Tuesday, March 13, 2012

A Dicey Situation

I have a few dice. Probably more than I'll ever need. Some of them are rather unique, though.


 

This set of dice came with The One Ring roleplaying game based on the works of J.R.R.Tolkien. The d6s have numbers 1-3 in white, numbers 4-6 in black, and a little rune icon next to the six. The d12 has the numbers 1-10, the "Gandalf" rune, and a symbol representing the Eye of Souron.

The red die is meats, the green die is veggies. Roll them together and you have an instant pizza order!

These six-siders come from the board game Senji. Each side shows the symbol of a different samurai clan.

These are some rather unusual ones. The 3 is a d6 with the numbers 1-3 marked twice, creating a "d3". The 5 is a d10 with the numbers 1-5 marked twice, creating a "d5". The green one is a d14, which also has the days of the week marked on it twice each. The blue die is a d16. The others are a d24, a d30, and a d100.

Two d10s with different colors and the same symbols on each. The symbols represent different chess pieces.

These dice are interesting. The two topmost dice in the picture are just blank plastic cubes with three tiny d6s in each of them. This could be useful for rolling 3d6 without having your dice scatter - like if your playing at a public place. The other dice are big, clear-plastic d6, d10, 2d12, and a d20. Each of them has numbers marked on the big clear dice, but they also have a regular sized, opaque die of the same number of sides inside it. Rolling the ten-sider would thus be functionally equivalent to rolling 2d10 - it just looks really nifty, but might be a tad harder to read the results.

2d12 with four instances each of "Rock", "Paper" and "Scissors".

A d30 with letters of the alphabet marked on the faces.

A d12 with each month of the year marked on a side of the die.

Hit Location Die: So, you scored a critical hit, but for some reason it's really important to know just where you hit him.

This is a set of random encounter dice. Three of them have a different monster on each side. Another has six different faces on it, illustrating different attitudes or emotions. You enter a room I didn't expect you to explore. I roll these dice and you find yourself face-to-face with a dragon, a crocodile and a snake. And they're angry. The top die in this picture has three green circles on it, two orange squares, and one red triangle. I'm not sure what that's supposed to be for, but it came with this set.

These are blank d6s, intended to be personalized. One of them I customized for a board game I was playtesting a long time ago.

9 comments:

  1. This is so cool!!!! I love the pizza one. It'd be great for one of those nights when you just can't decide that last topping. The arms, legs one would be an interesting way to play twister. Using the chess ones to play a real game of chess would be fun. Although it would make for a really random game. Lastly the "rock, paper, scissors" one would make it impossible for someone to cheat by changing their choice at the last minute. It would also mess up the so called "stratagies" that some people say they use. Great post.

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    1. Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the post. The pizza dice are a personal favorite. I would like to see a game that actually uses them.

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  2. I ask this only because I do not know you too well. Which one is youur faaavoorrrite?

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    1. My favorite? Hmmm... I don't know that I particularly have a favorite. Those giant d20s near the middle of the table are pretty hefty, and fun to roll. I have a few d20s with some pretty colors. The dice from The One Ring have a style that matches the game very well - so that's cool. A lot of the others are cool for their novelty, and it would be interesting to design a game that specifically used some of them in a practical way. I may toy around with that idea.

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  3. One of my favorite booths at Megacon was the dice vender.I loved going through all the different ones they had. And I'm still planning on using some I picked up for school games.

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    1. Yeah, I walked by their booth, but I didn't get a chance to really check it out. If you end up using any of your dice for school games, please let me know how it goes.

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  4. I like the chess dice. It would be interesting to play and you have to roll to see which type of piece you can move on your turn. It would make the game a little more random. (Which I love.)
    My first thought was that the body parts one was for doing the Hokey-Pokey. >_< But using them the way you mentioned sounds more fun.
    Though I don't play RPGs, I like the idea of the random encounter dice.

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    1. Yeah, my personal idea of how the chess dice could be used is this: Roll both dice at the start of your turn. You can move any piece on your turn. If you move the type of piece shown on the white die then you score a point. If you move the type of piece shown on the red die then you lose a point. If a player scores 15 points before anyone has been check-mated, that player wins the game. I don't know how fun this would actually be, but it's the first idea that came into my mind.

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    2. That sounds like it might be interesting to try since it can be a long game sometimes to try and check-mate someone.

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