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Sunday, February 24, 2013

Do You Own Those Funky DCC RPG Dice?


It's kinda funny. When it was revealed that the (then) upcoming DCC RPG used these funky sided dice - d3, d5, d7, d14, d16, d24 and d30 I got all bent out of shape. Why should some new fangled game require me to buy dice that I did not have? I had hundreds of dice, and they were all of the standard weirdness, or so I thought.

When I went through the bulk of my old dice collection, I found I apparently had a set of dice that included all but the d7 (the d7 is an ugly piece of dice poo, and I've yet to see it as part of a dice set). This is in addition to the set I bought when the DCC RPG was released.

So, even though I was initially resistant to the extra dice used by the DCC RPG, I actually owned a set of "weird" polyhedrons before it was in vogue.

Go figure.

Do you own a set (or more) of "DCC RPG Dice"? Did you own them before or after the game was announced? How deep does you dice collecting habit go anyway?

17 comments:

  1. I have owned them but don't know if I currently do.

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  2. I own them all, including two types of d7 - the "casino die" that you so dislike (although I like it), and a d14 numbered 1-7 twice.

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  3. I don't own any of the weird dice and won't play DCC because of it. Which is kinda sad because I've been a fan of Goodman Games since when all they had was Broncosaurus Rex.

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  4. I have three sets, but I've not been very happy with the quality of the dice. These are Game Science dice, and supposedly the "best" of their kind, right? So, it perturbs me that there are all kinds of weird blemishes in the plastic. They really seem like defects, frankly, in the molding process, and probably should be factory seconds. This REALLY pisses me off because they are so much more expensive than the regular assortment of dice used in D&D. Also, GS needs to produce a damned d30 already. The Koplow d30s are ridiculously huge and not at all precise. Someone needs to step up and do a better job of producing these. I frankly wish Goodman Games would figure some better way of doing this, given that the game actually uses these dice. If they're going to lead on the use of the dice, it'd be nice to buy from them instead of someone else. They might actually give a shit if the quality, or rather the awesomeness, of their dice is not up to par. They'd also probably be a bit more realistic about what that nickle's worth of raw material is actually worth to buyers. Game Science, at least, seems to be gouging their customers pretty egregiously.

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    Replies
    1. I noticed those blemishes on the Gamescience dice when I got them. Apparently it's a feature rather than a flaw:

      "these dice do have imperfections on them as result of how they are molded. This is something easily fixed with an emery board. He also cautioned me that no matter what, these dice will not ever look 100% flawless like other dice. Unlike other dice, Gamescience dice do not go through a tumbling process to smooth out these imperfections, but that is why some RPG hobbiest prefer them. As a result you have a set of dice with sharp edges that cause the dice to come to a stop more quickly. This produces a more random dice roll then most other bands of dice with their smoothed down rounded edges. What this means is a dice with rounded edges will roll across your table longer allowing it to find its center of gravity. The result is that a dice with rounded edges are more likely to roll a particular number depended on where it’s center of gravity is. A Gamescience dice, with its sharp edges will not roll as far and as a result will not find its center of gravity making each roll more authentically random then other bands of dice with rounded edges."

      From here:
      http://www.stargazersworld.com/2010/08/18/gamescience-dice-review/

      (despite what it says, you can't fix them all with an emery board, because sometimes a blemish goes into the die (gouge) rather than out).

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  5. Got mine from Lou himself at Origins a couple years back. Used them once since then I believe. I need to find a DCC game apparently. Or make up weird table in The Manor to use them.

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  6. DCC made me aware of these dice, and I bought some for fun, but didn't get DCC.

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  7. I have a set that I bought, but it didn't include a d7, and I'm not sure why. It's almost like the d7 is considered stupid by even dice makers. Serious, it seems the most superfluous of Zocchi dice. Just use a d8 and reroll when an 8 comes up. Don't be lazy! ;-)

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  8. I don't own the dice, nor do I plan to.

    I'm not really much of a dice collector anyways.

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  9. I play DCC RPG, but don't own the dice and, at the prices that I have found (the same for a single die as I pay for the solid colour Chessex sets that I prefer) I don't plan on buying any. DCC RPG runs just fine without them, even if you might need to give your players a 'cheat sheet' explaining how to generate a result of 1-24 or whatever using the 'standard' dice.

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  10. We're switching our main campaign over to DCC RPG (I think) in the next few weeks and nobody in the group has zocchi die. Currently people use the Crawler's Companion app to make weird dice rolls, but I bet we end up ordering some sets.

    Maybe someone should run a kickstarter for these?

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  11. After playing DCC with Harley Stroh, I was stoked enough about DCCRPG that I immediately bought a full set. I like that DCC uses more unusual dice and while I've been tied up with other games since then, I don't regret the decision to buy them in the least.

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  12. Ya I got them. I know a fellow who was complaining about never wanting to get special dice for DCC and then happily pulled out a sack of fudge dice so go figure - I'm always happy to have weird dice to buy. They are pretty decent and I don't mind doing the crayon thing cause they look pretty. They could be better however. The d24 is a horrible mold with scratches all over it though and needs to be dealt with. It's not just mine, all the ones I've seen have have these groves all over them, so its not just the sprues.

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  13. I've had d30's for a long time and picked up d7's, d5's, d14's, d16's, and d24's last time I went to a game con. I've got two types of d3's as well. I like dice.

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  14. I have a d30 that I bought several years ago for novelty value. The only time I ever used it was in an awful AD&D 2nd Ed homebrew that used it for proficiency checks.

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  15. I got 'em because of DCC. I kinda like the weird defects. Makes them look like they fumbled on a corruption roll...

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