The Curse of the Black Dice

About this board game

The Curse of the Black Dice is a pirate-themed dice game for 2–4 players, with a playing time of about 40 minutes. Players sail together on missions to find treasures, board ships, plunder villages, or even kill the mighty Kraken.

Every mission is created by rolling a handful of black dice. These dice determine the difficulty of each mission part, creating a random mission generator with four possible mission types. Players roll their own dice and rely on the pirate crew to try to place at least the required amount of dice in each part.

• Generate missions with black dice and shifting difficulty.
• Use player dice and help from the pirate crew to fulfill mission parts.
• Gain rewards or suffer penalties based on mission results.
• Collect gold while deciding when to cooperate—and when to betray the other players.

Completing a mission grants a reward, while failure brings punishment. When pirates do not fulfill a mission, the curse of the black dice may also make the next part more difficult. Each mission includes an additional endgame trigger condition, adding another way for the voyage to move toward its conclusion.

Although the players sail together, there can be only one winner: the player who has captured the most gold. Yet victory is not guaranteed for anyone. If the ship sinks, all players are taken to the bottom of the ocean and everyone can lose together.

With its blend of random mission generation, dice-driven challenges, shared danger, rewards, penalties, and unexpected betrayal, The Curse of the Black Dice makes every pirate voyage a struggle between cooperation and personal fortune.