Roll 'Em Like a Man: The Sins of Handling Dice

     I did not get to game this weekend. I was down with some cold/sinus bug, so I went to see Dunkirk instead. Great war film. Lots of realistic action, and not heavy-handed in its message. I am sure it will be ignored at the Oscars, but the audience seemed to like it.

     After the film, I thought about what to write for this week's post, and I was reminded of a Bolt Action game I played in a couple of years ago where one of my carefully-painted Fallschirmjagers was knocked down by a careless dice roll. The jackass in question, who does not paint his minis, by the way, joked, “Well that guy's dead.” Hardy har har, twerp! I had only been working on the unit for the good part of a week. No big deal, right? This memory lead me to today's post, where I will be talking about the types of dice handlers you don't want at the game table.

     When introducing a young guy to this hobby of ours, I have a buddy who always insists, “There's no right way to roll your dice.” While I can't say that there is a right way to handle dice, I can think of plenty of examples of the wrong way. Here's my list. If you can think of any that I am missing, post in the comments, please. Let's start with the example I just gave you.

The Duck and Cover Tosser

This is guy would be great at New Year's Eve parties, tossing confetti in the air as if it were magic dust that granted wishes to everyone around him. At the game table, his dice rolls, a hardy shake followed by tossing the dice, as if they are being fired out of a cannon, all across the table and in every direction. Every painted mini, piece of terrain, and player at the table could be struck by the buckshot shooting forth from his hands. His dice fly off the table all the time, which inevitably lead to search and rescue mission that takes the offender's fellow gamers to the undersides of other peoples' game tables. It's embarrassing, dangerous, and just plain stupid. This is not a crap's game. There are literally hundreds of dollars worth of painted plastic and lead minis on the table. Unless I say we are playing the H.G. Wells way, your dice should be contained to a bare area of the table.

You are not performing a magic trick. Roll like a man!

Little Joe and Hoss

Little Joe likes his dice the same way he likes his cars and his women: tiny. He likes the feel of gobs of tiny dice rolling around in his hand. He has a hard time picking up the dice with his giant hand, once they have been dispersed, because he forgot to bring tweezers to pick them up. Little Joe has to suck in his beer gut as best as he can and bend over with his nose nearly touching the table to count his hits. He has to squint his eyes or slide his glasses from off the top of his head onto his nose so he can read the suckers, only to push his glasses back up onto the top of his head when he's done.

     Hoss likes BIG dice. If the dice he's rolling do not equal the size of his big toe, they are not manly enough to roll. Big clonking dice are a horrible and dangerous addition to any game table. One, they are unreasonably loud to the point of distracting other gamers around you. Two, and most importantly, they are figure killers. If you paint minis, the last thing you want is some big dice knocking down your minis, scratching the paint job or breaking off a spear, sword, or plastic limb.

     There are two acceptable dice sizes: 16mm (my preference), the most common size for dice. They are easy to roll and easy to read, and they come in all colors, for those that care. Then there's 19mm, a bit bigger than I prefer, but they are easy to read and they are the standard size used by casinos.

16mm or 19mm? Pick one.

The Swiffer Picker Upper

This is the dice roller, by far, that causes the most arguments at the table. He rolls his dice in a contained area, and before you and he can assess what rolls hit and what rolls missed, his hand swoops down like a giant eagle and picks the dice up off the table. “Ten hits,” he announces victoriously. This guy either has great eyesight and quickly processes his hits and misses, or he is cheating. How am I supposed to know which camp he falls in, if I can't see his dice? The proper protocol on this is to separate the dice that hit from the dice that missed. Push the misses off to the side, and, if the rules call for follow-up damage rolls, collect the dice that hit, give a shake, and let them roll.

Real men don't cheat!

If A Tree Falls In The Woods, And No One Was There to Hear it, Did It Fall?

