"Why are we "done" with dice?" Topic

I recently created this Opinion question, asking if players would consider a game that used new or unusual types of dice:

TMP link

…and as you can see the huge majority of opinion was not just negative, but strongly negative, in the "Hell No!" and "Whatever For?" categories. The most surprising answers for me were the ones which suggested that using new kinds of dice showed a lack of skill or imagination on the part of the game designer.

Okay, fair enough, people like what they like. But it got me to wondering:

Q: When did we decide that the D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20 collection of dice was the "normal" or "wargame-standard" ?

Was it back in the 1970s, with the original Dungeons and Dragons?

No gamer raises an eyebrow when told he might have to use any of those dice, but as you can see from my Opinion thread, if he had to buy a D-16 or a D-30, or whatever, then the reactions are violently negative.

But, presumably, at some point in the past he bought his first D-20. Or D-12, or whatever. Why was that perfectly normal and acceptable? I mean, obviously he had to spend money at *some* point in the past to buy dice that he'd never used before, for a game he'd never played before. Why was it okay back then, but not now?

Not to mention that he probably encountered a game with, say, Activation Cards for the first time some years ago, and although he'd never used them for a game before, got used to them. Why was he able to get his head around that and learn to accept it as normal?

I've pondered some possible explanations, and I welcome your opinions:

1. Is it just the normal reaction to anything New? Are gamers just very conservative in their thinking?

2. Is it a desire for standardization?

3. Do we just play what everybody else plays? So a popular game like D&D, which everybody had growing up, sets the standard for us all, for decades to come?

4. Have the manufacturers of these "exotic" dice just failed to market their products effectively? Should they make some alliances with game-makers to include their dice in new games, so people will get used to them?

A majority of gamers hate and fear change. :)
A majority of gamers are frugal and don't wish to purchase new dice when they have old and existing dice.
A majority of gamers will complain about the scale creep in dice not understanding why the new 22mm dice don't match their 20mm dice.

Specialized dice can suck too – if you have a game that uses them, and you lose one – they can be difficult to replace and can ruin a weekend of gaming.

I personally like exotic dice :) But that is because I have a weird thing about collecting dice.
I also like to complain about change and kids on my lawn.

When I was young all we had was 1d6, and we liked it.

I think the issue is that the current range of dice (mainly the 1d10) takes care of all our needs. A while back someone came out with a 1d100 and it was both to small (in nunbers) and to large (in size) compared to rolling two ten sided for percent.

It's a question of value-add. When the muti-sided dice came with D&D they were an interesting mechanic to reduce the number of tables needed. If a new game came out that required a novel dice size, but really delivered a benifit because of it, I would not rule it out because of the dice.

But change for it's own sake? Let the deginer rise to the challenge of designing a game without recourse to gimicks.

The original dice were all polyhedrons, in the mathematical sense of the word -- instead of ten-sided dice, we had twenty-siders that were labeled 0 to 9… twice. The modern ten sider is not a true polyhedron.

Eight siders, six siders, four siders, twelve siders, and twenty siders are all true polyhedrons. I think they were invented as teaching tools (for teaching geometry and probability), although I can't prove it.

Naturally, gamers looking for new ways to generate probability spreads for games would incorporate these dice into their games. Once Dungeons and Dragons took off, incorporating polyhedral dice into its design, that was IT.

I'm in the "value add" camp. Does this strange D16 or D30 die – hard to find even for those who have a FLGS so now I have to make a $3 USD special order with $5 USD postage – really improve the game over, say a handful of D6?

But then I like computerized games that roll the dice for you too.

Right EC. I think the move should be more toward computerization. I have recently taken up computer aided rules and have not rolled a dice in a while. I think this is something that could possibly bring in the younger crowd.

I think all the tools for creating a fun game are already out there including the dice we are used to. The new game that will catch my attention will be ore about innovative game play as opposed to different kinds of dice.

Mathematically, I think we already have enough dice with varying numbers of sides to resolve anything left to chance.

How many more discrete probabailities do we need to generate?

We can already do increments of 1%, 5%, 8.3% 10%, 12.5%, 16.7%, and 25% with the "existing" dice!

Multi-dice systems frustrate me even more, since a "+1" modifier can add a wide swing of probabalistic outcomes

Bring on the special/exotic/exclusive to one game system dice. It just adds to the flavor. Look at Formula De: all special dice even though they use the 5 perfect solids (polyhedrals). Yes please for special dice!

