On the latest episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Fear the Boot, they did a segment on gamers and their dice. Let's face it, this great hobby of ours wouldn't be what it is today without dice, and there are about as many superstitions between gamers and their dice as there are stars in the sky. I was inspired to bring pork rinds to the last game thanks to FtB's 'health' episodes, and they've inspired me again, this time to talk about my dice.
I keep all of my dice in this little chest. It's one of the 'knick knack' type boxes you find at places like Hobby Lobby and other similar stores. This one's a Hobby Lobby find, it was on the clearance shelf for a mere four bucks.
Inside isn't just a big, messy pile of assorted dice. I've got it further subdivided by type. I'll break down each category below. The only thing shown in the above pic that doesn't go in the chest is the plastic baggie in the background (more on that later). I've placed the whole 'kit' on my laptop, just to give a sense of scale. It doesn't take up too much room.
In the chest itself, loose, are all of my "pipped" d6's
All sizes, some printed sides, and even some little d6's inside larger ones
For real workloads, I also keep two bricks of uniform d6's on hand
My GW dice; old scatter, new scatter, sustained fire, and blocking dice
Somebody tell me what these are from, I don't know!
Rounding out my d6's are my three "oddballs". The first two are printed with words, the white die has different weapons on it. Run across a brigand in the backyard? What are they armed with? Roll your weapon die! Same thing with the blue die, but it deals with armor. Looking at the pic here, you've got a plate-male wearing brigand wielding a spear apparently. The last one has me puzzled as to its origin. It has shield crest faces, what looks to be spider head faces, and I believe it also has skulls on it. Also, it's one of my few wooden dice.
Getting into types of dice other than d6's, I have two more oddballs. The one on the left is a ten-sided die, shaped more like a cylindrical crystal. This was once part of a percentile set, but apparently the "tens" die has gone AWOL. The die on the right is my 16-sided (hexadecagon) die. This die at one point got a lot of use at my gaming table. In the game Blood Bowl, you have a sixteen slot roster, at the end of each game you would roll randomly to see which player received the MVP trophy. Most players I knew just used a d20, ignoring the 17-20 rolls, but why do that when you can just roll a d16? Frankly I think it's about time we introduced the d14's and d16's (and d18's) into "mainstream gaming. The enormous gap between the d12 and the d20 has gone on long enough, time to make some more room!
All of my non-pipped d6 dice go in here, as well as the other polyhedrons. It does have d6's, but they're the types with the printed numbers on them. This bag is about as "gamer" as it gets; handmade, emblazoned sword emblem, the works. Now the real kicker is that I bought it at a ren fair to boot! Of all places, we were on vacation in New Mexico, tooling around town, and chanced upon it. I didn't have any turkey legs, but this dice bag was worth the trip.
...and it's got a fancy lining too
Finally we have the "leftovers". These dice didn't make the cut for some reason or another. All of the dice in the bag are in sets. They may not have matching colors, but they're all grouped up by "sets" of the usual d4-d20 run. What's left over is what's in this bag. These don't really see the light of day anymore. Writing this I'm starting to get an idea of what I can do with these guys, you'll have to stay posted to find out! A little hint though is that it will probably occur over on our group endeavor, the Minions of the Monster Master podcast. I mentioned FtB first thing, and I must admit, it's one of my favorite podcasts out there (maybe tied for second, if not second itself), but I'd be remiss (something I'm always trying to avoid!) if I didn't plug my favorite podcast, the aforementioned Minions of the Monster Master!
