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There's a bunch of cool dice these days. Already got the Kill Team dice. Found some even better Genestealer Cult dice yesterday. But the symbol is on the wrong side, the 1s! Kill team has 2 symbols, one faction symbol and one kill team symbol. That's a bit too much for my taste. Who came up with this idea? Does anyone actually want your favorite icon replacing the 1?

I personally find any dice that don’t have clear, high contrast “pips” on them to be irritating. So if we can get rig of pictures in dice altogether, that would be a win in my books.

I think it was Battlefront was even worse for this - the first generation of dice set had the faction symbol on the 1, the 2nd generation had the faction symbol on the 6...

I agree entirely though - rolling dice should be as clear as possible. Fancy dice are only really good for wound/turn markers.

I just refuse to use dice that don't have the symbol on the 6. There's nothing wrong with symbols on the 6 side IMO, but symbols on the one is annoying.

The REAL heresy though is the roman numeral dice, or bright dice with similarly colored pips. People who use those should be ashamed.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I personally find any dice that don’t have clear, high contrast “pips” on them to be irritating. So if we can get rig of pictures in dice altogether, that would be a win in my books.

This.

Some of GW's recent ones have been utterly incomprehensible to read, let alone the new Goblin ones which are rubber FFS! Yes, I too like to have dice break my models when my opponent lobs them.

Agreed. Special symbol should be on the 6, not the 1.

No symbols on dice, period. I want dice rolls to be clear and quick to interpret.

 John Prins wrote:
No symbols on dice, period. I want dice rolls to be clear and quick to interpret.

OK, 6 blank faces is pretty clear and quick, but I'm not sure what the point would be.

I’ll field this one. He means, “No symbols other than clear indications of a number one through six. An Aquila, for example, is not a clear indication of a 6. It is an Aquila, representing a fictional two headed bird. Not a number.”

 greatbigtree wrote:
I’ll field this one. He means, “No symbols other than clear indications of a number one through six. An Aquila, for example, is not a clear indication of a 6. It is an Aquila, representing a fictional two headed bird. Not a number.”

No, he's a big boy and can speak for himself.

Whether he means that or not, it wasn't clear.

Regardless, if the other faces are marked with the traditional 1-5 pips on a 6-sided die, it's pretty clear that the special symbol represents a "6", and only an idiot would be confused by that. It could be a giant scribble and it wouldn't matter, because it's obviously NOT a 1-5. The specifics of the symbol fail the "who cares" test. Furthermore, these dice are entirely optional, and he is free to use ordinary dice of his choosing. Or to commission "clear" dice of his own.

In the mean time, he can learn to be clear about what he writes, because his post was a travesty of clarity if his intent was to advocate for clarity.

It was perfectly clear, since we're talking about symbols Vs pips.
No symbols doesn't mean no markings, it means no non-standard markings.

I'd rather the same - pips only if it's being used to roll for something. I don't agree that one symbol is easy to deal with, as it's an extra cognitive step; instead of it saying "6" you then need to think "symbol, that's a 6" and unless it's standard and 2nd nature there's always the concern someone will mistake it for a 1, because there's only 1 symbol on there, and some dice have it as a 1.

Unless it's something special like a scatter die, but they tend to be all symbols.

1 symbol = 1 pip.

Doesn't seem rocket science.

I get the not liking symbol = low value.

I get the clear to understand dice wish too. Squig dice are ridiculous - but they're FUN!

I cant abide having a symbol on the 1 face. These are my trusty dice at the moment;

No, a pip in the shape of a circle is still a symbol, distinct from a square or a cross or a triangle, star, or skull. It's a simple symbol, but a symbol nonetheless.

If it's really some sort of pressing mental effort to understand that "@" = "6", are you really sure that you should be playing something as complex as Warhammer 40k? In 40k, you need to remember the shape of each flavor of weapon and armor in the army, along with their super-special special rules. It seems to me that people of such limited mental faculties should stick to something more like Checkers or Tic-Tac-Toe.

Squig dice are silly.

Be polite please.

Graphics/logos for either 1s or 6s (but not both) would have been fine so long as the entire global die industry had agreed to one, been consistent and stuck with it. But they didn't. Some chose 1s, some chose 6s and some utter fething sadists chose to do both at the same time, thus ruining it for everyone and leading to the ambiguous situation we have now, where no presumption can be considered safe. Therefore, the only acceptable thing to have on the side of a die is a corresponding number of clear, well contrasted pips. The only possible benefit that could come from logo'd dice is that the person using them, somehow manages to inhale one and chokes to fething death!

Edit: I'm not entirely certain this topic has elicited the healthiest response from me. Apologies.

edited by ingtaer.

I like plain old dice, no fancy symbols an anything, but then I can well understand companies selling them

Pah, you miserable lot

I really like GW's faction-specific dice.

