my mind. If I gave thousands of people free access to a tray of dice and gave them no rules or consequences, what would they do? Would they just roll them and walk away? Would they invent their own games? Would they steal them? If someone stole them, would someone else put some back? I was not disappointed with the results.
I'll note a few things about my specific set up that may or may not have influenced the results, more testing needed. I tried to get a roughly even distribution of dice. 2 blue, 2 red, 2 pink. 3 with numerals, 3 with pips. 3 large, 3 small. None of these sets perfectly overlapping. I also put the dice tray in an odd corner of the room where people would be often walking by, but the staff at the event would not be able to see what players were doing with the dice. I found it extremely important that if someone wanted to steal the dice, there would be no consequences for doing so.
So even prior to the event's start, while I was helping set up the indie arcade, I found that some of the other staff were already playing games with the dice. Amazing. Something particularly amazing to me, no one felt the need to ask permission, and no one had difficulty coming up with their own unique way to engage with the dice. The sign was unassuming and direct enough. You can roll dice.
So what happened when the lights went out and the event started? Nothing for a while. But then...
After 30 hours, someone stole one of the dice. I was ecstatic. I continued to pass by every once and a while to check up, and things didn't seem to change for a while again, but when I passed by at hour 61, all the original dice were gone, and in their place was a couple of tiny dice and some tiny dollar bills. A few hours later, the tiny dice were gone. And a few more after that, they were back.
So what did I learn from this? Not much. I was correct that people would both steal and replace the dice in the tray, and that felt super vindicating. People seemed to like it. I even made someones "things I found inspiring at MAGFest" list which is such a high honor for me!