By Rob Bricken in
Daily Lists, Miscellaneous
Thursday, Apr. 30 2009 @ 5:00AM
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If role-playing games have one thing in common, it's that almost all of them use specialized dice. You know, the kind of dice you won't find in casinos; the dice with more (or less) than six sides; the dice that you might carry in an elaborate leather pouch; the dice that cause your parents, classmates and even some fellow nerds to look at you with disdain. Unfortunately, these people have a point -- there is a fine line between dice being "special" and dice being "retarded." Here now are ten of the dumbest dice ever constructed for role-playing games.
These dice help you decide on alignments for characters or NPCs. However, if you are too lazy to use your imagination to decide what alignment a character might be, then maybe role-playing isn't for you. If you can't make in your choice in your head whether Grongor the Dwarven Fighter likes to save women and children or save women and children for dinner, then I think the whole "story-telling adventure" thing is too taxing for you. You should just load up your Call of Duty 4 on the Xbox and enjoy not having to worry about coming up with complex narratives. Just shoot and call other people "fagtards."
9) The D4
Yes, the D4 is pretty standard to role-playing games, but with its pyramid shape, it is also stupid. Unlike a real die, t is not something you can actually roll. It is more like a die you flip in the air in anger. Try to roll it, and it slides, as it is too lazy to actually be a real die. If it falls on the floor and you forget about it, it lands so that it's very easy to get a corner jammed into your foot. It even has the nickname of "caltrop" for this purpose I think any die with a nickname that matches a ninja tool is not something you should be playing with.
"Hey, throw one of those shuriken die around the table, will ya?"
"My eye!"
"Three."
8) Crystal Dice
So, with all the use of platonic solids in role-playing dice, someone decided that barrels were a better shape, as preferred by the great Donkey Kong. They may call these "crystal dice," but clearly they are barrels. You would roll these dice as you would roll a barrel, which makes whatever dignity you had die a horrible death. I give them credit for making a D4 that you don't step on, but I take away all that credit for making dice that you will pull out, show, and then be made fun of by other nerds. It's like the leper being cast out of the leper colony for being too leprous.
7) The D100
In 1985 a man named Lou Zocchi invented the 100-sided die or "Zocchihedron." You know, because two D10s were just so damn heavy to roll in tandem. Well, this die certainly rolls -- it rolls and rolls, which makes sense, because it has a hundred sides, or almost enough to become a perfectly round sphere. Good luck finding out which number it's actually landed on. Is it 2, or 57? You won't know. You won't goddamn know because the die rolled off your table. The D100 almost has to rolled in a box, or the padded cell that you should be kept in if you insist on using this. I think any die that needs an enclosure isn't a die, it is a pet for the insane.
6) The D2
In some cases, a D2 is noted in a role-playing system and should not be noted as such ever at any point at all. It is, after all, just flipping a coin. You don't need to be so anal that you have to use "D" notation for everything. You might as well start wearing top hats and monocles and sip your tea while saying "My good Dungeon Master, permit me the pleasure of checking for initiative in this crypt of ill repute." Ah, but something is amiss in such elitism! What happens in the rare occurrence when the coin lands edgewise? When that happens, what do you do then, kill yourselves? Surely your Gods are false ones!
5) The D1000
No, this is not a die with a thousand sides, though I sincerely hope someone does in fact make a die with a thousand sides as the image of a grapefruit-sized die rolling around a table makes me chuckle. No, this instead is rolling three different colored ten-sided dice, with each color assigned a digit. The digits generate a number from one to a thousand, with 000 equaling 1000. This is also insane. Really, the justification for doing this is for very large probability tables. Except, then you start getting into variations that minute, you're not really role-playing anymore, you're just ramping up to do statistical mathematics. Might as well start lashing a bunch of PlayStation 3s together in a supercomputer cluster at that point to start doing complex mathematical calculations of wind speed affecting the trajectory of dragon breath. At least you'll be doing something other than use a Playstation 3 for a Blu-ray player, which is all the damn thing is good for.
4) Gold RPG Dice
Let us be quite clear. No matter how much you spend on your polyhedral dice, there is no way they are going to make you look cool. Sorry. As soon as you whip out a bag of dice of any sort your nerd status shoots up like Old Faithful. Pulling out a bag of dice made of gold only increases that aura by an exponential, blinding level that gets into your brain and makes you retarded. For those who might revel in that fact, let us take note that with the price of gold being what it is, and nerds not being known to be good in a fight, it is very likely that a nerd and his golden die will soon be parted. Most likely with a punch to the face and a quick swipe of the dice, which conveniently comes in a pouch for easy swiping.
3) The D5
Yes. The D5. From the same person who brought you the D100 comes another die you have to stare at, not understand what it is, stare at it some more, and then still not understand it. I'm not sure why you would need a D5 for any reason whatsoever. You can get a number from 1 to 5 generated through its unique, completely untrustworthy shape. I don't care if laboratory tests show this thing gives you a fair roll each time, it is the fact that it doesn't look like it's going to give you a fair roll is the problem. Nobody wants to play a game where it appears that it's completely rigged; sort of like nobody wants to eat food that looks like it is rotten. Sure, tests may prove that it's not at all, but there are other, perfectly good pieces of food to eat, just like there are other, perfectly good dice to use. Or eat.
