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Ok I love love dice. I have 1000s. I am addicted no lie.

I use stone and metal Dice.

I have lots of these:
http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/2431-seven-days-of-games-3d-printed-dice-sets.html

I love War Machine dice for my Nids/Crons. They fit the theme.
http://www.thewarstore.com/product82678.html

Some people say they are hard to read and don't like me using different dice. Hence the poll.

They have even complained about offical 40k dice I use:
http://chaosorc.com/warhammer-40k-munitorum-dice-pi-20087.html

1.) It's a game, you can use whatever dice you want. It would probably be best if they weren't loaded, but otherwise there's nothing strictly wrong with them.

2.) Whenever I play with someone whose dice I can't easily read, I burn down an orphanage. I am not the only one who does this.

Please, think of the children.

Please.

Just use easily-readable dice.

This is mainly a trust thing, like how some people prefer to watch the other person measure or roll. I wouldn't like playing against someone I didn't know who had dice with symbols I couldn't read any more than someone who played an army I didn't know without a codex because they "knew the rules".

If the players are complaining because they can't read the dice you roll, then use easier to read dice. I think most of those are pretty sweet, and unless I was concerned about the other player I wouldn't really care what they rolled.

I have some dice with symbols on the 1s and 6s. I always pick the dice up to show my opponent the bottom side after the roll to show which it is. I find the false hope of a "flubbed" roll helps ruin my opponent's concentration. Heh. I'm always honest with them but "oh, you rolled an 11 for leadership! That unit's toast!!" "Nope, it's a 6; see?" "%{€£]* you"

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I have some dice with symbols on the 1s and 6s. I always pick the dice up to show my opponent the bottom side after the roll to show which it is. I find the false hope of a "flubbed" roll helps ruin my opponent's concentration. Heh. I'm always honest with them but "oh, you rolled an 11 for leadership! That unit's toast!!" "Nope, it's a 6; see?" "%{€£]* you"

I would actually find this extremely annoying and it's a bit of a "trolling" move. The novelty of the "oh man you tricked me again. Rats!" Would get old REAL fast.

I don't mind as long as the symbols are distinctly different,

One guy i play occasionally has a summoning circle on his dice for 1 and 6, but the 6 has one tiny symbol different.

He likes to roll fast and then pick up his dice fast before you can read them.

Not kosher.

I prefer plain dice.

I would not play against the shapeways dice, and would prefer not to play against the Cryx dice, although they aren't a deal breaker.

If my opponent brings suspect dice, I will happily let him use my own. If someone refuses THAT, I take it as a pretty clear statement of intent to be shady.

If a die is not a regular polyhedron, it's suspect. (This includes die rolling programs, crystal dice, spinner rings, or other weird methods of number generation.) If it can't clearly be read from across the table, it's suspect. The Cryx dice and the munitorum dice are a little hard to read from across the table. (I prefer pips to numerals.) I have no problem providing dice for people who don't have any, but I've run into too many people who use 'mud dice' (dice that are hard to read) as a deliberate attempt to fudge their rolls to have any faith in people anymore.

I'm not a fan of the 3d-printed dice. Between the irregular shape and the uncertainty of the manufacturing process I'm not convinced that they're properly random, and I'd rather not have to wonder if my opponent's dice are working right. Save them for silly fun games and just use normal dice.

The numbered dice are alright, as long as they're clear. I really don't like dice that have so much decoration that it's hard to read the numbers from across the table. Of course the same is true of dice with dots, if you have too much decoration or colors that don't contrast very well I'm not going to like it very much. The two examples you posted are kind of on the border, I wouldn't object to you using them but I'd be happier if you brought some more conventional ones.

In either case, remember that 40k is a game where you have to roll handfuls of dice and quickly observe the results, not a game where you just roll 1-2 dice every few minutes. Clear and consistent dice are far more important than making the perfect fashion statement.

It gets frustrating when you think they have failed and then they pick up the dice and continue rolling....you stand there confused and it leads to actually discussing why he picked up his dice so quick....i just tend to not like special sides even for 1 and 6.....

I have so many dice and mine are so different I never pick up the dice I leave and roll the next bunch.

I personally do have some weird dice, but I observe a couple of practices which have resulted in nobody ever complaining about them.

I don't use any dice that are hard to read. A LOT of the people I play (in various games) do this, and it drives me up the wall. They use unpainted dice, or clear dice (so you can see the pips through the die) or swirly marbled dice with indistinct markings. Use dice that your opponent can read easily. I'm slightly colorblind, so I can't raise too much of a fuss, because it just might be MY eyes, and not his dice.

