So I used to have a veritable 5 gallon bucket of gaming dice, accumulated over a lifetime of playing games, until I became a D6 system only cultist and gave all non-six-siders away to others who wanted to get into 5e. Gathering this pile of dice was a long involved quest, as the only way to really get them was if they came in the basic becmi boxes for example for my earliest sets, or leaving the hills and hollers to venture into the paved sodom and gamorra territories to a large game store like the rusty scabbard. I hate THAT worse than I hate finding out the moonshine was made with rye and not corn. Regardless, they were never cheap; excepting the last 5-10 years a set of dice, usually in a plastic tube, were always 6-15 dollars, and in the last 5 years 3 local game stores ran by fellow hobby goers popped up and disappeared in that span where a bin of random dice could be sorted through and piecemeal purchased at 25 cents a die or 75 cents a die. I had thought that this state of affairs was normal.

Now my oldest boy is off at college, and he calls and wants some dice because he joined a group playing 5e (yes there IS a furry playing a tiefling, thats normal for a communist temple such as a university or major news outlet) but I had already donated my non-sixers to the needy and unwashed plebes because I am a just and merciful god. He said no worries he'd get some anyway, then the next time I spoke to him I said send me pics of your dice, and the boy goes "All 140 of them? like individually?" and I said "you got the what now boy?"

He got like 18-20 full sets of fairly sexy looking dice in one package, I said how much, he says like 20 bucks plus shipping. I call bullshit, so I bother to google about as a man in his cups might, and sure enough, you can get bulk packages of dice dirt cheap, only the rarest most gimmicky dice made of strange things in strange ways carry the prices i was familiar with...

When in the name of tiamats 6th tit did this happen? Why the hell did I never think to google for dice before? I've googled up deals on obscure russian rifle kits and even old chevy trim, how did I not think to do the same wrt dice? Am I retarded? Is this me?

Don't get me wrong, cheap bulk dice deals are great and I wish such had been a thing from the start, but I got to say I'm kinda miffed about having quested for dice for so long and for such costs when now you can drop the price of a drive thru long johns meal and get enough dice to save or die an entire orphanage well into their young adult years.

Is this a result of 5e's growth and reach, creating a demand that increases supply and lowering cost?

As an aside, I told the boy to try Pendragon while he's there and he simply said "no". I'm like "don't come home until you've tried Pendragon, non-negotiable, I will disown you".

He's got dice. I'll buy and send him Pendragon myself if I must. Or actually, once he's got some 5e under his belt, sending him lion & dragon and dark albion might be better.

Anyway, dice man, I feel like I've been mining for decades, finding gemstone dice here and there, only to exit the tunnels and see the town sitting on a pile of dice and kicking them around like worthless trash. I feel somehow cheated, robbed, bamboozled, prostate-checked-at-a-dental-appointment.

We sour puss now.

I went on a dice quest a while ago. Bulk dice are cheap-

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pound+of+dice&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

But I wanted some really ugly old school dice. So I went to the old man hisself, Zocchi and got the appropriately named "Ugly Dice" set.

https://www.gamescience.com/Gamescience%E2%84%A2-Starter-Set-Ugly-Dice-_p_16.html

Unfortunatley, the random gem dice set has been out of stock for quite a while, and I want to supplement my ugly dice with some sharp edged gem dice in random colors.

Those ugly dice really take me back.  I remember dice that looked like that that came with a crayon to color in the numbers.  Probably not a good idea with Gamescience dice though - it might mar their mathematical perfection.

jeebus christo i reckon those are ugly dice, the kind you have to use a crayon on lol.

ETA
While i'm on the subject I recently, well yesterday, sorted my dice, I prior to this had them grouped up by color with 1 being a clearly distinct different color and stashed in glass jars that had once had spices, so the sea salt jar had all the blue dice with a clear dice for the wild die, the cinnamon had the red dice with a green one for wild die, and so on, so you can let players pick a jar and get their preferred color of 7-12 d6 plus wild die.

I'd found that this was wasted, they still want to deconstruct my arrangement and piece together from the available ones their own pile of 5-10 plus wild die. So yesterday I just sorted into two piles, a bag of white with black pip classic monopoly style, about 30 or so of them, and a large plastic skin cream jar with all the rest. I figure just let them enjoy doing what they always do anyway at the games start. They tend to want to use the monoploy type dice as wild die anyway.

I also thought we'd play test a new wild die function, having all 6's explode and all 1's tossed, and see how that swings the game. So far in my self only tests it yields a somewhat flatter bell curve, you get the extremes of possibilities a little more often than usual.

