11mm Brass Dice

I got these 11mm tiny brass dice off Amazon, and I am very impressed with them. They are a touch smaller than a standard plastic 12mm die, but are far heavier, though not as heavy as a full 16mm metal die. They still have a good weight, and I would recommend a dice tower or large neoprene pad for rolling them on, but they are great little dice.

The only difference is that they are an oriental layout instead of an occidental layout. With the oriental layout, the two faces are over-under instead of corner-to-corner. The pips are slightly different from the picture, too, slightly larger but uniform in size on all sides. It took me a little while to get used to counting the 2 sides, but once I did, it was a faster read of the dice since the 2 is a very unique face. Studies have shown that they are easier to read quickly since the 2 and 3 sides are very different. In a traditional die, the difference between the three and the two is the placement of a single dot, whereas in oriental dice the pattern is entirely different.

If you think of it as "half of a 4," split right down the middle, it makes more sense.

I use them with one of these mini-dice towers, and they make a satisfying sound and roll very well through them. The one shown is a touch too deep to reach into, and that annoys me with larger hands, but I just use the tower part and the bottom as a backstop about 8 inches away. I have one of those large gaming mousepads on my table surface, so my play area is metal-die safe.

This smaller tower is small enough to travel with, so that is a plus.

Also, using a dice tower is another solo-play tool since it is harder to cheat rolls, tell myself that was a terrible shake of the dice and it wasn't really a roll, and want to reroll the dice. A dice tower roll is fair and final, means a lot more, and makes you put in slightly more effort in rolling, making trying to take back a terrible roll so much more difficult. Yes, I am probably putting micro dings into the wood of the tower, enough to give it character, but not damage it unless I put a hundred million rolls through the thing.

The sound of the roll in the wood is super satisfying, and that aural feedback makes solo play incredibly fun. This is positive feedback, and rolling dice with a tower seems like it is a slight waste of time, but trust me, it is much more fun to roll dice this way and get that ear-pleasing ka-chunk-ka-chunk sound with every roll that is like comfort food for my ears.

I like metal dice since they also have a finality to them. I am far less likely to reroll metal dice than I am plastic ones; I don't know what it is, perhaps the weight and impact of the roll feels greater, and I take it more seriously than a plastic die. If I am rolling a critical miss on 3d6, that feels like a final judgment with metal dice, and I am obliged to not cheat that roll and apply it as it lies. The fact that metal dice also damage surfaces makes me also not want to reroll them, and that special care in rolling them makes me more often play the dice as they lie.

To me, metal dice are the best solo play tools. I will not change a roll when no one else is looking. The roll is final.

So, size, metal, and dice tower aside, what is so cool about these dice? With a small dice tower, these feel like the most random dice I have ever used. I am getting a wide variety of rolls, whereas with some plastic dice I feel are really concentrated around the middle results, the distribution curve feels closer to reality. I am getting a good number of low and high rolls, whereas with some plastic dice I feel they tend to only roll high. I am rolling 17s, 4s, 6s, and 15s regularly, and the distribution of results feels very spread out.

I know most of my rolls are in that middle range due to the bell curve, but with some sets of dice I rarely roll the ending numbers on either side, whereas with these dice I see those results just enough to feel the dice are fair and all numbers are showing up. With some sets of plastic dice, I very rarely see low rolls like 4, 5, or 6. Some plastic dice feel "D&D weighted" for ability score generation, where I am constantly rolling high and wondering why these dice never work well for GURPS, where roll-low is the way we play.

But these dice will regularly roll low or high in equal amounts, and still stick mostly down the middle for the majority of dice rolls. They feel very fair, and with the tower, the rolls feel incredibly fair and random. Larger metal dice are harder to roll since they are inherently more dangerous and weighty, whereas the smaller metal dice feel just right to me. A 16mm solid metal die can ding a book, whereas these feel like they won't do too much damage if they bump into something.

These have larger pips (than what is shown), and they're painted in, too, so they are very readable.

