I'm working on a board game for general, non-gamer audiences. (Think people who have played Monopoly and Uno, but not Risk or Settlers of Catan.) Sometimes the player faces a test with only two outcomes: pass or fail (with some consequence). Success and failure are both equally likely.
What's the most intuitive, non-gamer—friendly way to use 6-sided dice for a pass/fail test?
There are a number of possibilities that result in a 50% chance of success, such as:
- Roll a die. Even: pass. Odd: fail.
- Roll a die. 1/2/3: pass. 4/5/6: fail.
- Roll a die. 1/2/3: fail. 4/5/6: pass.
- Roll a black die and a white one. Black>white: pass. White>black: fail. Black=white: roll again.
So far, I've been quite surprised to see how easily non-gamers can be confused by simple board game mechanics, so I'm trying to come up with something as non-surprising as possible.
(Replacing the die/dice with another object, such as a deck of cards or a spinner, would be too expensive for this particular game.)