"Curious about the Dice people prefer" Topic

Greetings, I'm trying to reach out to as many gamers as possible to see how a large set of people feel about different types of dice. Someone brought up the fact that there is a strong disdain for using the other polyhedral dice. So I've made this Google doc to put up on various forums to try and see what people think, it's only a maximum of three questions and completely anonymous so any answer helps.

Thanks a bunch guys

link

In my store, almost all of my customers are historical gamers. As such they seem to prefer opaque and easy to read dice. So I only only get opaque.
I also tend to avoid the hard to read color combinations such as red on black or black on gray.

"Raised" on d6's, pips instead of numbers, opaque. Preferably with rounded corners and I have a nice leather dice cup. Which the players don't ever use…

Someday I'll buy some brass dice for VSF and bone dice for ancients.

I'm your classic table top roleplayer who became an occasional wargamer, so no dice terror from me.
My travel bag has:
10 d10 (Legend of the 5 rings roleplaying is a regular game in my group)
1 D10 marked in tens (Any of the Chaosium Games or other systems that use percentiles with a d100)
5 D20 (In case we go back to Twilight 2000 2.2)
Pairs of D4, D8, D12 (Cortex system games like Firefly)
White with a light blue marbling effect and black numbers (everyone else in my group hates marbled dice, so I know they are mine)
24 D6 in 3 different colours (I'm a big fan of traveller and some other games do tend to go to D6 bucket route)
I'm thinking of adding a pair of Average Dice and one scatter dice.

^^^My dice box is pretty close to yours.

Dice box? I use a tackle box

Dice are random number generators. If I need results in a particular range I use the dice that will give me that range.

I don't care what type I have to roll, only that the rules I am using are fun and challenging!

I am with Major Bumsore……

Tens and sixes.. rounded corners if sixes. Green or some green in them. Really don't like D20 anything.

Jeez check out the trick double negative survey question:

If a Game uses dice that are not D6s are you less interested in the game?

Literal meaning: If a game uses only D6s are you more interested?

Better worded intended meaning: Do you prefer D6-only games to the point that you avoid games that use other kinds of dice?

My response: I do prefer dice that are readable across the table, that is opaque and high-contrast. My favorite dice type is D10 because it gives a nice mix of intuitive probabilities and granular but not too subtle probability steps. I can't decide if I prefer pips versus numbers on D6s which I guess means I prefer pips, but I'm OK with all other dice types having numbers.

From a game designer's point of view, it may be as much a production issue as a game mechanic factor.

back in the 1980s and 1990s, I had several rquests to change my mechanics from my preferred d10 to a d6 usage system. The reason was a production cost issue. When dice are included with a game, the cost of d6 is significantly less than d10 or other polyhedrons. This especially true when 4 to 6 dice are included with each box game set.

So it was a production cost issue rather than game mechanic choice.

I bought six sided dice with roman numerals specifically for ancients gaming. White with black numerals and slightly rounded edges.

I like when different die types are used in clever ways like the shooting rules in Dirtside or especially the damage system for Silent Death. I am happy to use anything up to a D20. I have found D30 and higher in a single die to be harder to read.

Phil

I like all the polyhedral dice!

Readable colour combinations greatly preferred.

Prefer not-rounded corner D6's -- those do roll more 1's! Unless they are balanced backgammon dice which are highly preferred. 2nd best are big Yahtzee style dice.

Those Roman Numeral D6's are fun, but I find dyslexia creeps in on reading the IV's and VI's at non-upright viewing angles.

I have the same as PaulCollins,specifically for my Republican Romans.

Phile wrote:
I like when different die types are used in clever ways like the shooting rules in Dirtside or especially the damage system for Silent Death. I am happy to use anything up to a D20. I have found D30 and higher in a single die to be harder to read.
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Whereas I absolutely hate this mechanic; I spend all the time picking up the wrong dice.
I much prefer a game to pick one size of dice and use that. I don't care it if is d6, d8, d10, d12 or d20, but please just use one size!

I have no preference for any particular type of dice except that they should be easy to read. I have amply numbers of most types of dice but my average dice are becoming to worn and will need replaced soon.

x42

I like dice. All dice, really, as long as they're well made. Numbers that are easy to read is also important if you're using them a lot, but I'm happy to have interesting gem-like polyhedrals with less obvious numbers as part of the collection; it's like having a bag of scavenged treasure!

For actual gameplay, as Nazrat said, what really matters is having a good rules system. There are times when unusual dice can really complement and enhance the rules, allowing for different ranges of possibility that are either very hard or very awkward to calculate using just d6's. On the other hand, there are times when weird dice are just a gimic that add nothing. It all depends on the rules.