Methods of testing house rules?

Well, I just meant A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 Joker in each pack but shuffling in the Joker & resetting each time it is drawn but I take your point & we'll try the card system as you describe it. I've done quite a few dry runs & it seems to work fine, evening out the odds, but let's see what the games come up with tomorrow.

Regards,

j

Piquet uses this as well. Good system so it’s not complexity predictable.

Yes, some of my friends still prefer to roll dice instead of using cards...
...although strangely enough they can’t tell me exactly why they don’t like it
(perhaps it’s just a case of “I don’t like it because I don’t like it”).

The Advantages Of Using Cards
In a perfect world (!), 24 rolls of a dice should give each number four chances
each of coming up. In reality of course this never happens. But using 24 cards
numbered 1 to 6 at least guarantees that every number will come up four times
before a reshuffle resets the deck...and the same for your opponent.

It also prevents irritating things like ‘cocked dice’ that don’t lie flat, and those
times when the dice flies off the table altogether to roll about on the floor, so
it actually makes the game flow a little bit faster as well.
(It also stops those annoying players who seem to...er...’drop’ the dice instead of rolling it...
...you know who I’m talking about don’t you...)

The Disadvantages Of Using Cards
At the beginning, getting a high PIP card (especially a ‘6’) is usually a waste.
That’s a high card you know you won’t get in combat, at least until a reshuffle.
If your opponent doesn’t advance, and has no long range missile shooters, it can
take four or five bounds before contact is made...and that’s four or five PIP draws.

This can influence a players fighting style for that particular battle.
Draw four or five low cards for PIP’s, and you know that the high cards are still to come.
Likewise, draw four or five high cards for PIP’s, then you know combat is going to be hard,
and this can make players more cautious.

Mind you, there’s not much a cautious player can do about it.
To get through the low cards to reach the high cards (or get that Joker reshuffle),
they have to burn their way through their stack...and the only way is to have combat.
Anyway, since DBA 3.0 no longer has any ‘breaking off’ or ‘disengaging’ mechanism,
players often find they are forced to fight whether they like it or not.

One Possible Solution To The PIP Dilemma
Each player could have not one but two stacks of cards:-
a 18 card + bottom joker combat stack, and a separate 6 card + bottom joker PIP stack...
...but my colleagues (at least, those who like using cards) think this is an unnecessary
complication, and they prefer the simplicity of having a single stack as a luck generator.