Sam, as you know, I've never shied away from new, innovative, pointless or bizarre elements in rules design. On Saturday we were discussing the use of tiddly winks to recreate grenade throwing, or dropping those plastic bracelets the kids all like onto the table as mortar rounds.

Multiple dice types pose a few problems for the gamer, even if it's only "Where can I go to buy two D4s?". For me it's always been the "That's great! I rolled a '12' – oh, damn, I was supposed to roll a D10!" Colour coding helps a lot, as a D10 and D12 look alike in the middle of the game, whereas it takes a lot of excitement for me to confuse red and yellow.

The system you've talked about sounds eminently sensible and even – the word we all hope to hear – elegant.

All the same, in general, I want to know whether a rule/mechanism/extra bit of stuff to go with the game serves a real purpose.

If it does, that's great.

If not, it's just there to impress us for no good reason. It's like the wargaming version of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And nobody wants to encourage that.

Colonel Lou Zocchi is the inventor of the Zoccihedron (sp?) or 1d100. It is close to the size of a pool ball. A friend of mine bought one from Lou, but has never used it…he just wanted one as a momento…it cost around $16 USD about 10 years ago.

Special dice are fine if they add something to the game or make an aspect of the game play easier. A good example are the 6 sided dice used in Battle Cry and other similar games. These dice don't have pips but symbols that indicate a specific result. This makes game play easier because it removes the need to refer to a table "What does a score of 4 mean again?".

So I am in favour of specilaised "non numeric" dice. For dice used purely as random number generators, we have as many as we could possibly need already, as others have said.

i worked with Lou Zoochi of Gamescience back in 1985 during his designing of the 100 sider. As Doctor bedlam stated all dice designed before then were polyhederns. The principle was that a geometric shape or combinations were needed to produce equal sides for playbalance. The 100d would not be obe.

I picked up some newly designed dice in California for him that summer. D8 numbered 1 to 4 with positive signs and 1 to 4 with negative sided .

During production runs, I was informed that only gambling dice were truely balanced. All industry gaming are unbalanced. Such uncontrolled features as dispersion of glitter and other additives of different weights, air pockets, only dice with the pockets running a side were discarded. In transparent dice you can see them and the dispresion patterns. My son used the concept as an award winning Math Fair project a decade later.

Presonally I have a d16. No use for it. But I have it.

But it's true people won't buy games that require exotic dice -- that's why Command & Colors: Ancients is such a failure.

Mexican Jack has a good point -- I've already got 5 sets of dice running around (for a typical Stargrunt 2 game, say) and they're color coded -- but we still use the wrong one sometimes.

So I guess my question back is -- ok, so you have designed your 42 sided die -- what does it buy you?

"1. Is it just the normal reaction to anything New? Are gamers just very conservative in their thinking?"

I'm not sure if gamers are especially 'conservative' as such, but a lot of players do seem to show an overly strong sense of 'loyalty' towards whatever system / rule set / scale / period they like, or first played – while happily (and unthinkingly) dismissing anything else as inferior. A good example is the whole 6mm vs larger scale rant which sees a lot of people disinclined to look at things with an open mind.

If there's a good reason to use a D13 in a set of rules, I'd be all for it.

"But it's true people won't buy games that require exotic dice -- that's why Command & Colors: Ancients is such a failure."

Then how do you account for the success of Battle Cry and Memoir '44?

C&C Ancients is such a failure as it doesnt come stuffed with little plastic men and tanks.

I don't mind using wierd dice, but it is just more pratting around if you have to constantly remember 'oh its range band X I need to use the D17' or whatever. Losing your one and only D17 is also a problem in this case.

I always hated the D4 in D&D, never rolled straight, just used a D6 instead and ignored 5 and 6. Never bothered with average dice either, 1 = 3, 6 = 4. Job done.

"Never bothered with average dice either, 1 = 3, 6 = 4. Job done"

You have a much better memory than me.

Here's a radical thought, but it might be "age."

When we're young and growing, our brains are eagerly gathering information, sorting it out into "necessary," "important," "cool" and "what did the teacher say again?" We're constantly sorting and storing information, expecting to retrieve it later.

I think at some point our brain gets "full." We begin to subconsciously decide that we don't want to store anything else, thank you very much, we want to use what we've got. Thus the reason that the young are so quick to embrace new technology, new forms of music, new ways of doing things, while their elders are not. Our brains have decided that we have what we need to survive and achieve our goals, and we don't need anything more.

