polyhedral dice

A fancy, arguably redundant term for the strange dice used by role-players and wargamers. Typical polyhedral dice are marked with numbers rather than dots like mundane dice and come in a variety of colors. Those with special interest in having pretty dice can buy ones that are transparent (often called gem dice), filled with sparkles, speckled in two or three colors, or many more permutations.

The standard varieties of polyhedral dice are the d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. "d" is simply short for "die" or "dice", and the number after it indicated how many sides the type of die in question has. If a number is placed before the "d", that indicates how many of the little plastic wonders in question are to be rolled (i.e., 1d20 means rolling one twenty-sided die, 2d8 means rolling two eight-sided dice, 10d6 means rolling ten six-sided dice (yeow!)). If a mathematical operator and another number follow one of the above notations (i.e., 1d4+1, 1d12-2, 1d10*5), one is to do this to the result of the indicated roll. In most games, such an operation cannot reduce the result below one or zero.

When beginning a new campaign for whatever role-playing system that the GM has brought to the table, some people have consecrated a ritual that involves going to the local gaming store to purchase a new set of dice for the game- a cleansing ritual, if you will. In games that use a single shape of die such as Vampire the Masquerade or Shadowrun, the purchase consists of a plastic fistful of the appropriate shape (usually with a single underlying color theme); in games that use multiple shapes, they can purchase a small plastic box that contains the three magic d6's and the d4, d8, d10, d12, and d20.

Repeated practice of this habit leads to the accumulation of a dice bag of ever-increasing size. As any semi-serious gamer will tell you, though, having a dice bag the size of a grapefruit is almost universally respected due to its ability to bonk people who've had a bit too much Mountain Dew.