Summary
Whether it’sMonopoly,Catan, orRisk, dice have become an integral part of the standard board game formula - but they don’t have to be. Dice inject a degree of randomness where it’s not always needed. They can ruin a perfectly good strategy, or jeopardize a win that should’ve been secure. Most board games today live or die by a roll of the dice, and a single bad roll can frustrate an hour’s worth of calculated gameplay.
Thankfully, there are now plenty of great board games without dice. The following ten games use cards, tiles, or other resources to get around the need to roll dice every turn. Some are perfect for hardcore strategists, and others are designed for casual play. They’re not all without randomness - some of them use shuffled decks or similar probability-based mechanics. But not one of them will ever require its players to roll a set of dice.
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10Dune: Imperium Is A Big Strategy Board Game Without Dice
1–4 Players, 60–120 Minutes
Dune: Imperiumis one of manygames based on theDunescience fiction franchise. In its simplest form,it’s a worker placement game. Each player selects a character from theDunecontinuity, with such icons as Paul Atreides, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and Glossu Rabban among the playable leaders. In each turn, they’ll be able to place one of their agents on various planets, either gathering resources or entering combat with other factions. Players progress by allying themselves with different factions, eventually earning victory points that propel them to a win.
Dune: Imperiumreplaces dice with deckbuilding: its main mechanic is gathering cards. Cards must be expended to place agents, and leftovers offer extra bonuses at the end of every round. There’s some randomness in which cards players draw, but since they’re ultimately responsible for which cards end up in their decks, it’s hardly as unpredictable as a game of dice.
9Azul Is A Tile-Matching Board Game Without Dice Or Movement
2–4 Players, 30–45 Minutes
Azulis best compared to video games likeTetrisorPuyo Puyo:it’s all about placing beautifully patterned tiles on a predetermined board, matching colors to like colors. Players select one or more tiles from a series of randomly-determined mats in the middle of the table, then choose a matching slot on their personal game boards. The goal of each turn is to complete rows containing one to five tiles of a kind, then shift them over to the permanent, patterned side of the board to rack up points.
Azulis themed after theazulejotiles that adorn churches and palaces throughout Portugal and Spain, but several variants, including the delectableAzul: Master Chocolatier, also exist.
Special combos, like five of a kind or three in a row, afford extra bonuses, but any leftover tiles could result in a score deduction.Azuldoesn’t use dice, cards, or any other movement mechanic: the only randomly-determined factor is which tiles are available when. And even then, it’s hard for an unlucky draw to ruin anyone’s game - but other players can and will.
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8Wyrmspan Is A Spin On The Classic Wingspan Board Game Without Dice
1–5 Players, 90 Minutes
Players around the world have fallen in love withWingspan, a game in which players take on the role of ornithologists attempting to attract diverse species to their wildlife preserves and maintain their populations. They do so by gathering different kinds of food, and strategically laying eggs for the maximum possible effect. Different dragons afford the player different strategic abilities, some of which are limited to a single use. It’s known for its beautiful art, colorful wooden tokens, and complicated-yet-accessible gameplay.
However, whereWingspanrelies on dice for its food-gathering mechanic,Wyrmspan, its dragon-themed spinoff, eliminates the dice-rolling mechanics completely. It’s a standalone board game without dice - there’s no need to buy a copy ofWingspanto play it. The fantasy art is just as beautiful, and the game comes with multicolored, speckled egg tokens that resemble flavored jellybeans. There’s still some variability in the card-drawing features, but there are no dice to roll.
7Pandemic Is A Co-Op Medical Strategy Board Game Without Dice
2–4 Players, 45 Minutes
Pandemicis a game about just that -a series of diseases spreading rapidly, which two to four players must work together to stop. Each player picks a specific specialist - say, a Scientist who requires fewer resources to develop a cure, or an Operations Expert who can build infrastructure to aid travel between cities - and travels throughout the world, attempting to gain the necessary data and materials to develop a cure.
There are also three expansions available forPandemic:On the Brink,In the Lab, andState of Emergency.
Movement is an important aspect ofPandemic, but instead of dice,Pandemicsimply gives each of its predetermined characters a set movement speed. Players have four actions per turn. The one aspect of chance that pervades the game involves a deck of cards - certain draws may cause a disease to mutate, which can accelerate the endgame unless the players have a good strategy to deal with it. As a co-op game,Pandemicis great for familiar groups who can work well with each other. Avideo game version of this board gamewithout dice is also available for remote play.
65-Minute Dungeon & 5-Minute Mystery Provide Quick, Chaotic Card-Based Gameplay
1–6 Players, 5 Minutes
As their names imply,5-Minute Dungeonand5-Minute Mysteryare strictly limited to exactly five minutes per game. This makes them ideal for casual play: it’s possible to enjoy an entire adventure in only a matter of minutes. And with highly variable decks of cards, players can chain together multiple games in a row without the worry of a complete repeat. Each game is played entirely with cards, each of which includes a scene, ability, or enemy.