Thus, when it comes to games, while we may welcome innovative ways of utilizing elements we already understand, we're not eager to add even the smallest "completely new" device or method to the mix. The attitude, "it was good enough then, it's good enough now," is entirely understandable. "It—" whatever "it" is— was indeed "good enough" to achieve the goals established for the individual when "it" was first learned. The brain has the experience of knowing that "it" was successful for the individual, and doesn't see the necessity of replacing the information associated with "it" with new information for a new procedure which ostensibly seeks only to duplicate the earlier achieved goal— in the case of a game, pleasure and satisfaction.

As a result, older gamers instinctively resist the introduction of new elements to their brain's repertoire of "important" or "cool" data. (Which is not to say that the new elements aren't actually worth rejecting, just that the gut reaction may stem from something other than an actual analysis of the proposed change.)

I don't suggest that this is always the explanation, but it could be a part.

I already have tons of dice – why should I get more? I prefer sticking with what I've got.

A bit off-topic: Martin Rapier is on the money about C&C: Ancients. Figs are a big attraction for these games.

Who said D8's are 'normal'!

[Who said D8's are 'normal'!]

Well, that's sort of the point. If Gary Gygax hadn't gotten everybody playing D&D 30 years ago, with weird, funky dice like D4s, D8s, D10s, D12, and D20s, who knows if gamers would ever have picked them up.

But obviously, at some point, somebody tries something new, and if the game takes off, then what is weird and new becomes "standard."

Even with the collection of polyhedra Gygax made popular, that game of his would occasionally ask for random ranges that were not immediately obvious, or could be rolled more than one way.

Then there's the flat probability vs bell curve argument, which was at the pitch of a religious war among gamers from 1976 (when the first bell curve RPGs got some traction) for a decade or more. The bells available in xD6 are well known, but not always well liked.

Ok … lots of questions …

This will be my biggest posting ever

Hope it fits

--Godzilla Eats Serbia--

>When did we decide that the D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20
> collection of dice was the "normal" or "wargame-standard" ?

> Was it back in the 1970s, with the original Dungeons and Dragons?

It was a bit before D&D … but D&D certainly made them the standard

I was surprised to find out that the first polyhedral dice patent
for the platonic solid dice (d4, d8, d12 and d20) was all the way
back in 1965

link

The D10 … is not a platonic solid … and was not available until
the early 80's …

When I started gaming … there were no d10s … and to this day
I still use d20's … numbered 0-9 twice … as my d10's … as
well as my d20's

>Why was it okay back then, but not now?

Most humans abhor change (see my d10/d20 statement above) …

We get used to something … and it is hard to get most of us
to embrace new ideas

Case in point … the Crystal Caste … crystal dice
They produce the same random rolls (albiet a bit awkwardly)
They are even the same material and color as ones
in the standard poly shape …
Yet they the seem to have religated to the role of an oddity

> Is it just the normal reaction to anything New?
> Are gamers just very conservative in their thinking?

See above

> Is it a desire for standardization?

Probably answerd above … but I will explore further

Many gamemasters I have encountered require that certain types
of dice be used … I have had numerous requests that I use
normal d10's rather than my tried and true Armory D20's

I have heard of gamemasters who will not allow spindown d20's
for fear of the players using english (a legitimate concern)

> Do we just play what everybody else plays?
> So a popular game like D&D, which everybody had growing up,
> sets the standard for us all, for decades to come?

I sure hope not … otherwise I wont have much to collect

> Have the manufacturers of these "exotic" dice just failed
> to market their products effectively?

To some extent … but I think the resistance to change is
a major factor

I know that GameScience will be going thru a big change within
the next year or so … so I hope to see the marketing change
so that the d3, d5, d14, d16, d24, and D48 … get more visibility

link

> Should they make some alliances with game-makers to include
> their dice in new games, so people will get used to them?

That is one idea on the drawing board :)

--Lord Billington Wadsworth--

> A majority of gamers hate and fear change. :)
> A majority of gamers are frugal and don't wish to purchase
> new dice when they have old and existing dice.
> A majority of gamers will complain about the scale creep in
> dice not understanding why the new 22mm dice don't match
> their 20mm dice.

All true … and it reinforces what I said above

> Specialized dice can suck too – if you have a game that uses
> them, and you lose one – they can be difficult to replace
> and can ruin a weekend of gaming.

I did not think of this … but this could be a real showstopper

> I personally like exotic dice :) But that is because I have a
> weird thing about collecting dice.

Ditto :)

> I also like to complain about change and kids on my lawn.

