Dice

[EmraldArcher]

With the inclusion of faction dice in Operation: Icestorm hopefully CB will be selling them separately at some point. Until then, anyone know where I can get some cool d20s in bulk?

[Claudius Sol]

Most FLGS will sell d20s for less than a dollar apiece. If not, you can order bulk from Amazon or eBay.

Though you'll only really want 6 dice at most for Infinity. I have 9 dice. I've once had to use 8 of them at the same time.

[Hypna]

But you see, dice are like nerd gems. You hold them in your fingers and mull them around. You put them in little velvet bags and appreciate the heft. At night you hide them from other jealous nerds. In short, I like dice.

EDIT: Oh wait, I had something on topic to say. I'm not a big fan of the O:I dice. I like my jewel dice better.

[EmraldArcher]

Most FLGS will sell d20s for less than a dollar apiece. If not, you can order bulk from Amazon or eBay.

Though you'll only really want 6 dice at most for Infinity. I have 9 dice. I've once had to use 8 of them at the same time.

No shit, I don't want Chessex crap though I want something better now that was unnecessarily offensive.

You may not like one or another dice manufacturwer, but it isn't a reason to insult folks on the forums.
Especially since they're there trying to help you out.

You have been warned.

[Guges]

Stay away from Gamescience dice. They claim to be the most perfectly molded dice and therefore they roll the most statistically perfect. In reality, they clip them off sprues which leave chunks of plastic sticking out of one facing or divots in the facing from overly eager clipping. Can't really roll scientifically perfect with one facing completely screwed up.

[MittenNinja]

No shit, I don't want Chessex crap though I want something better retard.

Well that was unnecessary.

[macfergusson]

No shit, I don't want Chessex crap though I want something better retard.

Well that was unnecessary.

Yeah, what a ***...

Please don't insult other users.

[Kestril]

[Errhile]

Nothing to see there, citizens, please move along...

Oh, you want good looking dice?
Try Q-Workshop. They have a number of cool styled dice patterns, and aren't above doing a custom job if you can pay their price.

Personally, I go for easily read dice. Maybe not pretty, but definitely utilitarian...

[Icchan]

Stay away from Gamescience dice. They claim to be the most perfectly molded dice and therefore they roll the most statistically perfect. In reality, they clip them off sprues which leave chunks of plastic sticking out of one facing or divots in the facing from overly eager clipping. Can't really roll scientifically perfect with one facing completely screwed up.

If you had watched the presentation why they do this you'd undestand. Normal dice manufacturers tumble their dice in a machine not that much dissimilar from a tumble dryer which smooths out all the corners and hides the clipped sprue point.
If the little chunk bothers you so much, just file it down manually.

But sadly, Gamescience dice are practically no longer available anywhere.

The full presentation, in two parts for those that are interested:
http://youtu.be/NKhpYJzCcSw
http://youtu.be/MvLjFBhoFMs

[Poseidal]

Wouldn't filing down the sprue point actually remove the problem of the sprue points sticking out as it has been (essentially) been removed?

I think Chessex also sold untumbled dice at one point, with the same problem.

EDIS: The Chessex dice ARE the gamescience ones, it looks like.

[Icchan]

Wouldn't filing down the sprue point actually remove the problem of the sprue points sticking out as it has been (essentially) been removed?

I think Chessex also sold untumbled dice at one point, with the same problem.

There's two ways of making dice, molds or machining. Machining is really expensive, casino dice are machined and can cost around 6-12 dollars a piece.
Mold process always has the unfortunate side effect of having plastic bit from the sprue, where they inject the plastic. There's really no way around this unless you can teleport the plastic inside the mold.
So to get rid of the plastic bit cost effectively, take a bunch of dice and throw them in a tumbler until they're nice and smooth (and no longer entirely symmetrical).
Or you can leave it there for the customer to file it down manually, there's no point in doing this by hand by the manufacturer, the end cost would be higher than the casino dice.
Can't have everything.

[Guges]

Wouldn't filing down the sprue point actually remove the problem of the sprue points sticking out as it has been (essentially) been removed?

I think Chessex also sold untumbled dice at one point, with the same problem.

There's two ways of making dice, molds or machining. Machining is really expensive, casino dice are machined and can cost around 6-12 dollars a piece.
Mold process always has the unfortunate side effect of having plastic bit from the sprue, where they inject the plastic. There's really no way around this unless you can teleport the plastic inside the mold.
So to get rid of the plastic bit cost effectively, take a bunch of dice and throw them in a tumbler until they're nice and smooth (and no longer entirely symmetrical).
Or you can leave it there for the customer to file it down manually, there's no point in doing this by hand by the manufacturer, the end cost would be higher than the casino dice.
Can't have everything.

Does anyone make machined d20s? I would love to buy four or five of them in order to have dice that did roll more statistically perfect.

Doesn't make sense to me to file down my dice. Gamescience should do that for me before I buy them.

They had a huge booth at Gencon last year, so maybe they'll have one this years as well. Have someone get you some maybe? They are also available through a website, but I forgot the name of it.

