Retiring Dice?
- Thread starter JoeGKushner
- Start date
jgbrowning
Hero
I'm one of the strange D&Ders who only has a single set of dice. That is up until two years ago when I got a set in an old Basic D&D set. So, I don't ever retire dice.
joe b.
joe b.
KB9JMQ
First Post
Well I buy about 20 some dice a year. I keep the ones out that roll pretty well (which usually is none) and put the others in my large dice box. They could make returns but not likely. I let others use dice out of the box.
I just like having new dice every so often.
I did have about 50 dice that were my favorites that I had carried around since the Red Box but they were either lost or stolen when I moved this spring
I just like having new dice every so often.
I did have about 50 dice that were my favorites that I had carried around since the Red Box but they were either lost or stolen when I moved this spring
I've retired exactly two dice in my 25+ years of gaming. One was a d8 that simply refused to roll higher than a 4. Was fighting a 3.0 hydra and needed a 5 or better to severe a head. It was forcibly retired into the woods of Laporte, Indiana. My other was a d20 that never seemed to roll a 20. I swear it was a d19. So I put my other dice around so they could watch and I smashed it with a hammer until it shattered. Try "retiring" a bad die that way; it's harder than it appears! If you don't hit it straight on, it tries to squirm away...but on no...you can't escape evil die! I will get you!!
A "bad" die is one where you in particular have had a string of bad luck with. It doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the die, just that is a cursed piece of plastic possessed by the soul of a demon guarenteed to always poorly.
A "bad" die is one where you in particular have had a string of bad luck with. It doesn't necessarily mean there is anything wrong with the die, just that is a cursed piece of plastic possessed by the soul of a demon guarenteed to always poorly.
JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Heck, the stories of 'retiring' dice are funnier than the tales of why the dice were retired in the first place!
Teflon Billy
Explorer
It might sound wierd (because it sounds wierd to me), but I am a total dice animist.
I have a nice big bag of dice.
Some, like my blue w/red Elemental D20 roll wonderfully...but for whatever reason I just can't make myself like the dice. Surely I'm not put off by the color? I mean I have a red shirts and blue jeans. I also like to think I am more appreciative of utility than appearance...but God help me I just feel nothing for this high-rolling dice!
The flipside of that coin is a collection of dice I bought when 3E was first released. They are beautiful. One set is Red w/black Elemental dice with yellow numbers. The other is Black w/white Elementals with red Numbers.
The red w/Yellow ones were going to be my "Secret Weapons"...I had a such a good feeling about them just looking at thm in the tube. The Black/White/Red ones would be my "Grunt Workers" (Their color scheme matched my color scheme, so it seemed a good fit), but the Red/Black/Yellow Elementals seemed like they were infused with destiny
They rolled like they wanted me dead from the moment I opened the tube.
Eventually, I took their ringleader (The D20) and lined all of the other dice in my bag up where they could "see", Faced his "20" up and slowly melted him with a butane torch until he was basically kind of "flattened out" with the 20 facing up.
The message I hoped to send to them regarding good rolls was "We can do this easy, or we can do this hard". I dropped the slag a few times and let them see that the twenty was facing up. One way or another, I wanted good rolls. A line was drawn in the sand.
It worked for awhile. I got above average (if not stellar) rolls from the remaining Red/Black/Yellow Elementals, and acceptable results from the rest of the dice--whom, in retrospect, it was unfair to subject to the "object lesson"--but after about two months, it looked like my Destiny Dice had forgotten where their priorities were, and I decided that one of the D6 would need to refresh their memories.
They were saved by my friend Theo who, despite knowledge of their bad rolls, agreed to trade me a D20 I had coveted for some time (Solid Orange with Black Numbers...I thought of it as the Halloween Dice) for the entriety of the remining roster.
They have rolled admirably for him ever since, the thankless bastards.
Anyway. Retiring dice.
The dice I have "retired" are not exactly put out to pasture or anything. Mostly they stay on in the bag in a "Coaching" or "Elder Statesmen" capacity.
My Razor-Edged, high-impact, "Barely Green" transparent D10 (a veteran of my long Ars MAgica campaigning) served admirably for its entire run--nearly three years--as has a place in my heart no other dice will ever usurp.
It has little utility in my current gaming, but nonetheless gets brought to every game, brough out at every game, and absently rolled just for fun every so often.
It remins in the bag to serve as a positive example in contrast to the negative example of the Eleemntal D20--that, when presented with exemplary service, I am a caring and generous dice owner who rewards loyalty.
Also in the bag are two "Casino Standard" D6's...They are like robots. the seem to genuinely generate random numbers, but have no "soul".
They are simply dice.
I have a nice big bag of dice.
Some, like my blue w/red Elemental D20 roll wonderfully...but for whatever reason I just can't make myself like the dice. Surely I'm not put off by the color? I mean I have a red shirts and blue jeans. I also like to think I am more appreciative of utility than appearance...but God help me I just feel nothing for this high-rolling dice!
The flipside of that coin is a collection of dice I bought when 3E was first released. They are beautiful. One set is Red w/black Elemental dice with yellow numbers. The other is Black w/white Elementals with red Numbers.
The red w/Yellow ones were going to be my "Secret Weapons"...I had a such a good feeling about them just looking at thm in the tube. The Black/White/Red ones would be my "Grunt Workers" (Their color scheme matched my color scheme, so it seemed a good fit), but the Red/Black/Yellow Elementals seemed like they were infused with destiny
They rolled like they wanted me dead from the moment I opened the tube.
Eventually, I took their ringleader (The D20) and lined all of the other dice in my bag up where they could "see", Faced his "20" up and slowly melted him with a butane torch until he was basically kind of "flattened out" with the 20 facing up.
The message I hoped to send to them regarding good rolls was "We can do this easy, or we can do this hard". I dropped the slag a few times and let them see that the twenty was facing up. One way or another, I wanted good rolls. A line was drawn in the sand.
It worked for awhile. I got above average (if not stellar) rolls from the remaining Red/Black/Yellow Elementals, and acceptable results from the rest of the dice--whom, in retrospect, it was unfair to subject to the "object lesson"--but after about two months, it looked like my Destiny Dice had forgotten where their priorities were, and I decided that one of the D6 would need to refresh their memories.
They were saved by my friend Theo who, despite knowledge of their bad rolls, agreed to trade me a D20 I had coveted for some time (Solid Orange with Black Numbers...I thought of it as the Halloween Dice) for the entriety of the remining roster.
They have rolled admirably for him ever since, the thankless bastards.
Anyway. Retiring dice.
The dice I have "retired" are not exactly put out to pasture or anything. Mostly they stay on in the bag in a "Coaching" or "Elder Statesmen" capacity.
My Razor-Edged, high-impact, "Barely Green" transparent D10 (a veteran of my long Ars MAgica campaigning) served admirably for its entire run--nearly three years--as has a place in my heart no other dice will ever usurp.
It has little utility in my current gaming, but nonetheless gets brought to every game, brough out at every game, and absently rolled just for fun every so often.
It remins in the bag to serve as a positive example in contrast to the negative example of the Eleemntal D20--that, when presented with exemplary service, I am a caring and generous dice owner who rewards loyalty.
Also in the bag are two "Casino Standard" D6's...They are like robots. the seem to genuinely generate random numbers, but have no "soul".
They are simply dice.
Last edited:
Teflon Billy
Explorer
I don't have a digital camera, so I am exprimenting with scanning my D10.
Stand by.
Stand by.
