In Retrospect: Why Risk Was So Luck Based (It Ain't The Dices)

Risk receives a lot of criticism for being too dependend on luck - but is this criticism directed at the right cause?

While many people believe that the problem with RIsk are the dices, the game actually a much more fundamental problem.

Risk receives a lot of criticism for being too dependend on luck - but is this criticism directed at the right cause?

While many people believe that the problem with RISK is the dice, the game actually has a much more fundamental problem.

Chance In Games

As with many board games, luck or chance is a part of Risk. This is not a necessarily bad thing. Without luck the best player always wins, which isn’t that much fun for everyone else. Moreover, the introduction of chance elements can make games more dynamic and challenging. Good players should always be aware of the role that luck plays in a game, so that they can play around it.

Risk's Biggest Luck Factor That Nobody Thinks About

In Risk however, most people don’t realize what role luck plays. Of course everyone realizes that there is luck in the dice, and in the spawn positions. Most people think luck in Risk is in the dice. Or if it’s not the dice it is the starting position of the players. Both determine to a great extent the course of the game; it is hard to lose if you only roll sixes or when you start out with the complete continent of North-America. There is, however, an element to Risk that is more important for the outcome of the game: the mission ‘destroy all armies of a specific color’.

The destory-a-color missions have a huge impact on the outcome of the game, because it is almost impossible to win a board game when one of your opponent's sole objective literally is to destroy you. When I am player red, and player blue has to destroy me, he will do everything in his power to keep me from doing well in the game. When I conquer a continent, he will invade. When I assemble a big army, he tries to keep it small. He will constantly follow me around, waiting for a weak moment, to destroy me. This makes it virtually impossible to complete my own mission.

Losing A Game Before It Starts

This is the biggest, hidden factor of luck in Risk. Is one of my opponent’s mission to destroy me? Then I immediately have basically no chance to win the game anymore.

Author: Max from BoardGameTheories