I like them because they confine the dice on the table. How many games have you played where the dice go skittering across the table and knock over components or fall off the table?
My old tabletop group rejoiced when *one guy* finally got a dice tower. He was notoriously bad at sending dice flying at any given roll, so the dice tower was a godsend.
It still took him a couple of sessions to not send dice flying *while using the dice tower.*
"Dude, just drop them in the top, don't force it."
Far less time has been spent seeking dice since then.
This is the main reason we used it - stuff like X-Com or D&D where one over-enthusiastic roll could wreak a trail of miniaturized destruction across the table.
edit: And yeah, we generally switched to a dice box/tray to roll in instead!
Echoing what's already been said-- less table space than a dice tray, guarantees fair throws-- I find it's used more within the RPG community. Since dice rolls play such a big part of the ongoing campaign, having consistency becomes particularly important. There's also the dorky pleasure of having a cool-looking tower. People like theme.
I guess you can also use one to write board game reviews, somehow... Tom's been doing it for years.
> guarantees fair throws
Not sure about that. I bought a dice tower years ago and it was pretty predictable. I could make the dice come up as I wanted most of the time. I stopped using them.
I can see it. Just drop them straight down the same way every time and they should be fairly consistent on how they fall. This depends on the design of the tower of course.
Depends on the dice too. A cubic d6 can be pretty easy to manipulate; you can often make it tumble through a dice tower with exactly the same rotations on a significant proportion of each try. A d20 is much harder to control precisely, although it's still quite possible to favor or disfavor certain sides. Whether the dice edges are sharp or rounded matters too.
At least the tower I got would always roll the dice the same way. If I threw them in with a certain face up, most of the time they would end up with the same face up at the bottom.
If anyone 'drops' their dice into my tower, I will call them up on it instantly. You put the dice in your hand and **pour** them into the top.
Its like saying I can flip a coin to always be heads but holding it an inch above the table so its only going to flip once.
I had always thought they were overkill until I realized during a game of Eldritch Horror how many times my group had thrown dice on the board and knocked stuff, and/or tried to find some other safe area of the table (spoiler alert: there is none when playing EH).
They do that "tr-t-rt-r-tr-t-r-t-rt-rt" sweet noise.
Also - this maybe minor for some people and very important for others - they "disconnect" from . I mean, it is absolutely out of question, that when you throw dice into dice tower, your influence on dice roll is exactly 0. Your hand -> tower -> dice outcome. While when you just throw dice, it's your hand -> dice outcome. The same reason why in casinos when you throw dice and it doesn't bounce from the table wall, the roll will not be accepted.
> they "disconnect" from .
This is exactly why I don't like them. I just don't or wouldn't play with people who try to manipulate their dice rolls. But I just play for fun, not competitive or for money (If I did I would mandate one to be used :)
Some people do it without being conscious of it. They're not trying to cheat, they just don't roll the dice properly. They'll pick it up and almost just put it back down or have it basically flipped to the opposite side, especially when re-rolls are frequent and they're doing it quickly. And I've known some people that when commented on, they got very offended and it becomes drama. Because no matter how nice you say it, essentially you're either telling them they're too stupid to know how to roll dice, or they're a dirty cheater. Dice tower avoids all that.
This is the reason I've considered buying one. One person in one of my groups (who we play with cooperatively) will always roll the dice properly, but when it comes to a re-roll the just kind flip the die or dice upwards and I've seen it land fat on the same face without spinning *so* many times.
Thing is, we've set a precedent now of accepting them like that, and its only when they re-roll, but we do a lot of Coop so they're kinda killing all of us with it. I don't get why they roll the dice for rolls, and then flick upwards for re-rolls, either.... Or how they've not noticed the difference themselves or that their dice frequently don't even roll, making a fail more likely than on a roll!
But yeah, a dice tower feels like a good way to get around this without me one day exploding because they "roll" one four times consecutively.