And I would have gotten away with it if it wernt for those …

--VCarter--

> A while back someone came out with a 1d100 and it was both
> to small (in nunbers) and to large (in size) compared to
> rolling two ten sided for percent.

GameScience makes the d100

My main complaint about it is that it is cumbersome to work
with … until the new stopping mechanism … it often
rolled off of the table … so a box had to be used

--Lentulus--

> Value-add …

> But change for it's own sake? Let the deginer rise to the
> challenge of designing a game without recourse to gimicks.

I agree on both points …

Unfortunately … when Lou Zocchi (GameScience)
releases a new die with a different number of faces on it
he tries to 'backfill' by trying to devise a need for such
a die …

Example … the D14 … is also has the abreviations for the
days of the week (2 sides per day)

--Doctor Bedlam--

> The modern ten sider is not a true polyhedron …

Actually … all dice (that I know of) are polyhedrons … link

I believe what you are speaking of is that the d10
(PENTAGONAL TRAPEZOHEDRON) link
is not a platonic solid

link

--Baron Saturday--

> Mathematically, I think we already have enough dice
> with varying numbers of sides to resolve anything
> left to chance.

I agree (unfortunately) … I tend to gravitate towards
percentage based games … as theu cover the entire
range of probabilities

--Acharnement--

> Look at Formula De: all special dice even though
> they use the 5 perfect solids (polyhedrals).

Another odd set that gamemasters keep an eye out for
as they are not numbered as normal polys

--HItman--

> it cost around $16 USD USD about 10 years ago.

WOW … the most expensive ones I have seen were the metal
ones … and they were $12 USD … this includes the custom
colors I have purchased over the years dicecollector.com/D100.HTM

--RudyNelson--

> During production runs, I was informed that only
> gambling dice were truely balanced.

Or close enough for the state (NV MS NJ) gambling commissions :)

> My son used the concept as an award winning Math Fair
> project a decade later.

Cool .. is his work online (or can be made online) somewhere?

I would love to host it on DiceCollector.com

--stingray20166--

> ok, so you have designed your 42 sided die --
> what does it buy you?

LOL … 42 is doable … as you say … WHY?

> If there's a good reason to use a D13 in a set of rules

The die is available … but is there a purpose :) picture

=======

To bring up another game with LOTS of different dice …

I am told (having never played it) that Button Men …
Can and does use any sided die you can find

Case in point … the Crystal Caste … crystal dice
They produce the same random rolls (albiet a bit awkwardly)
They are even the same material and color as ones
in the standard poly shape …
Yet they the seem to have religated to the role of an oddity

Their rolling results are sufficiently unusual that most people find them unacceptable. The d20 is a barrel, and not easy to read quickly. The d12, d10, and d8 are actually pretty good, but do best on a hard surface with some bounce. The d6 and d4 *require* that hard surface to roll at all. These dice require a good bounce because many of them cannot actually "roll". Without a bounce, they drop dead on the table, and that makes them manipulatible by dice fudgers.
Felt and other cloth surfaces do not provide the bounce. Battlemats of all brands (Crystal Caste or Chessex) do not provide the bounce. Those dry-erase gridded panels do not provide the bounce. Only hard tabletop or a dice tower work, or a nice high toss so that the dead drop is still random.
It isn't hard to see why these got marginalized.

My take on this:

It seems that odd dice or other unique mechanics are quite common in boardgames.
In these cases people get all they need in one box.

But in wargaming, you build as you go, so strange dice are a pain. There are companies who write rules the use odd dice, and then they sell them at inflated prices. This leaves a bad taste in ones mouth.
For strange dice to work in a wargame, they should be included in the rules, sold at a fair price or easily make or converted from other dice.
The other way it can work is, if the mechanic is so good that it really makes the rules work. Other wise, most wargamers would rather use common dice and a look up table.

A good example of cool dice, that can not easily be replaced is in the game "Descent: Journeys in the Dark" see: boardgamegeek.com/game/17226
The dice here: link
These could be make from other 6-sidedrs or using the numbe on such dice to convert to the result, but would be hard to replace otherwise.

DyeHard
The 15mm VSF Page:
15mmvsf.bagofmice.com/index.html

that's why Command & Colors: Ancients is such a failure.

Aside from the fact that Memoir 44 and Battlegrounds use the same sort of dice, Command & Colors: Ancients is hardly a "failure". It is ranked 12 on the Boardgamegeek website out of all games and 21 out of all wargames.
It won Best Historical Wargame at Origins 07.
It has sold out at least once, and is in its second edition.
It is on it's third rather pricey expansion.
I hardly think GMT would be making expansions for a game that was a failure.

