Have you ever experienced that thing when you think about something and then it just keeps coming up again & again? Like an actor keeps appearing in TV shows you watch? Or you see the same car everywhere? Frequency illusion? Well…that’s happened to me with Dice Masters. Seems the topic of repeat characters across different sets just keeps coming up. Over and over it has come up in conversations and correspondence with me un-prompted. It’s just in the air.
It got me to thinking about the implications of having numerous cards of the same character identity. What impact does the character choices have on the player? What is the explanation for Wizkids producing so many repeat characters? Is it even Wizkids, do the publishers have an influence on character selection? I’ve been thinking about it far too much.
So… in this article you’ll find some of my thoughts on the subject. I’ve also got some input from Wizkids as well to shed light on it. Why are there so many cards with repeat character identities across Dice Masters? What are the implications? Read on to find out…
The Team Building Dilemma
Clearly, one of the most impactful elements of repeat characters across the game is on how we build teams. There are a handful of characters who are not only repeated but have some pretty strong texts across the card selection, making it a challenge to make choices for teams.
The best example of this at the moment is Black Widow, who has appeared in seven Dice Masters sets AND a promo. In the Modern format specifically she’s across two of the sets (and the promo is currently legal too). Not only that, but a number of the cards have a neat place in the meta with two strong Control pieces and one solid win con contributor.
Some might consider Oracle, The Bard and Constantine other examples of the “Strong Character Cards” category too. (Although in time a couple clearly rose to top of the meta). There have been times when I’ve been building a team and I’ve weighed up different Madame Masques, Batman, Wonder Woman, Poison Ivy, and Spider-Man cards (to name just a few).
This presents a team building dilemma for us players; when generically useful game texts exist on the same character identity we’ve got some pro’s and con’s to weigh up. It introduces more layers to the team building experience and tests our brewing skills.
This goes beyond the ability to put together a nice combo or throwing in some useful Control. For example, your ability to assess meta, observe popular trends, to balance purchase costs across your team, or to find energy type synergy all comes into play. These ideas all add to our dilemma when working around the same character identity.
Which Do You Choose?
It’s not just in the open constructed meta game this happens either. This dilemma exists in casual formats as well. Perhaps to an even greater extent, with players often left to carefully consider their character choices when there are team building restrictions in place.
I did wonder whether this was, in some cases, by design. The thought occurred to me that perhaps the Dice Masters design team may intentionally choose to place strong game texts on duplicate characters. They’d do this as a way to influence and balance the meta. For example; to prevent too much oppressive control on one team, or to turn heads away from a particularly aggro card towards an alternative.
I asked the Dice Masters Product Manager at Wizkids, Jimmy O’Brien, about this. He confirmed that this was indeed the case, although not in all instances. He pointed out that Constantine is a great example of it being an intentional design choice, as is Black Widow, describing some of the duplicate character design choices as “silver bullet vs aggro” or placing the player in a position to “pick Control A or B”. (To use his words.)
He did, however, elaborate on another significant influencing factor, which is…
Marketing Appeal
The use of tentpole comic book characters, particular ones that feature heavily in popular comic book inspired movies and TV shows, has marketing appeal to the casual tabletop game player and can help in the acquisition of new players. This is certainly a contributing factor to the presence of so many repeat characters in the game.
I know that I have used an individual’s favourite characters to serve as a gateway into the game. For instance; I’ve used “training” teams that focus on the new player’s area of interest. By asking what their favourite movie/tv show/cartoon/comic book is and centring the team around those characters you stand a better chance of hooking them in. I’ve been doing it for years this way, mentioning the approach is a blog post way back in 2018 called “Teaching New Players Dice Masters”.
Wolverine is in EVERYTHING!
It would also be fair to say that it is reflective of the narratives and story arcs that the game draws inspiration from – Dice Masters teams have the same characters re-appearing as often as crossover events in Marvel & DC Comics use the same key players over and over again. When its all going to pot then its always The Avengers and the Justice League that gets called in. I’m also pretty sure, by this point, there is not a title at Marvel comics that hasn’t heavily featured Wolverine or Spider-Man as significant guest stars, nor a title in DC Comics that Batman or Harley Quinn hasn’t shown up in. LOL
Jimmy from Wizkids confirmed this to be the case, telling me that “We take the view that if people play a superhero game, they’ll want to play their favourite characters.” Which get a “fair enough” from us here at BritRollerSix Towers and makes perfect sense.
In addition; there was something else that he was also keen to point out on this point too: this view also contributes to the distribution of game-text strength, with a desire to make sure that, and I quote: “players who gravitate towards the characters they’ve enjoyed in cartoons or movies don’t get totally clobbered all the time.” This explains why there are so many broadly playable game-texts across multiple versions of the same character in addition to casual or theme-y texts.
I did wonder whether the publishing partners had a say in the character choices and so asked Jimmy while I had him. The answer was simple: “That’s too top secret!” LOL
Designing for Drafting
Strong game texts on the same character identity in-set also plays a part in the design process for the draft. It creates drafting decisions for team building too.
When an in-set character identity carries the strong game-texts across all rarities then we have decisions to make. Not only that – but with everyone’s eye on the same character identity then we’ll be drafting all rarities to get our dice count up.
As with constructed, it creates an element of balance to the game play too, perhaps even more so. Imagine back in the day, when we drafted Avengers Vs X-Men, if we could get all the Professor X game-texts on a team!
Jimmy described it to me as follows: “characters appearing in draft are meant to be compelling for the secret blend of what makes them right. It’s a double-edged sword – if there are 4 copies of a card in a set, there are more dice to go around, but there are more compelling versions that people will be grabbing at in the hopes of getting their preferred version.”
There we are then folks – we hope you enjoyed our look at the repeat character identities element of Dice Masters. We also hope you found the input we got from Jimmy at Wizkids insightful.
Let us know in the comments below your thoughts. What are your difficult choice game-texts on the same character? Do you support the use of the same character for marketing appeal? Does it help or hinder the game for you? We’d love to hear your thoughts…
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