Rich Morris' Comics - YAFGC and The ComixBlog

Some of you may remember when, back in the day, a full set of polyhedral dice was five pieces (maybe six with a crayon) rather than the seven that are the standard now. You received, in one package, 1 four-sided, 1 six-sided, 1 eight-sided, 1 twelve-sided and 1 twenty-sided (numbered 1 to 10 or 0 to 9 twice, perhaps with a dot or + on one set to mark teens). Ten-sided dice had yet to be invented.

I have taken an old set of polyhedral dice, and divided them up into three groups, two of two dice each and one of one die, in such a way that each group represents a logical pair, and the lone die also represents a "pair" in the same way. How have I divided up my dice? And why?

(Despite having first gotten into gaming a bit more than 30 years ago, I just stumbled across this earlier today while looking at some of my dice, and am curious if everyone else got there ahead of me. I suspect many of you have.)

Not entirely sure what you mean by logical sorting (gamer dice have a whole truckload of superstition attached to them) but at a vague guess based on your previous comment about d10s....

Pair 1: d4 & d8
Pair 2: d6 and d12
'Pair 3': d20

The lower value die is half the value of the higher one. Therefore by rolling 2 dice of the lower value and using the second die as the upper/lower decider (eg d4: 1-4 or 5-8) you can get the number range of the 'higher die'.

The d20 is on its own as you just subtract 10 from values >11 and you have a double d10.

However what will I do with the d30, d100 and novelty d5 I have....

Ooo... Good answer. Not the one that's being looked for in this case, but good answer nevertheless. Any other takers?

I was thinking:

Pair 1: d4 & d6 = 10
Pair 2: d8 & d12 = 20
Single: d20

or

Pair 1: d4 & d20 = All the faces are triangles
Pair 2: d6 & d8 = All the faces are quadrangles.
Single: d12 = All the faces are pentagons.

or

Pair 1: d4 & d8 = Are pointy, pyramiddy shapes.
Pair 2: d12 & d20 = Are round and can roll about.
Single: d6 = Is a cube.

Holds up an 8-sided die, examines it closely and wonders when BK goes shopping for dice.

And here I thought I was the only person who didn't know this:

The five original shapes used for polyhedral dice are the five Platonic Solids - if you found yourself in ancient Greece or Rome with your dice, a learned person would recognize the shapes, although it wouldn't have occurred to them to put numbers on most of them. (You'd revolutionize gambling...)

Anyway the groupings are: d6 and d8, d12 and d20 with d4 being the single die "pair."

A d6 has six-sides and eight vertices (points where 3 or more faces meet), while the d8 has eight sides and six vertices - so you can nest two dice inside each other in such a way that the vertices of one die will rest against the center of each face of the other; and you can alternate nesting them this way forever.

(In other words, if you start with a d6, and glue a triangle to each vertex of the die, you'll wind up with an octahedron (d8). If you then glue a square to each vertex of the octahedron, you end up with a cube (d6) again, and on and on...)

Its the same with d12 and d20... the d12 has twelve faces and twenty vertices, and the reverse is true of the d20.

The d4 is a special case... it has four faces and four vertices, so you can nest d4s inside of one another forever.

This pretty much occurred to be out of the blue yesterday, and given that I've been playing with the blasted pieces of plastic for three decades now, I felt like a first-class idiot for never noticing it before.

But since it turns out that this is not as obvious as I thought it should be, you guys deserve a prize for taking a crack at it... BK and LC., did you guys get any loot from this year's Free RPG day? I have some stuff left over that I can send you.

....

WHAT WAS I THINKING???


I knew about the solids, but I've never seen them separated into pairs before. I didn't even know there *was* a free RPG day!

Yeah, they do it every year. Normally a handful of companies pony up a short module or something, sometimes with a quick-start rules set so you can actually play it and get a feel for the system before you actually fork over any cash.

One of my projects for this year is to work up a quick pirates/privateers game in time to give some copies away at next year's event. (Now, before you say: "Pirates? Again?" the idea here is to go with something more modern - about a 1950/1960's level of naval technology, so you've got PT boats and cutters and whatnot, but without the modern automation. Many pirate vessels are extensively converted yachts with tank turrets and heavy machine-guns mounted on them. And screw that musket business; haul out your B.A.R. and go to town when the going gets tough. Aircraft technology will be a little behind, though; there won't be any workable jet aircraft.)

But I digress...

No...Workable...Jet...Aircraft...

In the FIFTIES?

Lyger, Google 'F-86 Sabre' and go to town. I pass the subject of jet aircraft in the 60s in derisive silence.

F-86 Saber, my foot - Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe - mid 1940s. But I don't want to push the overall technological base back to the 1930s. Since I don't want characters to have to tool around in an aircraft carrier to maintain air superiority, and don't want to deal with surface to air guided missiles, prop aircraft are a better fit, as a couple of 20mm guns mounted to a pirate boat could maintain a workable air defense environment. Jet aircraft would quickly become the focus of the game, as anyone without them - most pirates for a start - would be sitting ducks any time they were within range of an airfield. I want the focus of the game to be on the water, not in the air. It's a design decision to get the overall look and feel that I want.

Sheesh, most props can take out your pirate craft. More stable platform+6/8 .50 caliber machine guns+400mph speed+three dimensions to play in. Basically, if your pirates get found they've already lost.

NB--that list doesn't include the 3" and 5" rockets or 20mm autocannon some planes carry.

No argument there - none whatsoever. But I'm not trying to build an accurate simulation of aerial and naval warfare. All I need to get to is something that doesn't seem too obviously broken, and I feel that I can get there a little faster if I don't have jet aircraft in the equation.

Of course, in the end, if the game is fun to play I can get away with much more in that regard - willing suspension of disbelief will be greater. But I see no reason to push it when, as the designer, I don't have to. Right now I'm thinking of setting the game on an Alternate Earth, rather than in an Alternate History of Earth, to facilitate things even further.

This thread is aptly named .

Yup, aint it wonderful?

Touché.