Disdyakis Triacontahedrons

 

From time to time I do review the tools of the trade, principally dice of course as there is, to be fair, quite a wide opportunity for creativity in the market and occasionally beautiful sculptures bordering on artwork.

 

Let me say now that the D120 is not one of these items. What in gods name needs a D120 ? The manufacturers are of course not stupid and are producing to demand but I cant think from my addled memory what mechanic involves 120 in any system I have come across. I do know I roll a ot of dice for things like fireballs, falling damage and scalar multipliers for when a Deathstar shoots a hobbit but nothing consistently in the D120 range. The sales pitch reads:

 

"The ultimate fair dice allowed by Mother Nature (i.e., mathematics)! The d120 is based on a polyhedron known as the disdyakis triacontahedron. Each face is an elongated triangle. These dice are perfectly numerically balanced, with the same sums for numbers around vertices of the same type. The dice are available in white, black, red, blue, and green.

 

 The d120 can be used as a dn, where n is any proper factor of 120, including all of the dice in a standard seven-dice polyset."

 Good luck to them I say.

 

I have also come across the occasional player with metal dice and given the passion I have for gaming I would consider splashing out on something a bit special. Beyond a certain weight of course other factors come into play as I wouldn't want to damage equally expensive roleplaying systems by rolling pointy steel over them. Also it has to be said that I am not getting any younger but there may come a day where I will struggle to lift something made from cast iron. Might be a case of getting nurse to roll for me. There is a kickstarter actually at

 

http://traysermetalworks.com/

 

 

What is interesting about this, and their products do look great I think, is that they say that they use processes that date back 5000 years! I do know that Pythagoras must have been a role player in waiting circa 500BC as he was theory crafting his perfect platonic solids well in advance of the D4 as well as being heavily into mysticism, so unknowingly did much to lay the groundwork for the RPG systems of today. Shame he never played Age of Empires. However I am not sure what roleplaying options there were over 5000 years ago, other than to play additional caveman modules but perhaps the foresight of our ancestors caused them to create the dice ahead of their time without knowing what they were for; which came first, the D20 or the RPG ?