2) The D34
What are we doing? We have descended into madness as human beings. The D34 is a die that is pretty much tells you we've lost our minds. The D34 is used for calculating a probability from 1 to 34 for what kind of crazy divination/bone throwing/scientology crapshit I do not know. Maybe it is a psychological test. The first person to pipe up and try to explain in sincere, serious terms what a D34 could logically be used for we lock in a padded room. There is absolutely no reason you would want to use a D34 or even multiples. Clearly the person who designed these dice is one of the Illuminati, sitting in a rent-controlled apartment in Des Moines, occasionally stuffing a live mouth into their chops while humming the tune to Spencer for Hire.
1) The D6 Dinosaur Dwarven Stone
A Sauropod roamed the Earth and met an untimely demise. Due to a highly improbable series of events its bones fossilized. Then, it had the highly improbable good fortune to be found by we humans millions of years later and even more good fortune to be correctly identified and categorized by trained experts. Then it had the incredibly bad fortune of someone saying, "LET'S CHOP THIS BEAUTY INTO DICE!" Yes, a dinosaur fossil was made into a D6. If you had an urge to buy one of these things (and you can't anymore because other people went insane and bought them all out) then really, what can you do with this? You can take it to a game and like a jerk say "See this D6? It's made out of dinosaur fossil. Paid $60 for it." You could also not do that, and instead have the die as a display piece. Consider, though that if having a dinosaur fossil on display is impressive, then having a die made from a dinosaur is NOT IMPRESSIVE AT ALL. You've taken something that was, by itself, interesting and special and turned into an abomination. It's like inviting your friends over to look at your fireplace and saying "Hey, check out this fire, I used the Mona Lisa for kindling. Paid a billion dollars for it. Neat, huh?"
Tags: Dungeons and Dragons, RPGs
109 comments
Comments
Glorious Cheese said:
I have a D100, but it doesn't look anything like your example. It's shaped like a D20, but MUCH bigger.
ctrees said:
I have... half of those. And a fancy leather pouch in which to carry my many dice.
*sigh*
Oh, and as long as you have a *really* flat table, and put up some boundaries so it doesn't roll off, it's fairly easy to see what a d100 has landed on, once you get the hang of it.
mrgnexus said:
I agree with all of those. I worked in a Comic/Game shop years ago, and whenever someone wanted to buy a Zocchihedron, we'd laugh in their faces (and then take their money). However, as shitty as the d4 is, it isn't half as shitty as it used to be. Back in the day (yeah, I'm old) you had to read the number along the bottom edge rather than the point.
Evidence: http://gmdice.com/prodimages/thumbs/02369.jpg.jpg
But yeah -- all your choices pretty much suck for use as gaming implements.
Stonecrow said:
Damn, I do NOT want to meet someone who can stuff "a live mouth" into their's. Gross.
Rush Shepard said:
mrgnexus, I still have a couple of those. Now I feel sad and nerdy. Even more.
LAY said:
Cool list.
Yes, I had a pouch in which I carried my dice and yes I had oodles of them.
I also had a d16 -- equally useless as the d34 since no game requires a d16.
And there were other variants of the D6 with crap written on them. I had one with weapons written on each side like: sword, axe, spear... I presume it was for making up what weapons NPCs were carrying. And another had compass points but based on a hex-mat design -- I suppose for determining wind direction? Or possible where a hurled projectile that missed actually landed?
I also had D4 that were shaped like D8, but double numbered. And D10 that were shaped like D20 and double numbered...
I also know that the D20 is an icosohedron. And that a soccer ball is a truncated icosohedron.
TemporalSword said:
At least you'll be doing something other than use a Playstation 3 for a Blu-ray player, which is all the damn thing is good for.
Nay, I say to thee. Nay.
Also, despite not playing a game of DnD for years now, I still lovingly keep my bag of dice close, cause you never know. Perhaps some robber will break in to my house and demand I roll for initiative. Better to be prepared and not use it than the reverse, I say.
jestergoblin said:
If you'll excuse me, I need to go make a D1000.
Brett said:
Don't forget the awesomeness that was the Dragonbone ( http://vegasdecker.wordpress.com/2009/01/25/dragonbone-electronic-dice/ )if you want to talk about real dice shame. That thing embarrassed even the most hardened nerd.
chad said:
given the shape of the die on the list wonder how any one ever managed to be able to play with them at all. for trying to figure out the things would be brain taxing not to mention what was the creator who made some of those on.
Anybot said:
What, no beeping light-up electronic d6? I think that's a lot more shameful than most of these. Then again, what did I play with for 15 minutes or more when I last did tabletop games? Yeah, you guessed it. Beep-beep-boop boop boop boop boop...bing!
