"dice tower" Topic

useful?

When you have an whose violent dice throws scatter the figures or a less than honest who tells you what he has "thrown" but you can't see his dice. Very useful.

With less excitable more honest players not so useful.

x42

So why do you play against either?

they are useful in providing a figure/terrain-free area on the table for rolling and/or a place where the dice can always be found on said table --but a small cup/bowl can do the same (with perhaps less visual annoyance).

for the "violent" throwing players who think they're at the craps table, i use a simple convention: dice that end up on the floor count as "0".

Sounds intriguing. Never come across such a contraption. What exactly do they do?

>> What exactly do they do?

Dice are dropped into the top … then they fall and hit a series of angled plates (usually at 45 degrees) the last plate is angled such that the die (dice) are forced to roll / bounce out of the bottom of the tower (usually into a collection area)

Example of one in use link – Chessex Dice Boot

I have also seen them disguised as terrain. A tower or something that looks less intrusive than the giant glass tower of doom…

Mark Severin
Owner, Scale Creep Miniatures
scalecreep.com

Thanks, Kevin. Looks like they could be proof against both my own wildly erratic and dangerous dice-rolling, and the infamous "Wakeman Drop" technique occasionally employed by one of our gang.

I designed and built one a few years ago for artslave that looks like a volcano.

He did the dice tray up as a water pool, painted and flocked it with some suitable jungle decor.

The final look came out so cool that you would use it as terrain even if you did not roll dice in it. He uses it for lost world / safari games.

When done as a part of the terrain, I think they work quite well. However you need one near every player, otherwise the players will not be able to reach it, and they are not going to walk over to the dice tower on the other side of the table.

Perhaps he will chime in with a picture of the finished product.

We have a rule you have to roll in a box top to avoid both of the issues x42 mentions. I have found, though, that the box top buffers the dice and doesn't allow them to roll. A dice tower rolls the dice for you so there is no question they have been rolled and not just dropped on a convenient number.

Sundance, any form of glass or ceramic dish will work better than a box top. You get lot's of action from the hard surface.

If you are rolling a small amount of dice (i.e. 4-6) then you can use a wide bottom clear drinking glass. Sides are high enough and you can easily see the dice.

A flat bottow clear glass baking pan works for larger amounts, but the dice tend to bounce out if you are aggressive. You need to find a deep one.

"If you are rolling a small amount of dice (i.e. 4-6) then you can use a wide bottom clear drinking glass."

It's probably just me, but I hate all the noise dice make when bouncing around in a glass. Boxes are quieter.

Imperial Hobbies sells nicely made wooden dice towers, we use them all the time.

imperialhobbies.ca

Here's a cool link on how to make your own, personally I'd put some green felt in the bottom to make it quieter.

link

Oh the link originates from Patrick Smyrl

I'm going to give it a go but with foam card to see what results I get from it.

Dervel, yes we used to use those for ASL. In fact, I always kept a couple of spares as well because they broke fairly regularly. Like Chris, though, I can't take the noise anymore – it just gets on my nerves a little too much. I do have a nice dice tower myself – hand-crafted by one of the finest Canadian carpenters out there – but we usually play at another guy's house.

ThanX for your opinions.
I think Ill try to make one.

You can always build one out of Legos.

Personally, I think a design that used alternately spaced dowels might work just as well. Like this:

|\ /|
| . |
|. .|
| . |
|\        |
-----------

Dice hitting the dowels would fall randomly in either direction. (Leave enough clearance space between dowels, walls, etc. to avoid dice catching.)

Here are the dice volcano towers that Dervel spoke of:
link

He made the big one, I added the lake and built the second one to a smaller size, and with internal angled baffles. I needed one for each side of the table. I've used the dice volcanoes as an active part of several games, as well as just being scenery. I've put up pictures of the building process, but those have disappeared. (didn't make the "spot" check)

Interestingly enough, the ancient Romans used 'dice towers' to stop cheating at dice-based games.

I have noticed the DBA players using fairly standardised closed boxes for dice rattle-and-roll – the box looks to be deep enough that the dice can turn over, you just shake then put it on the table & take the lid off to view the results.

artslave, lovely setup.

I use to use plastic soup bowls for kids games. The dice had to go into the bowl or it did not count. I also used a dice cup from time to time such as we used to play liers dice. I have been looking at towers for some time and would like to find about 4 that were cheap but looked good.
VR
James Mattes

Well,
At Little Wars Litko had prototypes of theirs. They look good. You can get one of 3 colors I believe (Purple,Green and Smoke). Plus you will be able to customize them. I can not wait to grab a couple