So I was watching an old Tabletop episode on YouTube and they chose the first player using “who goes first dice”. I thought that’s a thing? So I googled them and found a UK supplier, and somehow they ended up through my letter box this morning.

So “who goes first dice” are designed so that you can’t roll the same number. No ties and rerolls. Sadly they only cater for upto four players. 

This has to be a better way of deciding first player than our usual way. Which tends to be a random player counter dropping from a gap in a closed hand. 

Sometimes we even use the suggested way of selecting the first player by the game designer in the rule book. Although some of these can be rediculous, and I’m sure there just because they are thematic. 

But this got me thinking. I also have a “solution” for the “what shall we play?” problem on game night. A solution that we have never used! That solution being What Game cards. 

Basically everyone selects a game to potentially play, with the last player or host selecting two games. They get put into a separate pile. Then a random what game card is dealt out to each person. Then in ascending order cards are played, when a person plays their card they remove a game from the pile. The game that is left at the end is the game you play. 

But this is usually not too much of an issue. Mainly because before something like FEG@WL we have discussed on the Facebook Event page for it what we will play. Or even discussed it the previous week. Which would explain why we haven’t used these yet.

So how do you decide first player or what game to play?