It had gotten enough good reviews that even I am thinking about buying it.

Nor would I consider Borg's series including Command and Colors failures. My sales of his prodcuts happen every show and I cannot say that about other lines.

There's really no need for new types of dice.

The original D&D dice sets were D4, D6, D8, D0-9, and D12.

The D0-9 was commonly called a D20 because it was a 20-sided polyhedron, but really it was numbered 0-9 twice so I've called it "D0-9" for want of a better term. To use this die we had to learn to interpret the 0 sometimes as 10 and we had to pair it with another die to get a true D20 roll. Once we had learned those two techniques, we could apply them to many die combinations to get all of the following flat distributions:

1-2 / D2: D6->1-3=1, 4-6=2. (Or flip a coin.)
1-3 / D3: D6->1-2=1, 3-4=2, 5-6=3.
1-4 / D4: D4 as rolled.
1-6 / D6: D6 as rolled.
1-8 / D8: D8 as rolled.
1-10 / D10: D0-9, read 0 as 10.
(Nowadays we can get true D10s numbered 1-10.)*
1-12 / D12: D12 as rolled.
1-16 / D16: D6->4+ add 8 + D8.
1-20 / D20: D6->4+ add 10 + D0-9, read 0 as 10.
(Nowadays we can get true D20s numbered 1-20.)*
1-24 / D24: D6->4+ add 12 + D12.
1-30 / D30: (D3-1)x10 + D0-9, read 0 as 10.
1-36 / D36: (D3-1)x12 + D12.
1-40 / D40: (D4-1)x10 + D0-9, read 0 as 10.
1-50 / D50: D100/2, round up.
1-60 / D60: (D6-1)x10 + D0-9, read 0 as 10.
1-80 / D80: (D8-1)x10 + D0-9, read 0 as 10.
1-100 / D100: 10xD0-9 + D0-9, read 00 as 100.
(There are true D100s numbered 1-100 but nobody uses them.)*
1-120 / D120: 10xD12 + D0-9, read 0 as 10.

Plus we can use two matched dice or mismatched dice to get the following simple bell curve ranges:
2-5: D2 + D3 (D4+1 often substituted).**
2-6: D3 + D3 or D2 + D4.
2-7: D3 + D4 (D6+1 often substituted).
2-8: D4 + D4.
2-10: D6 + D4.
2-12: D6 + D6.
2-16: D8 + D8.
2-18: D10 + D8.
2-20: D10 + D10.
2-22: D10 + D12.
2-24: D12 + D12.
2-26: D20 + D6.
2-28: D20 + D8.
2-30: D20 + D10.
2-32: D20 + D12.
2-40: D20 + D20.

We can simulate flat distributions of in-between numbers (D7, D19, etc) simply by using the dice range next highest and re-rolling values over our range. Examples:
1-7 / D7: D8, on 8 reroll.
1-19 / D19: D20, on 20 reroll.
Etc.

This "reroll the overs" technique lets us go straight to percentile conversion since most of us have in our head the multiplication tables up to 100, and that gives us flat ranges with the same pair of dice. Examples:
1-7 / D7: D100, divide by 14 round up, reroll for 99-100.
1-9 / D9: D100, divide by 11 round up, reroll for 100.
1-13 / D13: D100, divide by 7 round up, reroll for 92+.
1-25 / D19: D100, divide by 4 round up.
1-31 / D31: D100, divide by 3 round up, reroll for 94+.
Etc.

Nothing I've listed above requires throwing more than two dice -- though of course if we want complex bell curves we can use 3 or more dice added together.

So … where is the need for new types of dice? :)

– Don

* --- By "true" D10, D20, and D100, I mean there is no need for interpretation or adaption any more; the numbers read off the die face is the one actually used.

** -- there's also a die called an "average" die which is a D6 numbered 2,3,3,4,4,5. My experience is gamers are worried they'll get these mixed up with legitimate D6s and so they are always shelved and never used.

There are some cases of specialized dice produced for a specific game which are used for specific games and are distinctive enough they can be identified if accidentally mixed into a bucket of dice. Examples:
– Warhammer artillery dice (a D6 with an arrow on it and another D6 numbered "misfire" and 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10).
– Heroscape dice (a D6 with a blank facet, 2 blue shield facets, and 3 red skull facets).

We don't *need* any of this stuff.

