Sometimes the blind bag delivers but sometimes you just get seven tiny brown dice
Name: Chessex Mini Plated Copper metal dice set
Description: A set of mini metal dice with captive faces in a coppery color. The numbers are raised and unpainted. The font used is an italicized Times New Roman look alike. The 6 and 9 faces have very small underbars to indicate orientation. The d10s have beveled waists for a change. The edges of all dice are almost sharp. You could step on these dice with bare feet and it would feel like walking on a driveway covered in #7 gravel.
Size:
d20: (Face->Face) 14.0 mm (Point->Point) 17.25 mm
Where did they come from: Guardian Games (Portland OR)
How much did they cost: $ 10
Material / color: Metal (Zinc) plated. Brownish copper color like an old penny
Quality: Pretty good. A few very small scratches or mold flaws but overall very clean.
Readability: Barely readable from one foot away. No point in testing from the floor.
Value: Good enough. This is a reasonable price for a set of mini metal dice from Chessex despite how ugly they are. You’re paying for the surprise of opening a blind bag
Overall Rating: 7/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20: 21 rolls
Ten d20 rolls: 13, 19, 8, 14, 9, 4, 12, 20, 13, 2 (11.4 avg)
4d6 drop 1 stat block: 12, 11, 17, 12, 7, 13 (72 total) A Restless Gnome Sorcerer from Briarwood castle who adds a notch to their sword every night
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Random Spell: Otiluke’s Freezing Sphere: A frigid globe of cold energy streaks from your fingertips to a point of your choice within range, where it explodes in a 60-foot-radius sphere. Each creature within the area must make a Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes 10d6 cold damage. On a successful save, it takes half as much damage.
Damage rolls: 10d6 (3, 5, 2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 4, 5, 6) for a total of 40 points of cold damage on a failed save, 20 cold damage on a successful save
(This is another excuse for using random tables and rolling dice)
Random Tables rolls:
Interesting Forest Locations: 59 – A dismembered dryad in a clearing of thorns. The party may hear distant music and cheering. Upon further investigation the party finds a camp of satyrs torturing a dryad and or other fey.
NPC responses to bad news / grief: 80 – Panic attack
(I’m getting these random tables at: https://d100tables.com by the way
Final Thoughts: These were a blind-bag pull from my youngest dice goblin offspring on a road trip. We stopped at a game store in Portland, OR (Who doesn’t love stopping at game stores on vacation?) and picked them out of the bin. I love getting the blind bags for the kids. One: because it makes them happy to open a mystery bag of dice, and two: because I’m curious about what’s in the blind bags but I never want to be stuck with whatever (almost inevitably) garbage dice that they contain. I think blind bags are just an effective way for dice companies to get rid of poor-selling, unappealing dice. I think that these dice definitely qualify as “unappealing”. The flat brown coppery color is bland in every way and the lack of any other color makes these dice very hard to read or photograph. This is the first time I’ve had to use a ring-light to photograph dice. Even in a room with plenty of natural light they still look dim and muddy brown.
In my mind, dice should be nice to look at, have interesting colors, maybe fun or striking fonts, and neat designs/inclusions/shapes. You should look forward to selecting and rolling your dice on your turn. The game that you’re playing (in my case, almost always D&D) which uses these dice is what you’re there for but if you can put an occasional smile on your face by rolling neat/pretty/fun/striking dice, why wouldn’t you? Buy some dice that add that little bit of extra joy to your ttRPG experience. You’re spending all this time and money on hobby that you’ve gone through the trouble of learning, buying, and making time to play with friends.
The Dice Goblin bug bit me very quickly after I started playing D&D again (I took a few decades off D&D since playing as a child). Now that I’m a grown-ass adult I have a grown-ass-adult hobby fund that I can blow on ttRPGs accessories if it makes me happy. Hobby-wise ttRPGs are probably my cheapest hobby despite the hundreds of dice that I buy and review here. To sum things up before any more diversions… this little set of dice are interesting only because of their size. Maybe “interesting” is my way of saying “different” though. These aren’t dice that I’d ever buy for myself but they make my dice goblin daughter happy so here we are. As I keep repeating, buy some dice that you want to pick up and roll. Don’t just bring dice that you had laying around, or that have been in your dice bag for years because they’re the dice that you always use. I change up the dice that I bring to my game sessions every week depending on: how I rolled with certain dice the previous week, if I bought new dice, if I’m going for a certain aesthetic or feel for my character, or the session, or even the setting where my game is taking place. You can come up with all kinds of reasons to get specific dice. Put a smile on your face and get some thing that triggers the happy paths in your brain. You won’t regret it.
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