the Superdie

[StGrimblefig]

Once upon a time... (in this thread, actually) ... there was some discussion of taking the hero dice a step or two further. The odds of owning a real die like this were, of course, slim.

 

Enter Q-Workshop -- self-proclaimed producers of "unusual dice." Looking around their site, it is a valid moniker. But what is most interesting is their willingness to produce custom dice for anyone, and for any (read as "small") production size. It is a bit pricey, though.

 

Other than the price, the other issue would be that they require something other than the numbers on the dice, claiming that they only want to produce truly unusual dice. So, attached is my first (well, second, actually) cut at a dice design for the "superdice"

 

and here is how to read the numbers:

 

I thought that the "Bang!"/"Pow!" bubble is one of the most recognizable imagery for the superhero genre, so I used that for the design. It does not use any copyrights or trademarks that I know of, though the inclusion of data from game tables might still require permission before they could be produced.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: the Superdie

 

Maybe take the bubble off of the 1, so that, besides the pips, you have a huge visual reminder of how many BODY it does. No bubble = no BODY, basic bubble = 1 BODY, ultra-spiky-bubble = 2 BODY.

[CorPse]

Re: the Superdie

 

Maybe take the bubble off of the 1' date=' so that, besides the pips, you have a huge visual reminder of how many BODY it does. No bubble = no BODY, basic bubble = 1 BODY, ultra-spiky-bubble = 2 BODY.[/quote']

 

I agree.

 

Would it be too fussy to have slightly more complex bubbles up to the ultra-spiky 2 BODY style?

[Flames]

Re: the Superdie

 

"Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

 

Kidding aside, I love the idea of this. I bought a bunch of blank dice at MegaCon earlier this year and something like this would be a perfect use for them.

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: the Superdie

 

I agree.

 

Would it be too fussy to have slightly more complex bubbles up to the ultra-spiky 2 BODY style?

 

Yes, because it's not like you're going to be making fine distinctions when you're counting up BODY. You'll be like, okay, no bubble, no BODY, medium bubble, 1 BODY, spikey, 2 BODY.

 

Oh, in spite of that, leave the pips. Belt and suspenders.

[CorPse]

Re: the Superdie

 

Yes, point, or rather pip, taken.

[Narratio]

Re: the Superdie

 

And only took me 20 seconds to figure out what the markings on the face of the dice meant. Very, very cool. rep to you. Now I gotta go order me some!

[BobGreenwade]

Re: the Superdie

 

Brilliant.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: the Superdie

 

Maybe take the bubble off of the 1' date=' so that, besides the pips, you have a huge visual reminder of how many BODY it does. No bubble = no BODY, basic bubble = 1 BODY, ultra-spiky-bubble = 2 BODY.[/quote']

I thought about that, but it looked a little empty. This has the benefit of making it clear that it was not forgotten, but is different -- kind of like a visual version of "This space intentionally left blank" (can you tell I work with government software requirements?).

 

But it is no problem to remove it. I can live with it either way.

 

I do prefer to have 2 BODY pips on the 6, rather than a single "ultra-spikey" pip -- it is just easier to simply count pips, rather than having to interpret the symbols and count up the BODY.

 

Thanks for the comments, all, and keep 'em coming.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: the Superdie

 

Oh, and if anyone does order any of these, please let me know how they come out. Pictures would be great.

[StGrimblefig]

Re: the Superdie

 

"Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

 

Kidding aside, I love the idea of this. I bought a bunch of blank dice at MegaCon earlier this year and something like this would be a perfect use for them.

I have a pair of blank dice that I picked up at a "teacher's store." They are my zen dice -- I use them for rolls that don't matter.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: the Superdie

 

I have a pair of blank dice that I picked up at a "teacher's store." They are my zen dice -- I use them for rolls that don't matter.

 

If you're playing Hero with them, you really need one more.

 

(Or you could get a bunch of them, and use the Diceless Hero rules from DH#1.... )

[PhilFleischmann]

Re: the Superdie

 

Please don't give any weight to my opinion (because I probably won't be buying these at all), but I've always preferred dice with pips rather than numbers, especially for HERO. They just seem easier to count and add up. I would have preferred if the official Hero Dice had one to six pips on each face and then the numbe 0, 1, or 2 for the BODY.

 

But my most preferred method is what I did (with only partial success): I took some regular dice with white pips, and a red marker and colored one pip on each of the 2 thru 5 faces, and two pips on the 6 face. Thus, the total pips are the STUN and the red pips are the BODY. If someone were to produce dice like that, I'd buy 'em.

[Tech]

Re: the Superdie

 

Since we're on the subject of dice..

 

when you add up Stun and Body damage from a dice roll, how do you add them up and how quickly? Let's assume 10d6.

