Designer Preview: Favor of the Pharaoh

Favor of the Pharaoh is a dice game for 2-4. Players roll dice to claim tiles — which grant more dice, powers to manipulate dice, or tokens — preparing for a final roll-off for the Pharaoh's favor.

Favor is a greatly expanded reworking of my earlier To Court the King. Where that game had just twenty different characters, Favor increases this to 55 and adds custom dice, tokens, and two-sided level bars for greater variety.

Roll Them Bones

Players each start with three dice, a locking pyramid, and 0-3 tokens. The first player gets zero tokens, the second player one token, etc., to offset turn order advantages. (In Favor, unlike TCtK, turn order never changes.)

On your turn, you roll your dice. After each roll, you may use powers and tokens to manipulate them. You must lock at least one die in your pyramid before re-rolling the rest. You continue re-rolling and locking dice until all your dice are locked. Then, you claim a tile based on your locked result.

Level bars detail what it takes to claim tiles. For example, at least three dice, all even, could claim a Servant, while a four-of-a-kind is needed to claim the Artisan. The game includes five bars, for tiles needing at least three, four, five, six, or seven dice to claim.

At level 3, there are always as many of each tile as players. (A player may not claim duplicates.) At level 7, there is always just one of each tile. In between, the number varies. For example, in a four-player game, there are three of each level 4 tile and two of each level 5 tile. This creates competition among players.

Tiles are color-coded: gold tiles grant more dice; blue tiles grant powers, each usable once per turn, to manipulate dice; and red tiles grant once per game powers.

Play continues until a player claims the Queen and Pharaoh with seven of a kind or better. Any players left to go in that round get a token worth one die (in lieu of their final turns). The final roll-off begins immediately with the next player.

In the roll-off, each player gets one turn to beat the current high roll. If the Pharaoh were initially claimed by seven 5s, for example, it could be beat by seven 6s or any eight-of-a-kind (or better). The player who claimed the Queen gets a final roll to retake the Pharaoh, using the Queen's power to bring in one die of any value.

Revisiting the Past

A reboot allows a designer to address "rough spots" in an earlier design as well as a chance to expand it. While I was happy with To Court the King, several things stood out:

• Tiles granting dice were generally more powerful than manipulator tiles.
• The rotating first player was too confusing for a family game.
• Finishing out the last round after claiming the Queen felt clunky.
• The icons were too small, and some were too hard to figure out.
• The "booby prize" for being unable to claim a tile — the Fool — was too weak.

The last issue I addressed with the Herder (which is always present). When its owner first locks a pair, he gains one die to roll for the rest of that turn. This can be hard to do early on when a player doesn't have many dice — a reasonable penalty for having previously failed to claim another tile — but it is easy to do later on (so its owner doesn't lose any dice relative to other players in the final roll-off).

When Ted Alspach of Bézier Games first approached me about revisiting TCtK, I gave him my unpublished expansion for it, plus a bunch of additional untested tile ideas, and a proposed Egyptian re-theme, which he liked.

I told Ted that if we were adding lots of tiles, we needed to group them so that only a subset would be used each game. Otherwise, players would be overwhelmed by too many characters. Ted designed the level bars and tile groups.

The level bars are two-sided, providing additional variety from game to game.

Each game uses 20 of the 55 tiles, determined randomly for each tile "slot" (except the Queen). Thus, only one of the three characters below will be used each game.

A first game set-up using the A-level bars and an interesting set of tiles is provided. For later games, players roll dice to select the level bars and tiles to play. Alternatively, you can download a free iOS or Android Favor set-up app provided by Bézier Games. This app, along with the custom box insert, cuts set-up time in half (no rolling needed) and is recommended.

As shown on the level bars, blue tiles come with one token, while red tiles come with two. Ted added one-shot tokens to "sweeten" the manipulator tiles as well as to compensate players late in the turn order. There are two types of tokens:

You may spend a reroll token to reroll any active die or spend a +1 pip token to add one to one die's result (say, to turn a 5 into a 6). You may spend as many tokens as you wish, one at a time, to adjust your rolled dice. Do you spend tokens during play to get the tiles you want or save them for the final roll-off?

Tokens also became another dimension for tile design:

After going to a fixed turn order and adding tokens, Ted proposed simply removing the final round after the Queen was claimed and instead going immediately into the final roll-off. This suggestion felt right, but I believed it penalized players late in the turn order too much. To make this work, I gave dice tokens to the later players to ensure that all players enter the final roll-off on a reasonably even footing.

Immediate and Custom Dice

Immediate (white) dice are new. These dice must be locked after their first roll (after possibly being adjusted by powers or tokens). This makes them much weaker than dice you can reroll. For example, Palace Servants is a level 4 character granting two Immediate dice, while the General, who grants two standard dice, is level 7.

Of course, if the Head Servant — who can adjust all immediate dice as desired — is in play, players have to re-evaluate matters...

Six tiles provide custom dice. Custom dice combine both a die and some control in a single tile, providing an alternative besides "gain a die" or "gain a manipulator". However, the amount of control is variable, depending on your rolls (unless you have powers to manipulate the custom dice).

The Serf and Noble Adoption dice have different arrangements of standard faces: the Serf has no 5s or 6s, while the Noble has no 1s or 2s.

The Artisan, Conspirator, and Grand Vizier dice each have one modified face.

If you roll the Artisan's "1" face, you may set one active die — possibly the Artisan die itself — to any desired face. If you roll the Conspirator's Intrigue face, you can set two active dice to any desired faces. This is balanced by the Conspirator die not having a "6" face, which can be limiting.

The Grand Vizier's Decree face replaces its "1" face and lets you both set an active die to any face and borrow a tile from another player to use sometime during your turn!

The Ship Captain's Voyage die has faces that let you reroll or adjust dice during your rolls. Then, if you manage to lock its double-die face, you gain two more dice to roll for the rest of your turn. However, if you are unlucky, you may end up locking this die for nothing (a shipwrecked voyage), effectively losing a die.

Adding Artifacts

In my unpublished expansion, I had two once-per-game powers. Ted liked them and asked me to design more so that they could become a tile group. There are now fifteen different artifacts (the same number as different manipulator tiles).

Artifacts have varied effects. For example, Royal Decree provides catch-up for a player short on dice, while Pharaoh's Gift can mitigate bad luck, and Royal Power allows a player with lots of dice to get some control powers late in the game.

Artifacts add another player choice: Should you sacrifice some growth — the other tile you could possibly claim in a turn — for a one-shot advantage (plus two tokens for claiming a red tile)?

Between artifacts, lots of new tiles, tokens, and custom dice, players now have many more options during play. Sometimes, players get so involved with building their abilities, they forget to claim the Queen!

I'm very happy with Favor of the Pharaoh. I think we achieved our goals of greatly expanding the game, smoothing out its rough spots, and adding interesting variety in lots of different ways. Enjoy!