There’s hundreds of games out there, everything from the ones that have
no random elements in them to the ones that have nothing but random elements in them.
Every game needs mechanics to make it work, and for myself, there has
only ever been one thing to make a game work.
Dice...
This may seem like a bit of a no brainer for many, after all, Dice are
the tool used most often to resolve conflict in games, there is no other tool
that can have such variation so easily handled...
Or is there?
For myself, the answer has to be no, but the reason I like them so much
is many fold, not least amongst which is the tactile element to a game. I believe that games that have no tactile element
lose something in the playing of the game, and if every time you need to
resolve a conflict, you enjoy using the tool that you use to resolve that
conflict, then the game becomes that much more enjoyable.
I’ve collected a few dice over the years, and of all the dice that I
have, I find the six sided dice has my interest more than any of the
others. Not too much variation that the
amount of random becomes too much to contemplate, and possessed of a shape
pleasant to hold, even to stack or arrange neatly (Yes, there is some element
of OCD in this...), and the mathematics of them are easy to calculate, even for
beginners, allowing the games played with them to be easily learned and played.
Of six sided dice, I have a few...
The spares, and the basic box that I take to conventions, these I don’t mind losing to people who need them more than I do, when I need a few more than I carry regularly...
The Specialist dice that make a game all by themselves.
The hand crafted dice, these found by my brother abroad and still
carrying the thick scent of the land they came from...
And my everyday carry.
These rest on my desk each day, playing card
decks and pieces all around them, but these in the place I can reach to most
easily, the light green ones luminous in the event that night playing needs to
be done without benefit of convenient light, the casino ones for those times when
I have a playing mat (and my lady will not take me to task for leaving dents
all over the kitchen table), and the metal ones...
Ah the metal ones...
No better way of bringing an unruly player into line would you not
agree...?
So yes, I’ve had an obsession with dice since a very early age, and I
do not see that ending any time soon, and that makes me very...well...
You get the idea...
