Randomness: Dices for the Dice Goblins
Nov. 21st, 2025 10:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solo_knightDice are, by far, the most common random element in TTRPGs and solo play. There are very few games that don’t use dice at all, though some use them sparingly: throw 1d6 and otherwise, pull cards.
Well, you don’t need any, you can use an online dice roller, or a formula in Excel, but rolling physical dice is fun.
I recommend at least one 7-dice polyset (4/6/8/10/%/12/20), a second one for luck ^H rolling with advantage, multiple spotted d6 (I occasionally use the Tiny d6 rules, where you need three per character, and if you want to throw multiple characters, multiple sets are helpful.)
You’ll also want a grabbag of spare dice depending on which system you play; as you level up, you might need more dice, and while you can reroll existing ones, it’s more fun and easier to count to have at least a good number at hand.
Whether you want speciality dice is up to you – I frequently use a d2 instead of a coin or a d3 (multiple games call for D3s; you can just roll a D6 and halve it); I have a few others for giving myself a slight bump up or down (d22 (not: 21)/19 instead of d20).
What didn’t work out is the round d100; I find it very disappointing to throw and am covetting – but cannot currently afford – a flat-faced d100.
(On that hangs a tale. I’ve wanted one ever since I found one in my local park. It was obviously well-beloved, and when I rolled it, I got a natural 1. I put it where the owner hopefully found it.) You need d100 all the time, though the standard is to use a d10 and a d% to figure out your number between 1 and 100.
Large dice become unwieldy and aren’t as much fun to throw as smaller denominations, so I’m not confident how much use an actual d100 – even of a better shape than mine – would get, which is why I buy other dice instead.)
I cannot imagine playing RPGs and having no dice at all.
I’ve been converted to using a dice tray – it contains the dice so they don’t fall on the floor (especially D4 have a tendency to become invisible until you step on them; they’re not called ‘caltrops’ for nothing) and I don’t have to worry about losing them.
I started out with a grab bag (literally - a soft pencil case) but that has the disadvantage that every time you want to play, you need to pour out all your dice and hunt down the ones you want.
I still have that pencil case (I actually have multiple: Claimed sets for specific characters, unclaimed sets, singles, and speciality dice: pencil cases can be had for a couple of quid, and make life much easier). I did, however, buy a few food-safe spillproof containers where I keep the dice I am using right now (and a couple of extras; I rotate their contents). They’re smallish, and I have two sets per container: very easy to pick the right dice. I have square ones for normal dice, a larger square one for my evil DMing dice (red numbers) and a round one for my spotty d6 and my d2/d3 dodecadice).
In short, being able to see my dice and not having to dig through one giant bag is a tremendous reduction of cognitive load. I am torn between feeling somewhat pathetic that such a little thing makes so much difference (plus I enjoy my dice more; I can see them more often) and feeling a little silly for not noticing earlier than while ‘huge mountain of dice’ makes me happy, not having to dig through mountain of dice to roll some makes me even happier.
I'm also finding a spreadsheet to track my dice including wishlist and outstanding orders very useful indeed. Made it easier to go ‘I haven’t received this set yet’ and shout at the vendor.
Besides a dice tray for containment while rolling, having spillproof clear containers to keep whatever I currently use at hand and visible, I have refrained from extras.
I'm rolling dice for fun. Part of that means that I'm not attempting to get a particular outcome (yes, you CAN throw particularly d6, but also d4, and quite probably other shapes, to increase the likelyhood of the result you want.) Dice cups and dice towers work to randomise throws more, but simply turning the die over a few times in your hand and truly rolling them works for me.
If you want casino dice, you'll need certain specs. Sharp-edged resin dice are supposed to be truer than tumbled acrylic dice; and expensive dice probably are better quality than cheap dice (we'll get to that), but so far, I have not yet noticed any bias in actual practice, so I don't care. I’ll roll my £4 set and you’ll better dodge.
The most common types of dice are:
– acrylic dice. They come in all colours, they're standard size (though larger and smaller are available), the majority has a unified shape, and in the UK, you can get them from £4 to £15.
They're lightweight, lovely to handle, and there's a colour scheme for everyone.