 

I know people here can add (with the possible exception of some real young gamers but kudos to them for stepping into our world). However, I've seen some awfully slow adders when it comes to giving Stun damage.. and then Body damage. I mean no disrespect to anyone - everyone has their own strengths.

 

The point of this is to help others to find quicker ways to adding dice values and hence speed up a game. For myself, I can usually look at the full dice roll and add both values in my head within a couple seconds. For others, it's much quicker to take dice and add them in groups of ten.

[Pariah]

Re: the Superdie

 

So, attached is my first (well, second, actually) cut at a dice design for the "superdice"

 

and here is how to read the numbers:

 

I actually prefer this design to the "Bang! Pow!" bubbles design. Cleaner, and much easier to read. And it makes the dice look like entries from the Periodic Table. I love it!

 

Since we're on the subject of dice..

 

when you add up Stun and Body damage from a dice roll, how do you add them up and how quickly? ... For others, it's much quicker to take dice and add them in groups of ten.

 

I group the dice into groups of 10 for Stun. as for BODY, I use the little trick Lord Mhoram taught me: Take the number of dice rolled, add the number or sixes, and subtract the number of ones. Viola, there's your BODY count.

 

Excellent post! I'll Rep you when that annoying 24-hour thing expires.

[Dead guy on tab]

Re: the Superdie

 

Instead of listing the scatter direction why not just use an arrow pointing to the scatter direction?

[StGrimblefig]

Re: the Superdie

 

Instead of listing the scatter direction why not just use an arrow pointing to the scatter direction?

Because that doesn't help when scatter is limited to hex sides. If it were miniatures on ungridded terrain, sure -- just point an arrow in any direction on the die, and wherever it points is where it goes.

 

I did look at putting a graphical depiction of the hex sides, but I never liked any of the things I came up with, so I stayed with the alphabetic representation. If anyone else has a cool idea how to show this graphically, post it.

 

Interesting idea: with a scatter direction on each die, could you somehow use all three of the directions from a failed attack roll to determine where it goes (rather than rolling a separate die)?

[Dead guy on tab]

Re: the Superdie

 

Because that doesn't help when scatter is limited to hex sides. If it were miniatures on ungridded terrain, sure -- just point an arrow in any direction on the die, and wherever it points is where it goes.

 

I did look at putting a graphical depiction of the hex sides, but I never liked any of the things I came up with, so I stayed with the alphabetic representation. If anyone else has a cool idea how to show this graphically, post it.

 

Interesting idea: with a scatter direction on each die, could you somehow use all three of the directions from a failed attack roll to determine where it goes (rather than rolling a separate die)?

 

 

What I intended was that the arrow would represent the hex facing; so that the GM/player doesn't have to figure out which direction is SE again (e.g. the arrow on 1 would point to the X1 on the dice; the 2 would point towards the 1 on the half die, etc.). The GM would then just need to consider the arrow pointing on the oriented dice as the same as the figure's facing.

 

As to your second point, you could use the three dice to track the miss along a pathway, i.e. if your rolled a 1, 6, 5 and it missed by 3 your miss would be 1 hex north then 1 hex northwest then 1 hex southwest. You could repeat the process as much as you missed by. One thought though, wouldn't the to-hit roll favor one direction as far as missing was concerned (to the left)?

[ghost-angel]

Re: the Superdie

 

The BANG!POW! Bubbles make the die way way to busy. You want something cleaner that can be read quickly. That and I think it simply looks ugly.

[JohnTaber]

Re: the Superdie

 

Not sure if anyone mentioned this but Chessex will do custom dice as well and frankly I have dice from Q and Chessex and I think the Chessex dice are MUCH better. The Q dice are lighter and have a "wimpy" feel to me. Again...just my take...I do not know how the costs compare.

[JohnTaber]

Re: the Superdie

 

For the hex facing could you draw a hex with one side missing? the open side would indicate the direction. See what I mean? You could even have the hex surround the number...I dunno...

[Chris Goodwin]

Re: the Superdie

 

Since we're on the subject of dice..

 

when you add up Stun and Body damage from a dice roll, how do you add them up and how quickly? Let's assume 10d6.

 

I group by 10's, then count 6's and 1's for BODY.

[archermoo]

Re: the Superdie

 

I group by 10's' date=' then count 6's and 1's for BODY.[/quote']

 

Yeah, pretty much for me too. Group by 10s for stun. For body subtract the number of 1s from the number of 6s, and then add the result to the number of dice you rolled. Which takes much longer to type than to do.

[JohnTaber]

Re: the Superdie

 

Yeah' date=' pretty much for me too. Group by 10s for stun. For body subtract the number of 1s from the number of 6s, and then add the result to the number of dice you rolled. Which takes much longer to type than to do. [/quote']

 

What he said.

 

Side note...my brother is amazing at totaling Hero dice. It is verging on Rainman like in speed.