Bang! The Dice Game

Bang! The Dice Game is a 2013 re-implementation of the Bang! Card Game from 2002. It features the same wild west shootout with a sheriff who can’t quite remember who is a loyal Deputy and who is a treacherous Outlaw. As the name suggests, this version uses dice instead of cards to see who lives and who dies.

Updating the game to feature dice has worked incredibly well. Games are shorter, snappier, and more exciting. Players are assigned characters and secret roles. There are four roles in each game; Sheriff, Deputy, Outlaw and Renegade. The Sheriff and Deputies win if they outlive the Outlaws and Renegades. The Outlaws win if the Sheriff dies and the Renegade wins if they are the last person standing, a very tricky role to succeed in.

On their turn a player will roll the five dice up to three times. Choosing to keep certain results along the way. The dice will allow players, to inflict harm upon themselves and others, as well as heal.

When the dice allow you to shoot they give you a range of either one or two. The one lets you shoot a player next to you and the two means you have to shoot a player one space further away. This leads to players being forced into shooting those they don’t necessarily want to. During the game this will lead to many heated debates and appeals to the Sheriff, whose role is always visible.

The Bang! dice can also cause Gatling Guns to fire, inflicting damage on all players. Beers rolled allow healing, which can be given to other players if necessary. There are also Native American attacks and Dynamite explosions, which can cause big amounts of damage.

Bang! The Dice Game is a fun experience. It has player elimination but the game will be over quickly and it’s fun to watch the last few rounds play out. Outlaws and Deputies can win even if they have been eliminated so still have a stake in the game.

Having the Renegade in the game nicely muddies everyone’s motivations. The Renegade will want to keep the Sheriff alive, but not too alive. So can be mistaken for a loyal Deputy, which will anger the real Deputies.

This is a worthwhile addition to the Bang! Family. It plays up to eight and is a wonderful way to kick-off a gaming night. You may end up playing it all night as everyone will want to have one more roll of the dice.

Player Count: 3-8
Time: 15 Minutes
Age: 8+

In the U.S. wild west, the eternal battle between the law and the outlaws keeps heating up. Suddenly, a rain of arrows darken the sky: It’s an Indian attack! Are you bold enough to keep up with the Indians? Do you have the courage to challenge your fate? Can you expose and defeat the ruthless gunmen around you?

BANG! The Dice Game keeps the core of the Bang! card game in place. At the start of the game, players each take a role card that secretly places them on a team: the Sheriff and deputies, outlaws, and renegades. The Sheriff and deputies need to kill the outlaws, the outlaws win by killing the Sheriff, and the renegades want to be the last players alive in the game.

Each player also receives a character card which grants him a special power in the game. The Sheriff reveals his role card and takes the first turn of the game. On a turn, a player can roll the five dice up to three times, using the results of the dice to shoot neighboring players, increase the range of his shots, heal his (or anyone else’s) life points, or put him in range of the Indians, which are represented by nine tokens in the center of the table. Each time a player rolls an arrow, he takes one of these tokens; when the final token is taken, each player loses one life point for each token he holds, then the tokens are returned to the center of the table.

If a player collects a trio of Gatling symbols on the dice, he fires one shot at everyone else and rids himself of Indian tokens. Who’ll get his shot off first? Play continues until one team meets its winning condition – and death won’t necessarily keep you from winning as long as your teammates pull through!