– Resin Dice. These are mostly sharp-edged, often with inclusions (though some acrylic dice have inclusions, too), and frequently with liquid cores that swirl around. They're larger than most acrylic dice and heavier. It turns out that I don't actually like throwing them, they're not as nice in the hand. Right now, I have one set; I have my eye on a couple of other shinies, but I have little intention of using them very often. In the UK, they usually go for £15-30, depending on the source; actual (or pretend) handmade sets can retail for up to £50.
– Metal. Now we're talking real money (£25-40). Sharp-edged or semi-sharp edged; these dice are HEAVY. Some of them are intricately sculpted, many have metalic shimmers. I highly recommend getting a single or borrowing them from a friend to see whether you like using them. My experience is that they don't roll easily, so you're more throwing them, and I do not like the feeling at all.
– Glas and gemstone. Even more expensive. Have seen from £40-£120, depending on the material, and here you actually want craftsmanship, because you'll only get one or two sets in a lifetime. You get bragging rights, but you'd better get a padded container and roll them one by one in a padded tray: they can chip, which would be expensive. Not the dice for a 6th level smite.
– Novelty Dice. Some makers have weird shapes – starting from the caltrops with numbers are the bottom instead of the top and uneven octagonal d4s (so there are two faces for every result), and weirder ways of tackling especially d4s (there’s one looking like a dreidl), and ending with dice spinners. And then, of course, there's glow-in-the-dark and light-up dice, and more.
Thankfully, I actually love cheap acrylic dice best.
I'm in the UK, and this is highly location-dependent; the tariffs for dice are as bad as the tariffs for Tarot decks or RPG books and just as I'm not paying £20 for the latter, I'm not paying £16 to have dice shipped to me. However much I covet the dice. (Some dice I covet a lot. A LOT.)
The reality of acrylic dice is that a lot of them are made in China. If you buy them directly on sites like Temu (which I haven't tried) or Aliexpress (which banned me for… trying to buy dice? Made an account, filled my cart, edited my cart, got banned for 'violating the ToC’, appealed, heard absolutely nothing back, do not recommend) you will get to meet certain dice sets for, say, £2-4. When you buy them from UK sellers, they're £7-10. Unless you strike lucky on Amazon or Ebay, and they're around £3-5.
The margin on sharp-edged resin dice is even higher: I've seen the same sets advertised on Temu, Ebay, and Etsy, and Etsy sellers may charge $60 for 'handmade' dice that look exactly like the mass market dice from Chinese manufacturers that sell for £15-20 (if you can get them). So that's something to be aware of. (As mentioned, I don't like them enough. I would have bought a couple of sets on sale for £10, but that's more or less my limit.)
There are numerous retailers in the UK. Some of them offer free shipping, some of them have better searches than others (good luck finding anything on Zatu).
I’ve currently have an outstanding order from one retailer; they sent me a survey of ‘how did we do’ but so far the order is unfulfilled, and it’s been more than two weeks. Am not naming and shaming yet, but am not impressed.
I bought several sets at good prices from https://www.loadeddice.uk - one of the sets was faulty (2x d8 instead of d8/d10) and I wrote them an email including a picture, and they put another set in the mail: it was a marvellous customer service experience and I wish every shop is that competent. Will totally buy from them again, highly recommended.
Last but not least, https://www.thediceshoponline.com I also had a problem with a set from them in the past (2xd% instead of d10/d%) and they made an almighty fuss. I had to take a picture of everything in that order including the packaging, they sent me the die in question, and I had to send back the duplicate die. It was frustrating, took a long time, and felt degrading; because the implication was very much that I was lying to get an extra die (retail value: <£1.50)
The main reasons I still use their site is a great wishlist where I can keep a lot of possible dice sets in one place. (I like having a huge wishlist and making modest purchases; it means that whenever I feel “oh, I’d like to buy more dice” I have a pre-selected pool and don’t fall foul of advertising/the lure of the shiny. I will never buy everything on that wishlist. That’s not what it’s for.)
The caveat here is that when an item goes out of stock, it vanishes from the wishlist. If, like me, you use the wishlist to keep track of sets and styles that caught your attention, this is a problem, and you should save a copy to your hard drive.