If I have dice with a special symbol, I explain that BEFORE the game, and I only use one special symbol during the game. The ork head is a 6, on all the dice, all of the time. Not ork heads are sixes, bull heads are ones on these, EAT AT JOES are sixes on these.... Pick one symbol for the game. Don't expect someone to keep up with more than one.

I use the same dice for all my rolls. No 'special dice' for leadership or any of those shenanigans. Some things require a high roll, others require a low roll. I use the same dice for all of them. I will also allow my opponent to use them. If he objects to my dice, I kind of expect him to let me use his then, too. I also try to actually 'roll' my dice, and I usually have a dice cup around somewhere, so there's little suspicion of me using some sort of practiced roll on them. One guy I play with picks up his dice and then drops them from about half an inch from the table. If he didn't roll consistently terrible, I'd accuse him of cheating.

I don't slow roll, but I don't speed roll them, either. I give the opponent a chance to look at them. I also consistently remove the FAILURES (for my side), not the successes, so if there is a question, he can look at the remaining dice (and, if I removed some by accident, I've only screwed myself). I remove the misses, then roll again and remove the failed wounds.

My gaming group used to actually be pretty dice promiscuous. You would roll to hit, and to wound, and then your opponent would roll your dice to make saves. We didn't realize other people didn't do that. However, it made you pretty sure that the dice weren't loaded, since the one that rolled high to hit and wound would also probably make the armor save!

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I have some dice with symbols on the 1s and 6s. I always pick the dice up to show my opponent the bottom side after the roll to show which it is. I find the false hope of a "flubbed" roll helps ruin my opponent's concentration. Heh. I'm always honest with them but "oh, you rolled an 11 for leadership! That unit's toast!!" "Nope, it's a 6; see?" "%{€£]* you"

I'd literally pack up and play someone else half way through..
On a side note we had a guy try this bull at a tourney.. And he was dead serious it was a legit tactic..
The cheers everyone have when the TO took half his points away restored my faith in humanity!

I have some rules for dice for myself:

1. Always use dice that look completely different from your opponent.
2. Always use dice with contrasting colors to make reading them easy.
3. All dice that leave the table must be re-rolled, always.

From my opponents, I ask three things from their dice.

1. Roll where I can see it.
2. Explain if a "special" pip is a 1 or a 6 before rolling.
3. Do not use different dice where one has a symbol for 1, and another has a symbol for 6, in the same roll.

 Ailaros wrote:
1.) It's a game, you can use whatever dice you want. It would probably be best if they weren't loaded, but otherwise there's nothing strictly wrong with them.

2.) Whenever I play with someone whose dice I can't easily read, I burn down an orphanage. I am not the only one who does this.

Please, think of the children.

Please.

Just use easily-readable dice.

I agree.

If you're using strange dice that I think have any remote chance of being loaded, I'll request we both pull from the same pool of dice and you let me pick your dice for you before you roll

Dice which are hard to read are just annoying. I'm not immediately adverse to using dice with written numbers vs dots, but there's no doubt that dots are the easiest when rolling large numbers of dice to quickly identify successes and failures, especially if the numbers are written in some strange and/or fancy script.

Just dice, doesnt matter what style etc. As with everything else in this game. Do whatever.

I don't care if my opponent picks my dice or uses my dice.

Some people don't like if you touch their dice but then how could you ever check to see if they were loaded? anyone here not let people use or touch their dice?

I agree with easily readable dice as well. As a consideration for your opponent. With close friends and a slow game, perhaps strange and wonderful dice.

I used to use the GW white ones. Then I realised I kept losing them because a lot of players use it too. So I switched to another colour. I avoided the swirl ones and the clear types as I have a hard time seeing them as well, when rolling multiple dice.

And yep, removing the failure rolls, like what was mentioned, helps to ensure fair play.

 Inquisitor Bob wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I have some dice with symbols on the 1s and 6s. I always pick the dice up to show my opponent the bottom side after the roll to show which it is. I find the false hope of a "flubbed" roll helps ruin my opponent's concentration. Heh. I'm always honest with them but "oh, you rolled an 11 for leadership! That unit's toast!!" "Nope, it's a 6; see?" "%{€£]* you"

I'd literally pack up and play someone else half way through..
On a side note we had a guy try this bull at a tourney.. And he was dead serious it was a legit tactic..
The cheers everyone have when the TO took half his points away restored my faith in humanity!

