Dice Drivin' Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Equipment
• Rules of Play
• Setup
  • Setting up your Hot Rod
  • Setting up the Speedway
  • Qualifying Round
• Turns
• Roll and Move
  • Overtaking
• Racing
  • Combined Stretch
  • Side by Side
  • Crash!
• New Speedway Card
• Action Cards
• Special Spaces
• Straggler
• On-the-Road Repairs
• Winning the Race
• Championship Mode

Equipment

• 11 Speedway cards
• 4 Hot Rod cards
• 16 Action cards
• 40 Cardboard tokens
• 8 personalized dice

Rules of Play

On each stretch of the speedway, players will find a set of requirements they will need to meet before they can move their Hot Rod forward. To meet these requirements, there is a set of Speed, Steering and Nitro dice that will allow them to advance towards the finish line (depending on the characteristics of their Hot Rod). These dice have several sides that read Crash! If you roll more than one Crash! on your turn, you're in for trouble!

Setup

Setting up your Hot Rod

Each player selects a Hot Rod card (or they can be distributed randomly). The card indicates the following parameters:

• Tire tokens
• Bodywork tokens
• Action cards
• Driving dice
• Current dice token

Players should take the number of Tire and Bodywork tokens shown on their Hot Rod cards. After shuffling the deck of Action cards, each player draws the number of cards indicated on their Hot Rod card.

Setting up the Speedway

After removing the Starting Position, Opening Stage and Finish Line cards from the Speedway card deck, we select the number of stretches we want and prepare our race depending on how long we want it to last (3 Speedway cards for a very short race; 5 Speedway cards for a short race; and 8 Speedway cards for an average race).

Place the Starting Position and the Opening Stage cards in the middle of the table (marked with the icon "Dice Drivin'", which distinguish them from the rest), lining up the middle lanes of the cards (Starting position, then Opening stage).

Shuffle the remaining Speedway cards, take two from the deck without looking at them, and mix in the Finish Line card. Return these three cards face-down to the bottom of the deck so they will be the last 3 cards to be drawn. Place the deck where all of the players can reach it.

Qualifying Round

To determine starting positions and the order of play, each player should roll 3 Speed dice. The player with the highest number of Speed points will be in pole position, and the others in descending order. If two players tie, they should roll again for a tie break. The Hot Rods are placed in spaces 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the Starting Position card in order of qualification. This will be the order of play for the rest of the game. Every player will receive the corresponding Position token to facilitate it.

Turns

We start with Player 1. Each player can perform one of the two possible actions on their turn.

• Roll and move: The player moves their Hot Rod forward. First the player should select which of their driving dice they are going to use during their turn. They should roll all of the selected dice at the same time and move their Hot Rod forward, if possible. If required, a new Speedway card is drawn (see New Speedway Card).
• On-the-road repairs: The player can repair their Hot Rod.

The player can also use Action cards as permitted (explained below).

Roll and Move

In order for a Hot Rod to move forward on the speedway, the player must state their intention at the start of their turn. Each Speedway card has a different level of difficulty. This level indicates the minimum roll needed to move forward one space in that stretch.

For example, if a Speedway card requires 2 Speed points, the player must roll two Speed points for each space they want to move forward, adding together the number rolled on each die. In this example a player can add together the two dice for a total of Speed 1 to move forward one space, or use a die with Speed 2 or 3.

One can move forward a space if one Nitro! symbol is rolled, regardless of the requirements written on the Speedway card. To do so, the player has to include a Nitro die on his turn.

As a player moves forward they can change lanes once during a single turn. To do this the player must roll at least one Steering point on one of the dice. If this happens, they can pull into the adjacent lane using that die for the lane change. If the space next to the Hot Rod is occupied by another player, no lane change is possible unless the player is going to overtake the adjacent car, as we will see in the next section. Lane changes are not possible if the space next to the Hot Rod contains an obstacle (see Obstacles and special spaces).

Overtaking

One Hot Rod can pass another by advancing from the adjacent lane, or the player can perform a special maneuver and overtake another car in the same lane. To do this, the player must roll and move, with a total roll that will allow them to advance to the next free space beyond the Hot Rod they are overtaking.

• If the roll is not high enough to overtake another player, the Hot Rod can be moved to the space behind the other, but cannot occupy the same space.
• If the roll is high enough, the player places their Hot Rod in the desired space and must then roll 3 Speed dice in a risk roll. If one or more Crash! symbols are rolled, it means there has been a collision between the two Hot Rods: the player loses two Bodywork tokens and the Hot Rod that was overtaken loses one. The player must roll one risk roll for each Hot Rod overtaken using the space occupied by the car.

