"The VisionQuest Game" is played with beads. I decided to use beads, instead of dice,
because I liked the feeling of rolling wooden beads in my hand before picking
one. Beads seem more soothing than dice, and also encourage a little more
thoughtfulness before choosing one (dice make some people feel like they
are in Las Vegas or playing a children's game).
The beads I use
are wooden beads that come with a 1/4 inch hole drilled through them. I
bought a 1/4 inch dowel rod, cut it up into pieces that would fit exactly
in the bead holes, painted them the same color as the 12 circles on the
game board, shoved them (and in some cases, glued them) into their holes,
and finally stuck a number on one end. When you pick up one of these little
beads, one end is colored, and the other end is colored with a number stuck
on it. All the circles on the game board are colored and numbered, too.
At first, I didn't want to use numbers. I hoped that the colors would be
easy to match. But they weren't, especially when the room is darkened,
so I had to resort to numbers.
In all, there
are 13 beads: 12 beads match the colors and numbers on the game board,
while the 13th bead is "The Hopping Stone Bead". When a person
draws this bead they can pick whatever deck they want to.
Dice, obviously,
are a lot easier to come up with than handmade beads. The original "Tuesday Night Game" required one 6-sided die to choose one of the original six decks.
I encourage you to use 12 decks though (because you have more options for
answers). If you do decide to use 12 decks, you can use either a 12-sided
die to play with, or a pair of sixes. Normally, you can't roll a one using
a pair of sixes. We found a way around this by making doubles a one.