Endroren said:
Don't forget d10,000 - I have a set of these. One step beyond the d1000 you displayed. They are used for encounter tables in HackMaster
And someone mentioned this - d10 shaped like a d20 with every number listed twice. The best part about these is watching some guy break down in tears during his 3E+ D&D game because he can't break a 10, only to realize he is using that stupid d10 shaped like a d20 all night.
Finally, KODT actually ran a "What the Hell Do You Use a d34 For" contest where people could send in lists.
ZeroCorpse said:
Yep. I have more than half of these, including the D100. In a large felt bag.
I also have the collection of D6 with various symbols on them. My favorite is the trap die. Six-sided, with a picture of a different kind of trap (pit, gas, spike/dart, etc.) on each side. That one actually got a lot of use.
You can tell a fellow geek because they'll say "roll die six" instead of "roll the dice" when playing any other board game.
And while this list is "most shameful" dice, it's not the WORST dice. That list would be filled with the tiny, cheap, round-edged, unbalanced, white-crayon-requiring, pack-in D10 they used to put in all the TSR boxed RPGs (especially Marvel Superheroes and Star Frontiers), the old D4 with the numbers on the bottom, and any version of the D12, which gets used so rarely that it's a waste to put it in each and every "set" of dice (I'd prefer an extra D10, D8, or D6 to getting yet another useless D12).
And seriously-- Who the hell thought it would be better to include dice with "blank" cut-outs in them, and then just give the end-user a white crayon so they could fill in the empty number grooves by themselves? And how many times did we have to re-fill those stupid, cheap numbers with more white crayon?
Teague said:
Good list; like many of you, I have some of these, in my purple Crown Royale bag.
But yeah, it's definitely missing the "mud dice" from the original D&D boxed sets. And am I remembering wrong, or was the provided crayon to fill in the numbers not always white? White, at least, won't clash--and will show up against any other color.
I also second the nomination of DragonBone--the crappy little dice-wand that gamers coveted back in the mid-80s. The ads for that thing in Dragon Magazine were everpresent.
Zeno said:
I used to keep a clear marble in my dice bag and tell everybody it was my d1.
This was how I tried to be funny back in the day.
(Suddenly my life is in perspective with whole new levels of regret.)
Bill said:
I may be a geek at heart, but I have never played an RPG game in my life. I don't know the first thing about them. I never even HEARD of these weird style dice until just now.
I suddenly feel a lot LESS geeky than I ever have before!
Anonymous said:
I have no dice but am aware that strange dice like these exist. This was amusing and nerdly informative I guess in a strange way for those of us not quite as nerdy as some.
Anne Packrat said:
I own quite a few of these two. But I'm also a dice collector as well as an RPG person, so that makes sense. Now I desperately want a d34.
Xanthippas said:
Awesome. These RPG-inspired posts just keep getting better and better.
As far as shamefulness goes, I only ever used the relatively "conventional" d4, d6, d10 or d20, though of course the ones I did use I kept in a special dice pouch. Which didn't seem that weird at the time but yeah, now seems kind of shameful. I mean honestly, an "enchanted forest" green velour bag, for dice? And the awesomeness of my pouch was something I took pride in??
Nephilim of Sin said:
I have to admit, I think those Alignment Dice would be extremely useful for the DM. Got a random encounter? Need some quick, disposable NPCs? Need to create a rival party? Yeah, I need to get a set of those.
Doctor Death said:
That "Boulder" that chased Indiana Jones out of the cave in Raiders was actually a D-100,000,000.
Jones passed his saving role.
Jilliterate said:
"mrgnexus said:
However, as shitty as the d4 is, it isn't half as shitty as it used to be. Back in the day (yeah, I'm old) you had to read the number along the bottom edge rather than the point."
We have a few of those numbers-on-the-bottom d4's in our current DnD group, and none of us are that old (We're all in our 20s). Apparently these damned d4's are still sneaking their way out into the general population (And I wholeheartedly agree, they suck).
Oh, and the die made of fossilized dinosaur? You know--know--some nerd would buy those, just to argue that dinosaurs were, in fact, dragons, and he actually had die made of dragon bone. And then a whole evening is wasted as the group gets into a vicious argument over the existence of dragons.
zombiedeathsquad replied to Jilliterate:
The d4 with the number on top is patented by Chessex. Other dice companies have to use the old number on the bottom pattern.
mrgnexus said:
Rush -- don't feel bad. I may have mocked, but I think I still have a Zocchihedron lying around in a Crown Royal bag somewhere. Yes -- I am a hypocrite.
Now, TR needs to do a column on the BEST RPG dice.
My nominee:
Bone Dice -- http://www.bgamers.com/images/d6bone.jpg
The best rolling d6 ever!
NoXylophone said:
Jason said:
I was always a fan of d3 dice...
Baronmech said:
Got a dice box, was a gift from my GM, all padded and etched and all, nice. Good for gaming w/ no flat surfaces handly.
