The Best Way to Roll Dice

We all have our dice superstitions.

Ways we jiggle the dice before throwing them. The right height to drop them from. Whether we toss them up in the air or roll them straight down the table.

We probably developed these superstitions over thousands of RPG hours or from that one D&D session where we rolled them just right and landed a massive critical hit.

But what is the best way?

At the craps table in Las Vegas, dice must be rolled from a distance and hit the back wall to be considered a valid roll. The dice are also weighted and measured perfectly so the results come out as randomly as possible.

But are dice rolls truly random? One scientific study showed that dice rolls aren’t as random as you think they are. The best predictor for the outcome of a roll of the dice is the initial position of the die. Rolled with the 1 face up, the most likely outcome is a 1, according to a story from Inside Science.

"[The] top face will always be more probable,” said Thomasz Kapitaniak, a Polish researcher who authored the study.

So, if you’re aiming for a crit in tonight’s Dungeons & Dragons game, keep your die 20-side up and you might just have a better chance of landing that big hit.

And what are the best dice?

We decided to look and find out.

Standard plastic dice sold by Chessex, Q Workshop and tons of others have lots of variations due to the manufacturing process.

Dice are made by casting plastic into a mold. After that, the entire die is painted to make sure the numbers are filled in.

Then the dice are put into a tumbler for polishing, which removes the paint (except in the tiny crevices showing the numbers) and leaves the dice shiny and pretty. The tumbling process also leaves the ever-so-slightly rounded edges you’re familiar with.

Because the dice are physically worn down, that process also leaves dice with small technical imperfections that could influence the outcome of your rolls.

Those “evil” dice that always seem to roll low and the “lucky” set that seem to roll 20s more often? It might not be superstition. They could have worn faces from manufacturing that may cause just enough of a difference to affect your rolls.

Precision dice, on the other hand, are manufactured to keep from having those imperfections and thus roll more randomly. They have sharp edges and typically are sold without paint. (A plus to those of us who remember filling in the numbers with a crayon on old school dice sets.)

The dice have not been painted or put in a tumbler, so they have neat, sharp edges. They are designed to roll more randomly.

But do they?

We decided to test them out.

We took a d20 from a set of regular RPG dice as well as one from a set of precision dice. Then we rolled them through our handy Dungeon Crate dice tower from Advanced Deployment in an attempt to get them to roll as much as possible.

Here are the results:

We rolled each die 100 times. On a d20, there are 20 possible rolls. (Obviously.) If the dice were truly random, each result would come up 5 times.

The results from our (admittedly limited) test were far from completely random, but they didn’t deviate too much.

Almost every result had a deviation less than two, which felt pretty good to us.

Only two results from the standard dice deviated more than that. We only rolled one 6, and we rolled eight 9s.

With the precision dice, there were actually more deviations. We rolled eight 3s, only two 6s and nine 16s.

If you want to get technical, our test showed the precision dice were actually less random.

But just a glance at the graph shows that both dice were pretty random. If you extended this out over 1,000 rolls or 10,000 rolls, these results would become even closer to accurate.

So, we ask again: What’s the best way to roll dice? And what are the best dice to roll?

We say it’s however and whatever you decide to roll.

Get your dice on at Dungeoncrate.com

February Crate Overview

We love dice.

And since you’re a fan of RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, we’re sure you do, too.

That’s why we chose “Dice Love” as this month’s crate theme. Everything in this month’s Dungeon Crate is all about helping you roll.

Let’s dive in.

Leather Dice Tray

We dig a good dice tray, especially if you’re on a table or other surface that’s not friendly to rolling dice. But dice trays we’ve had before are a pain to haul around.

Enter this little leather tray from Binding Time. It snaps together to make a bag or dice carrier, then you can pull it apart and snap it back together to make a square tray. Awesome, right? Each one was handmade just for you.

Dice Cup

Sometimes you just need to roll a d20. But sometimes you have a handful of dice (advantage plus damage dice plus bonus dice) and you need something more. Stuff ‘em into this Dungeon Crate dice cup and let them roll!

Plus, isn’t it kind of exciting to rattle those dice around and dramatically dump them onto the table? We think so.

