Roll & move is a mechanic with a bad reputation. It’s widely seen as a simplistic rule that’s found only in old or rubbish games that aren’t for serious gamers. I’m here to suggest that roll & move isn’t bad, it’s just misunderstood and misused.
The classic roll & move games have you rolling a dice and then moving exactly that distance along a one-way track. On your arrival, you must execute whatever that space dictates. There’s definitely a problem here when it comes to engaging gameplay, but I’d argue that it’s not the mechanic, it’s the way it’s been terribly applied. And, just because a mechanic is traditionally executed poorly1 doesn’t mean it can’t be executed well.
Agency. Agency is the key.
The traditional application of roll & move takes away all the player’s agency, and this is why it sucks. Not because you roll a dice and move, but because you have no choice about any of it. To illustrate this point, and show how roll & move as a mechanic can be better used, let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine a non-sucky roll & move game.
Start with the roll bit. Let’s keep the restriction that we must move as many spaces as we roll, no more nor less. What can we do from there? How about we roll two dice instead of one, and let the player choose which one to use? This is a very simple change, and only one of many ways we could allow the player to mitigate their dice roll. However, even this tiny change gives the player something to think about. It starts to give them a little agency back.
Now the value of being able to choose or modify your result rests on two things. The first is that the goal of the game is something other than a pure race (otherwise more is always better and it’s not really a choice). Actually, we could even keep the race idea as long as we tweak it a bit. Let’s say that you can only cross the finish line if you’ve collected 3 each of 4 different fruit from those scattered about the board. Now there’s a reason to go to space A and not space B on top of the general movement towards the end.
Our second reason why the choice of roll matters is that each potential landing space does something different. In our example, let’s say each space allows you to collect a different fruit. This is easily done on our imaginary board.
Speaking of the board, we can do even better. Why not allow the player more than one route? An open grid with movement in any direction is an extreme option, but even if we stick to a more traditional path format we can add branches and junctions to allow the player more options for their movement. Maybe we even let them move in either direction along each path, picking one direction each turn. Now, instead of no choice at all when they roll their dice, they’ve got the choice of which dice to use, and each one could take them to multiple end spaces, each of which do something different as well as moving them nearer or further from the finish line. With a well-designed path system this could give them half a dozen options for each roll, which is already quite a bit of agency and choice. And, all these changes have been small, practical, and easily implemented.
Of course, there’s a bunch more you could layer on, but I’m going to stop here. My point is that roll & move isn’t a bad mechanic per se, it’s just generally used with little imagination and skill. As I think even these simple changes show, a roll & move game could easily be developed into something interesting.
Before I leave you to ponder this further, I’d like to recognise that there are a few good games that have roll & move at their heart; they’re just rare beasts. I think that’s a shame.
Notes
1 When I say “poorly”, that’s with regard to the narrow definition of “doing well” as being fun for gamers. There’s other ways in which the traditional approach is actually a good thing, but I’ll come back to that another time.
Quirkworthy 
I think the “Roll & Move” mechanic gets a bad rap because it is used in so many kids games. This subconsciously put it in the juvenile rule mechanic group causing grownups to frown upon it.
But that too is fixed with, as you explained, how you use it. It may be used where many other aspects of your game are complex, but movement is simple and straight forward. This way you are not dividing your strategy plans and can center on the mechanics you can control.
I picked up the 40th Anniversary edition of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth and the movement is very much roll and move. The difference is you get to choose which direction you go in and if other players move with you for free. That small change made moving powerful (moving all four players at once) and fit the theme (you are more capable working together). So while the roll & move aspect was very present, it was balanced.
Good example.
I like how even a little thought can make this much maligned mechanic do interesting things.
IIRC, Frag has roll & move, but the result is only an upper limit, you do not have to exactly move that distance. It’s long ago since I played Frag, so maybe I rememberino wronglissimo. I do recall correctamundo that I enjoyed Frag in the way back when, maybe I should get it out again.
Absoluto.
The fact that you locate the problem not with the mechanic itself, but with the lack of agency and choice is, for me, the key takeaway.
In this particular instance, one might have two options- have a standard move but low (say, up to 3) or roll a d6 and move up to the result. Already this creates a decision whether risking is worth it or not.
To me, however, it’s important also to challenge existing assumptions in games- for example, in RPGs (I apologize if I keep returning the conversation to TTRPGs but that’s my main area of interest), movement is often a given. Each turn, you move 30 feet, or you charge for double that, to give a classic example.
Well… that’s not how life works, if you’re into this kind of game design. It’s much more interesting. After watching so many people stumble and fall while running or charging (who said LARP doesn’t give you practical experience?), I decided a core mechanic in my game would be that you need to roll when running or charging in combat. It has changed strategies immensely, and gives players an option- do I go slow and steady, or do I risk a charge? Not only is it more intuitive, it’s also more fun, and as with many such rules, newer players/those without D&Finder experience find it quite obvious, while those who are already used to “how things are done” are the harder to adapt.
Which is a very interesting discussion in game design… ludic momentum (just made this up).
Ludic momentum is a fun term. Or, perhaps, ludicrous inertia.
The safe, cautious move vs risky longer move split is often used in modern figure games, both skirmish and battle, and I like it a lot. You can also use it with sound-sensitive zombies as the fast moves might make more noise, but how much could be a dice roll.
And you’re welcome to drag this back to familiar topics. I think that there’s far more common ground between forms of gaming than folk always realise and the points I’m making are often widely applicable.
Thanks! Ludicrous inertia sounds like what happens when people start quoting Monty Python during a session, and you just can’t get back to playing seriously. Or Tiktok videos for the younger crowd.
I believe that wargames have to teach us a great many things regarding two things- agency in relation to consequences of choices, and the value of positioning. The latter is often lost when people play very abstract theater of the mind (which is ok… until it isn’t because of misunderstandings), but the former is very new concept, I’d say less than a decade old- a kind of confusing agency with “I said it, so it goes”, which results in a sort of cooperative ever-increasing power fantasy. Which is ok, until it isn’t when everyone realizes they can’t find common ground after all, much like kids playing cops & robbers.
But yes, the more you play, and the more you look under the hood as a designer, then more you spot patterns across different forms of gaming.
Which theatre in whose mind?
I do appreciate the sarcasm regarding theater of the mind! I personally prefer using maps and miniatures, not necessarily to count squares and argue over half a meter, but as indispensable visual aids to stop the flurry of questions like “How far away is this?” and “Why can’t I hit this guy, I thought he was next to me?” etc.
In my experience, anything that heavily relies on positional play is really hard to do reliably in a collective visualisation. Physical mapping or miniatures or dry erase markers or something makes everything so much clearer.
That is absolutely true. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be there.
The lack of agency is quite a problem with some games… I hate games where I have the feeling I am on rails. Terra Mystica is such a game, where you have so many choices, but if you want to win the path is very strict.
I haven’t played TM. I did, however, play Gaia Project which is based on it, and it wasn’t to my taste for similar reasons.
Gaia is better, but still has some issues. TM has factions that have to be played in a certain way, the non-modular board helps experienced players, also the factions are not well-balanced. In most cases we were able to determin in round 2 which two players will compete for place 1 and 2.
That last point was one of my issues too.