Top 10 Best Dice-Free Board Games (Ranked)

The use of dice has become synonymous with board games, although not everyone enjoys their success at the mercy of the hexagonal cube. However, there are a lot of of board games that completely eliminate the use of dice. Here are the best choices, ranked.

Also note that this list excludes dice-adjacency systems, such as replacing dice with special decks that perform the exact same function. These decks are for those who want to have control over their turns throughout the game for maximum strategic possibilities.

When I think of games with little to no random elements, I immediately think of engine builders; and few are as tight and strategic as Oven.

In OvenYou will participate in auctions with other players to acquire or simply use various properties and facilities. With your resources and property cards you will form great and complex engines that are only as efficient as you can make them.

If you want a game where you outsmart your opponents instead of outplaying them, then Oven is worth investigating.

Ticket to drive is an incredibly popular game of building trains and railway systems and is incredibly popular for a reason. It is another purely tactical game of seizing opportunities and denying your opponents points.

The only characteristic of arbitrariness in Ticket to drive is the shop. You pick train cards of different colors that correspond to the different tracks you are trying to fill for points. The way you pick the cards from the shop determines the strategy though and the colors you get can be used for different tracks, meaning this randomness is not as condemning as dice systems and still gives you a lot of control.

Taking on railroads and seeing your opponents inhale sharply enough to slice the tracks in half is endlessly satisfying. And if you want, you can add one of many other Ticket to drive extensions to make it even more complicated.

If engine builders aren’t your thing, then you might prefer a lighter, but no less tactical, game Carcassonne. You and your opponents battle for control of a procedurally generated area of ​​pastures, fields, castles and towns.

The random order of the tiles in Carcassonne benefits the game greatly, as you can choose where to place those tiles, allowing you to use winding cities and area denial to thwart your opponents. As different structures and zones grow, you will all try to place your meeples to claim them as they grow. With conflict and difficult decisions, Carcassonne is infinitely replayable without a dice system.

Carcassonne also benefits from many expansions that add new meeples, new ways to earn points, and much more complexity for established city builders.

Fair warning, A Feast for Odin technically has two dice, but you can play this game endlessly without touching them. This game is a strategic dance of worker placement and resource management, as you and your opponents try to get as much stuff as possible in seven turns. And from the a lot of systems that the game has to use to win things, you can avoid the couple that uses a dice system.

There is so much choice in A Feast for Odin that it’s almost overwhelming, and yet I’ve never met anyone who didn’t enjoy diving into the systems to be as efficient as possible during their turns to get as many items as possible. Whether you want to tend to livestock, hunt, trade, craft fine goods, plunder, or explore entirely new lands — you can do it.

And even then, unlike other games that use dice, A Feast for Odin has dice systems that reward you whether you fail or succeed. Failure gives you resources to improve on the system next time, or can simply be used elsewhere. It’s a great system that has the same exciting gambling feeling of rolling dice, without the consequences that usually come with a bad dice roll.

It’s a shame that so many military and action board games use dice to facilitate the many other factors present in real battles. However, A War of Whispers lets you enjoy a military game without dice, making you take on the role of an opportunistic spectator.

Instead of raising armies and going to war with your friends, each of you will have different loyalties to the five factions on the board. Each of you will influence all of the factions, either by raising troops or sending them to war, while you try to figure out who is in which faction — and to what extent.

A war of whispers is the ultimate spy game that relies only on your own cunning and wiles; no randomness is required.

Scythe is one of the few militaristic games without dice, something I was pleasantly surprised about. Plus, it’s dieselpunk, a genre that really needs more attention. Despite having a lot of mechs and heroes, Scythe can also be used as a resource management game.

Starting at the corners of the rich and abundant map, players will expand their operations very slowly, dictated by their unique economic boards and by what they did last turn. That’s how methodical it is Scythe that it’s less of an action game and more of a resource management game.

If you want a war game without dice, where you’re worried about the sheer amount of resources needed to make battles possible, look no further than Scythe.

Resource management and battles are all well and good, but what about lighter games that everyone can enjoy? Let me introduce you Secret Hitler. Many party and all social deduction games do not use dice, but personally I find Secret Hitler to be one of the best.

Much like a political mafia game where the mafia is actually the Nationalist Socialist Party in 1934, the players are divided into two teams — the fascists and the liberals. However, Hitler will not know who their secret fascist supporters are, leading to a government of distrust and deceit.

With rotating presidencies and chancellors, liberal and fascist policies that the chancellor may or may not be forced to implement, and powers such as assassination, Secret Hitler It’s always an exciting moment when I’m asked to get something from the shelf.

If I can find a way to Quacks of Quedlinburg on a list, I’ll do it. Instead of using dice or dice-adjacent systems, this game uses opaque bags that you dive into to try and find the alchemical ingredients you swear you would have already put in…

Every turn of Quacks of Quedlinburg Everyone will try to make the best potion they can. However, there is a lot of room for error, as potions can explode if the wrong ingredients are put in. And the system for getting ingredients? The illustrious bags.

You can go grocery shopping to get specific ingredients, but it is neverThere is a guarantee that you can pull them out whenever you need them. Quacks of Quedlinburg constantly puts everyone in a position where the one who dares wins – or explodes.

The Search for El Dorado is an incredibly popular deck-building obstacle course racetrack. Deck builders may have their own randomness, but El Dorado has support systems to turn that into a feature instead of a frustration, and none of these decks are dice-adjacent.

In The Search for El DoradoYou and other players will divide your turns between advancing through the track using your cards, buying new and better cards, and slimming down your deck for more streamlined travel. Not moving can be terribly anxiety-reducing, but with the right purchases, you can move forward in future turns.

This is simply a fast-paced game where the balance between optimizing your deck to perfection and using it to get ahead is constantly shifting.

It is the opinion of many that Pandemicand its many expansions, are among the best board games ever made. Incredibly accessible, yet with a high skill level and great replayability, Pandemic easily secures the top spot as one of the best board games that don’t use dice.

In PandemicThe players (after choosing a role) travel around the world to stop the spread of infection in order to win. However, there are so many ways to lose the game that you all need to be constantly aware. With no dice to influence your actions, you are free to be as strategic as possible and plan for almost any eventuality as you all try to win together.

Pandemic is one of those games that almost everyone, universally, will enjoy. And because it is free of dice and competition, it will appeal to anyone you approach about it.

Now that you have a nice list of board games where you call the shots, you can suggest a fantastic game for those who are tired of dice.