Friday, March 15, 2013

Precision Machined Metal Dice

What's that? Two posts on the same day? Well, don't get too excited yet. This post isn't full of GM advice, but it does have an opportunity you may be interested in. Namely, it's another "currently on Kickstarter" post. And the topic for today? Precision machined metal dice.

Now, personally, I'm not the kind of gamer who really gets crazy about my dice. I mean, yeah, I have a good amount and I miss the old days when touching a gamer's dice without permission was grounds for a whooping and ejection from the premises, but the dice itself - provided they're not loaded - I didn't much care for as long as they were dice. That said, I do own a set of game science dice (actually, 3 now thanks to a friend's christmas gift) but I'm also fond of Chessex and whatever other brands are lying around out there.

Still, I know some people really like their dice. I'd also be lying if I said I never wanted metal dice of my own. This kick starter may be the answer to that too.

I'll let you look into the details yourself, but essentially they're doing full dice sets (D4-D20) and casino style dice sets (6d6) along with a dice case at certain levels. Now, the price may look a bit steep but keep in mind a few things:

First, dice aren't exactly cheap. You'll drop $15 easily on a set of dice that have a few pretty colors on them in most hobby stores, and that's for what seems to be "mid-good" quality. That is also for dice that went through a rock tumbler and are made of whatever it is dice are commonly made of.

Two, the precision tooling means that these should have the same claim to 'accuracy' and 'fairness' that game science boasts with their dice. By not going through a rock tumbler for smoothing the weight of the individual die should be evenly balanced throughout and thus not have a favored number to roll.

Three, they're made of metal. Yeah, I know, duh, obviously, but look at the kickstarter page again. The metal looks pretty and shiny, the dice are going to be 125% bigger than normal dice (so they should stand out, they should also be easier to read without being so big they become combersome to lug around), and I've yet to hold a metal die that didn't have a good weight to it.

Check it out and decide for yourself. To be honest, I haven't decided if I will back this project or not, but it definitely seemed interesting enough to pass the word along. Besides, what good is an RPG without some kick-ass dice to game with?


The link again for those who missed it above.

1 comment:

  1. Digging the concept, for sure. So my main game is based on percentile dice and according to this Kickstarter's product list that means $95 for a full set of seven dice. First of all...ouch. But if I WAS going to drop about a c-note on dice, I'd want to have a good shot at picking the "right" metal and I don't know how I'd do that without being able to physically check out sets of dice in all the metals.

    I will say this is that stocking stuffer I'd be pretty psyched for.

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