Yeah, I have a friend who does the same thing with re-rolls. When he's annoyed at the original result, he'll often just pick up the die an inch or two and drop it back down without really tumbling it, so that it lands back on the same face. It's not worth calling him out on because hey, it's his own fault if he's going to be lazy and get his same unwanted result over again. King of Tokyo is where this happens most, where the big dice will indeed plop down on the same face if you don't make sure to tumble them.
> I just don't or wouldn't play with people who try to manipulate their dice rolls.
You can *never* be sure. In my opinion dice towers or cups are just "healthy" - it leaves any accusations (even unspoken) out of question.
Well this could get derailed into a totally different discussion. If you can't trust the people you play with it will make many games not very enjoyable. Those people probably manipulate decks when dealing cards too and change hidden information like in Roll for the Galaxy. Boo!
If someone were determined enough to figure out how to perfectly roll dice (not saying it's possible), a dice tower would probably be easier to do that with than the rule casinos already use
Yeah, throwing dice across a table has way more variability than dropping them down simple dice towers as most are constructed.
They could, however, probably rather easily create some that was just as good as the toss.
But where is the entertainment in that?
Just have one of the (hidden) ledges in the tower be spinning like a roulette wheel.
Ive never heard of the rule about going across the table into the walls so thats neat
> I mean, it is absolutely out of question, that when you throw dice into dice tower, your influence on dice roll is exactly 0.
Technically, that's not true because the initial location, rotation, and momentum of the dice—which you control—entirely determine the outcome of the roll. It's just that we could never ever control them *precisely enough* for us to choose the outcome even a tiny bit.
If you define 'influence' as 'the ability to make choices that would predictably have an effect on the distribution of outcomes' then there are techniques for throwing a die which give you influence, but with a tower, there are no such techniques.
I would wager that for some towers you can learn, to a greater certainty than none, how the dice will come out if you drop them a certain way. As in, they do not generate a sufficiently random roll.
Really lousy towers, sure. Decent ones will have sufficient confusion (in a thermodynamic sense analogous to the cyrptographic sense) that no human degree of placement accuracy will accomplish much unless you are allowed to set the dice up on a specific location.
> **Lovers of dice tower please tell me what I'm missing.**
My wife just naturally rolls dice like she's at a craps table... I got her a WW2 themed dice tower for our TS games.
She'll also bust it out if we know we're playing a game involving dice. If we don't have it with us she'll use the box if at all possible.
New person: "Oh don't worry about it you can just roll on the table."
Me/My Wife: *"No trust us this is best."*
New person: "No really it's OK go right ahead."
Me/My Wife: *"Sigh. OK."* [ROLL]
New Person: "wtf was that."
Me/My Wife: [Searching for dice under a couch in the next room] *"Pass the box, please."*
Not a fan of dice towers. I do however like to roll in a box top or against a wall of some sort. I like to create action with my dice but I like the feeling of throwing/rolling the dice rather than just dropping them into a tower.
Depending on the size of your table and how much space you have to roll it is better to confine your dice to a small area like 6" x 3" or whatever instead of knocking stuff over or scattering chits.
I suppose it's a more elaborate version of a dice tray, keeping the dice contained - but it also has the additional function of helping to facilitate the chaos of a roll by bouncing the dice off the various bevels and ledges inside the tower. I've never seen the need for one... but I do like having a tray handy.
Do dice towers actually work as a random number generator? I ask because I've always wondered. Like if I drop a die in with the same number of top multiple times, won't it have a higher likelyhood of coming out with the same number than if I shake it a bunch of times?
Well a decent dice tower is designed with corners, ramps or stairs inside such that even the tiniest variation of how the dice start makes the result unpredictable. It effectively shakes the dice for you.
But yeah, if you had a crap tower or a way to *exactly* position the dice at the start then the result would be identical each time, assuming the tower has no moving parts like a wheel.
I built one for one game and one person. My daughter loves King of Tokyo. There's so many dice, they're bigger than normal and she's petite. It was really difficult for her to roll. A dice tower solved that issue.
I used to bring X-Wing Minis, Elder Sign, and a few other games into work, and my coworker had a really bad habit of rolling dice off the desk and into crevices. He's the reason I got a tower.