Best I had was a set of "loaded" dice. 2 d6, one had all 5's and the other 2's and 6's for craps. Funniest was I had a guy looking at the CLEAR die for about 15 minutes insisting they could see the weight in the die.
Ahhh the good life. And to show my true geekness at the time, I actually had a nickel (better weight than a penny in my mind) w/ a I & II taped to each side. Was good idea though since I was so broke from buying mountain dew and pixy sticks (you haven't all nighted till you all nighted on dew and sticks)I never had any change for those chance d2 roles (yay i said it D2)
on dew and sticks)I never had any change for those chance d2 roles (yay i said it D2)
newave said:
What no Pizza dice? Very useful for all your randomly generated food needs.
Erik said:
Geek that I am, I still have my dice at home in an old bank bag. I had a d100 once, but it sucked -- the one time I used it, it rolled off the table and broke in half on the floor. Waste of... uh... however much it cost, 20 years ago.
The unusually-numbered dice look interesting, and if I'd seen one when I was a kid, I might've bought them... but if I was gaming nowadays, and I needed to roll, say, 1-5, I'd just roll a d6 and if I got a 6, reroll. (Actually, I have a little dice-rolling program I wrote some time ago that can handle any number and size die, from 1d2 to 65535d32767. Now *that's* nerdy.)
I also have a set of loaded dice, but it's *very* obvious that something is *not right*: the weighted side has an obvious circle, and just rolling one in your hand demonstrates the fubar'd balance.
And my favorite die is a d4 that includes a manufacturing defect. It's the old style (numbers on the bottom), but instead of, say, 4-4-4, it's 4-4-3, 3-3-1, 2-2-4, 1-1-2. Great for an evil DM who likes to mess with the players' heads. I made more opportunities to roll that d4 than anyone would reasonably expect.
Skemono said:
*drools* I need to possess all these dice! Fortunately, I'm already well on my way there.
Besides, this list is totally, totally wrong. How can you have a list of the most "shameful" RPG dice without including the D-Total Die? It's 17 dice in one! You can use it as a d2, d3, d4, d5, d6, d7, d8, d10, d12, d20, d24, d30, d40, d50, d60, d70 and d80!
It's perfect! Truly perfect!
Charmed said:
Psh. I had a regular set of d4, d6, d10 or d20 (or a couple of each) in ye olde Crown Royal bag. Utterly classic. I haven't played any tabletop in years, but I treasure that faux velvet sack, and plan to pass it onto my nerdy children.
Atomic Jay said:
Ugh! I remember when I collected "unique" dice for no other purpose than to look "cool". I found a 30-sided die that never served a purpose, and it never stopped rolling either.
Nat-Wu said:
I don't have any of the super nerdy dice, but I do have lots of the regular ones. 5 sets of polyhedrons, 8 of 6-siders, all different colors and sizes. Is that super nerdy?
Ben Evans said:
The Wheel of Time CCG (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4105) came with blank D6s and a sticker sheet that had little annoying stickers you had to apply to the dice... yeah, I still have a pure blank black D6 from that.
Anonymous said:
Sadly, I recently ran over a D4 that had fallen out of my bag, and punctured a tire.
jake said:
nerd of 10+ yrs, bachelor of statistics, bachelor of computer science and d6 is the only one i knew? the shame!!! THE FRIGGING SHAME. forgive me. excuse me while i go throw myself on my sword. or is that eat an arsenic apple? wait, D6 SOMEBODY!!!
BattyChic said:
I have some of those in pink. But I think the D5 should've been number one, because really? Really? Can it even roll?
BattyChic said:
I have some D6s, D4s, and D1000s in pink. I try to retain as much of my girlish ways as possible. . . I still think I'm on the top 5 as resident dorm nerds. . . >
But I think the D5 should've been number one, because really? Really? Can it even roll? Does is serve a purpose? That's called a 1/1 counter in magic.
Arkz said:
i want a d3 to be honest i see that term all the time
yah i know i just half a d6 but a d3 would be nifty
morgue said:
You mislabel the D2. Actually it is the D02, as popularized in the extremely awesome RPG, D02 Know No Limit. This is best RPG because it know no limit! "This game is serious! There are ninjas and crocodiles! IF you need a bonus on your role, you can give the D02 master some of you change and buy it. It KNOW NO LIMIT!"
Linky:
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~rdeese/RPG/D02/D02.htm
kinginyellow said:
I can think of two more to and to your list- anybody remember the REALLY TINY d6's you could get? They were used by DM's who wanted tho "hide" their rolls, except that they were the size of a BB pellet, so everybody lost them even though THEY COST THE SAME AS REGULAR SIZED d6's!?
And even better, they made a hollow, clear d6 with THE TINY d6 INSIDE! I have one, and have no IDEA what it is for...2-12 dmg? WTF?
I'm now gonna go play with my own CR bag of...dice. Yeah.
LBD "Nytetrayn" said:
#1 reminds me of an amusing thread on an image board that shall remain nameless. Around the time Gygax died, there was a long discussion about using his remains to create some sort of super godforce master dice.
