That’s because these games tend to be portable, easy to teach, great as solitaire games, and fun to replay many times in a row. I’ve played at least two-dozen true roll-and-write games, and it has become one of my favorite genres (along with the related flip-and-write games, which use cards in lieu of dice). I’ve been reviewing games for over eight years for several outlets including Paste Magazine, and I have over 200 reviews under my belt and a game collection in my basement that’s too large to mention. And you might roll just for yourself or for all players.

You might be allowed to roll some or all of the dice again to get a better outcome. It can get more complicated, of course: You might use one die, several, or all. In the most basic sense, you roll some dice, then you write something on your personal scoresheet based on the outcome. Unlike a lot of the words people use to describe board game mechanics (my wife especially loves to roll her eyes at me when I call a game a tableau builder), “roll-and-write” is quite self-explanatory. These games have exploded in popularity since 2018, with scores of original titles and spinoffs of existing board games that borrow existing themes and drop them into the roll-and-write model. Yahtzee is the most popular example, and along with the similar Kismet, it dates the core game mechanic back at least as far as the 1950s. You’ve almost certainly played a roll-and-write game, even if you’ve never heard the term.

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