Dungeonsis hero-based; each character has unique skills that they must use at the proper time.Mysteryis centered on a series of scenes, each of which reveals a different clue and brings players closer to solving a real-life codex. With their simplicity and focus on teamwork,5-Minute Dungeonsand5-Minute Mysteryare excellent for players of all ages, and board game groups of all skill levels. And there’s not a single die to be rolled.
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5Telestrations Is A Casual Drawing Board Game Without Dice
4–8 Players, 30 Minutes
Telestrationsplays like a cross betweenPictionaryand the classic party game Telephone: it begins with each player selecting a prompt from a card, and drawing it with a dry-erase marker in a spiral notebook. The notebooks are then passed around the room, and the next player must guess what the drawing represents. They’re passed again, and the next player must draw the word the previous player wrote…and so on, and so forth until the notebooks make their way back around. Players then compare their original prompts with the series of drawings and guesses that follow, and hilarity ensues.
Telestrationsdoes technically use a six-sided die, but it’s possible to leave it out completely: it’s only used to help players decide which prompt to use, as each card includes six options. Alternate rules involve giving higher scores for successfully drawing/guessing more difficult prompts, or simply ignoring the point system and playing just for fun.
4Dixit Is A Dreamlike Guessing Board Game Without Dice
3–8 Players, 30 Minutes
Dixitis a game of dreamlike imagery and improvisational storytelling. Each player takes a turn as the storyteller, picking a card from their hand and making up a sentence that could describe the image printed on it. Each other player gives them a card from their own hand that they think matches, and then the storyteller shuffles the cards they were given. All the other players then guess which of those cards was the storyteller’s original pick.Ideally, the storyteller wants most of the players, but not all of them, to guess the correct card, as points are deducted if everyone or no one gets it right.
The challenge ofDixitis coming up with clues descriptive enough to help most players, but cryptic enough to stump at least one. It encourages creative thinking, and is excellent for families. There’s some random chance in which cards are drawn, but the choice ultimately lies with the player.
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3Carcassonne Is A Tile-Placing Board Game Where Players Make Their Own Maps
2–5 Players, 30–45 Minutes
Carcassonneis a tile-placement city building board game without dicebased on the history and landscape of the medieval French town of the same name. Players draw tiles, and can place them anywhere on the board that makes logical sense: roads must connect to roads, cities to cities, and forests to forests, for example. They can also elect to place human-shaped tokens, called meeples, on a part of the tile, assigning them to a particular role based on their placement. Completing areas with meeples inside scores a player points.
Carcassonnehas players vying for highly limited space, challenging each other by creatively placing tiles to their own advantage and their opponent’s disadvantage. It’s easy to pick up, but strategies can go deep. There are two expansions:Wheel of Fortune, which adds an element of chance, andMists over Carcassonne, which makes the game co-op with a horror slant. There’s also a kid-friendly version calledMy First Carcassonne.
2–5 Players, 30–60 Minutes
Ticket to RideisMonopolyfor people who hateMonopoly. It’s easy to learn for all ages, and can get seriously competitive. Instead of fighting over properties, players are vying to build the longest railroad. It’s all in the timing: in each turn, players can choose either to draw cards that give them the resources to build, build a new route that gives them additional points, or take a Destination Ticket that grants extra points at the end of the game.
There’s no movement or dice inTicket to Ride; players may build new train lines anywhere on the board, as long as they have the requisite cards. And with five cards to choose from at any given time, there’s little chance of a bad draw. The original version is set in the United States, but alternative versions allow players to build railroads crisscrossing places like London, Germany, New York, or the entirety of Europe.
1Scythe Is An Ultra-Complicated Economic Board Game Without Dice
1–5 Players, 90–115 Minutes
LikeCatan, but wish it were twice as complicated and didn’t require dice?Scythescratches a similar itch, with economic resource management and strategic battlein a unique, dice-free board game.Scytheis set in an alternate history interwar Europe: farming drives the economy, and giant, diesel-fueled mechs are a part of daily life. Players take control of one of five factions (or nine with both of the expansions). Each has different pieces, rules, mechanics, and hidden goals. It’s primarily an engine-building game, which means that players can either take actions that bring them closer to victory, or upgrade their options, so their future moves are easier and more effective.
Scythe’s Europa also provides the setting for theRTS video gameIron Harvest.
With different resources, goals, and play orders, every game ofScythefeels different from the last.But there’s very little random chance involved, not even in the card-based combatmechanic.Scytheis an excellent choice for board game diehards looking for their next challenge, but wanting to leave the dice behind.
