I think the variance is good, because one game you could start with all 3 stacks if you're unlucky. But if you're lucky you can start with 2 5's touching or all your bases touching. People always bitch about starting with 3's on opposite sides of the map, but you never hear them bitch about starting with 2 5's and a 3 starting next to each other.

How about everyone just starts off with atleast one five stack?

This way we don't get rid of then fun of starting with two connected five stacks in a corner and messing it up.

I have had some great games starting with all 3 stacks, especialy if they are close together. If you do create the variance you would want to ensure that people do not have connected starts, this is where the real luck comes in not so much in stack size but the ease which a start can be connected.

I like seeing random stack sizes, I just wish when I get the 4 corner 3 stacks start that someone else on the table doesn't have connected 5's or a 5 and 4 connected. Which seems to be the case that for every bad start there is a monster start at the table. Some how ensuring less connected starts would minimize issues with stack size maybe.

How about changing the opening so that everyone takes it in turn to pick their territories and then place dice down on the table? You could give people 2 seconds max for each round, the placements would get done in under 2 minutes and the complaints of bad starts would be history.

You could even snake it like a fantasy football draft or something.

You see, that would work on te lower tahbles but once you get into yellowfin territory we would just see a lot of "okay i'll get this corner you get that one," shit which would make this game really really annoying.

variance is good if it is equally apply to EACH player, regardless of the order of your turn.

correct me if i am wrong - now if you start earlier (say 1st), you get less dice - which is fine except when you have your territories in the four coners.

what if every player start with at least 2 connecting territories?

Not a bad idea Jeremy, but I think that cuts too close to risk and would really slow the game down. I think a lot of the fun of Kdice is its speed and variance.

I havent the replies but 4 3 2 1 is much better than the crap shoots Ive been pulling. Everyone with a 5 kind of blows because youd pull a 5 and what 2 2 1? or 3 1 1? Sucks

Do it, seriously. Then the only luck is placement, which we deal with already

first of all, I fully agree with Sam's comments.

Too much intervention in the randomness would make stuff less fun. Wouldn't the folowwing small adaptation to total randomness be enough to avoid super-starts and awfully bad starts as well. First player cannot have anything bigger then a 4 stack and last player should have at least 1 5 or 2 4stacks.

Personally I would not change anything but I could live with something like the small adaptation I proposed. As Sam mentioned you get good starts and you get bad starts. The point of the randomness is to use your skills to make the best out of every situation. Good start = maximize your gains; bad start = do damage control. After say 100 games, you should get enough of both situations and the total points you get is the sum of all those + and - so the system is fair enough as it is now.

I agree with jurgen and sam. There's really no need for any change in the current starting system. The point of randomness is that the chances for having a terribly bad start are about the same as having an insanely good start. Any change to this could make the game somewhat sterile with pretty much the same starting stacks every game. Limit luck = limit fun. IMHO