What are you thoughts on TTRPGs with non-standard dice?

[schneeland]

For me, it depends a bit how much the employed dice deviate from the standard set. Things like the Free League games, where you sometimes have dice pools with multiple colors or a higher result on a roll gives you more than one success are fine for me, because if needed, they can be easily replaced. Dungeon Crawl Classics is also still fine because the dice chain feels like a natural extension of the well-known 7 piece set. It also helps that they are readily available in stores.
Beyond that, it's typically not a complete dealbreaker, but it factors in negatively into my purchase decision. The worst combination is when the funky dice feel essential, but are hard to buy, as for e.g. the FFG Star Wars games.

 

[Cadence]

I'm trying to decide if needing a lot of the same type of dice up front does the same. It wasn't a problem when I eventually needed a dozen d10s to play the version of VtM we were back in the day, but I wonder if needing that up front would have been a turn off in the same sense as needing special dice. I think the games that needed a lot of d6 back in the day weren't as bad because we could pillage some board games and Yahtzee. (Is being able to reroll the dice you already did and keep track like having a conversion table to use a standard die to simulate a special one?)

 

[MGibster]

By non-standard, of course I mean other than the regular d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20. In this week's podcast we veered off, as we are wont to do, into a discussion on funky dice. What are your thoughts on them? A barrier to entry, an additional cost, a gimmick, or a useful new tool?

There's two types of gimmicky dice I think. There's dice like those for Vampire 5th edition or FUDGE which are just d10s or d6s respectively with little symbols pertinent to their specific systems. You can use regular d10s and d6s for those games though without any problem. Then there are proprietary dice like for FFG's Star Wars or Modiphius' Fallout where you kind of need those specific dice to even play the game. You could use regular dice for either, but it's not worth the pain in my opinion.

Overall I have a negative view of proprietary dice. It's a point against any game I want to purchase though it's not an absolute no from me.

It's a barrier to entry in the sense that you have to learn what each little symbol means and sometimes even what the difference between each type of die is. I'm looking at you FFG's Star Wars. I'm already learning a new game and now I have to figure out how to interpret the dice?

It's an additional cost and quite often more than it might appear at first. For Fallout, I think I own four dice sets because a single set does not come with enough dice. The proprietary dice are abut $20 a set, so to have enough dice to roll it's going to set a player back $40. Most of my players purchase the main rulebook, so that's an additional $40 just for some stupid dice.

They're inconvenient. I have to store my proprietary dice separately from my regular dice. If I don't play the game for a few months or more it's easier to lose track of them. If you happen to lose one die from the set you can't just replace it without purchasing a whole new set. And of course the proprietary dice aren't always available for purchase. I can't just go to my local FLGS and buy Star Wars dice even though they sell the RPG. And what happens after the game is discontinued and my friends and I want to play it a few years down the road? Hope we have all those old dice still around.

 

[Brendan Byrd]

I am fond of funky dice and will impulse buy them sometimes. If they display only game specific icons I will admire them, but if I lack context I won't buy them. (Root, Star Wars, etc.)
The FLGS keeps the system specific dice close to the RPG's and the math rocks in a seperate area. I enjoy both.

One system specific set of dice that I did buy was the six pack of red tipped caltrops d4's for the Triangle Agency game. Those enigmatic dice caused me to look up the game online to see how they are used. It was the specialty dice that brought my attention to the game, and the dice are not so special that I can't use them as regular d4's.

I might buy Triangle Agency, eventually, but I will definitely use those dice:
Sigil random encounter table.
1 result on a d20. Roll all 6 red tipped d4's.
If there are no threes the Lady of Pain arrives.

Today's impulse buy: "elapsed time dice"

 

[sevenbastard]

I've never bought a RPG with special dice. So I guess i am against them.

I would by a game that needs a d25 or uses a d7 dice pool. But if its needs dice with special symbols or something count me out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I like the zocchi dice chain of DCC... though when I think of Fantasy Flight games with their crazy dice, I think sometimes those helped differentiate the game and sometimes they just seemed gimmicky.

Yup. Got a new set of zocchi dice at Gencon. Love 'em!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can tell you that while I've personally enjoyed them, as a retailer I find it somewhat difficult to sell games that use "funky dice". I think one of the mistakes is the NUMBER of dice used. The less dice your system uses, the funkier they can be, because the expense of getting enough for the table is cheaper.

Strangely, most people will spend tons of money on more regular dice that they already have before putting down money on a new, weird set. I assume it's because they're not sure how much use they'll get out of them.

But, yeah, IF you are designing a game that uses "funky dice", then I recommend that you also include in that game a simple page of corresponding charts that a player with "normal dice" can use to get the same results. Make the dice a perk, rather than a requirement.

I own four d30s, and I don't regret a single one!

 

[Micah Sweet]

and as an addition - what do you think of systems that use Playing Cards instead of dice?

I miss Classic Deadlands. I used to have a awesome deck of Deadlands poker cards.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It discourages me from taking a closer look at the game and generally feels gimmicky more than like a genuine design need (funky dice).

Regular dice with special icons on them I can take or leave, they are mapped to ordinary dice easily enough

I was assuming we were talking mostly about the latter; I still find it a little annoying if there's more than one or maybe two special characters because I'd have to remember what symbol was associated with what number space.

I'm not actually familiar with too many games that are using genuinely odd hedrons.

 

[Thomas Shey]

and as an addition - what do you think of systems that use Playing Cards instead of dice?

I think there's some virtues with some executions there (card decks have, in practice, "memory" in the way a die doesn't) but haven't found them practical for various reasons, even more so since I now play virtually.