Hey RPGamers

THE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE!!! Please share the project as much as you can. We really put a lot of hard work into this!

Drumroll...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139197951/dragon-bones-metal-designer-gaming-dice

My name is Alex I am a 17 year old student from England and I will be launching a Kickstarter soon... I know what you thinking, "Isn't everyone!"

Yes this is true and there are countless board/miniature games on kickstarter for you too choose from. So I'm not going to make a board game. What have I made then? Dragon Bones!! Not the ones you collect from the corpse of a fallen flying lizard but my metal precision gaming dice.

If you are like me, you like dice, in fact you love them and what really makes you happy so some dice that look cool and feel great. So that's why I have designed "Dragon Bones".

Dragons Bones are metal precision CNC machined, laser engraved, themed designer gaming dice.

Dragon Bones measure 16mm and are made from solid metal. They will be available in a range of metals, primarily they will be available in aluminium with the ability to be anodised in various colours. We hope to release the other metals as stretch goals.

We proudly present the prototypes for Dragon Bones! These are the first prototypes and will be improved further but they still look great! Made of aluminium anodised in several colours.



All constructive opinions, suggestions and questions are welcome!!

Thank You

Alex Atkinson

Email: Ulfsarkgames@outlook.com

This is a dragon bone



But in all seriousness (mostly), wouldn't a metal d4 be potentially hazardous? I think there is a good reason dice have been made out of plastic.

Quote from: JeremyR;739665But in all seriousness (mostly), wouldn't a metal d4 be potentially hazardous? I think there is a good reason dice have been made out of plastic.

Yeah, cost.

Metal dice already exist, I own a set of 12mm ones. They're decent enough, just hard to read in poor lighting or from a distance, which is why I don't tend to use them. I have seen 5mm metal dice (And didn't buy them, because they'd be a choking hazard for children, but really no more than any other dice).

Anyway, the concept sounds nice, and even though I don't tend to like "busy" designs like Q Workshop dice, yours are pretty good and I could see myself pledging. For your first kickstarter, keep it simple; don't get carried away with many different options, just stick to the basics, else fulfillment admin will eat up your profit margins.

I'd like to see the prototypes though.

I would really like some d10's in that Dwarf style, but do not even consider doing that for this project, save it for the future.

Good luck, keep us informed.

Quote from: Ladybird;739669Yeah, cost.

Metal dice already exist, I own a set of 12mm ones. They're decent enough, just hard to read in poor lighting or from a distance, which is why I don't tend to use them. I have seen 5mm metal dice (And didn't buy them, because they'd be a choking hazard for children, but really no more than any other dice).

Anyway, the concept sounds nice, and even though I don't tend to like "busy" designs like Q Workshop dice, yours are pretty good and I could see myself pledging. For your first kickstarter, keep it simple; don't get carried away with many different options, just stick to the basics, else fulfillment admin will eat up your profit margins.

I'd like to see the prototypes though.

I would really like some d10's in that Dwarf style, but do not even consider doing that for this project, save it for the future.

Good luck, keep us informed.

Thanks for the positive feedback about the designs.
I would agree with the Q workshop statement.
And thanks for answering that question for me.

The prototypes should arrive next week. Futhermore, thanks for the advice with kickstarter, I was only planning to do D6s in the various metals and only a few designs. Then maybe launch another one in the future.

Ill be posting links and everything the moment it is up, hope to see you pledge.

I doubt very, very much I would ever buy metal dice.  Sometimes I play on my, or someone else's, dining room table; I'm old enough and have been working long enough that it's actually a nice dining room table.  I'm sure as hell not going to throw chunks of metal at it.

Despite that I'm not a customer, I do honestly wish you good luck, though.

Like the others, I'm not really a customer for this product. I avoid metal dice because I don't want to damage the surface I'm rolling on. That said, the design seems nice along with the price points.

If you can make a good video that shows off the dice, or at least the designs, you likely have a better chance of getting funding. I seem to recall that Kickstarters with videos are 85 percent more likely to reach their goals, but please don't quote me on the number.

I would suggest Googling "successful Kickstarters" and read over the blogs and news articles to find helpful information. Triple-check the post for spelling and grammar errors. People will judge your product based on the quality of the project's page.

On deadlines, give yourself weeks of breathing room in case something goes wrong. Shipping containers break. Machine shops can lose power. You don't want people angry with you for things outside of your control.

Be realistic about your possible problems at the end. That is not the place to crack jokes or say "we can handle it." Business plan for what can hurt them all the time. Showing you can do that will make people more likely to give you money.

Check with a tax professional to make sure that you understand all the laws regarding how you can use Kickstarter funds. Make sure that you spend the money at the right times for your country -- failure to do so can lead to massive tax penalties that eat into your funds.

Make sure you set the goal high enough to pay Kickstarter its cut. Make sure that shipping rates won't eat your funding alive. Take a look at shipping rates for your category in January and then compare them to now. Assume there will be an increase of the same amount from now to June. Use that to plan on your costs.

On that, make sure your packing materials will protect your dice and the objects around them when shipping. You don't want to have to send out items multiple times because the heavy metal ripping open the packaging used for shipping.

Congratulations on your Kickstarter, and I wish you good fortune!

@Old Geezer and ForthrightRay

I totally understand your point of not wanting to damage the surface. When I play Dungeons and Dragons I always put a sheet or table cloth to protect the table from pen and pencil marks. So this could be a way to prevent it. Also the dice are doing to have rounded edges. So its not like your throwing a pointed object at it. I understand where your coming from but I believe it is a simple problem to cover come.

Thank you for all the advice about the Kickstarter! I have taken mostly all of these things into account. The video is being made soon before the launch so that will boost our chances. I have been researching successful Kickstarters
and lots of other stuff. But overall thanks for the good luck.

Looks interesting, i tagged it to let me know once you go live so i can track how it goes and see the stretch goal options as you unlock them(im curious to see what you have planned for lettering designs and such as the goals are met).

Quote from: Broken-Serenity;741218Looks interesting, i tagged it to let me know once you go live so i can track how it goes and see the stretch goal options as you unlock them(im curious to see what you have planned for lettering designs and such as the goals are met).

Thanks for the kind words, we will have several design stretch goals and different metals too.

Sweet, those look really nice.

Quote from: Ladybird;741241Sweet, those look really nice.

Thank you so much! Hope you support our kickstarter.

The prototypes are in the post by Fedex and should arrive by Monday. So I will make the video and finalise the Kickstarter page and then get it approved all by the end of next week.

THE KICKSTARTER IS LIVE!!! Please share the project as much as you can. We really put a lot of hard work into this!

Drumroll...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139197951/dragon-bones-metal-designer-gaming-dice

I'm not sure about the roman ones - the rune border on the other dice are explicitly in a fantasy language, so they can be like whatever. But the roman ones are actual numerals, so the borders as they are are kinda meaningless. I'd have either put some latin on them - certa et incerta, say - or incorporated the number into the border somehow.

But I've already voted with my wallet for these to happen.