The reason I still buy from them on occasion, though they are no longer the first place I consider is that they’re the only shop I am aware of in the UK that sells single dice. So if you want 3x d4 or 2xd20 for your favourite set, or, like me, 3x d6 spotted, that’s how you get them. It means that I could upgrade my grab bag of single dice I picked up cheap and didn’t like much and replace them with ‘I wish I’d been around when this set was available as a set’.
As with any collection, I would recommend building it slowly, checking in frequently whether you’re actually using dice and getting joy from having them (The ‘galaxy’ style look much better in professional photographs than in my dice tray; especially the shimmering orange from photos looks just boring brown) but overall, I get a kick out of rolling different sets even if I’m just playing with random tables and could use any old set.
With my Tarot collection pretty much feature complete (I still will buy the occasional deck, but my wishlist has around 5 definites, and most of them are not yet published) and my collection of RPGs/Materials likewise pretty complete (will buy itch.io bundles if they come up, but very few others, unless it’s a Humblebundle with the right content), and so many unread books that I don’t want to add to that mountain unless I am REALLY keen, my focus has been on dice recently. I don’t see that many more sets in my future; but I have a few. They bring me joy.
And this is how you become a dice goblin. Ooops.
Dice you need
Well, you don’t need any, you can use an online dice roller, or a formula in Excel, but rolling physical dice is fun.
I recommend at least one 7-dice polyset (4/6/8/10/%/12/20), a second one for luck ^H rolling with advantage, multiple spotted d6 (I occasionally use the Tiny d6 rules, where you need three per character, and if you want to throw multiple characters, multiple sets are helpful.)
You’ll also want a grabbag of spare dice depending on which system you play; as you level up, you might need more dice, and while you can reroll existing ones, it’s more fun and easier to count to have at least a good number at hand.
Whether you want speciality dice is up to you – I frequently use a d2 instead of a coin or a d3 (multiple games call for D3s; you can just roll a D6 and halve it); I have a few others for giving myself a slight bump up or down (d22 (not: 21)/19 instead of d20).
What didn’t work out is the round d100; I find it very disappointing to throw and am covetting – but cannot currently afford – a flat-faced d100.
(On that hangs a tale. I’ve wanted one ever since I found one in my local park. It was obviously well-beloved, and when I rolled it, I got a natural 1. I put it where the owner hopefully found it.) You need d100 all the time, though the standard is to use a d10 and a d% to figure out your number between 1 and 100.
Large dice become unwieldy and aren’t as much fun to throw as smaller denominations, so I’m not confident how much use an actual d100 – even of a better shape than mine – would get, which is why I buy other dice instead.)
I cannot imagine playing RPGs and having no dice at all.
Paraphernalia
I’ve been converted to using a dice tray – it contains the dice so they don’t fall on the floor (especially D4 have a tendency to become invisible until you step on them; they’re not called ‘caltrops’ for nothing) and I don’t have to worry about losing them.
I started out with a grab bag (literally - a soft pencil case) but that has the disadvantage that every time you want to play, you need to pour out all your dice and hunt down the ones you want.
I still have that pencil case (I actually have multiple: Claimed sets for specific characters, unclaimed sets, singles, and speciality dice: pencil cases can be had for a couple of quid, and make life much easier). I did, however, buy a few food-safe spillproof containers where I keep the dice I am using right now (and a couple of extras; I rotate their contents). They’re smallish, and I have two sets per container: very easy to pick the right dice. I have square ones for normal dice, a larger square one for my evil DMing dice (red numbers) and a round one for my spotty d6 and my d2/d3 dodecadice).
In short, being able to see my dice and not having to dig through one giant bag is a tremendous reduction of cognitive load. I am torn between feeling somewhat pathetic that such a little thing makes so much difference (plus I enjoy my dice more; I can see them more often) and feeling a little silly for not noticing earlier than while ‘huge mountain of dice’ makes me happy, not having to dig through mountain of dice to roll some makes me even happier.
I'm also finding a spreadsheet to track my dice including wishlist and outstanding orders very useful indeed. Made it easier to go ‘I haven’t received this set yet’ and shout at the vendor.
Besides a dice tray for containment while rolling, having spillproof clear containers to keep whatever I currently use at hand and visible, I have refrained from extras.