Then someone said that he was cremated.
So then it turned to how to convert ash into dice. Got kind of technical, be it real or technobabble, and I really don't remember the details, sadly.
Oldphart@Play said:
Some of the sillier were 6 siders were poker dice, slot machine dice or boggle dice, (those make a great random name generator). In the list the d34 and d5 are some of the most useless, though Lou Zocchi's hundred sided golfball was amazingly lame.
I remember selling dragon bones to people when I was in the retail game industry, it was difficult to keep a straight face. We had one of our game group actually buy one, they only brought it to a game once, the shame was too much to bare.
I have used d2's, but I pilfered an Othello game for them. I needed them for playing Sennet because I was too lazy to make throwing sticks. They can be useful as binary dice,throw a a bunch and add up the roll, white=1, black= 0, all black=number of them thrown +1. I also confess to owning 30s too, but I keep my dice in a ziplock bag, I don't drink Crown Royal.
Ok, I know, I am a nerd.
ersatz said:
Is it wrong that I want a D1?
Laura said:
The D-total should definitely be listed here if you are talking about unusual and unnecessary dice that are still darn cool. It is 17 dice in one, as someone mentioned. AND...it is up for an Origins Award for best game accessory this summer! Take a look at it here: http://www.gamestation.net/Amazing-DTotal-Dice/M/B001LGDEQ4.htm
scott said:
Wow, I've never seen that version of the d4 or the crystal barrel dice. Haven't played in 20 years though.
Hypersapien said:
Holy shit! It took me 5 minutes to get through #2 because I was laughing so hard. You actually made back of my head hurt because the skin there was being pulled so tight!
mattness said:
Once, on one of polish con we used boulion dice during game ^^
mattness said:
*boulion dice=boulion cube
IX said:
D16's ARE used in Blood Bowl for determining MVP at the end of the game. Also, you can get a D3 for some of the rolls in Blood Bowl.
Brent said:
The D34 is not an RPG die though, it is a Dutch lottery die.
As for the alignment dice, I have never heard of a player using those for character generation (if they did, show me to them so I can kill them). I have only seen them used by gamemaster's, including myself, who, before the advent of handy, online NPC generators, had to populate an entire town of 100 to 500 people with minimal stats – including alignment.
Marcus Rowland said:
I've written three indie RPGs so far and never found a good reason to use anything other than D6s. Admittedly sometimes you need a lot of them...
Alphax said:
D1000 useless? Try baseball sims like Pursue The Pennant or its sequel Dynasty League Baseball. Baseball stats are all about 3 decimal places in precision.
Jym said:
I have a d100. We only use it for resurrection rolls. Kind of our way to ramp up the suspense. It's retarded, but we're nerds. What do you expect?
xero said:
I have a full set of crystal dice and the oly way to roll the d20 wo knocking half the crap off the table is to pit it on a point and spin it like a top
the rest roll fine but now that i think about it Yea they are sorta lame
Church said:
I've never found out if anyone actually sold this, but there was a legend of a "d1" way back when I was gaming. The idea was that it was a marble with "1" printed all over it. (I suppose it would be useful for putting argumentative players in their place.)
xero said:
I have a full set of crystal dice and the oly way to roll the d20 wo knocking half the crap off the table is to pit it on a point and spin it like a top
the rest roll fine but now that i think about it Yea they are sorta lame
also if there gonna make a D 34 why not a D42 at least that has some geek cred
enigma_rage said:
Any one else have the spherical d6. It was a ball with 1-6 on sides like a normal die but had a marble inside it so it rolled right.
Photophreak said:
Well, I have a D80. It's awesome. It's hefty, and not too bulky. It takes awesome pictures...
wait...
we're talking about dice?
Wiredwizard said:
I have enough weird dice. A d100, 4 stainless steel d6's & some d6's out of ivory that I inherited (made back when they were called dice, not d6's ;) ). They all look very nice in the glass containers I put them in since all my gamer friends are now too fascinated w/ XBoxes & all that crap to pick up a rule book ever again. =(
Cymond said:
What? No love for the D24 and D30?
I have an example of both, as well as a D5. And Don't forget the D3. And the spherical D6 with a weight inside. I formerly had a D100 but it broke in half and the little beads inside made a mess.
jonadair said:
D1000? Pfft. I have a D10000.000 set.
Raker said:
Your forget the round D6. A round sphere, with a hollow cube inside with a ball bearing to weight down one end when rolled.
Bill said:
I have the d100, a couple LED d6s, and some of those barrel ones. And, of course, the old school d4s of which I am not ashamed! Another for the list - the d30 which could be read as 1-30, 1-10, or 1-3 (it was numbered 1-10 3 times, one set with a "-", one set with a "+", and one set normally). Back when I was in college I was touting the worlds only d1 - a marble with a 1 painted on it - mainly for DMs who had already made up their mind but wanted to roll a die anyway "to be fair".
Eric said:
No d30? I have the book that someone made for it somewhere....
My D100 has bb.s inside to help it stop rolling, but it still rolls very far....
