Today’s “30 days of D&D” topic is:

Favorite die or dice

I’ve bought several sets of dice over the years. I imagine that’s true of any tabletop gamer. It’s like every shelf of dice sets at the local game store or online has a +5 to all charm effects, and my Wisdom save is REALLY low.

When I started out, playing Middle Earth Role Playing with my brother and his friend, that system used percentile dice – two ten-sided dice, one for the tens, one for the ones. I didn’t need a set; having two different colors made it easy to play “fair” by declaring which was the tens and the ones. (I don’t recall seeing d10s printed with the double-digits like most sets provide.)

Eventually, my brother and his friend got started on BattleTech, which is all d6s all the time.

A little foray into Palladium’s Robotech RPG forced a purchase of some varied dice, as it used a little of everything.

I think I eventually bought some of those dirty Dungeons & Dragons dice, with all their ridiculous variety of sides and shapes, but it was out of novelty rather than need.

In that vein, I recently purchased a “quality” set of dice—something meant to be special, sturdy, lasting. Metal dice sounded amazing, and the weight in one’s hand makes each roll feel like you’re about to drop something powerful on your enemies.

Turns out, they thunk on the table in a disruptive, annoying way, even in a felt-covered dice tray.

I also picked up a set of dragon dice, black and red, something a little more ornate than the usual. Turns out they’re not always easy to read, and in the middle of a bogged-down combat, I don’t want to waste time trying to sort out what my monsters rolled against the PCs.

I’ve got a blue and silver set and a deep crimson set with clear, legible numbers, and those are my go-to game dice… but they’re not the ones that mean the most to me.

My favorites? Back in the BattleTech days, I had a pair of black six-sided dice with white pips that I used every chance I got. When I started writing a set of short stories about an Old West gambler-prophet whose dice seem to foretell the future, the black-and-white changed to black and red. I ordered a stack of those dice for use in games and for writing inspiration.

One of these days, I’ll put together the whole novel… but for now, I’ll be rolling these lovelies for D&D spell damage and BattleMech hit locations.

How about you, fellow gamers? What’s your favorite set of dice, and what game do you use them in? Hit me up with a comment and let me know.