Dice?

[DeadParrot]

For many years I used an ad-hoc set of dice from the early 'soft' D&D sets, dice scavenged from other games, cast offs from other players and a few found dice. During a combo game/b-day party for a long time friend in a FLGS, noticed a purple leather dice bag. The FLGS also had sets of clear purple Chessex dice that were a near perfect match for the dice bag. Bought the bag and matching dice. Have added to the collection over the years with more matching dice. 8 d20s is almost enough for a high level monk flurry of blows attack sequence. The white numbers and dark background make for easy number reading.

I have a couple of non-purple sets I picked up at close out sales for loaner dice.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

D10s in general and D10s numbered 00-90 still look odd to me.

I'd imagine part of that is that, of the "typical" dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20), d10's are the only ones that aren't actually platonic solids. One of these things really isn't like the others.


For me, my first set of gaming dice were a set of ten d10's I bought for playing Vampire: The Masquerade, which have sadly been lost. Nine were black with red numbers, but the FLGS I got them at only had nine that looked like that - for the tenth, I grabbed one that was red with black numbers. I would generally only bring that one out in cases where I was only rolling one die.

The next set was a set for Dungeons and Dragons - a d4, a d6, a d8, a normal d10, a d10 numbered 00-90, a d12, and a d20. It was translucent green. A friend of mine bought me those - an online tactical game I had just joined to play with him saw the two of us entered into an informal tournament, and the person I was up against in the first round happened to be the second in command of one of the most powerful guilds in the game. He jokingly said he'd give me $100 if I could beat the guy, but I suggested he just buy me some dice instead, for his weekly DnD campaign I had just joined. Those dice have sadly also been lost.

During a brief stint of GM'ing, I opted to pick up a brick of rather tiny d6's, also green, for rolling up characters. They also saw use in my very short-lived GURPS campaign. Shockingly, those have been lost.

Years later, when I played Pathfinder briefly, I picked up another of those dice sets, this time gray with black specks (making it look like it was made of granite) and black numbers. I actually still have those.

Finally, most recently, I bought some very fancy d6's - green with silver pips - from SJ Games, most of which are still accounted for. Naturally, those are for GURPS, but so far have only been used for a few test battles against myself.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

My college roomie who started all this had some dice that obviously weren't "high impact". They'd been rolled round in just a few years.

Those original TSR dice of mine are fairly rounded. Also seems like a few stress cracks. Whatever plastic they made them out of, it wasn't intended to bounce off a table a lot.

Ive gotten used to D20s that are actually numbered 1-20 but back in the day they were only done 1-10 twice and we used model paint in 2 different colors and you had to call one color "high" when you rolled. There were proceedures where you rolled a d6 to determine "high" or "low" also.

Yes. The d20 of that set, a white base, I did in red and black, with some Testors model paint I had around. By the time I was painting the later sets, I had a technique for sort of getting some paint in the number and swiping the die face with my thumb, filling in all the etching with paint while cleaning the face. Much faster and easier than fiddling with a tiny liner brush, once I'd learned the right technique to just make a smeary mess. One of those has the d20 with double digit numbers, but the other has a + mark on half the faces along with the single digit. (Also handy for the 6-vs-9 question.)

The clear set didn't work out so well in practice. Looks cool, but it's hard to read the numbers when you can easily see through the die to all the other numbers at random overlapping angles, especially in dimmer light (and older age).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'd imagine part of that is that, of the "typical" dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20), d10's are the only ones that aren't actually platonic solids. .

I'm not sure if I said that to Craig or he said it to me but that exact remark has gone round in my circle.

I think I may have lost 1 die over the years to a "hit the floor and went who knows where" incident. My little D4 yellow duck _tried_ to do that as soon as I opened the plastic bag the dice came in but I persisted and used a flashlight too.

That's one of the things crystal dice are actually good for. They reflect more strongly. They also look very cool when hit with a laser pointer.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

I'm not sure if I said that to Craig or he said it to me but that exact remark has gone round in my circle.

In the 70s RPG dice sets generally didn't include the d10 (looks like a likely source is https://patents.google.com/patent/US3208754 -- which incidentally numbers the d4 with only a single number per side). The d10 we're generally familiar with appears to be based on https://patents.google.com/patent/USD267569 from 1981, though there's a far earlier design in https://patents.google.com/patent/US809293.

[sir_pudding]

I appear to lose dice more than you all do. I don't think I have any from the 80s left. I'd be surprised if I have many from the 90s left.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I appear to lose dice more than you all do. I don't think I have any from the 80s left. I'd be surprised if I have many from the 90s left.

I believe one of my dice has d12s, at least, from the seventies. By now they're starting to approximate spheres . . .

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I believe one of my dice has d12s, at least, from the seventies. By now they're starting to approximate spheres . . .

I only have one surviving item that I am sure has been in my possession since the seventies, a plush dog, my first birthday gift.

But I guess I just lose dice a lot more than is normal. Weird.

[Fred Brackin]

I started playing in the fall of 79 and borrowed dice from my room-mate at first. I believe I got my own pair of D20/percentiles at a gamestore before the year ended and early in 1980 I went to a small SF con in Gainesville FL and bought the first "crystal" die I ever saw. My oldest pieced together polyhedra set were hand-me-downs from my room-mate.

I believe I know where the percentile set is and could find them without too much trouble. The hand-me-downs are with them but I'm not sure I could pick them out individually (maybe this one yellow D12). The crystal D20 is in my blue dice bag in my gaming satchel as a lucky item. I also take it out to show young gamers "You know this die is older than you are.". :)

[Shostak]

I have three large, heavy, metal dice that I almost never use, but always put on the table next to me just in case. Two are identical and feature a different bas-relief wizard on each face, the other has a different dragon head on each face. They are difficult to read and do not roll so much as crash to the tabletop, but they are just the thing for a roll of massive consequence. Despite rarely actually rolling these dice, should SJGames ever issue a companion octopus die, I'll be first in line to acquire it.