These are my favorite GURPS dice for my Old West campaign. They feel authentic, and while not the classic "cowboy layout" of the occidental dice, the oriental style feels more Hong Kong cinema and action-authentic to me. They look like little side-by-side double-barrel shotgun choke holes, so they have a fun aesthetic to them for this style of cowboy games.

Highly recommended, not too expensive, very satisfying, not too heavy, and the feel of these is very nice. The side-by-side 2 faces are an interesting quirk, but not too hard to get used to. Also, the antique look of brass dice is very authentic for my Wild West game.

Dice Towers

https://www.amazon.com/Cherry-Dice-Tower-Tray-Tennessee/dp/B0BCX9VZ6G/

This is my dice tower, while there are many like it, this one is mine.

There is nothing else like a real, natural, made-in-the-USA, handcrafted wooden dice tower. This is not plastic; it's not cheap, and it's solidly made in a woodshop. Warning, this is expensive, and it is the price of a costly gamebook. It is worth it so much, though.

This dice tower is why I game.

This isn't cheap plastic; it's more like a furniture purchase, specifically for gaming. It stores well as the tower is not connected to the base, and it fits perfectly in the tray for storage and travel. This is costly, yes, but buying a premium gaming accessory will encourage you to use it, and making it a quality item that lasts will prevent you from buying junk that keeps breaking.

The wood on this is thick! This will last a few hundred years, unlike some of the plastic and fiberboard trash I see these days. It is also made of natural wood, stained, and is a beautiful item.

The noise this thing makes is pure happiness. My sister, when she visits, loves the sounds this makes when the dice tumble through and make those thunk-a-lunk dice on wooden sounds that resonate through the tower, and it is one of the most pleasing sounds I can ever imagine in gaming. To make those die roll "sound effects" with every roll is so soothing, fun, and enjoyable, it makes me want to play more just to hear these affirming, positive, happy sounds of dice on wood.

When they spill out, it is so much better than a VTT animation. This is real. This is something happening, like a live event, something real and tangible.

Using a dice tower puts weight and impact into my rolls. It is hard to "just cheat and roll again" to get the result I wanted once they spill out of the chute. Rolling flat on a table is so easy to say, "Well, I did not roll them well enough, so this horrible roll is invalid, and I can roll again."

Rolling again and again ruins solo play.

I am sorry! I do that! If I did not roll the dice well, I will reroll them, and once I do that, doing it again and again is too easy a terrible habit to slip into. This is one of my gaming sins, and I confess. I know this ruins my game, as it's one more step into fantasy fulfillment and "just making things happen that you want."

From that point, I quit the game because there is no challenge, and it was boring to play solo if "all that happens is what you want to happen."

With GURPS, not taking a roll back affects balance, and it especially hurts self-control rolls. If my character succumbs to a weakness, that is a key narrative point that should never be taken back, since, well, I got points for that! I earned extra points for my character, and if I cheat on the self-control rolls, then I am cheating the system; those disadvantages should not have given me all those valuable character points.

Dice towers discourage cheating yourself in solo play.

If an enemy rolls a hit, don't take that back. If I miss or roll a critical failure, don't take that back. A dice tower makes it much harder to cheat yourself, since there is a positive auditory reinforcement, a slight amount of time taken for the dice to fall, and the result being truly random and not "take-backable."

Also, a dice tower, since it takes a little more time than a table roll, will reduce the number of times you roll, and force you to "only roll for things that matter." I have played d20 games where I got into a quick series of a dozen d20 rolls, trying and retrying the same thing until I got the result I wanted. Like teaspoons of sugar in a cup of coffee, it is too easy to keep "spooning it in" and ruining the drink. There is a theory of "only making important dice rolls" in a game, and a dice tower helps make that happen.

There are some things you should not roll, and the referee should just decide them and move the game along. Don't drop those dice in the tower unless you really should. Dropping the dice in is a contract with yourself that this roll means something important, and it will not be taken back.

If you play solo or even with a group, the dice tower is something a VTT can never replicate or do, and it is a wonderful, almost delightful gaming accessory that I can never game without.