Materials
I'm rolling dice for fun. Part of that means that I'm not attempting to get a particular outcome (yes, you CAN throw particularly d6, but also d4, and quite probably other shapes, to increase the likelyhood of the result you want.) Dice cups and dice towers work to randomise throws more, but simply turning the die over a few times in your hand and truly rolling them works for me.
If you want casino dice, you'll need certain specs. Sharp-edged resin dice are supposed to be truer than tumbled acrylic dice; and expensive dice probably are better quality than cheap dice (we'll get to that), but so far, I have not yet noticed any bias in actual practice, so I don't care. I’ll roll my £4 set and you’ll better dodge.
The most common types of dice are:
– acrylic dice. They come in all colours, they're standard size (though larger and smaller are available), the majority has a unified shape, and in the UK, you can get them from £4 to £15.
They're lightweight, lovely to handle, and there's a colour scheme for everyone.
– Resin Dice. These are mostly sharp-edged, often with inclusions (though some acrylic dice have inclusions, too), and frequently with liquid cores that swirl around. They're larger than most acrylic dice and heavier. It turns out that I don't actually like throwing them, they're not as nice in the hand. Right now, I have one set; I have my eye on a couple of other shinies, but I have little intention of using them very often. In the UK, they usually go for £15-30, depending on the source; actual (or pretend) handmade sets can retail for up to £50.
– Metal. Now we're talking real money (£25-40). Sharp-edged or semi-sharp edged; these dice are HEAVY. Some of them are intricately sculpted, many have metalic shimmers. I highly recommend getting a single or borrowing them from a friend to see whether you like using them. My experience is that they don't roll easily, so you're more throwing them, and I do not like the feeling at all.
– Glas and gemstone. Even more expensive. Have seen from £40-£120, depending on the material, and here you actually want craftsmanship, because you'll only get one or two sets in a lifetime. You get bragging rights, but you'd better get a padded container and roll them one by one in a padded tray: they can chip, which would be expensive. Not the dice for a 6th level smite.
– Novelty Dice. Some makers have weird shapes – starting from the caltrops with numbers are the bottom instead of the top and uneven octagonal d4s (so there are two faces for every result), and weirder ways of tackling especially d4s (there’s one looking like a dreidl), and ending with dice spinners. And then, of course, there's glow-in-the-dark and light-up dice, and more.
Thankfully, I actually love cheap acrylic dice best.
Sources
I'm in the UK, and this is highly location-dependent; the tariffs for dice are as bad as the tariffs for Tarot decks or RPG books and just as I'm not paying £20 for the latter, I'm not paying £16 to have dice shipped to me. However much I covet the dice. (Some dice I covet a lot. A LOT.)
The reality of acrylic dice is that a lot of them are made in China. If you buy them directly on sites like Temu (which I haven't tried) or Aliexpress (which banned me for… trying to buy dice? Made an account, filled my cart, edited my cart, got banned for 'violating the ToC’, appealed, heard absolutely nothing back, do not recommend) you will get to meet certain dice sets for, say, £2-4. When you buy them from UK sellers, they're £7-10. Unless you strike lucky on Amazon or Ebay, and they're around £3-5.
The margin on sharp-edged resin dice is even higher: I've seen the same sets advertised on Temu, Ebay, and Etsy, and Etsy sellers may charge $60 for 'handmade' dice that look exactly like the mass market dice from Chinese manufacturers that sell for £15-20 (if you can get them). So that's something to be aware of. (As mentioned, I don't like them enough. I would have bought a couple of sets on sale for £10, but that's more or less my limit.)
There are numerous retailers in the UK. Some of them offer free shipping, some of them have better searches than others (good luck finding anything on Zatu).
I’ve currently have an outstanding order from one retailer; they sent me a survey of ‘how did we do’ but so far the order is unfulfilled, and it’s been more than two weeks. Am not naming and shaming yet, but am not impressed.
I bought several sets at good prices from https://www.loadeddice.uk - one of the sets was faulty (2x d8 instead of d8/d10) and I wrote them an email including a picture, and they put another set in the mail: it was a marvellous customer service experience and I wish every shop is that competent. Will totally buy from them again, highly recommended.