Kevin Cook said:
I have all of these ...
If you are looking for other shapes of questionable use
http://www.dicecollector.com/diceinfo_how_many_shapes.html
Photophreak ... would you please contact me direct (see email on my site) ... as I would like to see a photo of your D80
Glorious Cheese ... same for you about your alternative D100 ... as I have been searching for info on this alternative shape for years
Kevin Cook said:
Photophreak ... LOL ... sorry I missed that Nikon D80
Cory Casciato said:
I had those gold dice. I loved them and used them (the D6s anyway) as boardgame dice for years after stopped roleplaying. Used them until I lost them actually. Oh, the shame...
Michael Bowling said:
Wow, way to come off the top rope Shaun. Can't really agree with you on some of these designs when you say "Here now are ten of the dumbest dice ever constructed for role-playing games." Allow me to defend a couple of your picks (at least the ones I made).
#8 - Crystal Dice - These dice were invented as an alternative to shapes that had been used since the inception of modern role playing games. They were actually named "Crystal" because of their faceted surface which is very apparent in their technical drawings. Most important though is that they can't be thought of as too dumb when you consider the fact that Hasbro infringed on the design and paid the price: http://www.iptoday.com/news-archived-article.asp?id=2874&type=ip OUCH!
For those that find the Crystal d12 and d20 too unwieldy, Crystal Caste has come out with a new Hybrid set that will incorporate the best of both dice worlds. Even has the new d3 included...
#5 - The D1000 - Sorry to say that you've got your wires crossed here; these were never role playing dice but were designed as an educational aid. Tens of thousands of children across the US and Europe use these daily as a fun way to learn about math. Not too dumb in my opinion and sort of facinating when you think of producing a product that is helping tens of thousands of kids daily.
#1 - The D6 Dinosaur Dwarven Stone - While there are hundreds of thousands of dino fossils out there waiting to be placed on a mantle somewhere, I doubt there is a corresponding market for them. There is or should I say was, made available about 50 assorted d20's and d6's for the public to purchase from the gentle giant, the Sauropod. Rumor is it that due to popular demand those cads at Crystal Caste is about to release a limited amount of dice cut from an Allosaur fossil, one of the biggest predators of the Jurassic period. Disclaimer: No dinosaurs were injured in the manufacture of said dice) The error in your argument though is that while old Mona Lisa kept you warm for a bit and then was reduced to ash, the dino dice just keep rolling and will forever and ever as will our dice made from meteorites, mammoth ivory, amber, etc. :)
Thanks for allowing me to respond. Michael
kiltedyaksman said:
Can't say I have too many of the above. I have a few of the monster d20s. What about the d8 that is really two d4s? I didn't see that one mentioned.
d20 Sapphire said:
May I suggest you take a look at meteor dice. I personally love collecting dice and would like a set of my own, but we'll see if I can ever afford these.
Bubbles said:
Oh this is wonderful! The posts are even funnier than the article. (My first visit to this site)
I confess to having a couple of the smaller crystal dice and several of the large d20's. Great for those of us who need bifocals now. And I don't see what's wrong with the d4!
Anyone else have a humungous bunch of dice because you feel compelled to get a new set for each charactor? Or you buy a bunch of red, yellow and orange dice just to roll up fireballs? (Yes, I glory in my nerdiness. Fortunately my husband is just as nerdy.)
My favorite dice are the translucent red ones from our old Yatzee game - they always roll lucky for me. Pity they only come in d6.
Rendu said:
Not listed (but in my possession):
D7
D24
D30
D6 with Roman numerals
D6 with Japanese kanji
I have been told that the purpose of a D34 is that 3D34-2 gives you 1-100 on a reasonable bell curve. (11d10-10 doesn't have a large enough standard deviation to be useful.:))
Saddest one I've ever seen: a D3 with sides marked R, P, and S (for Rock, Paper, Scissors).
Maltodextrin said:
I've a D1 (yeah, I did the marble gag too), a d24, three d30, a super-sneaky d10 what's disguised itself as a d20 (this one was once borrowed by our DnD gm. The players had a good time that night), the "extra lucky" d6 (the outer enamel has worn away in the center of the 4, making it look like a 5) and 2 large, clear d10s with tiny d10s inside them.
But I think one of my favorites has to be my post-modification d100. A certain feline decided that it would make a good toy, and decided to chase it off my desk and down a flight of stairs. Needless to say the thing did not stay together, and ended up spilling the pellets inside all over the place. Being lazy and not wanting to clean all them up, I just grabbed a handful of airsoft BBs (.23s to be specific) and glued the thing back together. Now it rolls like any ol' sane die, taking only slightly longer than a d20 to stop, and doesn't make a break for the floor every time its rolled.
Marcia Morrison said:
Ha! What a great article! Makes me want to dig out my old handmade red-gold rough silk dice bag and fondle my dice once more. Nobody's mentioned one of my personal favorites: I got a set of (relatively) gigantic d6's, which look just like nice tradition ivory dice, except they're about 1 1/2" square, IIRC. I'd pull them out when I wanted to roll "big numbers". And the old-school d4's are *not* lame!!! She says defensively, as that's what she's always used.
