Roll the Bones- Why You Should Roll Dice and Which to Get

Today I want to talk about the most important tool in DnD, Pathfinder, and several other tabletop games. If you guessed pen and paper, you are wrong. The most important tool is the dice.

You can get mobile apps instead of pen and paper. You can even get apps for the books or learn without them, but the dice, those are sacred. You might be thinking that your dice roller app works great, you may even contend that it is faster. Now read on to see why the bones are best.

Lucky Dice-

Do you believe in luck? If you do, would you keep rolling the same die that continually has bad results for you? Of course not, you would put that one into dice jail until it learns it’s lessons. Luck can’t be scientifically proven, but I feel like it exists.

Sometimes, you just roll bad over and over again. When that happens I like to change dice, but you can’t do that if you are using a dice roller app. Of course, lucky/unlucky dice aren’t the only reason I prefer to roll the actual die.

Personalized Dice-

You might be thinking that I mean something custom made. While custom dice are awesome, that isn’t what I mean here. We are talking about a set of dice that is representative of your campaign character. Even if you are the Dungeon Master, you could have a set for your BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy). Maybe specific character sets aren’t your thing though. Maybe you just prefer the feel.

The Feel-

As your DnD character grows in power, you get to roll more dice. It’s true, a dice roller will add up the numbers and make it easy to read. Yet, nothing beats the feeling of shaking a handful of d6’s when you shove a fireball down someone’s throat. Once you play with dice, automatic rollers just don’t do it for you anymore.

What If I Don’t Have Dice?-

If you don’t have dice and are just curious, whoever you play with will likely have extra sets. I have 9 and I only started DnD 9 months ago. You can buy them at a game shop too. If you don’t want to go somewhere, order them. Amazon has loads if dice that you could buy and have delivered to you. You can decide whether you want metal or plastic dice, or even a combination. If you get metal dice, get a rolling tray though. They wreak havoc on tables

PSA- Don’t drop d4s on the ground, you will find them with your bare foot every time.

Different Types-

There are primarily two types of dice that people use which are plastic and metal dice. Both have advantages in comparison to the other.

Plastic-

The plastic dice are the cheaper option. you can buy them in bulk for fairly cheap and in an assortment of colors and patterns. I think they roll a little better than metal dice, but they are going to be less durable. They are less resistant to heat and pressure, but your dice sets probably shouldn’t come into contact with those too often. They are also less dangerous. There is a very low risk of damaging anything with them, especially if you toss one to your friend.

Metal-

Metal dice look and feel really cool. I love throwing a metal die watching it clank as it rolls across the tray, and you will want a dice tray. They are quite a bit more expensive than even a nice set of plastic dice. They are vastly more durable and better looking as a trade-off. However, I must also caution that metal dice can potentially be dangerous to you and everything around you. Without a tray, they will damage tables and other things. I also would not recommend throwing them to your friend. Also, the metal d4 could land you in a hospital if you step on it with bare feet. Even still, metal dice are my favorite dice to use.

The truth is you don’t need the dice to play thanks to technology. However, I would wager that once use a set, you buy several. Not to mention, many tabletop games use the dice, so if you want to play a different game, they can be used there too.

I know not everybody likes the dice, but some people like me, love to roll the bones. What do you think about dice? Do you prefer plastic or metal? Let us know in the comments and don’t forget to follow us for all of our latest content.

“Time is Money friend,” so thank you for yours.

Originally published at Dungeons, Delves, and Dice.