Last but not least, https://www.thediceshoponline.com I also had a problem with a set from them in the past (2xd% instead of d10/d%) and they made an almighty fuss. I had to take a picture of everything in that order including the packaging, they sent me the die in question, and I had to send back the duplicate die. It was frustrating, took a long time, and felt degrading; because the implication was very much that I was lying to get an extra die (retail value: <£1.50)
The main reasons I still use their site is a great wishlist where I can keep a lot of possible dice sets in one place. (I like having a huge wishlist and making modest purchases; it means that whenever I feel “oh, I’d like to buy more dice” I have a pre-selected pool and don’t fall foul of advertising/the lure of the shiny. I will never buy everything on that wishlist. That’s not what it’s for.)
The caveat here is that when an item goes out of stock, it vanishes from the wishlist. If, like me, you use the wishlist to keep track of sets and styles that caught your attention, this is a problem, and you should save a copy to your hard drive.
The reason I still buy from them on occasion, though they are no longer the first place I consider is that they’re the only shop I am aware of in the UK that sells single dice. So if you want 3x d4 or 2xd20 for your favourite set, or, like me, 3x d6 spotted, that’s how you get them. It means that I could upgrade my grab bag of single dice I picked up cheap and didn’t like much and replace them with ‘I wish I’d been around when this set was available as a set’.
As with any collection, I would recommend building it slowly, checking in frequently whether you’re actually using dice and getting joy from having them (The ‘galaxy’ style look much better in professional photographs than in my dice tray; especially the shimmering orange from photos looks just boring brown) but overall, I get a kick out of rolling different sets even if I’m just playing with random tables and could use any old set.
With my Tarot collection pretty much feature complete (I still will buy the occasional deck, but my wishlist has around 5 definites, and most of them are not yet published) and my collection of RPGs/Materials likewise pretty complete (will buy itch.io bundles if they come up, but very few others, unless it’s a Humblebundle with the right content), and so many unread books that I don’t want to add to that mountain unless I am REALLY keen, my focus has been on dice recently. I don’t see that many more sets in my future; but I have a few. They bring me joy.
And this is how you become a dice goblin. Ooops.
In more or less reverse order
Date: 2025-11-22 12:48 pm (UTC)When I wanted a bunch of D6 for something, I was appalled at how much they cost. And, in many cases, the low quality of the 'not as expensive as the rest' ones.
I haven't had any problems staying with AliExpress, despite going 'this is utter crap, refund please' a couple of times.
The one thing missing from your paraphernalia list (although mentioned later) is a dice tower. I got a relatively small wooden one from Amazon Vine, then spotted a bigger and better one with a tray in a local charity shop for 99p. Saves arguments!
d21 and d19 are a thing??
The thing that's difficult to find here is affordable nine spot dominoes. There are games that use them instead of dice and nine spot work better than six.
Re: In more or less reverse order
Date: 2025-11-22 01:31 pm (UTC)I really have no idea what was going on with Aliexpress. The only thing I can think of is that I've looked at A LOT of dice, mostly because filtering for the right ones was so confusing, and I took a number of days to settle on what I wanted. I also noticed that a lot of prices went up while I wasn't looking: I put a £6 item into my cart, and by the next day, it was £9, so I took it out again, but I ended up with £30-40 that I wanted to purchase, and bam! account suspended, and while I tried to reason with them, they don't actually tell you WHY they suspend your account, and they want 'proof' that you didn't commit the unknown offence, and how do I prove 'I had my card out and wanted to pay you money' when they won't even talk to you?
I have another e-mail address and could just make a new account, but now I don't think I want to give them my money and card details.
But yes, different nominations of dice are a thing. D2-20 (I was wrong about 21, should have been 22, which I actually own), 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 60, 100, 120, and I'm sure I'm missing some. (There's at least a D48). I grabbed a few when I came across them because they're just weird. Some of them do funky things with sides – they have some numbers printed on edges – and of course they're not all completely true distributions, but I don't care. I can throw a D14 if I want to!
Haven't come across a Domino game yet; and I don't think I've even seen 9-spot. Amazon.co.uk seems to have a lot of them, though I will give the side-eye to the Ebay seller who charges £2.95 for one...