As I mentioned in another blog entry, I really rather like dice. I figured that I'd post about my collection so far, today.
I started collecting dice a couple of years ago, as my interest in modern video games began to decline more sharply than it had been doing previously. This image shows my collection to date, and it's a pretty eclectic one, as you can see (deliberately so - I like the variety).
Of particular note is the purple and bronze swirled polyset at the front (you can easily spot them, because they're some of the only matching dice in the collection!), which was my first ever polyset, and what started the collection. It was manufactured by a company called Big Cherry, is very high-quality, and was superb value for money - a great start to the collection.
Also noteworthy are the more unusual ones like the weather d6, 2x compass d8s, room-generation d12, emotion d14, letter and word-portion dice of various shapes, the two different hit-location d12s, and the teddy bear d6s, which I picked for my collection to reflect my plush-making hobby.
Not pictured is a spare blue and gold swirled polyset by Big Cherry. It was sent by mistake when I ordered a mini-sized set of dice, but it would have cost too much to return it, so I kept it and didn't open the zip-lock bag in which it was supplied. Should anyone lacking a polyset ever want to play a game with me, I'll give the set to them as a gift.
That giant d6 (which is 6" cubed) will roll if you have the room, but it's really only meant to be used decoratively, so it sits on my desk and isn't kept with the rest. There's no room in my dice bag for it, anyway.
Speaking of which, here are my current storage and shaking solutions.
My current main dice bag is an All Rolled Up hobby wrap, which I have found to be the best dice storage bag I've yet owned. When full to bursting, at present it holds all of my dice (bar the giant one), a standard pack of playing cards, and a wooden box filled with wooden dominoes. There's also a set of pen/pencil loops, but I don't use them at the moment.
For rolling my dice, I have a Super Mario Bros. "?" Block dice shaker, which is *very* noisy, and a fabric-lined cup manufactured by Koplow, which is much quieter. The Koplow cup has a screw-on lid, which means that it can also be used for storage if required. Apparently, it can hold around 100 dice when used for this, though I assume that this claim only takes standard-sized dice into account.
Additionally, here is my old main dice bag (a brown faux-suede and cream linen bag, with a square bottom so it will stand open nicely), which is now used for picking random dice or pieces, and a small "?" Block which was originally a sweet tin. I've considered using the latter for travel, but it's only really suitable for smaller dice, which limits its use to me somewhat.
I also have some miniatures, all on the cute side of things. These are my favourites - a mouse, a 3D-printed Blocker lemming, and a grimacing, axe-wielding hedgehog. Aren't they adorable?
It doesn't stop there, though! Even my mascot, Max the lemming, has his own (lemming-sized) dice bag (and matching geeky shirt, for gaming nights)!
Here's a closer look at it. It contains a miniature standard polyset, a miniature pencil, and a miniature notebook that contains approximately 100 pages of plain paper. (The game CD is there to give an idea of the size of the bag and its contents.)
And that's the whole collection so far.
My dice are mainly used as writing aids and for solo RPG'ing, for which I favour a mix of rules from the USR System and Other Skylines, with random source material, from various places, plugged in to work the adventures around. I don't know anyone else who's into these sorts of things, so apart from once, I've never used them in a proper game with other people, unfortunately. I plan to pick up the various sets and expansions of Rory's Story Cubes (and probably some of the work-alike dice from other companies, too) in order to make solo RPG'ing easier, as per this idea from BoardGameGeek.com, as well as to give myself new ideas and challenges for writing.
I started collecting dice a couple of years ago, as my interest in modern video games began to decline more sharply than it had been doing previously. This image shows my collection to date, and it's a pretty eclectic one, as you can see (deliberately so - I like the variety).
Of particular note is the purple and bronze swirled polyset at the front (you can easily spot them, because they're some of the only matching dice in the collection!), which was my first ever polyset, and what started the collection. It was manufactured by a company called Big Cherry, is very high-quality, and was superb value for money - a great start to the collection.
Also noteworthy are the more unusual ones like the weather d6, 2x compass d8s, room-generation d12, emotion d14, letter and word-portion dice of various shapes, the two different hit-location d12s, and the teddy bear d6s, which I picked for my collection to reflect my plush-making hobby.
Not pictured is a spare blue and gold swirled polyset by Big Cherry. It was sent by mistake when I ordered a mini-sized set of dice, but it would have cost too much to return it, so I kept it and didn't open the zip-lock bag in which it was supplied. Should anyone lacking a polyset ever want to play a game with me, I'll give the set to them as a gift.
That giant d6 (which is 6" cubed) will roll if you have the room, but it's really only meant to be used decoratively, so it sits on my desk and isn't kept with the rest. There's no room in my dice bag for it, anyway.
Speaking of which, here are my current storage and shaking solutions.
My current main dice bag is an All Rolled Up hobby wrap, which I have found to be the best dice storage bag I've yet owned. When full to bursting, at present it holds all of my dice (bar the giant one), a standard pack of playing cards, and a wooden box filled with wooden dominoes. There's also a set of pen/pencil loops, but I don't use them at the moment.
For rolling my dice, I have a Super Mario Bros. "?" Block dice shaker, which is *very* noisy, and a fabric-lined cup manufactured by Koplow, which is much quieter. The Koplow cup has a screw-on lid, which means that it can also be used for storage if required. Apparently, it can hold around 100 dice when used for this, though I assume that this claim only takes standard-sized dice into account.
Additionally, here is my old main dice bag (a brown faux-suede and cream linen bag, with a square bottom so it will stand open nicely), which is now used for picking random dice or pieces, and a small "?" Block which was originally a sweet tin. I've considered using the latter for travel, but it's only really suitable for smaller dice, which limits its use to me somewhat.
I also have some miniatures, all on the cute side of things.
These are my favourites - a mouse, a 3D-printed Blocker lemming, and a grimacing, axe-wielding hedgehog. Aren't they adorable?
It doesn't stop there, though! Even my mascot, Max the lemming, has his own (lemming-sized) dice bag (and matching geeky shirt, for gaming nights)!
Here's a closer look at it. It contains a miniature standard polyset, a miniature pencil, and a miniature notebook that contains approximately 100 pages of plain paper. (The game CD is there to give an idea of the size of the bag and its contents.)
And that's the whole collection so far.
My dice are mainly used as writing aids and for solo RPG'ing, for which I favour a mix of rules from the USR System and Other Skylines, with random source material, from various places, plugged in to work the adventures around. I don't know anyone else who's into these sorts of things, so apart from once, I've never used them in a proper game with other people, unfortunately. I plan to pick up the various sets and expansions of Rory's Story Cubes (and probably some of the work-alike dice from other companies, too) in order to make solo RPG'ing easier, as per this idea from BoardGameGeek.com, as well as to give myself new ideas and challenges for writing.