As above. Use symbols all you want, but having them on both sides, even when different, s a dick move

We actually instituted a tournament rule at our club for 40k that players must use "hosue" dice, i.e. GW dice cubes that we supply. Only if their opponent agrees can they use their own dice. This way the onus is on the opponent to be happy with your dice, you dont have an automatic" right" to use them. This was put in place after a fair few complaints of unclear dice, confusion over symbols on 1s and 6s, etc.

I love fancy dice, but object to overtly similar symbols. A skull on the 'one' means that the other symbols should all be alphanumeric.

Other than that, you could mark your dice ABCDEF if you wanted, as long as you may it clear that Aces were low.

I'd advocate against using weird, unclear dice unless you spend time before each game to clarify which weird symbol means what.

Overall it might be very uncomfortable for your opponent to watch you roll your somewhat unclear dice and not see the numbers you're getting from them. I just think that more simple dice with say, one symbol on 6 or 1 are much 'healthier' for the competition and those weird, funny ones are much better for things such as pen and paper RPGs.

 Mythra wrote:
I don't care if my opponent picks my dice or uses my dice.

Some people don't like if you touch their dice but then how could you ever check to see if they were loaded? anyone here not let people use or touch their dice?

There's one guy at my local store that is almost manic about other people not using his dice but he uses the standard GW dice and I haven't seen him making a disproportionatly large amount of good rolls so I don't make a fuss about it, although it is a little annoying when there's 100 or so of his dice on the table compared to my 25 ehen I need to roll 40 shots and have to roll in batches rather than grabbing a few of his and getting it all done at once.

I've got different kinds of dice, though they're all pips-sided ones without special symbols. The ones I have the most of (and so I use for the bigger rolls most of the time) I'm getting concerned wether they roll properly or not, as I tend to be pretty darned lucky. I usually offer using my dice to my opponent so it doesn't affect the game too much, should they really be not correctly balanced dice.

Never mix dice with a symbol for both 1 and 6, or two sets of dice, one with a symbol for 1, the other with a symbol for 6.

Clear numbers is also desirable.

If you are using dice with symbols, I might ask to have a look just to see what the symbol is representing.

After all my years of D&D, I actually prefer the numerical d6. It's easier to tell at a quick glance instead of having to count dots. Then again, I'm lazy .

I'm fine with anything as long as I know it beforehand.

I'm not letting you roll your 'lucky dice' though, no matter how much you insist.

Never mix, and nice contrasting colours.
I'm colour blind so I find some combinations very hard to read.
And no metal dice either, they are hell on terrain and paint jobs.
I've had several paint jobs damaged by enthusiastically rolled metal dice.
Not cool.

 Minion_of_Gozer wrote:
After all my years of D&D, I actually prefer the numerical d6. It's easier to tell at a quick glance instead of having to count dots. Then again, I'm lazy .

I dont count, just pattern recognise. Even easier than deciphering a value

(its actually why road signs in the UK are in proper case - it was determined very early on that, for place names especially, people can pattern recognise a name they know / are looking out for much quicker than trying to actually parse the word(s) of the name. If you put the names all in upper case, a form very few people would use themselves, this pattern isnt stored and so it takes longer to read and understand)

nosferatu1001 wrote:
(its actually why road signs in the UK are in proper case - it was determined very early on that, for place names especially, people can pattern recognise a name they know / are looking out for much quicker than trying to actually parse the word(s) of the name. If you put the names all in upper case, a form very few people would use themselves, this pattern isnt stored and so it takes longer to read and understand)

One of the reasons it is so hard to navigate anywhere that does not share our alphabet.

"No, you wanted upside down squiggle dot man being flayed by bees, not slightly leaning over squiggle dot man being chased by hummingbirds!"

I always take away failed rolls from big batches.

That means you can be quite quick, without arousing any suspicion.

Then you can count up the remaining dice which have stayed in plain view...

To the two/three guys saying my stuff was trolling...I always show the difference before the game as well. Two different sets of custom chessex dice: one has a store logo for the ones, a different group has explosions for the sixes. In the heat of the game, people forget, then get elated and subsequently bummed when they've misremembered which is which and I point it out. Not once have I ever lied about a siding, and always let them check. If you still think it makes me an unplayable opponent, you're probably a PITA, stuffy bore of an opponent, and chances are I wouldn't want to play against you either.