How to Play

Doc Dawson's Full Season Baseball is a board game played with dice. You need two dice, and they must either be of different colors or different sizes (or both), so that you can tell them apart.

Suppose you wish to play games between the World Series participants of 2008. The DDFSB cards for each team are pictured below.

To play a game, you roll the dice once for each team. However, the dice are not added like in most board games. Instead, use the larger die for the first digit and the smaller for the second digit (or green for first and white for second, etc.). For example, if the large die shows 2 and the small die shows 4, the dice roll is 24. When the dice are rolled, look up the dice roll on the large bold print numbers on the card. Then, look at the first number appearing immediately after the dice roll number. That represents the number of runs scored for the game. For instance, if we rolled 24 for Tampa Bay, we see a 3 as the first number after the dice roll 24. This is Tampa Bay's score for the game. If we then roll for Philadelphia and get a 4 on the large die and a 2 on the small die, we call that roll a 42, look on Philadelphia's card at the large bold print 42, and find that Philadelphia scored 6 runs for the game. Philadelphia wins, 6 to 3. It's really very simple! No "home" verses "away" to worry about, no batting vs. pitching or offense vs. defense to complicate matters!

You may notice that on both of these cards (as on all cards) there is an x appearing in the first column after dice rolls of 11, 33, and 66. When you get an x, you roll again for that team, but this time you look in the second column (we call it the x column) after the dice roll. For example, suppose we roll 33 for Tampa Bay. You see the x after 33, so you roll again. Suppose this time you roll a 51. You look in the second column and see a 14. Tampa Bay scores 14 runs for the game.

What happens if you roll an 11, 33, or 66 on the second roll as well? The second column of every card contains an x+2, an x+3, and an x+4. If you get an x+2, x+3, or x+4, you roll the dice a third time, look in the second column, and add 2, 3, or 4, respectively, to the number you see. For instance, suppose we are rolling for Philadelphia and start with a roll of 11. We then roll again and look in the second column. Now suppose we get a 33 on this second dice roll. The second column shows an x+2. This means that we must roll a third time. Suppose we roll a 62. We look at the second column again and see a 12, but we add 2 to this number (because of the x+2). Therefore Philadelphia scores 2+12=14 runs.

What happens if you roll 11, 33, or 66 three or more times in a row? The effect of the x+'s are cumulative, so that if we roll 66, 11, 66, 35 for Tampa Bay, they score 3+4+14=21 runs! (The 66 on the first roll means that we have to roll a second time and look in the second column; the 11 on the second roll means we have to roll a third time and add 3 to the number in the second column; the 66 on the third roll means we have to roll a fourth time and add an additional 4 (for a total of 7) to the number in the second column; the 35 on the fourth roll means we are done, and we add 7 to the 14 we saw in the second column.) Of course, that doesn't happen very often, but just like in real baseball, there is no mathematical limit to the number of runs that one can score!

What happens in the event of a tie? Extra innings, of course! For simplicity, all teams for all seasons use the extra inning card pictured below. It is included in each season’s card set.

For extra inning play, rolling the dice once for each team constitutes an inning. Play continues until one team is ahead of the other at the end of an inning. The x's and x+2's work the same as before. For example, suppose we play a game between Tampa Bay and Philadelphia, rolling 21 for Tampa Bay and 36 for Philadelphia. This gives us a 5 to 5 tie. If we roll 12 for Tampa Bay and 32 for Philadelphia in the 10th inning (using the extra inning card, of course), neither team scored and we still have a 5 to 5 tie. If we then roll 11 and 13 for Tampa Bay and 36 for Philadelphia, the game ends 8 to 5 in favor of Tampa Bay in 11 innings.

When you play a baseball season with Doc Dawson's Full Season Baseball, you will want to write down the game scores as well as tally up wins and losses and keep track of the standings. Game scores should be kept on the schedule/scoresheets provided for each season. The schedules also tell you how many times each matchup needs to be played in order to finish an entire season. To keep track of wins and losses and know what the current standings are, use the tally sheets provided. Then, when you play each game, you have a place to write the score (on the schedule/scoresheet) and to tally the win and loss and keep track of the standings (on the tally sheet).

You can then play each game of the season and watch the exciting pennant races as they develop, following that up (if appropriate) with playoffs and a World Series! Try it out for yourself today! Click on seasons, print the cards, schedule/scoresheets and tallysheets for your favorite season, and let the fun begin!