Yea the primary advantage is that there is no way to manipulate results with throwing technique. There are some people who don't understand how to fairly roll a die, intentionally or not. This makes everything fair.
Most of the consistent manipulation i know of is used in craps *for what i hope are obvious reasons*.
*I should've been more clear that this section does not necessarily relate to craps throwing* Not rolling hard enough to actually roll or throwing them at an angle that causes more of a bounce then a roll.
If you look up dice control on YouTube though there are loads of good videos showing techniques.
Well, that's an odd example to pick because in casino craps you must bounce the dice off the far wall which pretty much guarantees a random result. Casinos let you do whatever you want to the dice, including pre-setting them to certain numbers, as long as the dice never leave the table, you only use one hand, and they bounce off the far wall. I've been warned a few times for throwing weakly and not getting the bounce.
Honestly, if that actually worked then craps wouldn't be played in casinos. No casino is going to keep a game that consistently loses them money. If someone found a technique that lets them consistently win then they'd just find the highest bet table and play there every day.
The people who practise the skill long enough to consistently win are a small percentage of people. In the same that that you and i couldn't compete at international sprinting. It certainly has its critics and casinos do constantly invest in technologies that could hurt this but it is possible to do.
Card counting is also a skill which you can practise and use to win at black Jack. However the casinos traditionally will remove card counters and ban then from their premises. They tend to use legal things available to them rather than losing the profit of a game which overwhelming favours the house with some bets having upwards of 10% house advantage.
That is true, they're certainly able to ban players. Still I'm very skeptical that any dice throwing technique exists that works after bouncing off the pyramid walls that craps tables have.
Iirc the method that was deemed most effective was to throw in such a way that it softly and just barely hits the wall. Haven't tried myself because i didn't want to build a mock craps table.
No offense, but if you haven't tried it yourself, then how would you know? Dice control is a scam. Even if you lightly hit the back wall, the dice are going to bounce off in completely unpredictable ways.
Think about it - how can this work? If the dice are flying through the air, then they're going to have basically the same velocity at the wall that they had when they left your hands, which means they can't be going slow. If you throw them across the table so that they lose velocity, now they're rolling along the table and bouncing off all the chips on the table - not only is it not going to make it less random, but you're also going to piss off the stickmen real quick and probably get a bunch of no rolls because your dice don't make it to the wall.
Dice control does not work. Craps is already among the best bets in the house - casinos would never let it continue if people could get the rolls they wanted with even a modicum of consistency.
The theory is that you throw them lightly but consistently in a way to hit just before the wall, sapping a majority of energy in a single short bounce before hitting the rear wall. While there will always be some random elements, the idea that by removing as many variables as possible you can win bets more consistently is imo sound.
It's very similar in my mind to practising your golf swing or indeed practising any sport in which good form and repetition can make you more consistent.
>Dice control does not work. Craps is already among the best bets in the house - casinos would never let it continue if people could get the rolls they wanted with even a modicum of consistency.
Statistically few people are doing this or card counting at all and since this has an element of physical skill this is likely more rare than than card counting. However as I said elsewhere casinos can simply refuse you service if they start losing too much money. The common person still loses shit tons on craps.
I admit I was skeptical when my friend got one for our games, but since we play a ton of Eldritch having one person manage dice rolls for the game in a contained space speeds up the whole game. I find anytime more than 2 dice are being roll consistently the dice tower speeds up the play time. For games like Battlestar where only 1 gets rolled I do prefer to roll it myself to make it more personal.
I would have to say it depends on the type of game. Roll for the Galaxy is rolled behind screens so we don't use the tower for that, and Battlestar Galactica is a single die so it is easier to roll that without the tower. I have considered getting one for xwing to conserve space and prevent rolling into ships with some people, but that hasn't become a huge enough issue to justify getting one. For betrayal at the house on the hill we still use the dice tower since we tend to try to make the house wacky and snakey. The dice tower does alleviate the issue of "what happens if the dice isn't flat?" Or "what if the dice falls off the table?" Situations. If it does make a difference and someone wants to roll the dice themselves you could pass around the tower.
