Dice Sides

[ChapinoMuse]

How many types of dice are commercially avaiable, i know I can make up sided dice with different computer dice rolling programs like Nice Dice. But just for reference.

[Shawn Conard]

The common ones that you can get at nearly any gaming store are:

4 sided, 6 sided, 8 sided, 10 sided, 12 sided, and 20 sided.

These are generally numbered 1 to X with X being the number of sides on the die. The big exception is 10 sided dice, which are generally numbered 0 through 9. Sometimes you can find 10 sided dice numbered 00 through 90 to represent the 10s when rolling percentile. Also, I've seen a bunch labeled 2 through 10, with the one represented by some symbol.

I've also seen 30 sided dice, a short lived 100 sided die (which looked like a golf ball), and 7 sided dice. I don't think that any of these are all that easy to find, right now. Also, there are some easy to find variants of 6 sided dice including:

FUDGE dice, where the sides are labeled with 2 minus signs, 2 blanks, and 2 plus signs.
Warhammer scatter dice, labeled with 4 arrows and 2 targets.
Warhammer artillery dice, labeled 2,4,6,8,10,misfire.

Plus, if you check out a match/science store, you can probably find some really weird dice with random integers, fractions, or mathematical symbols.

Oh.. and there are games like Dragon Dice which use custom dice patterns.

And probably some other types if you look hard enough.


However, if possible, I'd suggest sticking to normal 6, 10, or 20 sided dice. These are the easiest types of dice to find right now and, while I enjoy experimentation, I also like games to be convenient to play.


~Shawn Conard

[ChapinoMuse]

Okies, yeah I have 6 and 10 all over my house, no 20s and I have seen a 100 wne, I almost died of laughter at the size.

[NPC Belac]

I've heard that both D30s and D100s are physically unbalanced and some sides are much more likely to come up than others.

Don't forget about the ubiquitous D2s. These often have a United States president on one side and a building on the other, but this may vary if you live outside the U.S. :)

-Belac the Rambler

[ChapinoMuse]

You right, hehehe.

[Deathlok]

Actually, I've seen D2's and D3's, they're just cubes with 1,1,1,2,2,2 and 1,1,2,2,3,3 instead of 1-6. Also, someone told me about "average dice" or something like that... apparently some wargames use them so that "regular" units have more standardized results. They're cubes labeled 2,2,3,4,5,5.

Wow, that was some useless information I just posted.

Josh Morrow

[EbonDervish]

There are many more, my friends. You don't hear about them, because they are evil. Unholy polyhedrons from the depths of the Well of Cocytus that are so unspeakably horrid that no game designer dares use them.

Gamescience, the undisputed king of weird dice, put out 7, 16, and 50 sided dice (I have seen all of them). They even claim to produce several other, obviously geometrically impossible number generators, those which I have never seen. When I heard Gamescience was going to go under, I went to their sad little booth at Gen Con and saved a little blue 16-sider. It rolls great, and it is the pride of my dice collection. :)

So, if you can, adopt some of these sad little monster dice and impliment them in your game. Its the American way, dammit.

-EbonDervish

[Patrick Chipman]

I'm disappointed. Their razor-edge gems are the best dice I have in my collection (as they don't appear to have any obvious biases), and I adore the pewter d10 I bought from them two years go. There's nothing like having the Die That Can Double As a Paperweight. ;)

[NPC Belac]

I've never met anyone who actually liked stand-alone dice programs on computers.

For tabletop games, they're nowhere near as good as real dice.

For online games, it's a lot easier to use a bot or a program like WebRPG Online or OpenRPG.

-Belac the Rambler

[Rallan]

Bah, nothing's geometrically impossible, you just have to step outside the limits of regular polyhedrons (I mean imagine where we'd be if nobody came up with that clever shape the D10 has).

Meanwhile, we've already got dice that nobody does anything anyway, like the humble D12. Apart from Pokethulhu, the only thing I've ever used a D12 for was rolling damage for Dopplegangers when I still owned 1st ed AD&D. Why dopplegangers rolled a d12 for damage, I have no idea. I think they just had some D12s in their collection and figured "Well we should use them at least once".

So please, before you start hunting down D7s and D30s and those old D100s that never stop rolling, find a use for the humble d12. Give it something to be proud of apart from the fact that it's the largest regular polyhedron that tesselates perfectly in three dimensions.



Rallan

[NPC Belac]

That brings back memories. When I first got the D&D Basic boxed set, I thought d12s were only used for dopplegangers. Then I discovered something...

