Bone isn’t something you’d think to make dice from, I wish more people did
Name: DnD Bone Dice
Description: This is a pair of slightly larger than standard size near sharp-edge d20 dice made from the carved bones of Oxen (not powdered). They are a medium brown color with horizontal stripes from where the layers of bone were bonded together. The numbers use a very simple font, likely <font name>. The numbers are inked in a dark brown / black color and the 6 and 9 faces use underbars to indicate their orientation. The dice are available as just d20s or as a full set of 7 ttRPG dice.
Size:
d20 #1: (Face->Face) 21.4 mm (Point->Point) 25.9 mm
d20 #2: (Face->Face) 21.7 mm (Point->Point) 26.7 mm
Where did they come from: Etsy (Seller: BushmanSurvival)
How much did they cost: $13.55 each, or $27.10 for the pair.
Material / color: Oxen bone, brown with black numbers
Quality: Fair to good.
Readability: Poor. Black on brown is hard to read on the table in front of me
Value: Very good. I have no reference for bone dice other than one d20 that I happened to find a few years ago in my local game store and bought. I don’t remember how much that d20 cost or what animal the bone came from though. $14 for one d20 made of an uncommon material like bone seems like a good deal to me.
Overall Rating: 7/10
Attempts needed to roll a natural 20:
Die #1: 15 rolls
Die #2: 7 rolls
Fifty d20 rolls:
Die #1: 20, 6, 8, 1, 7, 10, 1, 2, 6, 7, 14, 20, 6, 17, 17, 19, 1, 1, 4, 4, 20, 17, 2, 4, 20, 6, 18, 15, 4, 15, 12, 13, 1, 13, 9, 11, 10, 2, 6, 10, 2, 15, 13, 7, 16, 16, 1, 19, 1, 3
Mean: 9.44 (Average)
Median: 8.5 (Middle)
Mode: 1 (Most Common) !!
Fifty d20 rolls:
Die #2: 17, 15, 4, 20, 11, 7, 17, 5, 17, 11, 19, 5, 16, 5, 9, 13, 5, 11, 16, 6, 4, 4, 2, 15, 16, 3, 19, 3, 3, 6, 13, 19, 7, 2, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8, 17, 9, 14, 7, 18, 8, 5, 15, 14, 15, 1
Mean: 9.96 (Average)
Median: 8.5 (Middle)
Mode: 4, 5, 7 (Most common)
6d20 drop < 3 stat block: 18, 6, 4, 20, 14, 20 (82 total) A Disruptive Human Bard from the Thornwood who is searching for the knowledge of true immortality.
For reference: the Standard Array method totals to: 72 and the Point Buy method totals to: 69.
Rolling 5 performance checks as a 20th level bard (with expertise in Performance for a +17 to the roll): 24, 29, 26, 25, 37
(This is another excuse for rolling dice)
Random Tables rolls 6d20:
D20 #1: Secret Societies: 72 – Cult of the Creation Dragon: these members believe that the world is in fact a the first dragon curled up waiting to wake up, the cult aims to wake the dragon and re create the world as we know it.
D20 #2: Non/Low Magic Plot Twists: 57 – Some curse that has plagued the PC their entire life, turns out to make them immune to the bad guys main power
(I’m getting these random tables at: https://d100tables.com by the way
Final Thoughts:
I only bought these dice for two reasons: 1) They’re made of bone, and 2) I’m a dice goblin. The photo on the Etsy page made them look much more white with brown bits instead of brown with darker brown bits. That’s a little disappointing. Bones are white, aren’t they? Maybe I can bleach these in the sun this summer or something…. Given that they’re darkish brown with even darker brown/black numbers, they are very hard to read even up close next to you on the table.
The woes that these dice have continue with the fact that their numbers are off-center and in once case, extend over the edge onto the adjacent face. I’ve never seen that level of sloppy before. I wouldn’t have sold dice with that kind of flaw and the Etsy rating will suffer because of it unfortunately. The dice also roll a little bit low (9.44 and 9.96 median over 50 rolls) and seem to me to be a little unevenly weighted. Does that bother me? not really. It’s really hard to get dice completely evenly weighted, especially when you’re making them out of a very non-standard material. Who knows what the specific densities of each different piece of Oxen bone is when you’re binding them into blanks. Add to that the numbering layout (these use the standard numbering) having some bias into the distribution of rolls.
For the upsides… they’re made of bone! It’s very hard to find ttrpg dice (read: dice with more or less than 6 sides) made of bone. Some people may find bone a bit gruesome as a material to hold in their hands, others (like me) don’t ahve any issue with it as long as it’s sourced ethically. It does make me wonder if I could donate my body to science (to be a medical cadaver or something) after I die and make one stipulation that someone makes a full set of ttrpg dice out of some of my bones. Neat idea but probably near impossible to pull off unless you know the person doing the dice making. Another upside for these dice: they’re heavy! It might be the resin that seals / binds them but they weigh roughly the same as gemstone dice do which is a very good thing. The final upside: the edges are fairly sharp, especially for non-resin dice, which I particularly like. My preference for sharp edge dice is so strong that I will rarely ever consider dice that have dull edges. The occasional metal set of dice will have dull edges / vertices, like most hollow metal dice do, but in general two things turn me away from a set of dice quickly: rounded edges and logos on the 20 face.
So in summary: These dice are a great idea with poor execution unfortunately. They need better quality control in the production process, especially the numbering, and really need a different font color when the overall color of the dice comes out brown instead of predominantly white. I’m sure there will be some variation in the color of bones when you’re sourcing raw materials, but make adjustments for that when you’re numbering the dice or just don’t use darker bones to make dice. If the photos on the seller’s Etsy page showed brown/black dice like the ones I received, I probably wouldn’t have bought them.
What’s a goblin gonna do?
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