Welcome to #RPGaDAY2023! Now in its tenth year, #RPGaDAY was originally created by RPG author and games designer David Chapman (Conspiracy X, Doctor Who, etc) as a bit of fun and to get people talking about tabletop roleplaying games. August was chosen, I believe, to coincide with tabletop roleplaying’s gaming mecca that is Gen Con – which usually takes place in the States (Inidanapolis these days) every August.

#RPGaDAY is open to everyone so if you want to join in just check out the prompts below to inspire a blog, vlog, or social media post to celebrate everything great about our hobby with the tag #RPGaDAY2023

Day 9: Favourite Dice

When I moved back to the UK a games store opened up in August 1985 a few tube stops, or a bus ride, away from where I was living. I used to go there most days after school and hang out. I was there so often I ended up helping out around the store – eventually leading to a Saturday job and a few years later a fulltime role. Ultimately I became the Manager of the store and also one of the companies Directors. So dreams can come true 🙂

The store was Leisure Games – a fantastic store that is still going strong in Finchley Central, North London.

Myself and one of the my best friends at the time, Simon, somehow ended up in an unspoken competition to be the person with the most dice. Dice were cheap enough that you could pick a few up with left over dinner money and each of us would regular ask Tony – the owner – if the other had been in and (if they had) how many dice they’d brought. I think this was a win-win for Tony and his dice supplier ;p

Anyway, I ended up with tubs full of dice – and still have tubs full of dice over 35 years later!

It’s very rare that I buy any dice these days, although I probably still pick up (or get given as presents) a few sets each year. I certainly don’t “collect” dice any longer – and haven’t done since the competition with Simon when we were both at school. Good job too as dice have evolved massively since the 80’s and 90’s and with all the metal and rare gem style dice now around – many costing hundreds of pounds – there is no way I’d be able to keep up, let alone afford, a dice adddiction.

I’ve never really had a favourite set of dice. I used to buy a new set specific for a new game, or campaign, which I’d use for the duration of that game/campaign. I really liked the set I had for Deadlands back in the 90’s/early 00’s as they were a speckled colour similar to the colour of the Deadlands rulebook for instance. But I’ve never had an overall favourite set.