I'm looking for some unusual dice for my boyfriend's birthday.
May 14, 2012 9:34 AM Subscribe
Where can I find or have made 6-sided dice with one color for 1-2 and another for 3-6?
We just started playing Summoner Wars, an RPG-like game. The dice rolls count as hits when the numbers are 3-6, but the numbers are also important sometimes. He mentioned that he would love it if there were dice that still had dots, but the ones for 1-2 were red and for 3-6 they were green. This is pretty hard to google, and I've looked at the websites of our local game stores and haven't seen anything this specific. Custom dice for weddings and such are usually only sold in huge batches, and I just want five or six. Any ideas?
We just started playing Summoner Wars, an RPG-like game. The dice rolls count as hits when the numbers are 3-6, but the numbers are also important sometimes. He mentioned that he would love it if there were dice that still had dots, but the ones for 1-2 were red and for 3-6 they were green. This is pretty hard to google, and I've looked at the websites of our local game stores and haven't seen anything this specific. Custom dice for weddings and such are usually only sold in huge batches, and I just want five or six. Any ideas?
You could always go the "Basic D&D red-box route" and buy yourself some wax crayons. Rub the desired color over the sides you want colored, and the wax will fill in the spots on the dice with your desired color. Wipe the face off with a paper towel to remove the residual wax.
posted by thanotopsis at 9:37 AM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by thanotopsis at 9:37 AM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
(Granted you'd have to get colored/black dice made with white dots rather than black ones).
posted by Glinn at 9:37 AM on May 14, 2012
posted by Glinn at 9:37 AM on May 14, 2012
Best answer: We did something similar for Shadowrun: eventually you have huge, huge dice pools, so we colored the 5/6 sides on a bunch of dice with drops of red nail polish.
posted by Oktober at 9:38 AM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Oktober at 9:38 AM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]
Seconding nail polish. Sure it chips, but it's quick, easy, and cheap to re-do. Colored stickers also work (but you have to drawn on the dots).
posted by Wretch729 at 9:50 AM on May 14, 2012
posted by Wretch729 at 9:50 AM on May 14, 2012
Sure it chips, but it's quick, easy, and cheap to re-do.
If the color is bright enough, you could probably put the nail polish into the pips themselves, where it would be protected from surface handling issues.
A trick before employing sharpies -- first, clean the die very well, then run it briefly through a flame -- as in "brief enough that the die barely gets warm", not "Oooh, flaming die!" This will put a bunch of micro cracks in the otherwise solid surface, which will give the ink a much better surface to bond to.
posted by eriko at 10:28 AM on May 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
If the color is bright enough, you could probably put the nail polish into the pips themselves, where it would be protected from surface handling issues.
A trick before employing sharpies -- first, clean the die very well, then run it briefly through a flame -- as in "brief enough that the die barely gets warm", not "Oooh, flaming die!" This will put a bunch of micro cracks in the otherwise solid surface, which will give the ink a much better surface to bond to.
posted by eriko at 10:28 AM on May 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
Right, that's what I meant. Just a drop in each pip, takes less than a minute per die.
posted by Oktober at 10:37 AM on May 14, 2012
posted by Oktober at 10:37 AM on May 14, 2012
Yes, nail polish, and then you could even add clear polish over the colors to help protect against chipping.
posted by misha at 10:52 AM on May 14, 2012
posted by misha at 10:52 AM on May 14, 2012
You might have some luck posting this request on the Boardgame Geek forums.
There is also this set of dice on Ebay that might be of interest... but they're quite expensive.
posted by backwards guitar at 11:43 AM on May 14, 2012
There is also this set of dice on Ebay that might be of interest... but they're quite expensive.
posted by backwards guitar at 11:43 AM on May 14, 2012
If you're going to go the color-in-yourself route, I would get the uninked, clear dice to begin with. Like these. That way, you are inking in the numbers on all sides yourself and choose whatever colors. If you color in just two sides on a die, you may have a problem with your dice roll (might tend to land on the slightly heavier side that you added color to).
posted by Eicats at 12:00 PM on May 14, 2012
posted by Eicats at 12:00 PM on May 14, 2012
Eicats: "If you color in just two sides on a die, you may have a problem with your dice roll (might tend to land on the slightly heavier side that you added color to)."
The weight of the paint/nail polish should be negligible. Look at the gold standard for d6's, casino craps table dice: sharp edged cubes manufactured to exacting tolerances with no recessed areas on the faces, and the pips are just painted on. The casino doesn't care about the fact that there's more pigment on the six pip face than on the one pip face.
They do care about having those pips painted on flat faces though, because there's more plastic removed to drill out six recessed pips than there is to drill out one, but even then, the weight differential effect is so slight that it only matters if you're dealing in the large sums of money that casinos do. Boardgame-style recessed pip d6s serve as reasonably ideal random number generators for most purposes, with the bias only affecting a few rolls out of thousands (this was the subject of my award winning math fair project in high school).
So, if you're already dealing with dice that have recessed numbers or pips, and have accepted that they're fair enough for your purposes, coloring in some of the pips red and some green will not impact that fairness to any noticeable degree.
posted by radwolf76 at 12:56 PM on May 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
The weight of the paint/nail polish should be negligible. Look at the gold standard for d6's, casino craps table dice: sharp edged cubes manufactured to exacting tolerances with no recessed areas on the faces, and the pips are just painted on. The casino doesn't care about the fact that there's more pigment on the six pip face than on the one pip face.
They do care about having those pips painted on flat faces though, because there's more plastic removed to drill out six recessed pips than there is to drill out one, but even then, the weight differential effect is so slight that it only matters if you're dealing in the large sums of money that casinos do. Boardgame-style recessed pip d6s serve as reasonably ideal random number generators for most purposes, with the bias only affecting a few rolls out of thousands (this was the subject of my award winning math fair project in high school).
So, if you're already dealing with dice that have recessed numbers or pips, and have accepted that they're fair enough for your purposes, coloring in some of the pips red and some green will not impact that fairness to any noticeable degree.
posted by radwolf76 at 12:56 PM on May 14, 2012 [2 favorites]
e-mail this guy as he knows absolutely everything about dice
posted by get off of my cloud at 1:13 PM on May 14, 2012
posted by get off of my cloud at 1:13 PM on May 14, 2012
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posted by Glinn at 9:36 AM on May 14, 2012 [1 favorite]