Do you own a set of "crystal" dice?

[wingsandsword]

Believe it or not, TSR patented that design of d4 (for Dragon Dice, mostly), so Crystal Caste can't use it without licensing it from Hasbro.

The patent
A bit of the story (scroll down to message #8)

Wouldn't there be an awful lot of "prior art" claims to refute the TSR patent, especially if they patented it for "Dragon Dice".

I mean, Gygax got the original dice from a teacher's supply catalog IIRC, and instead of throwing out everything but the d20, they came up with rules that used the 4, 8, 10 and 12 sided polyhedrons. They clearly didn't invent the d4, they bought them from a supplier, and even if they did, wouldn't Gamescience, Koplow and Chessex have had other "prior art" claims from before TSR filed for their patent even if TSR was first on the market they didn't file for the patent until almost 2 decades later?

If so, it sounds like that patent is there only because nobody's bothered to fight it so far.

(IANAL, but these days it's hard not to be a geek without getting dragged into IP law )

(Edit: Sorry, didn't realize you weren't talking about the standard "d4" until after I posted)

 

[Readerbreeder]

I own two sets of the things, one of which I bought at a steep discount when the local Wizards store was closing out. They're in my regular rotation at the gaming table, though I would have to agree that the d20 takes forever to stop rolling. I've learned that if I'm going to use it, I need to roll well before my turn in the initiative order so it doesn't hold up the works.
The only thing I've seen that was worse is the zoccihedron (100-sided die) that I have, which is nearly spherical. Now that thing is like the Energizer Bunny; it keeps going... and going...

 

[Aethelstan]

As DM, I banned crystral dice because players had a hard time reading them and they kept rolling of the table.

 

[reddist]

Oh THOSE crystal dice. I should have read some of the thread before I voted. I though we were talking about the dwarven stone dice... I have several sets of those.

I don't have any of THESE dice though. They just don't excite me. And at my table, I've had some of those dice-fiend players who only count a roll if it stays on their book... (you know who you are)... and the cylindrical crystal dice constantly fell off the edge of their "fair roll" area. It took forever for them to resolve combat rounds.

So I made them stop.

-Reddist

 

[Romnipotent]

I just want a set so I can say I have one... Like I want a porsche, and crash it, just to say I had one

 

[CM]

I'm actually really fond of my six crystal d4's (no caltrop effect), but the rest of them are too annoying to actually use on a regular basis. As was mentioned earlier, they're hard to differentiate and difficult to read.

 

[Hanuman]

Crystal D4's the best magic missile damage dice EVER!

 

[AuraSeer]

My regular bag has 5d4 of that style. They're not pretty, but I like being able to read the numbers from overhead; it's more convenient when you're casting magic missile several times every session. With a standard pyramidal d4, the numbers are only visible from the side, so I constantly found myself having to pick up the dice or lean my face down to table level.

I somehow acquired a number of other dice in the same style, but I don't ever use them. With the d6 and higher, the small faces mean they don't stop rolling in a conveniently short distance, and the numbers are so small they're difficult to distinguish at a glance. I retired them after the second time I confused 8 and 6 on the d10.

 

[Wycen Adamantite]

One of the guys in our new Sunday game has a set of steel dice. Of course he bought them from another guy who's a game store owner now, so he also showed up with new dice, but they weren't from crystal caste.

 

[Lord Random]

I picked up a set of these weird dice at a gamefair. They look well cool, are a swine to determine which number is face up (especially the d20) and always end up rolling off the table onto the floor. Would I use them in game? Nahhh, but there pretty