Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
The Curse of the Black Dice is a pirate-themed dice game driven by a random mission generator and four possible mission types. The missions are generated by rolling a handful of black dice to determine the difficulty of each part of the mission.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
The Curse of the Black Dice is a pirate-themed dice game driven by a random mission generator and four possible mission types. The missions are generated by rolling a handful of black dice to determine the difficulty of each part of the mission. By rolling their own player dice and with the help from the pirate crew, the players try to get at least the same amount of dice to each mission part to fulfill this part. Each part grants rewards and penalties, and each mission has another endgame trigger condition: Each mission gives a reward if the crew fulfills it and punishment if they don't. What's more, if pirates don't fulfill the mission, they also risk that the next part of mission will be more difficult because of the curse of the black dice. In the end, only the player who has captured the most amount of gold wins — that is, if the ship doesn't sink and take all players to the bottom of the ocean with it. Sail together to find treasures, board ships, plunder villages, or even kill the mighty Kraken...and betray the other players when they don't expect it. There can be only one winner, but all players can lose together!