"just people's opinions on dice" Topic

I myself only like to roll dice that have to be the same size, I don't like uneven sizes. Feels wrong. What's other people's thoughts?

Same size and colour for me!

No thoughts on this at all. Not an issue.

Yes, a bucketful of identical dice flying in all directions… what more could you want? :O)

I like pips, maybe numerals in a pinch. I REALLY dislike this trend towards dice with special symbols. (Dust, Star Wars…..)

Same size, minimum colour difference needed, Red for Russians!

So long as I don't ever have to roll more than two at a time I don't really mind.

Is the word "die" the singular of "dice" or does "die" refer to the face of a "dice"

That is, is "dice" a plural/singular word like the animal "deer"

I saw a deer or I saw 3 deer?
I saw a dice or I saw 3 dice?

Die is singular. 1 Die, 2 Dice.

I've noticed a lot of "Roll 1 dice" in professional games, and it drives me nuts.

On the other hand, this may be an American/British English thing, and times are a-changing, so "Dice" may be the singular of Dice in common usage. Just not for me.

I like to roll all dice of the same color unless there is a reason to do otherwise. But I'm a bit of a fanatic about them being all the same size. At least for myself…

I roll what the game requires. The color, shape or amount doesn't matter.

Why restrict yourself?

Tim

No boogers on the dice then all is good.

I hate special symbol dice, I prefer pips to numerals on my 6 siders… I prefer all the same size. Color has always been variable, sometimes by design; in 40K, 8 white dice for the basic squad weapons, a red die for the special weapon, and a green for the heavy weapon. No idea why I bothered, they would all miss anyways…

I'm not a fan of teeny dice (such as come with WizKid's trading card games). I use those as markers, not dice. But other than that, size, number and color are irrelevant to me. It can be convenient in opposed- roll situations to have one side's dice be a different color from the opponent's, but it's not crucial, as long as there's some way to differentiate the rolls.

I'm more concerned about what my dice think of me, as anyone who's played against me can testify it's probably not nice.

Robert

Dice is now acceptable as singular as well as plural in English.

I always thought "dice" was both singular and plural (like "sheep") – it certainly was in the Featherstone books that were my introduction to wargaming, until some clever rule-writer started to use "die" sometime around 1990 to describe a singleton (about the same time we started talking about "1D6" – I blame D&D and polyhedral dice for that).

What goes around, comes around.

Roderick Robertson wrote:

On the other hand, this may be an American/British English thing, and times are a-changing, so "Dice" may be the singular of Dice in common usage. Just not for me.

Wargamers are almost the only people in the world who know that "die" is the correct singular of "dice". In common usage, ignorance has always prevailed.

In odd cases I have seen wargames rules refer to "two die", just as silly people who know that "criterion" and "criteria" are singular and plural are never quite sure which is which.

If only they had never abolished compulsory Latin.

All the best,

John.

I've never really cared about what dice I used for gaming.

I prefer 6 sided dice only, the way God intended! Pips also, though I don't mind a symbol, such as the national emblem on FOW dice (don't play FOW) in the 6 spot. Love throwing them by the fistful too.

I like my dice round with no numbers on at all.

Best laugh is to have someone throw them for you. If we have someone acting as umpire, they throw all the dice for both sides.

Its hard to blame your own luck when you never get your hands on the cubes!

Umpire needs a thick skin though!

Ignorance is usually bliss. I'm of the Luddite/barbarian tendency rather than those pretentious Latin scholars I'm afraid.

And they're "spots" or "dots" not "pips" aren't they? When did we start referring to pips anyway?

… until some clever rule-writer started to use "die" sometime around 1990 to describe a singleton …

Try 1890, or before. I've got an old copy of Hoyle's laying around that makes the distinction.

As for me, about my only weird dice habit is that I like having groups of ten dice, with the dice in a particular the same color. (So ten red, ten blue, etc.) It makes it easier for bucket-o-dice games.

OED currently cites that Dice is properly the plural but that the use of dice as both plural and singular is (and I quote) 'of much more frequent occurrence in gaming and related senses than the singular die'.

So, it appears we gamers are leading lights in language development :)

IIRC, Caesar, on crossing the Rubicon to begin the civil war, remarked:"The die is cast."