They are also used for mummies.

-Belac the Rambler

[Shawn Conard]

It's a shame.

I love those D12s. They roll well, have easy to read faces, and...

...and are hardly ever used.

Really a shame.

~Shawn Conard

[NPC Max]

Not to even mention that 12 is a very interesting number, metaphysically speaking... (12 months, 12 starsigns, 12 hours, the Twelveth Night, twelve apostles, etc.)

[ChapinoMuse]

Yes 7 and 12 have lat of mystery around them... where's my guitar when i need it.

[EbonDervish]

Originally posted by Rallan
Bah, nothing's geometrically impossible, you just have to step outside the limits of regular polyhedrons (I mean imagine where we'd be if nobody came up with that clever shape the D10 has).


Gamescience claimed to have 0 and 1-sided dice. Well, I guess that a 1-sider could realistically be a sphere...and a 0-sider is just stupid. But if they're real, I buy one in a heartbeat. Heh.

BTW, their 7-siders were quite the oddity. I can't really explain how they worked, but they sure weren't acutal, geometric 7-siders. All I'll tell you is that they looked like a petagon. Have fun! :)

-EbonDervish

[14thWarrior]

was essentially a heptagonal cylinder wasn't it?

I notice nobody mentioned the 34 sider.

I couldn't (and still can't) figure out why one would use such a die in an RPG, but I got one anyway. Mainly for the novelty.

[ChapinoMuse]

Just for the sake of doing so I will be making a system in the future based on the 34 sided dice, so that way it won't be a novelty. but my head is about to explode after making the URS-Y and The PARS so I'm going to rest and write the intro for DotB.

[d3nial]

MOst d12s in a boxed set was Shogun/Samurai Swords wargame from Milton Bradley... about 10 of the suckers and they work great for the simpole combat resolution system in the game...

I think Dragon Warriors used d12s too...

d3nial

[Mithras]

The Miithras Great Dice Review:

d4 - Yuk. Can't pick em up, can't roll em.
d6 - Yeah! Long live the overlooked underdog!
d8 - Interesting Let's move on ...
d10 - A good die. Rolls well, good spread 1-10. Decimal. Cool.
d12 - Not thought about it before... potential??!!!
d20 - Yuk. D&D. Numbers too small, rolls too long. D&D. Yuk.
d30 - never seen one.
d100 - I refuse to believe.

[Ben Brown]

Originally posted by Mithras
The Miithras Great Dice Review:

d4 - Yuk. Can't pick em up, can't roll em.

not too bad for rolling one at a time, but handfulls of them (anything more than two) is annoying. Plus they're harder to read than other dice.

d6 - Yeah! Long live the overlooked underdog!

Plus you can raid your old Yahtzee set for more! Still my favorite after all these years of polyhedral dice.

d8 - Interesting Let's move on ...

Might be more popular if we counted in base eight.

d10 - A good die. Rolls well, good spread 1-10. Decimal. Cool.

Plus you can add digits. d100, d1000, etc.

d12 - Not thought about it before... potential??!!!

It's not all that useful, but it is a dodecahedron, and we need more of those about. Say it with me, everybody! Dodecahedron!

d20 - Yuk. D&D. Numbers too small, rolls too long. D&D. Yuk.

Plus, you've got this nice even 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 progression of standard dice. The 20 has some uses, but it does tend to roll off the table.

d30 - never seen one.
d100 - I refuse to believe.

I've seen both of these. Even owned a d30. They're about as useful as tits on a boar hog, plus they have the roll-off-the-table problems of the d20 magnified. Nothing you can't do with 2 d10s or a d10 and a d6.

[Tanuki]

> d4 - Yuk. Can't pick em up, can't roll em

I refer to these as caltrops. I have a dice bag filled with nothing but four siders. I figure, if I'm being chased down the street by some baddies, I can spill the bag out behind me and make a clean get away as those nasty villains deal with the pain in their soles.

And mom said nothing good could ever come out of role-playing :D

[Mock]

My next character will be a role-playing game character who is also a ninja, and who's preferred weapon is razor-edged d4's that he keeps in a pouch, and throws by the handful (wearing a protective glove, of course).

Really. I'm serious. It's a cool weapon.

I have to say that the d12 is an under-appreciated die. Out of the set, only it, d4, and d6 have big flat sides you can rest the die on.

How useful that is depends on whether you like to rest your dice on big flat sides, of course.

I thought the comment about the fact that 12 shows up so many times was interesting. A Zodiac game, anyone?

-Mock