Kevin Cook said:
Here is my D1 ... http://www.dicecollector.com/D01_INFINITY_01.jpg
Slaniwurst said:
Similar to the dinosaur d6, I have a d6 made out of amber, as well as a d30 (rhombic tricontahedron), and spherical d6.
netwolf said:
Giant size polyhedral sets... yes, big enough that infants couldn't swallow them (in theory- never trust an infant to adhere to those kind of labels like 'child safe')... they should be on the list somewhere. The buggers were bigger than the d100 golf balls. And yes, I got my child a set for her first birthday. A testament to her doomed social future, no doubt. I'd forgotten about the 30's with the -'s and the +'s on them. Blast from the past there. Did anybody mention the D300? Using two 30 siders like a % die roll. What about gender dice? Six sided with female or male symbol on it. I don't even want to think about what game I got that one out of. Chalk that one up to college life back in the day. Who can forget making their first cardboard dice from polyhedral pattern templates? Homemade dice: useless and an eyesore! But gawds I was proud of those things. I knew I was a hopeless geek when family members came back from world traveling with the gift of dice made from amber. With bugs and stuff inside.
Kyle said:
mrgnexus- you worked in a comic/game shop and YOU were the one laughing in people's faces? huh.
Nexile Hereticus said:
I always found the pyramid style D4's to roll quite well. They would bounce and tumble a bit before coming to a rest much like any other die rolling on the table. They also make an updated version of the round D100 with a weight to stop sooner. I picked one up and sure enough, it only rolls about 6 inches before stopping. I agree with most of your picks but you should have included monster sized dice... You know, the kind that are so massive they sound like you dropped a bowling ball on the table and just slide instead of roll. They also make a D10 set that goes to one million which makes the D1000 look reasonable!
Brenda said:
Has no one ever seen double and triple dice? These are large clear plastic dice with one or more tiny opaque dice inside them. I guess this is so you can save time by only rolling one die. You of course waste this time by trying to figure out what everything rolled up to with a magnifying glass.
Faith said:
I have a couple of these(not a $60 die, but...)for collection purposes only. I enjoy collecting dice, in a similar manner as some people collect trading cards. but I don't play with my D100, people. who NEEDS to roll a D100?
h_double said:
Hackmaster uses a d10000 (4x d10 labeled as thousands, hundreds, tens and ones) for its critical hit table.
paulws said:
Fairly recently, the was a collectible model game called pirates. In some of the packs with these collectable models were teeny-tiny D6s. Yes, just D6s but you could put two of them on your pinky.
Nils said:
I, too, had a marble in my dice bag and used to call it a "D1". Until the mathematician in me understood that it was also a "D Infinity".
John said:
D1,000 is for wimps. D10,000 for Hackmaster critical hits.
Pat said:
Beware the billion-sided die!
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/comics/misguided30jul01.html
http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/comics/misguided06aug01.html
JHG said:
The d4 isn't pyramid-shaped, btw, it's tetraeder.
A pyramid has 5 sides: a square base and four triangular sides.
And it's ideal for multiple choice questions at school :)
Bill said:
All the electronic dice. I remember the year they came out and the True Geeks were wandering around GenCon trying to use them in every game. I GMed a game that used d6s (sometimes lots) and a guy tried to use it and after his first "roll" took like 5 minutes to finish we all made him put it away and use real dice.
Paul said:
I actually *worked* for one of the first game distributors to sell odd-shaped dice, back in the late 70's and early 80's. We got them in "uninked" and my brother and I earned $0.01 a face coloring them in. We also made "colored" transparent dice from clear ones by painting them with special dyes (that were probably health hazards). The same guy made the book someone mentioned that was full of tables for the d30. By geek-fu is weak, however, as I only own two of those mentioned (d4, including some old school ones) and d100. Plus, of course, d30s. And I do have a Dragonbone around here somewhere. I got that "free" for helping a guy clean his store.
Ian Moroni said:
YOu should give an special award to the formula D (or formula dé) dices. If not only by the fact that they have a d30, also because NONE have the same number of faces as they have possible results (for instance, the faces on the d4 show 1,2,2,3).
Clay Dowling said:
For a whole huge collection of shameful dice, I refer you to http://www.koplowgames.com/
They specialize in fruity dice, although they also make excellent regular dice. Including natural wood dice, which I rather like the look of.
pawsplay said:
You didn't even list WEG's DC Heroes dice, with super hero faces on them. Good luck remembering what they were supposed to mean.
Lynn said:
I had a 30 sider at one point... in my Gamemistressing periods it served well as a way to determine a day in a month. I also used it for making up birthdates for my character alongside the venerable 12 sider. I gave it away a few years ago, though.