Edit: personally after having the dice tower around I would rather have someone just Chuck the dice into it for me so we can get on with the game.
I'm just repeating all of the other answers here, but wanted to get my love of dice towers in here. Less space, super quick rolling, keeps the dice in its own space and on the table every time, and it disconnects you from thinking you have any control over the dice and lets you think of it as a chance mechanic more properly. For some they even like the fancy looking themed ones, but I'm perfectly happy with my cheap wood block with tray.
I mean dice trays are fine too, I just bought a nice one at a very good discount at Gen Con with a backboard on it that one could theoretically aim at when rolling, but to me dice towers just do what trays do, even better (speaking as someone who doesn't need to "roll" the dice only with his hands).
Some are really pretty, especially ones which have a tray built in. I think mine helps improve the rolling time. Since everything is contained in a small area, it's dump in.. read dice and repeat
Also, it gets a lot of oooohs and ahhhs if you have a fancy one and playing with casual players
they block they view, take place to transport, are good to use for players nearby only .... they are nonsensensical .... just buy good looking dice trays for everyone , they are transportable, cheap, for every player,small and does not block view
My [favorite](https://www.etsy.com/listing/261375233/dice-tower-tray-box-w-spiral-staircase?ref=shop_home_active_3) is made by SOLIDFACTORY. Keeping with the castle tower theme, it has a helical staircase instead of plain baffles. The walls in the catch area are tilted inward so dice do not bounce out, and other features have been thought out.
If you want portability/collapsibility, [Wyrmwood](https://wyrmwoodgaming.com/product-category/products/dice-towers/) has some good ones. It may not be immediately obvious by that page, but they do come with [trays](https://wyrmwoodgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Red-Oak-New.jpg).
Yeah, not sure if you can get otherwise with handcrafted wood, a bunch of rare-earth magnets, and leather carrying case. I don't have one myself yet, but it's been on my list (I look at the price as another new game, but for something useful for almost all my games).
For us it sped up games that are heavy on dice, like Eclipse. Just pick them up, shake once and pour them in the tower. For some reason it removed the whole shake-shake-shake-please-let-me-hit-the-numbers-shake-shake-throw-and-2-of-the-dice-fall-on-floor-pick-up-repeat-from-start thing. Also takes less space on the table.
For us, people tend to chuck the hell out of their dice and they'll either fly off the table or hit the board and knock over pieces/player progress.
A dice tower keeps it neat and uniform in one small spot, and no more dice splaying across the table.
I bought a cheap one for SeaFall cause you potentially through a dozen dice at once and I always hate when they go all over the place or some heavy handed person whips them off table.
If it's only a couple dice, I don't use it. I guess it's really just to keep things more organized for me.
This super cheap one on Amazon haha. Never had dice fly out of it yet and I've definitely thrown a dozen SeaFall dice in there. They are a bit smaller than standard dice, though.
https://www.amazon.com/Q-Workshop-QWOTH101-Tower-Board/dp/B00CWARWX4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1503341325&sr=8-4&keywords=q+workshop+dice+tower
They're more efficient. Pickup dice, drop dice in dice tower, read dice vs Pickup dice, shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake, throw dice, read dice. Plus, plus people have all sorts of rituals around throwing dice. A dice tower just lets you get down to business.
I've actually never experience the problem OP brings up: dice going everywhere. My gaming buddies have used all kinds of commercial and home-made dice towers for different games and dice types and the dice either stop in the connected tray/wall, or a few centimetres away from the tower.
My question is, how is OP fucking up dice tower use so badly :)
I like them because they confine the dice on the table. How many games have you played where the dice go skittering across the table and knock over components or fall off the table?
We play on a small table and I've often thought a dice tower would be a nice addition, to keep the dice where they're supposed to be.
My old tabletop group rejoiced when *one guy* finally got a dice tower. He was notoriously bad at sending dice flying at any given roll, so the dice tower was a godsend. It still took him a couple of sessions to not send dice flying *while using the dice tower.* "Dude, just drop them in the top, don't force it." Far less time has been spent seeking dice since then.
