The Best Dice Rolling Games Board Games (to Me)

If you’ve ever played a board game, the probability you’ve played one with dice is nearly 100%. But the category is way bigger than Monopoly and Yahtzee. I’m most addressing budding board gamers with my recommendations here. I’m also focusing on mostly games I’ve either played or own. The general category of dice games is FAR too big for me to claim any ability to be totally definitive about either my opinion, or the best overall games. So we’ll stick at the level that makes sens, which is what I’ve experienced directly.

My Favorite Dice Rolling Board Games

I’ve not played every dice-throwing game. And some of the board games with dice I have played, I played a while ago. Those things said, I’ve played enough of the genre to have some real standout hits and some good other great ones. This is ordered by my fondness for the game.

Castles of Burgundy

Easily my favorite dice game, and really my FAVORITE BOARD GAME overall, Castles of Burgundy is just great to me.

If you’re totally new to “modern” board games, I will caution you that it is is a bit more complex than other dice-chucking games in this list.

That complexity is both in terms of difficulty to play, and also strategy to win.

But Castles is an awesome dice roll board game because it rewards you on nearly every turn with points. While the score track only goes to 50, you’ve got a marker for how many times you’ve gone around the track. Typical scores are about 200, because almost every turn in the game you’ll earn just a few.

Another facet I love about Castles is that does a good job of offering BOTH player interaction (in what you select from the communal board) and solo strategy (because you’re placing those tiles on your board which ONLY you interact with). This solves some of the worst features of board games to me. Often either every move becomes about beating others, or you’re just playing multi-person solitaire until you come back together at the end to score.

You can also find this game in a more compact, more dice “dice version” though it is harder to come by. As well, we already picked up the kids version, “Sandcastles of Burgundy” for my toddler—I can’t wait to teach him someday. For now, Monza is more his speed.

Sagrada

Sagrada is a much prettier game than Castles of Burgundy (particularly the pre-20th anniversary version of Castles I own). I’d actually say that if you include it’s dice AND the player boards, it’s probably of the prettiest games on this list. Though it is pretty abstract.

The theme revolves around the famous Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona. In Sagrada, you’re building your stained-glass window around rules about dice color and number placement. This makes it an interesting solitaire puzzle coupled with a communal dice-drafting (aka selection) mechanism.

Really fun and a little thinky to play. You’re only vaguely aware how others are doing during the game for better and worse. But it’s a fun one and it also looks really good!

Qwixx

Having just praised Sagrada for its prettiness, we come to a game I wouldn’t award pretty-points. But I own two different copies. And that’s because Qwixx has a soft spot in my heart for the sheer play-count I have with it.

And also that it is a nice quick and fairly light-complexity game. Here too there is good mixing of solo-play and player interactions.

While there is a little math involved in a Qwixx game, it’s nothing an 8 year old would struggle with. Mostly you mark “X” through four rows of colored numbers, balancing your need to fill them FULL of Xs and fill them FAST to beat other players.

It’s a game where you’ll sometimes regret your prior moves, but mostly you’ll be finished quick enough you won’t have much time to fret.

Deep Sea Adventure

I love Deep Sea Adventure for two big reasons: it is a very small game (great for travel!), and it’s just fun. The first time I played it we had so much silly fun I immediately bought a copy.

The premise here is that you’re a member of a team of deep sea divers. And you’re competing to gather the most treasure. But you’re trading off the collection of that treasure with your continued ability to breathe.

As you dive deeper, you can pick up more and more treasure. But every piece of treasure you carry makes it harder to get back to the submarine. And the more treasure everyone collects, the faster that shared oxygen disappears.

So, yes, your friend’s greed can absolutely kill you too.

So it’s got a strong push-your-luck aspect where if you’re too bold you’ll lose, but if you’re not bold enough you also have no chance of winning. It’s a tiny game, the rules take only a few minutes to explain, and a full game doesn’t take particularly long.

That’s Pretty Clever!

While I’ve played it less than Qwixx above, there are parts of Clever that I like more.

Primarily, what makes That’s Pretty Clever! stand out is that you get really fun combos of different types of point-scoring across your score card. Clever has a slightly higher waiting-for-another-player patience issue than most other games on this list.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t like it, just that I have more fun playing it with 2 than with 4. That’s one of the chief reasons its on our list of best board games for couples.

But those combos are so great (IYKYK).

Roll for the Galaxy

Perhaps the most “heavy” or “complex” game on this list, Roll for the Galaxy is a fun roll-and-choose game with a good bit of strategy.

Rather than rolling simple 1-6 dice, you’re rolling dice with icons that represent different phases of the game-rounds.

In each round you can do one of five moves in the phases like “develop goods” or “ship goods.”

There’s some nice player interaction about which phases activate, but also not so much that your strategy is easily upended by a “spoiler” player.

Dice Forge

I’d say that Dice Forge is of comparable complexity/difficulty/heaviness as Roll for the Galaxy. Which is to say “if you’re new to board games, approach with some caution.”

But it’s a really fun game with a mechanic I’ve never seen elsewhere: you actually change the dice as the game progresses.