Racing

Combined Stretch

Some stretches of speedway require a combination of results in order to advance from space to space. The corresponding symbols are shown on the Speedway card. Remember that the dice must be rerolled for each turn.

Side by Side

Two Hot Rods are considered side by side, or adjacent, if the spaces they occupy touch on one side. This could be in front of or behind a player's Hot Rod, or in the next lane over.

Crash!

Each die has the word Crash! written on one side. When a Crash! is rolled, it means that two Hot Rods have crashed because the driver took too much of a risk. If a player rolls one Crash! on one of their rolls, nothing happens, but if 2 or more Crash! are rolled, the Hot Rod will be in trouble.

Nitro dice are a good option to move forward at full speed, but they have a lot of Crash! results.

• 2 Crash!: The player loses one Tire token at the end of their turn if there are no Hot Rods in the adjacent spaces. If there are one or more rival Hot Rods in an adjacent space at the end of the move, there will be a crash and the player will lose two Bodywork tokens, and all adjacent Hot Rods will lose one Bodywork token.
• 3 Crash!: The player loses one Driving die. (Move the dice drive token one position to the left on the Hot Rod card.)
• 4 Crash!: The Hot Rod has taken damage and falls behind (straggler). The player must turn his car around so it is facing the opposite direction as a reminder that he loses his next turn.
• 5 Crash!: In the event of this improbable result, the player must leave the game due to a major breakdown.

If at any time a player loses all of his Bodywork or Tire tokens, he will lose one die and will recover the total number of tokens shown on the initial Hot Rod card.

New Speedway Card

When a Hot Rod lands on the last Speedway card on the table, the game stops momentarily. The player at the end draws a new Speedway card from the deck and places it in any direction they like.

Action Cards

Each player has a set of Action cards, the number of which is shown on their Hot Rod card. These cards allow the players to perform special actions during play. Each card has two different possible actions. The player must choose which of the two they are going to use and follow the instructions on the card.

Special Spaces

Some Speedway cards have special spaces. They may contain a hazard, e.g. surface in bad condition that prevents a Hot Rod from advancing, or more demanding spaces that require extra maneuvering to advance.

• Spaces with obstacles block a car from moving through them, so a Hot Rod can neither fall on nor pass over them, leaving only the option of changing lanes. If a lane change is not possible for whatever reason, the Hot Rod must wait until its next turn to go around the obstacle.
• Tricky spaces have additional requirements to those listed on the Speedway card. On a tight curve that generally requires 2 maneuvering points to move forward, there may be a special space that requires an additional maneuvering point. Or perhaps on a straightway there may be a steep grade that requires an additional Speed point to advance through it.

Straggler

When, for whatever reason during the race, a car falls behind (straggler), the Hot Rod should be turned around so it is facing opposite the direction of traffic. The Hot Rod cannot complete any other action during that turn, and the player loses his next turn. On the following round, the player simply turns his car around and continues playing.

On-the-Road Repairs

During the race a player can call the repair vehicle. This intention should be stated at the beginning of the turn, before completing any other action. The Hot Rod falls behind (straggler), but the car will be fully repaired and the player recovers all of his tokens and dice.

Winning the Race

The race ends once all Hot Rods have crossed the finish line. The first player to cross the finish line is the winner.

Championship Mode

For this variation of the game, the players set up an initial short race (4 or 6 Speedway cards). At the end of the race a point value will be assigned according to the order in which each player crosses the finish line:

• 5 points for the winner.
• 3 points for second place.
• 2 points for third place.
• 1 point for last place.

The second race will then begin (the same length as the first), in which the winner will start in the last position, the second place player in third position, the third place player in second position, and the last place player in pole position.

At the end of the second race the points are added together, and the winner is the player with highest combined number of points.

In the event of a tie, the winner is the player who has taken better care of their Hot Rod. For each die lost, deduct 2 points from the final score, and for each Tire or Bodywork token lost, deduct 1 point.

If there is still a tie... Why not play a final game for the tie breaker?

And feel free to design your own competitions, choosing the number of races, the type of speedway, or even change point values if you think this will work better for your group.

This game mode is designed for playing several games simultaneously. The top two qualifying players of each game play against each other in subsequent races, while the remaining players play against each other to occupy the final places. Large scale competition!