Friday, July 17, 2009

Dice fetish

One of my friends once said that role playing games are just an excuse for people to indulge their dice fetish. Not to single anybody out, but a couple of recent posts at Geek Orthodox and A Rust Monster Ate My Sword... suggest he may have been right. No wonder some Traveller veterans claim D&D stands for "Dice & Dice." After all, don't most gamers carry their polyhedral dice around in luxurious velvet bags, like some precious gems looted from a dragon's hoard?

I don't have a problem with people getting excited about dice, but It's not an enthusiasm I share. I think it's one of the reasons I tend to prefer games like EABA or Fuzion that use nothing but regular six-sided dice. Not that I'm entirely immune to dice geekery. I admit I have more than a few pair of Flying Buffalo's "Death Dice" in my possession.

Maybe the only real way to escape the dice fetish is to play a diceless RPG, like Active Exploits.

4 comments:

Christopher B said...

"Diceless?!" Heretic! Unbelievers shall be forced to walk the Path of One-thousand Four-siders. ;D

Jerry Cornelius said...

The Order of the d30 is going to be after me now.

Robert Saint John said...

If you're not playing Traveller with Official Imperium Sunburst D6, you're not playing it right. ;)

Jerry Cornelius said...

I should have known Lou Zocchi was involved somehow.