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Saturday, October 22, 2011

DICE!

Dice are cool. I used to have a bunch of dice for Dungeons and Dragons, including a 50-sided die about the size of a golf ball. I would have assumed that D&D got me into dice, but now I'm thinking maybe dice were the reason I was interested in role playing games. Because of limited access to friends, I mostly just sat around rolling dice to generate characters and such, after reading all the entries in the Fiend Folio and the Monster Manual. I wish I knew where my old dice were. I had at least two sets.


Lately I've been making unusual dice. It started with big, ogre-sized dice. I chainsawed a d12 from a pine log. It doesn't roll perfectly true, but it's pretty nice. I played "21" against some teenagers with it. "7" came up a lot more than it should have.

d12 before the numerals

Then I bent a slightly jumbo d6 from a single length of wire. It rolls well--random within trials of maybe ten rolls. I tried to make a wire d8 but it's no damn good.


I figured this existed already, but a google search revealed only a design for a 3D printer. But the materials extruded by the 3D printer were not strong enough for such a design, so mine is the only one in use, as far as the internet is concerned. However, it also revealed new varieties of intricate dice that I can't really compete with, possible only with either new fabrication technology or arcane crafting techniques.



"Lawn dice" are available from multiple online retailers. Still, they are a nice size, and d6 (cube) is so easy to make, I started making a set of "farkle dice." Still trying to decide what my "farkle" icon will be.


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