"DIce throwing etiquette" Topic

One thing I hate is people who throw their dice onto the table so that they bounce around, crashing into and off terrain and models, before usually ending up in the midst of a pile of broken plastic bayonets/spears/swords etc. I have noticed, in my completely unscientific survey, that these guys are usually W40K players.

What is wrong with rolling on a clear piece of table?

That is bad.

On the topic, a couple of polite practices when you are playing a game with lots of dice are to:

Lay out the dice you are about to roll in groups of five so your opponent can see at a glance your are throwing the right number, and

After you roll, and are counting how many hits or saves you made, pick up the failed dice, leaving the successes. That way, your opponent knows you are not miscounting (or worse). If you pick up the successes, it is hard for the other fellow to know for sure if you didn't pick up a few misses too, and count them as hits…

I have been always very keen with people who wait to long in throwing dice or cant hit the table with their dice. Since i have 2 broken wrists and 1 broken arms i am accept everykind of dice rolling and i am happy if i have nice players who are also nice to me and accept my clumsiness.

Paradigmas can change over the years….

:)

Dice towers. Do I need to say more?

I don't like dice towers, as I want to feel the dice in my hand before throwing them. Otherwise, I could as well use a dice app for the computer… We use a dice tray, I've glued green felt into the lid of a Sally4th MDF figure chest, looks nice and works great!

Dice trays are the way to go. I bought some very nice wood ones. Bit expensive but it adds some class to proceedings.

Also; just throw the dice. Get on with it and throw the dice. Most of the time the results are obvious and it saves doing the sums to find out what number you needed. If you roll 1s and 2s they're misses. It doesn't matter whether you needed 3s or 4s. You only need to do the sums if you roll 3.

Speeds things up no end.

I think the OP is exaggerating don't you?

Dice trays? towers?

Get a grip. Just throw the things and play.

I kind of hoped this thread would be about the correct methods of hurling dice when things have gone really badly. Oh well, just have to carry on improvising, I guess…..

:^((

BTW, whatever happened to the good old-fashioned dice cup? Provided you give it a good shake before turning it over, no chance of cheating or damaging anything.

Dear List

Well It really doesn't bother me too much They can't break much, all the pikes, muskets, swords and colors are hard soldered into the hands of the minis so they aren't going to harm much. Players have learned to seek out flat surfaces.

I use large hexagonal terrain (12" across parallel sides, 14" point to point because I like to model and scult the terrain features in the hex. My forests are "boxes" with a small interior hexagon of walls with a lichen topped lid to go over the top so you can really hide troops in a forest (and forget where you put them during the game.).

I'm working on six new hexes for the game. Four of them will be normal forest hexes, but in the lid will be a nice wooden dice tray I bought some years ago. Above that will be a smaller "lid" to cover them, so when you lift the lid the dice tray will seem to be supported by the trees.

The other two will not be useable as a forest and will be meant to be placed on the extreme corners. They will have very tall lids because when you lift the lid it will reveal an ice bucket to hold wine.

An old dead tree poking out of the forest lid will have it's dead branches to you can rest your wine glass from them.

Now… to put a musical movement in them to play Mozart.

I like the dice to roll properly. Sometimes when they slide onto a reference sheet I almost feel cheated b/c they didn't get their full roll.

What bugs me a little is when people cup the dice in their hands, and shake them, then just slam them down flat on the table.

Sometimes we use trays to roll dice in and that generally works the best.

I have played at a friend's place where the house rule for boardgames is if it rolls on the board you lose the die – it doesn't count and there is no re-roll.

For tabletop, dice on the floor don't count (but you get a reroll) and if it doesn't lie perfectly flat it is re-rolled. Otherwise, with cocked dice, it becomes subjective just how cocked it is and some people are very lenient. (And everybody is lenient with their own dice on an important roll!) ;-)

I have always been mildly irritated by those players who attempt to "jinx" their opponent's die roll by calling out "roll ones," "roll snake-eyes," or "roll low" just as the opposing player is about to cast his dice.

I've always thought such behavior was silly.

BLOODY DAWN requires players to throw volleys of dice; one game the Texans had a 35 dice shot at a Mexican column. (15 to 25 is typical.) What works:

1. The firing player cups his hands and his opponent counts the correct number of dice into them.

2. The dice are rolled, all at once, into a box, whose sides are about 6" tall. ANY DIE THAT MISSES THE BOX IS A MISS.

3. Both players let the dice lie there, while the game master picks them up. If playing one on one, both players should examine the results until both are satisfied that what they see is what really is:

Sixes are special, so the first thing is to count and then remove all the 6's.

The total also matters, so after laying out all the 6s, remove other dice to make 10s; i.e., a 6 + a 4 = 10. Or a 6 + a 3 and a 1 = 10. Two fives make a ten as well.

It is then easy to total, as the dice are arranged in groups totaling 10, with some additional number from 1 to 9 left over.

This might seem to take a while, but with practice it is very quick, and the dice volleys are both very important to play and also relatively few per turn, so it doesn't matter if it takes a little extra to do them right.

In other games with other rules, (and I often play with kids, some of whom are klutzes) I require rolling in a box, with any die that misses the box being an automatic failure. So there is rarely an impact between dice and toys.

Toss the dice into a box or tray next to the table
and play on !

I think the OP is exaggerating don't you?

I wish I was.

I manage to roll whatever dice I need in a conveniently flat and level part of the table. I hosted a game the other day and one guy threw his dice from about three feet above the table and they bounced over about a four foot square area of the table. OK – slight exaggeration because nothing was broken – this time – but the sight of dice crashing into my models was frustrating. Like I said, watching 40K players at the GW store they all seem to do this.

iPhone dice-rolling app. I've got it, but haven't used it in a game. But that's one option, at least.

My preferred method is to just roll the dice into a bowl or a tray.

Of course then there are the rules that FORCE you to do that. Like the Johnny Reb II rocket rules, which forced you to throw a single die onto the table, the group closest to where the die lands has a morale check vs the number on the die…

Can't please everyone.

I had an opponent who had the opposite tack, and disliked my shaking the dice in my hands well, and then dropping them to the table below, since that wasn't "fair", and I was getting too many results in my favor.

He wanted me to roll the dice further on the table, so they'd come up with a more random result (that's what the shaking in two hands is for, but I digress).

He even asked me to use his dice, which I did, and was exceedingly miffed, when my hot rolling streak continued.

Too funny, and of course, like a good sport, I rubbed it in.

;-)

I find it best to lay the dice down carefully one by one, always making sure the numbers facing up are ones I need. That way nothing gets damaged and the games move with surprising speed.

Otherwise, dice cups rolled on vacant areas of the table work well.

"Thou shalt roll the dice by hand, not place them in thy mouth and spit them out."

I agree with OFM on this one. I'll just wait to see what he had to say. :)

Oh?
Pick them up and roll them.
Don't shake them too much and…

Who am I kidding? The only throws that bother me are the ones that kill my stuff!

If they fall on the floor and the dog runs off with them, that's your problem, not mine.

I don't care if they go on the floor either, unless the first careen off my lovingly painted and prepared troops!

Dice cups seem to be the best most versatile method for controlling where the dice land. A dice tray does confine scatter even more, but I find often the trays get in the way and so it's hard to remember to use them consistently. Dice towers are bulky and less portable and hard to place where all players can reach them.

For fistful of D6 games, the method of laying them out in 5s is a good one. I will try to remember to do that.