Casting Shadows

Today’s Question:

August 1: Dice, dice apps, or diceless, how do you roll?

At this point, I cannot dissemble about the fact that I like dice. I may even like them beyond their role in the games I play. I have and use dice apps. I have and have enjoyed diceless games, but it is with dice that my allegiance lies. Dice are how I roll.

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Over the last few years I have learned enough about dice apps and how their results are generated and about the statistical reliability of physical dice that I know my preference is nothing more than preference, I also need to recognize that how strong it is. I trust a trusted set of dice far more than I trust a reliable algorithm. I don’t trust all dice, but for ease, speed, and thrill, I have yet to see the app that could keep pace.

I don’t just prefer to roll dice, I enjoy it. I find it is almost a portal allowing some sort of connection with my character beyond the determination of results. Long ago running Call of Cthulhu, or playing Palladium Fantasy, or in more recent days running Mythras (the game formerly known as RuneQuest 6^th Edition) each attempt to translate a tome, or pry a detail from a suspect, each clash of arms, each desperate defense, is a die roll transformed in my imagination to visceral reality. The dice are the vehicle to transport us to lands of unpredictable fiction, or the window which reveals what transpires there.

I started gaming in 1983. I did not get my own set of dice until 1986. Now, with no idea how many dice and dice sets I have gathered over the years, it is hard to imagine playing for three whole years without a single set of my own. It would have been longer if the local bookstore hadn’t gotten a small shipment of TSR products and a limited number of dice sets…once. Until that blessed event, every time we got together to play, I had to borrow mismatched, old, and unwanted dice, or we had to delay our rolls by passing a set around the table. When I finally had my own set, a precision ruby set from the Armory (Gamescience), it was not unlike getting my drivers license. The freedom and independence that brought was comparable, as funny as that might sound.

There is no point in pretending otherwise for me. I like dice.

With all the options we have these days, and with all the features which can be added to a dice app, you might think that people would, if given a choice, opt for using apps. I thought my Star Wars group would for sure given where we play (a coffee shop). I was wrong. The clatter of dice across the table was considered to be essential to a good game.

I could not agree more~

#RPGaDay

Tomorrow’s Question:

August 2: What was your best session since August 2015