"Hand-made dice - have you?" Topic

In exasperation with the pyramid-shaped 4-sided dice (poor rolling, difficult to pick up, caltrop) I got a 2 foot (60 cm) length stick of wood which is about half an inch (13mm)square. Then I cut off a half dozen 1 and a half inch (38mm) lengths to make 4-sided dice. I rounded off the ends rather crudely so they would not stand up on end. I painted them and numbered the sides, now I am good to go. Have you ever made your own dice?

I bought a d6 blank once and drilled my own pips into it. That was for WRG 7th ed Ancients. I stil have it somewhere around here.

I hand-made a nice set for the Royal game of Ur out of wood, which included three custom pyramid-shaped dice, nicely painted and varnished. The dice had no numbers or symbols, rather two corners painted in a contrasting color. The movement and entry of pawns is based on rolling 0, 1, 2 or 3 marked corners up.

Several times I've made 1d6 into 1d3 or average dice with an exacto knife (for scraping out unwanted pips) and a sharpie. But the dice themselves weren't hand-made.

I have made custom stickers and put them on regular d6 or blank d6 on several occasions as well, but I suppose that's not truly hand-made either.

I bought some interesting hand-made d6 at a show once. They were made from about 1" lengths of six-sided metal. They had pips drilled in their faces and you have to roll them along their width, rather than toss them. I found they were a little hard to read at a glance, so I painted in their odd and even pips in contrasting colors to make recognition easier.

I bought some 1", wooden cubes from Michael's Hobby Store, and then I made a template for the pips, to match. I covered the printout with clear contact paper, to strengthen it, then I used a hole punch to open the pips, and an ink pen to mark the pips. I then varnished them with several coats of polyurethane. They work well, even though they have sharp corners. I like larger dice, so this was a cheap way to get what I wanted. Not quite hand-made, but easily done, and a bit unique. Cheers!

While in Croatia, in 1999, we made some 6 sided dice to play craps with (because the PX on wheels didnt/wouldnt carry dice for us).

They were not particularly good dice, and thankfully someones mom or someone sent us some dice and cards soon afterwards.

Once a friend and I were without dice and wanted to game, so we took a page in the phone book and used the last digits of phone numbers.

When I worked with Zocchi ( a dice manufacturer) back in the 1980s, I got a chance to watch a lot of new proposals. The R & D aspects of new ideas was interesting.

Like the previous poster, once I had to create my own average dice for WRG 5th edition.

Made some very crude wooden six-siders in woodshop in seventh grade.

-Brian

When I first played D&D I had to make my D20's, etc out of cardboard.

Back in the '60's my group decided we needed a twelve-sided die. We took a polyganal desk calendar, painted it white, then painted 1-12 on the various sides. Worked fine, but you had to be a bit careful rolling it, since it was 5 or 6 inches in diameter, and weighty in proportion. It quickly acquired the nickname of "soldier crusher".

I've made them out of green stuff or blu tack when bored!

On an aside, when i was in prague i bought some iron dice made out of iron bars by a blacksmith, you *really* dont want those bumping into your minis…

I've carved my own dice out of horn and bone, based upon surviving medieval dice. Not for wargaming, though — for playing medieval dice games in the SCA.

I made a d3 out of soft wood, using a similar process to Acharnement's d4's, but cutting my own 60-degree angles. I was proud of it, and it seemed to be a fair die, but I didn't use it very often.

No, but I've made some "conversions."

An old university friend who was a gamer and a medical student once got some knuckle bones that he used as four sided dice.

He justified these rather macabre gaming aids by highlighting the fact that such items were used by Roman legionaries (he had a book, I can't remember its name…).

I'd love to make my own dice, I really like the long dice you get in Mah Jong sets, although I'm not actually sure they are dice…

Ace, confusing himself…

I have personally crafted many handmade dice over my 28+ years of collecting

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I have even more handmaded dice of all types … but have yet to compile a complete list

In my opinion … the most impressive is the worlds smallest dice … tooled by Jason Huff

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New Dice Theme added dedicated to handmade dice

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RudyNelson … were you involved with this Gamecience prototype?

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You guys are great. I have landed in Valhalla of the Nerds. I have collected dice since childhood. I have made wooden D6's from blocks of wood and a woodburner to make pips. I also used sculpey to make/bake some interesting ancient-looking dice for games. I also carved some "ur" dice for some family members to go with the gameboards I made. RudyNelson: It must have been great working with Lou Zocchi.

I made 3d6 out of clay and fired them. They are horrible but "friendly" at the same time. I played GURPS with them, although my players sometimes commented that I couldn't use those because they were "unprofessional".

I haven't but played with a D&D gamemaster that made a One-D-6 of damage: machined out of aluminum about 3 inches on a side. The edges were almost sharp enough to cut and don't even think about getting hit with the corners.

Mostly used as a threat for obnoxious players to behave as it tended to cut the surface it was rolled on.

I have made several wooden D6's, starting with wooden cubes and applying inks, paints and varnishes, and using various symbols to denote the pips.

I've also designed some images which have been engraved onto regular plastic D6's by the great folks at Chessex.

However, my friend Randie Feil has made some truly gorgeous dice, again from wooden cubes.

You may see boths hers and mine here:

Mine: link

Randie Feil's : link

I made some wooden d6's long ago. Never dared actually play anything with them because I suspected they were unfair …

A friend of mine machined a D6 out of aluminum, about 3 inches on a side. The edges were very square (read sharp) and when he threatened 'one D6 of damage' as game master you listened.

We never actually rolled though, more just threatened to throw it…

Back in the 70s I couldn't buy D&D dice in New Zealand so made a complete set (excluding d6s) out of cardboard. My D4 is still alive. The hothers are all dead I am afraid, although the D8 I made is actually just unglued and still in one piece.