Verity Brown said:
People complaining about 20-sided d10s? Doesn't anyone remember that those were used as percentile dice? They were numbered 0-9, and the 20-sided shape rolled a lot better than the 10-sided percentiles they make now. (Not even going to go near the d100--ugh.) No one seems to carry the old 20-sided percentile dice anymore, which is a real pity, since I gave all mine away to friends when I stopped playing (moved too far away from a DM who had spoiled me for anyone else).
Fungol said:
A friend and I wrote a system that used 3d12 in a lot of places, which made using d34+2 somewhat useful (though the curve sucked compared to the actual 3d12)
Ken St. Andre said:
Bwa ha ha ha ha! Tunnels and Trolls uses all D6 for character generation, combat, saving throws, etc. (And a deck of cards when I wanted to generate a lot of monsters randomly.)
But you miss the point my dear sir. Why have a D34 or D100? Because I can! Dice roll and Dice rule!
Rick Loomis said:
Nowhere in this article nor the comments did anyone mention the real REASON for most of these odd-numbered dice. You can't PATENT a D6 or any of the polyhedral shapes. But if you can come up with a 34 sided die, and then convince people to use it, you have a MONOPOLY on it! It's all about the commerce. (And if we game publishers are so smart, how come so few of us are rich?)
Alden Loveshade said:
Ha! I've been roleplaying since before many of you were born, and I've only ever owned two of the above. Of course I tend to be a purist (if it was good enough for Plato, it's good enough for me). One of these days, though, I'm going to have to get me one of those D2s. Who makes those, anyway?
Uri Lifshitz said:
Laugh not at the d4.
For d4 take their time under the sofa to plot their revenge and then, when you'll least expect it, walking to the living room holding a bowl of jello and some spray paint (long story) they will strike! throwing you prone on the floor in heaps of purple jello.
Laugh not at the d4.
Jakk said:
Ken St. Andre and Rick Loomis! Tunnels & Trolls introduced me to role-playing... and then I discovered D&D and their cool weird-shaped dice, and never looked back... until recently. D&D 4E has me ready to dig out the old T&T 5E rulebook again. :-)
Aramis replied to Jakk:
@Jakk: Do it. T&T is still a great game, and still in print.
@all:
I've used d28 and d30 in games; mostly for determining dates. (d28 for traveller, where the 13 months of the imperial calendar have 28 days each.)
I've seen a number of dice-step systems where a d14, d16, and d18 would be really nice. In such systems, the d2 notation works just fine for me, as well. d0, even, doesn't bother me.
jeff said:
i had a d30 that was small and you could kinda tell which number it was on,
i always thought the pyramid ones looked cool,
Pat said:
I've got a d100 just for the novelty value of it. It's kind of funny to use it as an intelligence guage for new players: there's one in every group who has never seen one, gets all fascinated and just HAS to use it. Its fun to see their building frustration and to make bets through passed notes on how many rolls it takes them to get sick of it.
I've also got a d30 which I used as psychological warfare. Everybody notices, and everybody asks "WTH is that thing for?", to which I'd respond with a cryptic "DM stuff." That thing is heavy and makes a nice bang when it hits the table on a good toss, then you look up over the screen with either an evil grin or a pained wince, maybe a mumbled "well thats not good", you can imagine the effect on players who werent in on the joke. Silly as it may sound it seemed to get heart rates up and keep everybody on their a-game.
Something else I'm surprised I havent seen people mention as cheesy/lame are cheat dice. Those double 20 d20s were a complete pain in the rear to deal with as a DM to the point that I finally went out and got a few sets worth of dice and just had a pile of "table dice" for everybody to use. Even then I'd occasionally find a funny d20 or percentile die mixed in with those. We used to play alot of underdark/drow campaigns back during the 2nd edit, and I suppose I would have been disappointed if they weren't *trying* to cheat, but maintaining order got to be a pain in the butt... until they realized they had given me a nice set of "Death Dice" to turn on them lol!
Jolly Blackburn said:
There is no such thing as dumb dice. For job a tool. And for every situation a die!! A 30 sider saved my half-orc Bard Illusionist once from a very nasty pit-fall ecnounter. ;)
I have a set of Flying Buffalo's Pizza Dice in my collection (helps you to randomly pick toppings on your pizza). I've never used them but the chicks sure are impressed by them.
BTW Crystal Caste dice rawk!! I'm leaving my Bones to Michael to make a limited edition set of dice after I pass.
Oddzball said:
i am astounded that Steffan O'Sullivan's Sherpa Game's 'Watch with a 100th of a second timer' wasn't in the article!
Gareth Kryos said:
i believe all dice have uses. Not all of them are as useful as others.
Kevin Cook, the poster above has more dice than anyone. (literally, he has the guinness world record for it) And im sure he has dice he prefers more than others.
Larry Gossett said:
most of these dice are just stuff you should put aside in a private collection of do-dads and take them anywhere and show them to anyone who isn't a role playing gamer. more of a novelty and not practival in any way.
Cody J said:
I actually do have a 'd100' I am fond of. It's really 2 concentric d10s.. hollow clear one with a smaller one inside. Settles quite nicely.
