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.