{Enter the octgn}
(playing dragon dice online)
Introducing a free, lightweight way to play Dragon Dice online, with lots of built-in automation!
What is this?!
OCTGN is an online tabletop gaming platform that is free to use and runs on any Windows device (as well as Mac OS devices through the use of software like WINE).
What does it offer?
Since OCTGN doesn't use any 3d modeling or physics engines, it requires very low resources to run, meaning it can run on even the most basic of laptops.
Built-in "deck builder" allows you to build your armies right there in the program, rather than importing them from another site.
Automated table setup takes the force you constructed and automatically loads all the dice in the areas you specified. As soon as both players are loaded, the table is built for you!
Automated dice moving, organizing, and resetting! When you click to send a die to another army or zone (like Reserves or DUA), the game will automatically move the dice to that zone, rearrange all the dice by size, and then turn all their IDs face up so you can always see what dice are in your armies.
Automated army rolling and calculating! When you select an army to roll and choose what type of roll to make (melee, save, etc.), the game rolls all the dice in that army and calculates your results for you, saving you time! It even handles rerolls for abilities like Rend! Then reset the army to IDs with a click!
so what do I need to get started?
First you need to download and install OCTGN (https://www.octgn.net/), as well as the "image pack" that contains all the dice images. You will need to register for an OCTGN account, which is free.
The current image pack is available here. Note: The game will not load if you do not have the image pack.
now what?
Once you have installed OCTGN and downloaded the image pack, you're ready to set up! There are a few steps to getting Dragon Dice installed, but once it's done you won't have to do it again. It will automatically update every time new features are added!
When you load up OCTGN, you will be greeted with the screen you see here.
Installing dragon dice
The first step is to add the Dragon Dice game feed to OCTGN. This allows you to install it and will automatically update it for you.
Click the tab for "Games Manager" which shows all the games that are currently available to install. Find Dragon Dice in the list and click the green "Install" button. After a few seconds, the game package will be installed and we are almost ready to play!
Installing the image pack
The final step is installing the image pack so the game can load all the dice images necessary. To do this, just click "Add Image Packs", and find the image pack you downloaded. It may take a few minutes to install all the images, and then you're ready to play!
Building your armies
OCTGN is primarily used for playing card games, so it has a "Deck Editor" that we use to build our armies. From the Deck Builder screen, click Deck > New > Dragon Dice to start building your forces.
First things first, you want to check "Hide Alternates". This just hides all the other dice faces besides the ID, so you don't need to scroll through every die face to build.
On the bottom left is your "deck". There is a spot for each of your terrains, each of your three starting armies, dragons, minor terrain, and dragonkin. Simply drag each die where it belongs. As long as the dice are in the right section, the game will automatically build the table for you. You can use the various filters at the top to search for dice by name, species, element, class, and more!
Here is an army I am building. You can see I have a Wasteland Temple as my home terrain, and a Wasteland City as my proposed Frontier terrain. I have started building the army I want to have at my home as well.
The game package includes a few pre-built armies if you just want to jump in and play though.
Make sure to save your army when you are done!
Starting or joining a game
From the OCTGN main screen, click "Play or Spectate". From here, you can either start a new game, or join a lobby that is waiting for another player.
If you and a friend want to play together, one of you should Start a game, and then the other can Join their lobby from this screen.
starting a new game
If you click "Start", you are met with this screen, where you select the game you want to play, enter a name for your lobby, etc. Click Start to open the lobby!
The game lobby
This is your lobby screen. It will show a list of players on the left, including yourself and anyone else who has joined. Once both players are in the lobby, click "Start" to jump into the game!
The game screen
This is your game screen. It has zones for each terrain, each army, and your summoning pool, DUA, and BUA. At the bottom it has the chat lot and your hand. Above your hand is a row of counters so you can keep track of your mana while casting spells.
In the top left, you can click "Game" and "Load Deck" to load up the army you built, or you can select "Load Prebuilt Deck" to load one of the armies included with the package.
playing the game
Once your armies are loaded, you are ready to play! All your dice will be positioned where you wanted them in the deck builder, and it will automatically place spell cards into your hand.
Right clicking (or double-clicking) on a die will let you roll that die, or you can select a variety of other options like "Send To Reserves" to move your dice around. You can move them manually of course, but using the built-in system will automatically arrange and organize your dice as you move them.
If you right-click in one of the army zones on the table, you will see options for "Roll This Army". The game will take any dice inside the white box, roll them all, and report the results of your roll into the chat window.
"Reset This Army" will take all the dice inside that white box, arrange them all by size, and then turn them all to their ID faces.
What do you think?
The rest is up to you to explore! You can duplicate spell cards to add more copies of Watery Double to your armies, you can turn on "Die Scattering" if you want your dice to move around a little when you roll them, etc. More updates are coming every week, so look out for new improvements every time you play!
Feel free to send feedback, bugs, requests, or any other thoughts you have over to us! We would love to hear it!
Let us know what you think in our email: info@thedicemustflow.com
Thanks!