[Arachas]

I would like faction dice for every faction out there! I kind of like the PanO and Nomad nice from Icestorm...

[Icchan]

Does anyone make machined d20s? I would love to buy four or five of them in order to have dice that did roll more statistically perfect.

http://www.artisandice.com/store/custom ... rted-d20s/

20 bucks for a single die.
And no, Gamescience shouldn't file those dice for you, because then it'll cost 20 bucks and then machined dice are more profitable.

[Coyotebd]

I'm also a big fan of legibility over fancy mottling.
I also like to buy a set of dice at every con I attend since I love wandering the vendor hall but am very disciplined in my spending.
This means I have a lot of cool dice and still bring out the black test on solid yellow dice whenever I play

Also, at what stage is the tumbled dice irregularity statistically relevant? Is it really a concern if over 1000 throws a 6 is going to come up one more time than it should?

[MarcoSkoll]

Does anyone make machined d20s? I would love to buy four or five of them in order to have dice that did roll more statistically perfect.

To be honest, Guges, a lot of it's just guff. It's important for gambling, but you then have to roll the dice on special surfaces such as to not wear them out too fast, and even then casinos get through a butt-load of them in order to maintain the statistical perfection.

And it's completely over-stated most of the time anyway.

There's an article going around the net about how Games Workshop D6s roll 29% ones or something. Absolute piffle. The article really stretches the bounds of belief - the guy is supposedly a professor who: gets four interns to do 144,000 dice rolls (do they not have anything better to do?), gets a casino to send him statistical data on dice (like they'd risk giving anyone the slightest possible advantage) and then dissects dice with a hydrogen-cooled diamond saw (and in the process has therefore used a tool that no-one on the planet sells) - and just doesn't agree with reality.

I conducted my own test with three "dice cubes", rolling 75 D6s a time for many dozens of rolls, and got an overall result where the dice weren't any more than 2% from statistically perfect. I'm in no doubt that GW's dice are more balanced than their rules. Heck, I doubt that there's any wargame where the rules are more precise than the dice you can pick up at the FLGS.

Still, I do own a set of Gamescience dice (and to be honest, for what it costs to get them to pre-prepare the dice with inked numbers and the like, I was happy to do it myself)... which I almost never use.

I've realised I care more about visually appealing dice than precise dice. Hence, these days I've got a little rainbow of clear D20s (makes it easier to tell them apart if needed) for Infinity, two sets of =][= type dice for Inquisitor and a set of seven quartz polygonal dice for general RPing use - and I mean quartz, these things are actual semi-precious gems.

No [censored], I don't want Chessex crap though I want something better

If you're that picky about the quality of your dice, then I doubt CB's faction specific offerings will appease you. Aside from faction logos, they seem little different to any of the Chessex dice I have.

[Guges]

Does anyone make machined d20s? I would love to buy four or five of them in order to have dice that did roll more statistically perfect.

To be honest, Guges, a lot of it's just guff. It's important for gambling, but you then have to roll the dice on special surfaces such as to not wear them out too fast, and even then casinos get through a butt-load of them in order to maintain the statistical perfection.

And it's completely over-stated most of the time anyway.

There's an article going around the net about how Games Workshop D6s roll 29% ones or something. Absolute piffle. The article really stretches the bounds of belief - the guy is supposedly a professor who: gets four interns to do 144,000 dice rolls (do they not have anything better to do?), gets a casino to send him statistical data on dice (like they'd risk giving anyone the slightest possible advantage) and then dissects dice with a hydrogen-cooled diamond saw (and in the process has therefore used a tool that no-one on the planet sells) - and just doesn't agree with reality.

I conducted my own test with three "dice cubes", rolling 75 D6s a time for many dozens of rolls, and got an overall result where the dice weren't any more than 2% from statistically perfect. I'm in no doubt that GW's dice are more balanced than their rules. Heck, I doubt that there's any wargame where the rules are more precise than the dice you can pick up at the FLGS.

Still, I do own a set of Gamescience dice (and to be honest, for what it costs to get them to pre-prepare the dice with inked numbers and the like, I was happy to do it myself)... which I almost never use.

I've realised I care more about visually appealing dice than precise dice. Hence, these days I've got a little rainbow of clear D20s (makes it easier to tell them apart if needed) for Infinity, two sets of =][= type dice for Inquisitor and a set of seven quartz polygonal dice for general RPing use - and I mean quartz, these things are actual semi-precious gems.

No [censored], I don't want Chessex crap though I want something better

If you're that picky about the quality of your dice, then I doubt CB's faction specific offerings will appease you. Aside from faction logos, they seem little different to any of the Chessex dice I have.

This is good to know. Thanks.

[Errhile]

No [censored], I don't want Chessex crap though I want something better

If you're that picky about the quality of your dice, then I doubt CB's faction specific offerings will appease you. Aside from faction logos, they seem little different to any of the Chessex dice I have.