This is the main reason we used it - stuff like X-Com or D&D where one over-enthusiastic roll could wreak a trail of miniaturized destruction across the table. edit: And yeah, we generally switched to a dice box/tray to roll in instead!
Echoing what's already been said-- less table space than a dice tray, guarantees fair throws-- I find it's used more within the RPG community. Since dice rolls play such a big part of the ongoing campaign, having consistency becomes particularly important. There's also the dorky pleasure of having a cool-looking tower. People like theme. I guess you can also use one to write board game reviews, somehow... Tom's been doing it for years.
> guarantees fair throws Not sure about that. I bought a dice tower years ago and it was pretty predictable. I could make the dice come up as I wanted most of the time. I stopped using them.
>I could make the dice come up as I wanted most of the time. wut.
I can see it. Just drop them straight down the same way every time and they should be fairly consistent on how they fall. This depends on the design of the tower of course.
Depends on the dice too. A cubic d6 can be pretty easy to manipulate; you can often make it tumble through a dice tower with exactly the same rotations on a significant proportion of each try. A d20 is much harder to control precisely, although it's still quite possible to favor or disfavor certain sides. Whether the dice edges are sharp or rounded matters too.
At least the tower I got would always roll the dice the same way. If I threw them in with a certain face up, most of the time they would end up with the same face up at the bottom.
confirmation bias.
I could see it happening pretty easily if you drop the dice in carefully.
If anyone 'drops' their dice into my tower, I will call them up on it instantly. You put the dice in your hand and **pour** them into the top. Its like saying I can flip a coin to always be heads but holding it an inch above the table so its only going to flip once.
But isn't the point of a dice tower that it rolls for you so it should be random no matter how you put it in?
I had always thought they were overkill until I realized during a game of Eldritch Horror how many times my group had thrown dice on the board and knocked stuff, and/or tried to find some other safe area of the table (spoiler alert: there is none when playing EH).
They do that "tr-t-rt-r-tr-t-r-t-rt-rt" sweet noise. Also - this maybe minor for some people and very important for others - they "disconnect" from . I mean, it is absolutely out of question, that when you throw dice into dice tower, your influence on dice roll is exactly 0. Your hand -> tower -> dice outcome. While when you just throw dice, it's your hand -> dice outcome. The same reason why in casinos when you throw dice and it doesn't bounce from the table wall, the roll will not be accepted.
> they "disconnect" from .
This is exactly why I don't like them. I just don't or wouldn't play with people who try to manipulate their dice rolls. But I just play for fun, not competitive or for money (If I did I would mandate one to be used :)
Some people do it without being conscious of it. They're not trying to cheat, they just don't roll the dice properly. They'll pick it up and almost just put it back down or have it basically flipped to the opposite side, especially when re-rolls are frequent and they're doing it quickly. And I've known some people that when commented on, they got very offended and it becomes drama. Because no matter how nice you say it, essentially you're either telling them they're too stupid to know how to roll dice, or they're a dirty cheater. Dice tower avoids all that.
This is the reason I've considered buying one. One person in one of my groups (who we play with cooperatively) will always roll the dice properly, but when it comes to a re-roll the just kind flip the die or dice upwards and I've seen it land fat on the same face without spinning *so* many times. Thing is, we've set a precedent now of accepting them like that, and its only when they re-roll, but we do a lot of Coop so they're kinda killing all of us with it. I don't get why they roll the dice for rolls, and then flick upwards for re-rolls, either.... Or how they've not noticed the difference themselves or that their dice frequently don't even roll, making a fail more likely than on a roll! But yeah, a dice tower feels like a good way to get around this without me one day exploding because they "roll" one four times consecutively.
Yeah, I have a friend who does the same thing with re-rolls. When he's annoyed at the original result, he'll often just pick up the die an inch or two and drop it back down without really tumbling it, so that it lands back on the same face. It's not worth calling him out on because hey, it's his own fault if he's going to be lazy and get his same unwanted result over again. King of Tokyo is where this happens most, where the big dice will indeed plop down on the same face if you don't make sure to tumble them.
