Can't Stop Board Game
2 – 4 Players; Suggested Ages: 9 and Up
Kids Games
One of the best games inventors of all time was Sid Sackson, designer of over 100 titles, including such classics as Acquire, Focus, and Can’t Stop. He was also the owner of the largest collection of games in the world. He owned some 16,000 games that were meticulously archived and stored on floor-to-ceiling shelves on just about every wall in his home in the Bronx. He was burgled several times but never lost a single game!
I first visited Sid in 1987 to see his amazing collection. I went again in the late 1990s, but by then he was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. After a long illness, he passed away on November 6th, 2002, at the age of 82. Later that year Sid’s incredible collection of games, books, and design notes was auctioned off at North River Auction Hall in Keyport, New Jersey. Thus it came to be that on a winter’s day in New Jersey, the major part of his life’s work was sold and scattered to the four corners of the earth. To my mind that was a great shame because for some years his family had been trying to find a museum or benevolent individual to take the collection in its entirety. Alas, it was not to be.
Luckily for us all, we can still enjoy Sid’s great work. In Can’t Stop we have a classic game that will appeal to just about anybody. It’s a game for two to four players, the equipment consisting of four dice, a board, a set of markers for each player, and three neutral tracking markers. The board features 11 columns for each of the numbers 2 through 12. There are three spaces on the 2 column, five on the 3 column, seven on the 4 column, nine on the 5 column, 11 on the 6 column, 13 on the 7 column, 11 on the 8 column, and all the way back down to three spaces on the 12 column. The number of spaces in each column roughly corresponds to the chances of rolling a specific number on two dice over several turns. To win the game, a player must roll dice to match the numbers to capture three of the columns.
On each turn a player rolls four dice and must divide them into two pairs to create two numbers. A player rolling 2, 4, 5, 5, for example, could make a 6 and a 10, or a 7 and a 9. Then the neutral tracking markers come into play. If they’re off the board, they are placed on the columns corresponding to the chosen totals, in this example 6 and 10 or 7 and 9. If the neutral tracking markers are already on the board in one or both of these columns, they are advanced one space upward from where the player’s own marker already sits. If the markers reside in columns that cannot be made with any pair of the four dice rolled, the turn is over and the player gains nothing.
Players who can continue have two choices: to roll again or to stop. For the player who ends a turn, his or her markers replace the neutral tracking markers; these will be the starting positions, should the player restart these columns on a later turn. Players who do not stop must be able to advance one of the neutral markers with their next roll or lose any advancement they’ve made during that turn. When a player reaches the top space of a column and claims it, this column is won and no further play in that column is allowed.
Don’t worry — it’s a lot simpler than it sounds!
Nevertheless, it probably doesn’t seem particularly exciting, so what is the big deal? The fun of Can’t Stop hinges on the fact that people are greedy and always want to ride their luck — often too far, losing all the gains they’ve made during their turn. The game is usually a very noisy affair with all the other players baiting the roller with chants of “Can’t stop! Can’t stop! Can’t stop!” And there is noth- ing more rewarding than seeing the roller fail to make a required number, then clutching his or her face in disappointment and slowly moving the neutral tracking markers back to their starting points; another turn wasted through greed. Rollers who end their turns quickly to consolidate their positions can expect to be teased mercilessly for bailing out too soon. More a case of Can’t Win than Can’t Stop! For the roller, on the other hand, there is nothing greater than the feeling of smug- ness gained from making that extra roll against the odds and getting a marker to the top of a column, letting those noisy opponents know who the superior player is in no uncertain terms.
Since this is a dice-based game, success depends on luck. But like backgammon, an experienced player will usually beat a rookie player, as there are many tactical and strategic opportunities to be exploited. A player always has choices — which markers to advance, whether to roll again or not — and these can be difficult decisions. A player can focus on tall columns with easy-to-roll numbers such as 6,7, and 8, or focus on the short columns with difficult-to-roll numbers such as 2 and 12. If your markers are in the shorter columns, a player should choose to re- roll less frequently, since there is much lower chance of matching those high and low numbers. But if another player is close to claiming a column, then it’s a good strategy to push your luck, hoping to steal it. There is real benefit in keeping the neutral tracking markers off the board for as long as possible as there are very few rolls that cause a turn to end when those markers are not yet in play.
The fun in Can’t Stop is derived from a balance of human nature — the desire to push your luck — and a simple but effective design. The game mechanic is based on odds calculations, the fact that it’s easier to roll a 7 with two dice than it is to roll a 2. The chances of rolling a 2 is 1 in 36 and the chances of rolling a 7 is 1 in 6 (6 chances in 36). And that’s where choice — and the fun — lies. Should I roll again and risk everything, or should I end the turn now and risk losing the column to an opponent? Decisions, decisions! Simple or not, one thing is certain: people always want to play Can’t Stop again and again because it makes people roll dice exactly as its title would suggest. Can’t Stop is a light, fun game but a classic nonetheless.
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