Rattle dem bones

Why do you have so many dice?

One thing that all us gamers have in common is our dice. Yes there are games systems that use cards, (Kobolds and Cobblestones from Osprey use poker style rules to resolve combat.) I have taken part in a roleplaying session where players took a piece from a Jenga tower every time their character did something risky, but most modern wargaming systems use dice to introduce that random factor into games.

It wasnt always this way, Little Wars involved cannons firing wooden dowels and close combat was resolved by comparing the numbers in each opposing side. These days though, most wargaming tables have a pile of dice cluttering up one corner (or the whole table sometimes.)

I must pre warn you, the following image may be upsetting to fellow gamers...


Brace yourself


It isnt pretty...


here it is...

This is what happens when your offspring gets into your carefully organised dice collection.  My youngest loves to play with the dice, I really don't mind, it really has helped him with counting. I remember to this day using wooden counting cubes in school, I'm just giving him a head start.

We all have different dice for different uses, not just the obvious differently sided dice. We use tiny dice as to indicate how many hits a character has taken, giant wooden dice to indicate what turn we are currently on. I know some people that have a different set of D6 (six sided dice) for different armies they have, green dice for their Orcs, red dice for their Napoleonic British. 

I have lots of dice for another reason, dice hogs. Yep, you know who you are  people. Somehow every time these players need to roll a dice, they reach for the furthest dice they can find on the table. (no matter how large the table) The result of which means all the dice gravitate towards them as the day goes on. My own personal solution to this problem is just more dice. If there are enough dice on the table, then there is always suitable dice within reach.

So, I can confidently say my collection of dice has a practical reason, but I can wholely understand why some people just like to collect them. The tactile nature of them, just holding a handful of dice before rolling them is fun. Its no coincidence that people use Gem dice when playing D&D, its almost a physical representation of the treasure their characters are on a quest to retrieve. Some people take it further and collect dice purely as a hobby. I briefly joined a Facebook group of these people out of curiosity and I can confidently say I love their enthusiasm. Like stamp or coin collecting, any new design (or a rare miscast) is desired for their collection. One wonderful soul has even designed a categorisation system that I applaud for its wonderful attention to detail. (visit his amazing website here ) I eventually only left the group in a fit of self preservation as I slowly began to find myself more and more tempted to start buying dice by the pound. (That is not an exaggeration, you can buy by the pound.)

(I don't apologise for use of the meme, it was too good to not include. Credit: Dungeons and Dragons Memes page on Fbook.)

There are the players who claim to always roll badly (my Pathfinder character regularly rolls at least three 1's a session.) I've seen players throw dice across the room in disgust at the number of failed rolls they've made, I've seen youtube videos of dice being "punished" with hammers for somehow being responsible for the death of a beloved D&D character, I've seen players swap out their dice to try and restore some luck. The truth of the matter is, we all roll badly, we all roll well. I'm not going to suggest all dice are perfectly balanced, (there are ways to test that involving saltwater) but don't blame the die, blame the GM.

I don't have the space where I live to have a massive gaming table, once a year I have a cull of my models to clear space for the inevitable new purchases but I can never have too many dice.  Although remind me of this post when you catch me swimming in dice Scrooge McDuck style...