I went to my local game store on Tuesday to pick up some new dice. The Fantasy Shop is a St. Louis game and comic chain with four locations scattered throughout the greater metro area, and all of my experiences with their stores and staff have been wonderful. The St. Charles location in particular is a solid place to meet gamers since it has a great deal of in-store play space, but it's also the furthest from where I live, so I dropped in on their South St. Louis location for this particular errand.
So why new dice? I mostly picked them up because I'm obsessing over a few random systems these days and want to be able to play them at a moment's notice should the craving arise. The new set of assorted polyhedrals is my sixth set to be added to my "regular service" dice bag, and provides me enough dice to provide a pool of every variety needed to play the free RPG Risus using the game's "Funky Dice" advanced option. I wanted to be able to have all of the dice needed to play in the center of the table so that players could grab and return them as needed. I'm not going to go out and get enough sets that people could roll all of the dice needed to double-pump a rank (6) cliche though. That would just be ridiculous. Do yourself a favor though and nab the free PDF of Risus at the link above. If you're ever in the mood to, "Just play something already!" it will likely do the trick.
The purple and black swirled d6 set will join my green and silver swirled set to supply more than enough dice for a group to play Starblazer Adventures. The game is a modified version of Evil Hat's Fate system that uses a d6 minus d6 mechanic. Now that I have two sets of standard-sized d6s in different colors, I can easily supply the table for play.
Speaking of dice, consider leaving a polyhedral set in a conspicuous location in your home or on your desk at work. People who have never played RPGs before will wonder what in the world they're for, giving you an opportunity to introduce them to your hobby, and people who have played before will likely excitedly come out of the woodwork to strike up a chat with you. It's a win-win situation!
I was thinking about ordering some new dice too after talking with you, and I wondered if you had ever ordered dice off the Chessex website before?
ReplyDeleteThe prices are comparable to a place like Rider's, for example, but I'm just curious about shipping and other various things.
(The new Gemini 3 colors are GORGEOUS, which is why I ask. If I'm going to buy them, I want to know I'm not going to get hosed.)
You're my first comment ever! Yay!
ReplyDeleteI've never actually ordered dice online. I've always been lucky enough to live near a hobby store with a regular stock of dice, and I've never been picky enough that I couldn't find something I liked in-store.
If you do order online, let me know how it turns out. Those Gemini 3s look pretty snazzy.