Today’s topic is a little outside of my normal scope. It all started when TikTok user adventuresinaardia started posting regular content he called “Roll for Sandwich.” The concept was that he had a bunch of charts, and for each episode, he would roll dice, compare them to those charts, and basically let fate decide his lunch. It produces some pretty funny results sometimes. Take, for example, episode 109.
They’re not all miserable experiences, but he does like to torture himself with weird ingredients sometimes. Anyway, he’s inspired a whole host of imitators on TikTok, some better than others. Roll for Barbecue is one of the better ones, by michiganbbqaddicts. That one takes it to a whole new level, rolling for sauces, rubs, cuts of meat, wood, and so on. Roll for Cereal, by cerealtimetv, is one of the best looking imitators, even though his bowls usually make my teeth hurt with all the sugar he’s putting together. And there’s more – Roll for Cookie, Cupcake, Sushi, Pizza, Taco, Milkshake, Pasta, Burger, and probably more that I haven’t found yet. There’s also a few that go outside the food realm, like Roll for Song and Roll for Puppet.
In the end, the original is my favorite. And I’ve also been inspired by it – my wife and I have recently been dipping our toes into Dungeons & Dragons, and for our most recent session, we were in charge of food. So, we had the other party members roll for our meal. It turned out to be a Baked Potato Bar, a Hot Vegetable, and a Pizookie, in case you were wondering (I’m personally not brave enough to put gross choices on my charts). It was fun.
I’ve had a couple of other theoretical ideas based on the concept. One is that it would be interesting to design a game based on the Roll for Sandwich idea. I’ve thought about a couple of ideas, but haven’t been able to make anything work like I would want it to in a gaming situation. I suspect it would really have to be in some kind of RPG situation.
The other idea is that there should be some kind of Roll for Board Game design concept. I think it’s been done before, but I’ve been playing around with making a few charts. So, I’m going to try, right now, to see what we get. I’m not including my charts, you’re just going to have to trust me.
- GAME TYPE (d4): 3, Dice.
- THEME (d6): 4, Horror.
- CHARACTERS (d8): 5, Roll Twice. New results: 3, Monsters; and 2, Ghosts.
- SETTING (d10): 1, Amusement Park.
- MAIN MECHANISM (d12): 4, Drafting.
- SECONDARY MECHANISM (d12): 8, Simultaneous Play.
- GIMMICK (d20): 8, Giant Miniature.
So, we have a dice-based horror game, with Monsters and Ghosts at an Amusement Park (probably abandoned). It’s got drafting and simultaneous play, and features a giant miniature. So, what would that look like? My guess is that you’re drafting monster and ghost dice to haunt different rides at this park, and there’s a giant Ferris wheel you can put dice on. I don’t know, but this seems like it might be fun, though I think it’s beyond my meager abilities to try to make.
Anyway, I just wanted to talk about this a bit, because it’s something that’s been on my mind lately. Thanks for reading!
Boards and Bees 