The rules call for you to roll one die to see if you hit. Then, if you successfully hit, you are supposed to re-roll the same die to see if the hit is fatal. Pretty simple, right. This guy does not pick up one die though; he picks up two. He shakes them in his fist next to his ear, then lets one die fall out of his hand. Why? Simply because it does not feel and sound like he is rolling the die unless he hears that rattle. This is is not illegal or offensive behavior. It's just unnecessary and a bit confusing.

You are at a game table not a concert. Pick one die and roll it like a man!

Four Little Ducks in a Row

Your opponent is required to roll six dice. He takes six dice in his hand, gives them a little shake, then, carefully, he lets one die fall from his hand at a time until all six dice have landed onto the table in a neat little row. You're rolling your dice the way your grandmother scratches her lotto ticket, one painful block at a time. There's no law in physics that says that if you really take your time rolling the dice, that your hit average will increase, unless I missed that class, of course.

Roll your dice all at once, like a man!

Chaos at the Table and The Fashion Show

Call me boring, but I have two types of dice: white with black pips and red with white pips. I usually just use old standard white and blacks at the table, unless my opponent is also using white and black. In that scenario, I will use the red and white to distinguish our dice. Don't want to accidentally take home his dice and vice versa.

     The Fashion Show is the guy that has to have a new of pair of color-coordinated dice to match his army. This is not really offensive as it is just silly. Colored dice for each army is just another expense I don't need. I had one guy stop a game during the third turn because he was convinced that his bad dice rolling had to do with the fact that his dice did not match the paint scheme of his figures. The game came to a halt, while the guy went and purchased dice that matched his minis. I am not kidding!

I have heard of gaming competitions that gave points to the best-painted army on the table. Never heard of anyone getting extra points for prettiest dice. Real men don't color-coordinate.

     Chaos at the Table is the guy who brings literally whatever d6 he can get his hands on. They come in all sizes and colors. Some have pips, some have numbers, some have the Eye of Sauron to indicate a fatal blow. This would not be so bad if the chaotic dice arrangement were not also indicative of the player himself. Every guy I have played that brings a mish-mash of dice to the game table is equally scatter-brained and can't remember if the axe symbol on his die is a 1 or a 6, without picking up the die and looking at it carefully. I have literally stopped a game before, bought a guy a pack of blue and white dice, and handed them to him free of charge, just so we can stop losing time trying to figure out his dice.

This is a wargame, not a tarot card reading. Pick one type of dice and stick with it, like a man.

The Bartender

Some wargamers are under the assumption that the longer you shake your dice, the better your odds will be once those dice hit the table. It is as if they believe their hands have the power to influence the fate of the dice. This is the guy that needlessly wastes minutes by shaking his dice as if he were carefully mixing a drink. The Bartender likes to shake his dice close to his face and swing his shaking fists from shoulder to shoulder, back and forth, until a century passes, and he's finally ready to relinquish the dice.

     I understand that many successful athletes believe in rituals: that dirty baseball cap that has never been washed, the beard that has not been shaved all season, the ring on the linebacker's finger that once belonged to his father. These are rituals that are questionably effective, but they don't take any time away from the game. The guy that shakes his dice until he's dizzy, however, is needlessly wasting everyone's time at the table, and we all know, especially us old timers, that time is precious.

Give those dice one shake and let them go, like a man!

The Flipper

The most dubious character at your game table will always be The Flipper. This is the guy that takes his dice in the palm of his hand, turns a few of them over with the other hand, then flips his hand flat onto the table. No shake and a lot of prep work for a guy that is supposed to be playing a gentleman's game. The Flipper has been banned at my club, and I have seen guys get on to someone for trying to pull this trick at competitions. The Flipper should be banned from EVERY game.

Pick up your dice, give them a blind shake, and roll them, like a man!

*On a side note, I refuse to play any miniature game (rpgs are the exception) that involve d8s, d10s, d20s, or any other such nonsense. All miniature games should require d6s, period. But that's a rant for another post.