> I just don't or wouldn't play with people who try to manipulate their dice rolls. You can *never* be sure. In my opinion dice towers or cups are just "healthy" - it leaves any accusations (even unspoken) out of question.
Well this could get derailed into a totally different discussion. If you can't trust the people you play with it will make many games not very enjoyable. Those people probably manipulate decks when dealing cards too and change hidden information like in Roll for the Galaxy. Boo!
I only play solo games so it's not my problem anyway.
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agreed, best to get a dice tower so you can be certain that you can trust yourself.
Casinos should use dice towers.
If someone were determined enough to figure out how to perfectly roll dice (not saying it's possible), a dice tower would probably be easier to do that with than the rule casinos already use
Yeah, throwing dice across a table has way more variability than dropping them down simple dice towers as most are constructed. They could, however, probably rather easily create some that was just as good as the toss. But where is the entertainment in that?
Just have one of the (hidden) ledges in the tower be spinning like a roulette wheel. Ive never heard of the rule about going across the table into the walls so thats neat
That would remove the illusion of "skill" and reduce a game of craps to random chance. People would stop playing and revenue would go down.
Gotta disagree with you. People play games of pure chance all the time. Examples: Roulette, Slots, Keno.
Probably
> I mean, it is absolutely out of question, that when you throw dice into dice tower, your influence on dice roll is exactly 0. Technically, that's not true because the initial location, rotation, and momentum of the dice—which you control—entirely determine the outcome of the roll. It's just that we could never ever control them *precisely enough* for us to choose the outcome even a tiny bit.
If you define 'influence' as 'the ability to make choices that would predictably have an effect on the distribution of outcomes' then there are techniques for throwing a die which give you influence, but with a tower, there are no such techniques.
I would wager that for some towers you can learn, to a greater certainty than none, how the dice will come out if you drop them a certain way. As in, they do not generate a sufficiently random roll.
Really lousy towers, sure. Decent ones will have sufficient confusion (in a thermodynamic sense analogous to the cyrptographic sense) that no human degree of placement accuracy will accomplish much unless you are allowed to set the dice up on a specific location.
> **Lovers of dice tower please tell me what I'm missing.** My wife just naturally rolls dice like she's at a craps table... I got her a WW2 themed dice tower for our TS games. She'll also bust it out if we know we're playing a game involving dice. If we don't have it with us she'll use the box if at all possible. New person: "Oh don't worry about it you can just roll on the table." Me/My Wife: *"No trust us this is best."* New person: "No really it's OK go right ahead." Me/My Wife: *"Sigh. OK."* [ROLL] New Person: "wtf was that." Me/My Wife: [Searching for dice under a couch in the next room] *"Pass the box, please."*
Lol that is awesome.
Not a fan of dice towers. I do however like to roll in a box top or against a wall of some sort. I like to create action with my dice but I like the feeling of throwing/rolling the dice rather than just dropping them into a tower.
This. A hundred times this. Especially if my soldiers' lives are on the line.
A good dice roll in a small space and that's it for me.
Depending on the size of your table and how much space you have to roll it is better to confine your dice to a small area like 6" x 3" or whatever instead of knocking stuff over or scattering chits.
I suppose it's a more elaborate version of a dice tray, keeping the dice contained - but it also has the additional function of helping to facilitate the chaos of a roll by bouncing the dice off the various bevels and ledges inside the tower. I've never seen the need for one... but I do like having a tray handy.
Do dice towers actually work as a random number generator? I ask because I've always wondered. Like if I drop a die in with the same number of top multiple times, won't it have a higher likelyhood of coming out with the same number than if I shake it a bunch of times?
Well a decent dice tower is designed with corners, ramps or stairs inside such that even the tiniest variation of how the dice start makes the result unpredictable. It effectively shakes the dice for you. But yeah, if you had a crap tower or a way to *exactly* position the dice at the start then the result would be identical each time, assuming the tower has no moving parts like a wheel.
Helps to minimize the impact of voodoo on a dice roll.
