Roll Player

Roll Player has an appealing premise, and the artwork had me interested before the game even reached the table. The play itself did not remove my doubts. It is handsome. A slightly broken trait can still make it considerably less compelling.

The game moves through rounds as players build their characters and buy traits, with the expansion adding monster hunting to the package. On paper, it is a neat meeting point between a board game and a fantasy RPG: make a character, make choices, and hope the parts amount to something satisfying.

At three players, though, the decisions and the interaction did not put enough control between the game and its luck. I bought a slightly broken trait in the second round, then spent roughly an hour watching that early advantage become the final result. The interesting decision is meant to be what sort of character you build; here, the game seemed to have made rather too much of that decision for me.

I can see the audience for it, especially a group that already enjoys fantasy RPGs. But I would rather play Sagrada in this space: it ends sooner, and it does not leave me treating one lucky purchase in round two as the final boss. Roll Player has a sound idea, but its execution was an hour behind it for me.