Okay, I played my first (and quite possibly last) game of Ra: The Dice Game earlier today at the WBC. The game was explained by the ever-delightful <PERSON>, who made the transition from Ra to this dice version seamless and simple. Some credit must go to <PERSON> for this as well, I suppose. The reason I may never play it again is simply that I couldn't find a copy to buy at the vendor booths at the WBC--which was a shame because the game supports two players quite nicely and that's the itch that always needs to be scratched at my gaming venue of choice.
The mechanics are simple--Yahtzee rolling scheme, dice that show pharaohs, monuments, civ advances, Nile/floods, Ra's suns, and the wild-card Ankhs. There are some niggling details that must be mastered, such as the fact that suns may not be rerolled, and the color of the dice matter periodically (okay, that was sort of an obvious development) but not always. My favorite goal was simply to roll three suns and two ankhs every turn, which, had I been successful, would have ensured instant gratification to the tune of 5 points each turn. That was--due to the vagaries of probability--very unrealistic, sadly.
My opponents were a pair of very lovely Scots who'd been transplanted to the Philadelphia area, and I could tell that they were enjoying the dice decision processes a bit more than was I. 755
I honestly much prefer the original Ra to this game, if only because the Pharaoh and Nile tracks cap relatively early, and if you keep rolling Nile and Pharaoh dice faces to the point of total superfluousness, it's most displeasing. This sort of non-probable yet provably-possible outcome is the sort of thing that used to piss me off no end in Yahtzee. All I need to do is roll three more '2's to get the top bonus!!! What do you mean I keep rolling everything but a '2'?? How can this be? Same thing in Ra: The Dice Game. It's insanely easy to see what you should do with any given roll of the five dice, and the only challenge is in rolling what you need when you need it. So, in other words, it's all the luck of the dice.
Were the decisions more difficult surrounding the dice allocation (Kingsburg pops into mind here, for no great reason--it's not like it's ever that hard to allocate dice in THAT game--it's just totally a no-brainer in this one) I'd have enjoyed this game a lot more. As it stands, it's a reasonable diversion that's not nearly as messy to deal with as actual Ra, but it's also not nearly as satisfying to me. Ra is generally an 8 out of 10 game for me, and this modification pulls it down into the 5-6 range.
As a public service, and to spare future visitors the tedium of the pissing match that I will eventually get into with one of this game's playtesters, here is a link to the game's rules, thoughtfully pointed out by the selfsame playtester:
Rules of Ra The Dice Game 755