Marco (and everybody else) - please don't mind replying to EmeraldArcher (or FellintoOblivion, as they appear to be the same person). He has been banned, as he couldn't keep to the required standards of behaviour of this community.

[Section9]

Stay away from Gamescience dice. They claim to be the most perfectly molded dice and therefore they roll the most statistically perfect. In reality, they clip them off sprues which leave chunks of plastic sticking out of one facing or divots in the facing from overly eager clipping. Can't really roll scientifically perfect with one facing completely screwed up.

They also include instructions to carefully cut/sand/file the sprue attachment point down.

If you do that, they honestly DO roll more randomly than anyone else's dice. Frack, even if you don't, IIRC the sprue tab is on the 14, which usually isn't a hitting number!

Personally, I have sets of 5 d20s that I use for my Infinity gaming. Black with Gold numbers for Yu Jing, Orange with White numbers for Nomads, had some Blue with white numbers for PanO, don't remember if I kept those when I sold my PanO, and I need some dice for Ariadna and for Hassassins... I'd totally buy bags of 6 faction-marked dice for Infinity.

[ElectricPaladin]

Well, that was fascinating.

I'm going to hang on to that $20-a-pop nigh-perfect die webpage. It might be fun to own one, if just to brag about it.

[ElectricPaladin]

Well, that was fascinating.

I'm going to hang on to that $20-a-pop nigh-perfect die webpage. It might be fun to own one, if just to brag about it.

Or maybe I'll blow $150 on a carbon fibre d20...

Yeah. As a retirement gift, in 50 years!

[Alkasyn]

With the inclusion of faction dice in Operation: Icestorm hopefully CB will be selling them separately at some point. Until then, anyone know where I can get some cool d20s in bulk?

CB will not offer these dice for sale. It comes from Bostria himself.

It's not profitable for a company such as CB to stock these, and the cooperation with the dice manufacturer was not easy.

[Scorch]

With the inclusion of faction dice in Operation: Icestorm hopefully CB will be selling them separately at some point. Until then, anyone know where I can get some cool d20s in bulk?

CB will not offer these dice for sale. It comes from Bostria himself.

It's not profitable for a company such as CB to stock these, and the cooperation with the dice manufacturer was not easy.

That's a shame, but understandable.

[macfergusson]

OK those Manzanita Burl dice actually look gorgeous. I might need a birthday present...

Edit: Limited edition, out of stock? Nooooooo......

[Guges]

With the inclusion of faction dice in Operation: Icestorm hopefully CB will be selling them separately at some point. Until then, anyone know where I can get some cool d20s in bulk?

CB will not offer these dice for sale. It comes from Bostria himself.

It's not profitable for a company such as CB to stock these, and the cooperation with the dice manufacturer was not easy.

See? This is why we can't have nice things.

I was hoping for Yu Jing dice, but because other companies suck, I won't get them. It's a shame CB has to work with people like that.

[fracas]

I too want faction based dice, in batches of 5 I think should be sufficient

[IJW Wartrader]

It's not about companies sucking, it's because custom d20s are massively more expensive than custom d6s.

[Mob of Blondes]

Injected dice can and do have bubbles. I have some, no need of cutting, they are transparent and you see the bubbles inside, as well as some sides that collapsed a bit. The tumbling deforms the dice some more, I remember measuring face to face and finding the distance varied 1 mm or worse in something that is 15-25 mm.

Someone tested Chessex vs Gamescience. Chessex was worse, but Gamescience wasn't perfect. I remember the guy with the saw... maybe he meant they cooled the dice then cut quickly, or that the saw used dihydrogen monoxide cooling?

Do you want even randomness, defined by "all appear evenly over thousands of results"? Get a properly implemented random generator. One based in physical noise should be unguessable, and nobody has the brain to guess the good pseudo ones either.

Or share the dice, both sides have the same "bad luck" now.

With the inclusion of faction dice in Operation: Icestorm hopefully CB will be selling them separately at some point. Until then, anyone know where I can get some cool d20s in bulk?

CB will not offer these dice for sale. It comes from Bostria himself.

It's not profitable for a company such as CB to stock these, and the cooperation with the dice manufacturer was not easy.

But they sell packs of 6D20. And they also stock bases everyone else already sells (25 and 40 mm). Does this mean they will stop doing that?

[red harvest]

Here in the USA you have 3 choices-- Chessex, Game Science, and Koplow (the 'nice' dice). The Q-Workshop dice are unreadable at distance, in my experience. Attractive dice though.

I have been rolling Game Science dice since I got my first polyhedral set in 1978. I like them, as the photos show. You can see how they have changed from being marked 0-9 twice, in the days before 10-sided dice, to being marked +0 to +9 ND 0-9, To finally being marked 1-20.



You can identify the older dice by noting that the corners are rounded from decades of rolling. A no-no in casinos, but fine for tabletop and RPG gaming. Also, see the lean to the short stack of Chessex dice, but how straight the Game Science dice stack. Hmm... But they roll fine too. Now to get some Koplow dice, maybe the 28mm jumbo polyhedrals...