We also love this dice cup from Koplow Games for higher level characters because rolling 12d6 with just your hands isn’t the easiest thing to do.

Green and Gold Dice

This wouldn’t be a dice crate without some actual dice. Each crate comes with a set of green and gold dice from our pals at Chessex.

Dice Dungeon

Bad dice! That thing has been rolling too many critical failures? Lock it up!

Show that die that, unless it starts shaping up, it’s going to stay in there.

Or, you know, protect your favorite die by keeping it in a safe place.

Whether punishing the bad dice or using it as a cool carrier for a favorite miniature, we love this little dice dungeon from Advanced Deployment.
  

Potion and Heart Tokens

Sure, you can keep track of things on your character sheet, but where’s the fun in that?

With these acrylic tokens from Advanced Deployment, you can physically assign potions to players or keep track of health.

Adventure

Welcome to the Carrionholme.

This hideout is home to a coven of three hags who have bound slimes, oozes and puddings to their service inside their partially submerged dungeon.

Designed for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition and 4 level-8 characters, Carrionholme is a creepy, gross place where adventurers will have to keep their wits about them.

Adventure-a-week provides yet another excellent one-off dungeon crawl, this time complete with gross trophies, creepy enemies and deadly traps.

Using Fantasy Themed Metal Coins in Your RPG

One of the inspirations for starting Dungeon Crate was a trip to GenCon in 2015. I loved the vendor floor and was fascinated by the fantasy coins I found on the tables of Shire Post Mint and Rare ElementsFoundry. I am proud to now have both companies providing fantasy coins to subscribers of Dungeon Crate.

How Do You Use Coins in Your RPG Games?

There are many ways to use real coinage at your gaming sessions. If you’re a fan of RPG accessories, you may already use tokens or other forms of tabletop notation. Bringing in beautifully struck, genuine metal coins offers a real-world element that enhances the gaming experience.

Below is a list of how you can incorporate metal fantasy coins into your game.

1.    Use as Inspiration tokens

2.    Flip a coin to make a heads or tails decision

3.    Offer a coin as a reward for outstanding play at the end of the session

4.    Gift coins to players and Dungeon Masters

5.    Use coins to mark treasure locations on a game table map

6.    Incorporate them into an adventure as a signet for safe passage

7.    Use coins as currency in tavern games of chance

8.    Have players use real coins to represent personal treasure

Using Coins as a Representation of Character Treasure

Something that I’m experimenting with in my own D&D group is using coinage to represent a character’s personal treasure. Maybe not their entire wealth, but what they carry on them. It makes for fun gaming as the players collect and exchange coins for everything from common items to magic weapons. They can exchange coins for jewels to gain more room in their coin purses. They can also wager them at the local tavern’s game table or even lose them to the occasional pick pocket or thief.

The Dungeon Master/Game Master acts as a sort of banker, coming up with an exchange rate, coin denominations, regions on where each coin is from, and other details. This does take a bit of work if you discard the standard PP, GP, SP, EP, and CP mechanic, and use a more universal mechanic. This can be as simple as using the word “gold” to represent something like how the English use the word “pound” for their dollar. Break it down from gold to half gold, quarter gold, etc., using existing denominations on the coins and coming up with your own with coins that don’t.

Coins Become Part of the Adventure

Doling out found treasure and splitting up party treasure becomes even more fun when comparing a variety of metal coins. I find this tends to make treasure more valuable to players. And of course, collecting and spending coins is simply fun.

Incorporating coins can be a pricey venture, but there are several coin manufacturers that make a wide variety of metal coins for game-play in volume, at affordable prices. Some manufacturers create thematic coins such as Dwarf, Elf, Spartan, and Pirate themed coins. Others like Rare Elements Foundry offer highly detailed artistic coins that have versatile fantasy themes. Shire Post Mint offers licensed coinage where you can buy coins from Conan the Barbarian, Lord of the Rings, and Game of Thrones.

Whether you’re a collector or just want to add spice to your game, I hope you have as much fun as I do using real coins. If you subscribe to Dungeon Crate, then you’ll enjoy metal coins throughout the year. I encourage you to patronize our coin vendors and check out what else they offer.

Adventurers be warned! Collecting fantasy coins is addicting.