By Firestone Maybe the most influential game of the last few years is Dominion. It’s made a TON of money and spawned a ton of similar games. WizKids' Quarriors is one of the more unique “copycats” to emerge from the pack.

It’s called a dicebuilding game, rather than a deckbuilding game. Rather than buying various cards, as you do in Dominion, you’re buying dice. And let me tell you, these dice are cool. They’re all sorts of colors, and each type is unique and engraved with a different design.

Quiddity is the currency in the game. Just like in Dominion, you start the game with a few “coins”—in this case, a few dice that either give you 1 point of Quiddity (on 5 of the 6 sides of the die) or 2. You also start with a few weak monsters.

I won’t go into all of the details for a turn—they’re kind of involved, and MUCH easier to explain when someone’s sitting in front of you where you can explain by showing. Basically, if you have any creatures left alive at the beginning of your turn, you score VPs—then they go away. Then you draw six dice and combine them with any that were already in your Ready area, roll them, and decide what to do with them. Any Creatures you rolled will now attack each of your opponents. (That’s one of my favorite things about this game. There’s no trying to decide whom you should attack. You just attack each opponent, regardless of how many there are.) Your opponents’ creatures may be killed because of the attack, but any that survive and are still alive at the beginning of that player’s turn will score VPs. Now you buy dice. There are two “classes” in the game—Spells and Creatures—and you can use any Quiddity you rolled to buy one of those die.

The game ends when someone scores a certain number of VPs—which varies depending on the number of players.

There are a few things for Christians to consider before playing the game. Spells are the first thing. It doesn’t feel as though you’re “casting a spell.” You’re just rolling a die that gives you a certain boon if it lands on a certain side of the die.

Another thing to consider is that the second expansion is called Rise of the Demons.  One of the Creatures you can purchase is a Demonic Overlord. I know it’s “just a game” but I’m not comfortable with my kids using a Demonic Overlord to help them out in the game, so I won’t be purchasing that particular expansion. They’ve since come out with another expansion called Quarmageddon, and there’s nothing questionable in that expansion.

Let’s be honest: When you’re dealing with dice, the luck factor goes way up. But the bottom line is that it’s just a ton of fun to roll these terrific dice. I’ll play Dominion with my gamer friends, but I play Quarriors with my family. It’s lighter and luckier, but it’s also more fun.