I will concede that for my SM dice you do rather need to be an expert on different types of skulls though!

Fancy symbol on 6, fancy symbol on 1, irrelevant. neither is "right" or "wrong". It's only a problem if someone has otherwise identical dice where some have a symbol on the 6 and others have it on the 1 (the aforementioned Battlefront dice).

In fact, i'd suggest that having the symbol on the 1 face is better, as it could result in a more even mass distribution than having a single pip.

I like the Kill Team Faction dice, but as the D6s have symbols on the 1 (Kill Team logo) and the 6 (Faction logo) they're really not practical.

Funky dice for your collection, and marking wounds, objectives etc? That's fine and dandy. They're thematic (well, the GW ones are) and just look pleasing.

But for actual game play? Just plan D6 if you please. The one's GW used to do in the cube are ideal. Nice looking, good pip contrast, and small enough to not demolish models when rolled. I'm even weird enough to want uniformity in dice. When you're rolling multi-coloured ones it just doesn't sit right with me.

Though I remain very fond of my metal 'Eavy Metal dice. Those are broken out on occasion, such as critical 2D6 rolls - and always rolled somewhere clear of models and terrain, because they pack quite the wallop!

I honestly think in terms of gaming dice Arena Rex have some of the best on the market. Symbols on the 6 (as they should be), with colour combinations that make them easy to read while still being thematic and quite good looking dice. The Batman Miniatures dice sets are more difficult in places (the Suicide Squad set, but even then) but for the most part they're also easy to read and match the crew while still being primarily dice. My gripe with the 40k and AoS ones is that they look cheap (but aren't) and a lot of them recently have been getting more and more into the realm of silly gimmicks, like the bouncing Squig dice or unreadable Nurgle dice.

These are some examples of dice I find great. Simple, effective, thematic. Note I do have here examples that are from GW, because their specialist games dice are really great.


These dice? Not so much...

I'm fine with dices that have numbers 1-6 traditionally with pips and 1-5 with pips and 6 as special symbol. Guess I can get by with 1 being special symbol but the pet hates are mixing those 2 and where 1 AND 6 are symbols. As long as you can consistently say non-pip is X then fine. If you need to start differenting symbols then that makes it hard for opponent to quickly identify 1's and 6's.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
...The one's GW used to do in the cube are ideal...

Do you recall the dice cube they used to sell that was packed with an actual cube of 27 dice, back before a cube turned into a rounded box half filled with air? Truly, marvelous times we lived in back then. In fact, those are still the dice I use, today. I have to say, that as difficult as it is to get ones hands on Games-Workshop stuff here in Hanoi, one of the benefits of living so close to China is the absolute plethora of cheap dice.

tneva82 wrote:
I'm fine with dices that have numbers 1-6 traditionally with pips and 1-5 with pips and 6 as special symbol. Guess I can get by with 1 being special symbol but the pet hates are mixing those 2 and where 1 AND 6 are symbols. As long as you can consistently say non-pip is X then fine. If you need to start differenting symbols then that makes it hard for opponent to quickly identify 1's and 6's.

Yes. Consistency is a problem, can't tell you how frustrating it is when someone with designer dice can't keep the values straight. There's a tendency to call anything without pips a 6.

I've had to take dice pics at the start of the game to keep players honest. Having to argue about what the dice mean detracts from the game.

I really dislike when opponents play with dice that has symbols. Is the symbol a 6? or 1? Another thing I need to focus on during the game.

I even dislike when people use multi-colored dice. Like when a single dice has several colors mixed in. Clear, transparent dice are the same. Pips are hard to read from some angles.

The worst are dice that ONLY use symbols!

 Easy E wrote:
The worst are dice that ONLY use symbols!

Works totally fine in BattleLore and Memoir '44 and Battle Masters

How hard can it be? All my dice have symbols consistently on the 6 face (I have 3 different designs of differing colors in regular use to help differentiate different models/weapons).

I just tell my opponent the first time I roll dice: "All symbols are 6's". Not difficult.

 John Prins wrote:
No symbols on dice, period. I want dice rolls to be clear and quick to interpret.

I agree with this.. But I think it has to do a lot with where you are playing.. If it's a friendly basement game, its not a big deal. But in a tournament I don't want to be wondering
if the weird symbol is a 6 or a 1. I love the squig dice.. don't plan to buy them but would tell someone to use other dice if I was playing in a game with prize support.
Not all people are nice and will take advantage of the confusion from not being able to translate the dice.

But with games like FFG Star Wars RPG, everyone uses the same dice that only has symbols, there is no problem with this.. I think its more of the quick reading of the dice
because I seen problems with fast rolling and pick up with basic dice... so adding a different die face to this makes it worse.