My Introduction to the World of Dice

“No, it’s okay I don’t need any more dice.”

– No one ever (or so I’ve been told)

My first time at my boyfriend’s apartment, I browsed his bookshelf and saw a goblet full of dice of different shapes and colors. At one point I asked, “why do you have so many dice?” And that was when I got my first lesson of table top role playing games, an introduction to dice. They add randomness and improvisation to a game and are instrumental in building a character and playing as that character.

How to Player 2 cartoon version of Kat posing with dice

A standard polyhedral dice set consists of seven dice. And in case you have the same question that I had – the answer is apparently yes, you do need them all. Here is a recap of my lesson in the world of polyhedral dice.

D4

introduction to dice purple d4 die on pink background

Holding this d4 die with my fingers I thought, “why are there more than one number on each face?” How do you know what number is rolled? I was told to roll the die and I was confused even more. One face of the die isn’t even on top! I was then told to look at the sides of the point facing upward and then it all made sense. Each corner/point of the die is allocated a number. So if you roll, the point that is standing up will have the same number on all three exposed sides. Mind blown.

D6

Ah, a classic d6. It’s the standard die that I know and recognize. Each side is from one to six. Nothing crazy here. The most outrageous thing here is that sometimes a d6 will have the numeric characters on the sides instead of dots… ooooooh.

D8

I can’t quite explain why, but I just like the shape of a d8. Maybe because it reminds me of the munny currency from Kingdom Hearts (one of the very few video games I’ve played.) As far as the composition? It’s an eight sided die with 1-8 on each side. I kind of want to call this die the “date” die. If you grew up during the time of this type of text speak you would read this that way too. Don’t h8.

D10

My initial thought of a d10 was that it kind of looks like one of those tops that I played with as a kid (I realize I may be dating myself a bit here.) Thought this was pretty self explanatory. Ten-sided die with a number 1-10 on each side. But here’s the catch, you won’t see a “10” on this die. That’s because a 10 is labeled as “0”. Confused? Don’t worry, I was too.

D10… again?

My thought exactly. I’m sure there’s an official name for this individual die. If you know it, please enlighten me and submit it for my running glossary.

I learned that it’s basically another 10-sided die. But this time with two digit numbers on each side in increments of 10 starting with 00 and ending with 90. This is usually rolled along with the previously mentioned d10 to be combined to create a number from 1 to 100 (making this dual dice roll a d100 roll).

d100 rolls

A d100 roll is when you roll both d10s at the same time. And simply add the numbers together. But don’t forget! That single digit “0” isn’t a zero, it’s a ten. Don’t discount your own roll (or your self worth as you, too, are a 10 <3).

Let me give an example. If you rolled an “0” on one die and a “40” on the other, you rolled a 50.

Here is another example. You rolled a “7” an one die and a “00” on the other. You rolled a 7.

And if you rolled a “1” and a “00” and you’re celebrating thinking you got 100, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you didn’t – you rolled a measly 1. The only way to roll a 100 is if you rolled “0” and “90”.

D12

I’m sure the d12 die is often overlooked in explanations because at this point of my lesson I’m pretty sure my response was “yeah yeah yeah I got it”. It’s a twelve sided die (from 1 to 12). Onto the next.

D20

The die most connected to Dungeons & Dragons. It is the die that you see on most D&D fan merch. It is probably the most used die in D&D. It is the Bat Signal for Dungeon Masters around the globe. Okay maybe not that last one, but you get what I’m saying. The d20 die is the die that most people think of when they think of table top games and Dungeons & Dragons specifically. You roll it for initiative. You roll it for stat checks. You roll it just for the sake of rolling it because it is just that satisfying.

And there you have it folks! The main seven dies of a standard polyhedral dice set. And, of course, please take my very loose notes with a big ole grain of salt. Are there more dice out there that I probably could have listed? Sure, but I’m not going to. If you want you can do an image search for d100 die and see what looks like a ball with numbers. But seven is enough for me to keep track of.

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