I’ve written a few times about things pertaining to Dungeons and Dragons, which I’ve been playing over the last few months along with my son. Initially I developed the interest for his benefit, so that he could have the opportunity to play. The more we immerse ourselves in it, the more I’m enjoying it for myself.

Game play can be fun, but there are also just a lot of neat accoutrements. I’ve written about dice towers and DM screens, but I’ve added more trinkets and goodies to my collection since then. For example, you can get neat dice trays to roll your dice into so that they don’t roll all over the place (I have two). You can get dice vaults and boxes. You can get dice bags (of which I now have several). Then of course there are miniature figures for game play, and battle mats for drawing out landscapes for battle, and loads of marvelously detailed and illustrated books (I now have several).

Among my favorite accoutrements are the dice. A standard set includes seven dice with different numbers of sides and used to roll for various things in the game. There’s a big variety of dice types, and I just really enjoy seeing the different designs and finishes. My favorites right now are metal dice manufactured by Jovitec and Bescon (I don’t remember which are which). They’ll dent a table if you’re not careful (the dice tray helps avoid this!), and they just have a really pleasant weight and they roll really satisfyingly. I also have a few sets of the “Ancient” line of Hedronix dice from D20 Collective — Ancient Copper, Ancient Malachite, Ancient Clay, and Ancient Stone — and these look neat at a distance but seem more plasticky up close and are a little sluggish to roll. My other favorite set is a set of dark green sort of marbled looking dice from Chessex. I’ve bought a few other sets too just to have around for others to play with, and my son has a few sets, including a big random grab-bag we emptied into his stocking for Christmas this year.

It feels a little silly to be so into dice, but I really do just enjoy getting a new set and having a growing collection. They are, at least, small (I used to collect books).