Some folks enjoy buying and using "funny-sided dice" of all shapes and sizes. Others don't.

Part of what got me into gaming decades ago were the polyhedral dice. I was very familiar with d6s from family boardgames. The polyhedral dice were a visual reinforcement of the idea that "hobby games" were far more fantastic, and required a greater degree of imagination, than what I'd been playing. That appealed to the childish sense of wonder in me.

I guess I never grew up.

I almost forgot -- remember when the polyhedral dice were hard to come by? Remember using chits for randomization? There's nothing to say that we should be using dice at all, except that they're fun!

I think pphalen has it right here.

Exactly what is it you hope to achieve by introducing "unique dice"?

If we knew that, maybe we might support "new dice". But change for the sake of change? Not a winner.

For my part, dice have a place in games but so does the gamer. Games where you push troops and watch the battle unfold in spite of your efforts have limited appeal to me.

You can do a lot with a pair of D6 or a pair of D10.

mjc

For the masses the problem with dice design is not creating dice but having them all have equal size sided in order to have a balnced chance to make any number of the dice.

When I started designing my early games, I used all the dif types of dice, but now that I'm "standardizing" my rule sets, I'm sticking to d6's & d10's. I figure the other types are harder for most people to get, and I hate having d4's around (mainly because they don't 'roll', and because they're a to step on…. ;)

"but having them all have equal size sided in order to have a balnced chance to make any number of the dice."

eh?

If you want to make something new and innovative, don't introduce a new type of dice. As grenadier1 already said, exploring ways to use computers with tabletop games might be more prudent. Computers would also be useful if there really is some distribution that can't be made with dice.

I like strange dice. I have several that I don't use just because I liked them. I am an uncommon inDUHvidual.

As others have said in various ways. I can stop in the local and get d4,d6,d8,d10(with normal 1-10, and tens),d12,and d20 for 79 cents each. A d100 for about $6 USD on a fairly regular basis. I wish I could get d16s or 24s the same way but I can't. They have to be ordered for 3 to 6 times the cost plus shipping and wait a week or more to get them.

Make such dice available for under a buck and in good supply and they will sell as well as rules using them. Til then, avoid them.

And just for the record. A couple try computer based rules around here. They never catch on. I see about one game a year. People wander in and out, never paying much attention. They like to see the numbers rolling up.

a balnced chance to make any number ON the dice.

I'm a firm "no" on computer based games for a number of reasons:

1. Computers cannot actually produce "random" results. All computer randomization routines follow complex patterns based on an initial seed number. The seed number establishes the starting point of the pattern. It appears random at first, but it isn't.

2. I like my tabletop to be dominated by the game, not the computer. And I don't want to have to be worried about the cord, or worried about someone walking off with my computer, or knocking it on the floor at a convention. Knock a book on the floor? Big deal. Knock my computer (even a laptop) on the floor? Uh oh.

3. A book can be placed anywhere when it's not needed; even if it's shoved in a bag it only takes a second to pull it out and find the reference needed. Can't do that with a computer.

4. When you roll computer dice, it's too darn easy to crack the screen.

Well Mr. Serbia, in my case its not D&D, or what others do, or refusing to accept change, or bad marketing, or any of that other stuff. It is more simple really; why should I buy dice, when I just wants to buy figs?

Besides, I already have one die to roll them all: the D10.

Actually I didn't settle on a bunch of dice.

As I said in the other thread; I like the d6-in mass they are great to hit or save-two together give an excellent bell curve distribution. If I need precise percentage then I'll go with 2-d10's and I do like the GW scatter dice.

Really what else do you need?

"wo together give an excellent bell curve distribution. "

Well, actually, its more of a triangle then a bell curve, but OK.

donrice, those 'conversion charts' are all very well, but rolling more than one die for a single result slows down games; for example, I can conduct a round of melee combat much faster in Warhammer (singe D6 for any roll) than in Warmachine (2D6 for any roll), because I can roll fistfuls at once for the former example.

Having said that, most of the time, I don't feel the need for that many different distributions.

As far as non-standard D6s go, in addition to Descent and the Command & Colours series, there's Doom: The Boardgame, plus Heroquest and Space Crusade, and Blood Bowl and the Sustained Fire die from 40K. The Sustained Fire die, and the dice from Heroquest, Space Hulk and Blood Bowl also have the feature of not meing flat distributions; some results appeared more than others (Blood Bowl dice have 2 Push Back results, for instance, while IIRC the white Space Crusade dice were numbered 0,0,0,1,1,2).