Anyway I feel I should state here that my favorite dice are the colored and translucent kind, like a partially see through jelly look to them, although traditional dice with pips in colors other than white also get me excited. I find I dislike the solid color with cream swirl dice that my wife thinks are so great. She simply has shit taste in dice and I'll stand by that.

I don't get the dice obsession. I have about the bare minimum needed to play any system I use regularly; a few d20s, a dozen-ish d10s, a score-ish of d6s (that double as monster counters in D&D), and a couple of d12s, d8s and d4s.

Others bring giant bags; mine fit in a half-sandwich ziplock. It's not like they ever use more than a few of the same over and over... they just feel the need to drag all the extras everywhere.

I just don't get it.

Always have to have plenty for everyone and assume no one else has any, then of course many get lost or borrowed and never returned or given away. Dice and ammo; always bring plenty of both. and mountain dew.

If you don't have loads of dice, how can you build 3' d6 towers, to show the GM that you're getting bored and itching for some action?

Quote from: Godfather Punk on March 10, 2021, 08:57:29 AM
If you don't have loads of dice, how can you build 3' d6 towers, to show the GM that you're getting bored and itching for some action?

It's not until they do this with d4's that you should throw them a bone and roll on the wrong encounter table.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 10, 2021, 03:04:03 AMBut I wanted some really ugly old school dice. So I went to the old man hisself, Zocchi and got the appropriately named "Ugly Dice" set.

https://www.gamescience.com/Gamescience%E2%84%A2-Starter-Set-Ugly-Dice-_p_16.html

Hey, I have that same set!  Great dice. Haven't bought too many new dice since I got my orange + black GS sets and the ugly dice set. I got some more discounted Gamescience sets for friends and family, but that's it. I am happy with what I've got.

<anal attentive mode>Argh! Ugly dice are not in the correct colors.</anal attentive mode>

Maybe the really valuable "dice" were the Friends We Made Along The Way.

--wait, wait, stop! Put that shotgun down! Yikes! (ka-BLAM) Yiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee....!!!!

Quote from: zend0g on March 10, 2021, 10:44:42 AM
<anal attentive mode>Argh! Ugly dice are not in the correct colors.</anal attentive mode>

If you're talking about the "Holmes set", I also tried to get some Gamscience dice in the matching colors. I got close, but not perfect. Had to get a red D8 instead of a green one.

A bit of insight.

Dice prices have gone up some. Then down. Then up.

Back in the 90s I got my chessex tube of RPG dice, back when the tubes actually has a full set still. For around 10-15$ at gen con. Later I got some more chessex dice in a little box and no-longer a full set, for about 20. Then the price went down to 15 think. Not sure what it is now.

Meanwhile a player I know bought a box of like 80+ dice for 20$. But once he had them I recognized why. These were cast-offs. Mis-cast dice that did not quite pass muster, or in a few cases very did not pass muster. Chessex apparently sells 1lb bags of 100 dice for 35$ for example. We checked amazon last year and batches of 100 from other companies ranged from 20$ to 30+.

Personally Im usually dubious of bulk dice at those prices knowing that they might just be all miscasts.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on March 10, 2021, 02:40:30 AM
Don't get me wrong, cheap bulk dice deals are great and I wish such had been a thing from the start, but I got to say I'm kinda miffed about having quested for dice for so long and for such costs when now you can drop the price of a drive thru long johns meal and get enough dice to save or die an entire orphanage well into their young adult years.

Used to love LJS in the 80's. Now I can't find one that doesn't suck. What happened? Did they change the type of fish (i.e. cod to tilapia?)

Concerning dice, my favorites are a set of "just small enough" dice (about 3/8" wide.)  Can't recall where I bought them, and everyone always asks. I also love the smaller d6's that came with my Traveller 1981 box set. Not the tiny d6's that come in the WizKids Pirates packs, those are way too small.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on March 10, 2021, 08:47:57 AM
Always have to have plenty for everyone and assume no one else has any, then of course many get lost or borrowed and never returned or given away. Dice and ammo; always bring plenty of both. and mountain dew.

Yes.  I've got about 20 dice that I routinely use when running a game.  Then I've got a small tackle box full of additional dice for players.  New players without dice.  Forgetful players that didn't bring them (and a spare pre-gen character for them too).  Extra dice for when that one player suddenly needs 6d8 and  the game will go a lot faster if they roll them all at once.  My dice box also has pencils and a sharpener in it.  That's probably the most used thing in the box.  Plus, while spare d6s makes great monsters, the spare d12s that get set on the table after several fights of d6s really gets their attention.