Also similar to Roll, the dice aren’t 1-6, and you slowly make your dice a better fit for your strategy by physically changing the panels on the dice. A fun puzzle!

Sushi Roll!

A descendant of the also-great Sushi Go! (which is a style of game called “card drafting”), Sushi Roll is a dice-drafting game. But the first reason we (and especially Megan) love this game is that it’s just really cute. The art style is right in line with playful Japanese characters from Sanrio, etc. (she is partial to Cinnamaroll).

But it’s also a fun strategic puzzle where you’re trying to balance and watch what other people are collecting so that you can complete your sets before the the dice are gone.

For those who’ve played Sushi Go! I’d say this is a little easier. But if you love the theme I own both with absolutely no regrets.

Pandemic: The Cure

A clear descendant of the hugely popular co-op game Pandemic, The Cure adds a few tweaks. The most important for our sake here, is that you’re rolling dice rather than playing with cards.

Like its parent-IP, it’s a cooperative game where you’re racing to cure diseases before they take over the world. It’s been a few years since I played, but I remember the game as a bit simpler and easier to beat than Pandemic.

Other Games I Liked or Am Eager to Try

While my initial impulse was to list EVERY game I’ve played above, I realized I had too much to say and had to say less about some games I own or have played simply because there are SO MANY dice games in the world.

So here are a number of other good ones I have either enjoyed or seen widely recommended and want to try. I’ve also ordered this list by the game’s BGG weight score. That means the ones toward the top are mostly easy-to-learn and are likely to be more luck-based. And those toward the bottom are likely a little harder to learn and will reward deeper strategic thinking.

• Can’t Stop — A press-your-luck classic. You advance runners up number columns but risk losing all progress on a turn if you can’t move. It’s beloved for how simple rules create genuine tension every single roll.
• Las Vegas — A push-your-luck dice game where players wager dice on casinos to claim the biggest piles of cash, with ties canceling each other out. It’s fairly easy to learn but full of tense, semi-bluffing decisions.
• Yahtzee — Had to be included! The classic dice-rolling game where you chase combinations like full houses and straights across 13 rounds. It’s a timeless, low-friction family favorite that mixes light strategy with the thrill of chasing a five-of-a-kind.
• Bang! The Dice Game — A dice-based spinoff of the Wild West hidden-role game, where Sheriff, Deputies, Outlaws, and a Renegade duke it out. It’s great for group game nights thanks to its bluffing and quick, chaotic bursts of shootouts.
• Qwinto — A fast-paced roll-and-write from the makers of Qwixx, everyone simultaneously, writing dice totals into ascending rows. Like Quixx, it’s a great pick for its quick playtime. And every roll matters to every player at once, not just whoever’s turn it is.
• Camel Up — A betting game where players wager on which camels will finish first and second. The camels race unpredictably around a pyramid, sometimes stacking on top of each other. Its clever dice-shaker pyramid is neat and the camel-stacking keeps the races unpredictable.
• King of Tokyo — A dice-chucking monster-battle game where you play as giant kaiju smashing the city, healing, gaining energy, and buying power-ups. Designed by Richard Garfield, it’s beloved for its fast, chaotic fun and a push-your-luck tension into simple Yahtzee-style dice rolling.
• Dice Miner — A dice-drafting game where dwarf heroes pull dice off a physical sloped “mountain,” using the dice faces to build big combos. Its clever mountain component (dice physically sliding and shifting) makes each draft feel tactile and unpredictable.
• Formula D — A car-racing game where you manage gear shifts and dice-based speed to navigate real F1-style circuits without spinning out. It’s a nice blend of push-your-luck excitement and genuine racing strategy with concepts of momentum and cornering.
• Space Base — An engine-building dice game where every player’s roll can trigger rewards for everyone, keeping all players engaged even off-turn. It shines for eliminating the “downtime” problem common in dice games.
• Creature Comforts — A cozy worker-placement game where a family of forest critters gathers goods across the seasons to prepare a warm den for winter. It’s known for its charming art, gentle theme, and purely positive player interactions — great for a relaxed game night.
• Stone Age — A worker-placement civilization-building game where you gather wood, stone, and gold to advance your prehistoric tribe. It’s a modern classic praised for its clean balance of resource management, dice-based gathering, and tight food-vs-growth decisions.
• Three Sisters — A strategic roll-and-write about backyard farming, where you draft dice to grow crops, tend bees, and unlock cascading bonuses. It’s praised for surprising depth and interconnected systems packed into a small box.
• The White Castle — A Japanese-themed eurogame set at Himeji Castle, combining worker placement and dice placement as clans tend gardens, defend walls, and climb the social ladder. It’s acclaimed for its elegant, puzzle-like optimization and gorgeous art design.
• Grand Austria Hotel — A dice-drafting and hotel-management game where you serve guests, cook dishes, and impress the emperor over seven rounds. I enjoy its tight action economy and satisfying combos between guest orders and staff abilities.

Roll yourself away

There are really SO MANY good dice games in the world. And the list is growing all the time too. Whether it’s push-your-luck, simple mathy orderings, or a more complex Euro-style game there’s a reason humans have played games with dice for more than 12,000 years!