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

[Staffan]

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?

I think they're a sometimes food. I like them in Star Wars (though having played it a little more now than when it was new and shiny, I recognizes that it can be a bit annoying trying to come up with creative ways of using advantages and threats), but I wouldn't want every game to use its own bespoke set of dice.

Regular cards or custom decks?

Regular perfectly fine with me. Custom decks are interesting as they also are basically a randomiser with a built in look up table. They are more tricky than custom dice in my opinion, as it’s easier to get a dice printed than a deck of cards (in the UK) so potentially harder to replace down the road.

Cards have an interesting feature that dice don't: memory. If I roll 15+ three times in a row on a d20, that doesn't affect the chance of me rolling 15+ a fourth time. But if I've drawn three face cards in a row from a poker deck without reshuffling, the chances of me drawing a fourth is much lower.

Decks are also modifiable. The board game Gloomhaven uses this to great effect (and the RPG will be using similar mechanics), where each player has their own attack modifier deck, with an additional one being used for the monsters. By default this deck contains a null (attack deals no damage but still inflicts whatever conditions it had), a -2, five -1s, six +0s, five +1s, a +2, and an x2. But one of the primary ways in which your mercenary improves is by modifying this deck. For example, a Silent Knife (a rogue/assassin-type class) can modify it as follows:

So as you can see the Silent Knife is focused on dealing more damage and having more accuracy (fewer minus cards). The Tinkerer, on the other hand, looks like this:

This does not have as much raw damage, but instead have a pretty good chance of either hitting the enemy with a debuff of giving a heal or a buff to an ally. And as you level up you can choose which of these cards you'll focus on (there are also some options that don't affect your deck). This allows some interesting ways of customizing your character.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am fairly neutral. Dice with unusual number of faces or non-numeric results can aid certain things, but in terms of probability and random results, they aren't strictly necessary and can always be emulated with regular dice. Snowflake dice neither impress me nor annoy me.

 

[sevenbastard]

So as you can see the Silent Knife is focused on dealing more damage and having more accuracy (fewer minus cards). The Tinkerer, on the other hand, looks like this:

I always struggle with understanding calculating the odds and impact of my choices when presented with the above. I think its a cool mechanic but I often worry im making suboptimal choices.

 

[kermit4karate]

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?

Personally? A barrier to entry. Having perused many a games store, I have quite literally chosen not to purchase games specifically because they included non-standard dice countless times.

 

[kronovan]

I have mixed feelings about them...

When I'm aware they're part of a TTRPG, I check into how easy they are to substitute with standard dice. Before buying Star Trek Adventures, I checked into the Challenge Dice and wanted to be certain they could be easily substituded, which they can. I wasn't so cautious with FFG Star Wars and regretted it, because while its non-standard dice can be replaced with standard, it's clunky to do so.

As a Canadian customer, IME non-standard dice seem to dry up too quickly from distribution channels and consequently disappear from LGS shelves. My players and I like the Challenge Dice in Star Trek Adventures and I consider myself fortunate to have been able to get 4 sets of them, as I was late to the system. It required me ordering them from a store located on the other side of my country. Modihpius has removed CD for STA 2nd ed, and I've wondered if supply issues was part of that decision.

I didn't care for FFG SW in the end, not because the system wasn't playable, but because as GM I didn't like the way in which some of the non-standard dice threw player agency in my face. I bought a starter box (included the dice) and a set of the dice, but my players were reluctant to get their own. I sold my EotE books and the dice about a year after purchase and haven't regretted it.

I've bought 2 sets of Zochy dice for DCC. Those dice have since disappeared from LGS shelves in my city, but I can still buy them online from a few CDN retailers at a reasonable price. With recent decisions by Goodman Games though, I'm in not so keen on buying more.

 

[Argyle King]

Originally, I thought of them as a barrier.

After playing a few games with them, I've come to enjoy some of them. So, it depends on the implementation and how well the game works.

The Dice Chain for Dungeon Crawl classics is fine. It's easy to get those dice, and the implementation of how they are used is fun. The only issue that I've encountered is that I wasn't sure how critical hits worked on the other dice. I've seen varying opinions, and all of them work fine.

The dice for Star Wars Edge of the Empire is something I thought would be a major barrier. My initial thought turned out to be completely wrong; the game became one of my favorite systems. The dice are pretty easy to understand and use. If you want to use regular dice, you an; there's a conversion chart available. But, the Star Wars dice are easier to use than regular dice. It eliminates a lot of math; the only thing you need to know is if you have more good symbols or more bad symbols. The implementation creates a fun game that fits the feel that I would expect from Star Wars fiction. The main downside is that these dice are harder to get; sometimes it can be less hassle to fibd/buy the various starter sets than the individual sets of dice.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Originally, I thought of them as a barrier.

After playing a few games with them, I've come to enjoy some of them. So, it depends on the implementation and how well the game works.

The Dice Chain for Dungeon Crawl classics is fine. It's easy to get those dice, and the implementation of how they are used is fun. The only issue that I've encountered is that I wasn't sure how critical hits worked on the other dice. I've seen varying opinions, and all of them work fine.

The dice for Star Wars Edge of the Empire is something I thought would be a major barrier. My initial thought turned out to be completely wrong; the game became one of my favorite systems. The dice are pretty easy to understand and use. If you want to use regular dice, you an; there's a conversion chart available. But, the Star Wars dice are easier to use than regular dice. It eliminates a lot of math; the only thing you need to know is if you have more good symbols or more bad symbols. The implementation creates a fun game that fits the feel that I would expect from Star Wars fiction. The main downside is that these dice are harder to get; sometimes it can be less hassle to fibd/buy the various starter sets than the individual sets of dice.

I have two sets of the physical FFG dice and have held on to the app on my phone.

I also spoke to Edge Studios at Gencon, and while they are definitely working their way through reprinting all the existing books, they don't appear to have any plans to produce new product, even in "hint" form. That is the definition of a game on life support.

 

[delericho]

I'm not a fan, and as I get older and more curmudgeonly I become increasingly less keen on the idea. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that a game can assume I have the standard polyhedral dice and some standard playing cards, but if they require me to get anything else that will be an automatic deal-breaker.

There is one exception: if you're selling me a whole game in a box, and you include everything needed to comfortably play the game in that single box, I'll consider it. (That "comfortably" is quite key: while you could run D&D using only the dice in the Starter Set, for instance, it wouldn't be much fun sharing one set of dice amongst a group. You'd need rather more for it to feel comfortable... I am, of course, not putting a useful, exact number on that. )

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

I've been working, on and off, on a game that uses these...

... which, in a pinch, can be replaced with Fate dice.

 

[payn]

Mixed reactions to games so far. FFG system id rather have numbers than symbols. DCC dice are as a weird as the game itself, which I really like. As long as the dice set is a one time purchase and you dont need like a bunch of sets for factions or every changing rule supplements, it doesn't bother me.