"Dice Towers for Tournaments" Topic

Should dice towers be mandatory for tournament play, to ensure fair dierolling?

No

What do you mean by "fair dierolling?"

Jim

If you are going to ensure that there is fairness – have to check each die, not only for pips but also to see if it has been altered with weight and shape or (in microwave) for example.

Then have to make sure there are no substitutions

Several non-wargaming tournaments use special logo dice for an event, or require translucent dice with crisp edges

Even then a cheater is going to cheat – My motto is let them win an empty victory – I just wont play them again – I enjoy gaming too much

The same dice tower and the same dice would have to be passed around for everyone's turn.

Not that I do tournaments, but I scrupulously seek out new ways to randomize even a d4. And I don't cheat even if I'm playing solo.

Shake, rattle, and roll, as much as possible.

Too much useless things on war game tables that spoil the visual aspect which 70% of the enjoyment…among them the dice tower and the most horrible ones those mdf trays with holes to carry already based minis :-( …ah I forgot another fantastic item the other bases with the slot for the dice..I imagine for counting turns, ammo available or casualties…please let s return to the basic..

I like the idea of dice towers for gamers who have trouble rolling their dice. I mean those chaps that throw their dice at the figures, on the floor, onto scenery so they do not lay flat , behind a scenic piece so they are not visible etc Obviously such players would need to be taught how to roll dice but there might not be time before a competition game. Better than suffering his inability for 2 to 3 hours. There was a man at historicon who was rolling a single dice in a pint plastic glass who spent quite a bit of time shaking the noisy contraption so that all could hear. i was 20+ metres away from him!

No, not at all.

If you can't roll a pair of dice, perhaps you should consider a different hobby :-)

pssst… the French Connection ,-)

They're ugly things that do nothing but clutter up the table.

Those are the players, Winston.

Actually, if you do them right. you can build (sometimes) a passable piece of terrain which keeps big bunches of dice from rolling off the table or knocking troops out of position. But it's a lot faster and cheaper to do them wrong.

I can see it. Monte Cassino spilling out dice on the valley floor.

A cigar box would go just as well.
Cigar boxes are almost as traditional as Crow Toyal bags.

Back in the day when we used to have serious tournaments with 100 or so players from all over the continent plus overseas visitors, we purchased batches of dice to be used by competitors. Subequently, having seen dice tricks videos on line, I think we should have also purchased dice cups.

Whether anyone cheats or not, (and in 'blah' years I have seen only two players who I genuinely believe were deliberate dice cheats), many players have a 'favourite' dice, and who knows how uneven or accidentally biased that is.

So no to dice towers, yes to cups and tournament supplied dice. (non-phasing player has first choice of dice to use from those provided).

Don't care one way or the other.

I concur with Dwindling Gravitas' sentiment and would add, if you're worried about rampant cheating, find another tourney.

I have used a Boggle container to manage a fistful of dice for games before. I painted a couple layers of latex paint on the bottom and lined the inside of the top with felt. That deadened the noise a lot and the opacity of the top made for a kind of dramatic reveal when the lid was removed.

A dice cup should be used instead of a tower. Less visual impact on the table and just as random in its results.

For a dice cup I use the clip-top 35mm film containers from Kodak, Fuji, etc. If you no longer use film you can probably pick them up from a film processing shop for a few pence. I used to get some from Boots in the UK and put money in a charity box.

The clip-top container also makes a good way to transport dice.

auction

As for where to throw them, a simple plywood or MDF tray lined with green felt would be ideal if you have dice flying around and hitting the scenery.

Barry