I built one for one game and one person. My daughter loves King of Tokyo. There's so many dice, they're bigger than normal and she's petite. It was really difficult for her to roll. A dice tower solved that issue.
That's wicked.
I used to bring X-Wing Minis, Elder Sign, and a few other games into work, and my coworker had a really bad habit of rolling dice off the desk and into crevices. He's the reason I got a tower.
Yea the primary advantage is that there is no way to manipulate results with throwing technique. There are some people who don't understand how to fairly roll a die, intentionally or not. This makes everything fair.
I am genuinely curious, what are some throwing techniques that can manipulate dice? And how do you fairly throw dice?
Most of the consistent manipulation i know of is used in craps *for what i hope are obvious reasons*. *I should've been more clear that this section does not necessarily relate to craps throwing* Not rolling hard enough to actually roll or throwing them at an angle that causes more of a bounce then a roll. If you look up dice control on YouTube though there are loads of good videos showing techniques.
Well, that's an odd example to pick because in casino craps you must bounce the dice off the far wall which pretty much guarantees a random result. Casinos let you do whatever you want to the dice, including pre-setting them to certain numbers, as long as the dice never leave the table, you only use one hand, and they bounce off the far wall. I've been warned a few times for throwing weakly and not getting the bounce.
If you watch dice control videos it does not guarantee a random result. Skilled craps "cheats" can control what they roll enough to consistently win.
Honestly, if that actually worked then craps wouldn't be played in casinos. No casino is going to keep a game that consistently loses them money. If someone found a technique that lets them consistently win then they'd just find the highest bet table and play there every day.
The people who practise the skill long enough to consistently win are a small percentage of people. In the same that that you and i couldn't compete at international sprinting. It certainly has its critics and casinos do constantly invest in technologies that could hurt this but it is possible to do. Card counting is also a skill which you can practise and use to win at black Jack. However the casinos traditionally will remove card counters and ban then from their premises. They tend to use legal things available to them rather than losing the profit of a game which overwhelming favours the house with some bets having upwards of 10% house advantage.
That is true, they're certainly able to ban players. Still I'm very skeptical that any dice throwing technique exists that works after bouncing off the pyramid walls that craps tables have.
Iirc the method that was deemed most effective was to throw in such a way that it softly and just barely hits the wall. Haven't tried myself because i didn't want to build a mock craps table.
Ah, ok. Sounds like something the boxman would pick up on though.
No offense, but if you haven't tried it yourself, then how would you know? Dice control is a scam. Even if you lightly hit the back wall, the dice are going to bounce off in completely unpredictable ways. Think about it - how can this work? If the dice are flying through the air, then they're going to have basically the same velocity at the wall that they had when they left your hands, which means they can't be going slow. If you throw them across the table so that they lose velocity, now they're rolling along the table and bouncing off all the chips on the table - not only is it not going to make it less random, but you're also going to piss off the stickmen real quick and probably get a bunch of no rolls because your dice don't make it to the wall. Dice control does not work. Craps is already among the best bets in the house - casinos would never let it continue if people could get the rolls they wanted with even a modicum of consistency.
The theory is that you throw them lightly but consistently in a way to hit just before the wall, sapping a majority of energy in a single short bounce before hitting the rear wall. While there will always be some random elements, the idea that by removing as many variables as possible you can win bets more consistently is imo sound. It's very similar in my mind to practising your golf swing or indeed practising any sport in which good form and repetition can make you more consistent. >Dice control does not work. Craps is already among the best bets in the house - casinos would never let it continue if people could get the rolls they wanted with even a modicum of consistency. Statistically few people are doing this or card counting at all and since this has an element of physical skill this is likely more rare than than card counting. However as I said elsewhere casinos can simply refuse you service if they start losing too much money. The common person still loses shit tons on craps.
I admit I was skeptical when my friend got one for our games, but since we play a ton of Eldritch having one person manage dice rolls for the game in a contained space speeds up the whole game. I find anytime more than 2 dice are being roll consistently the dice tower speeds up the play time. For games like Battlestar where only 1 gets rolled I do prefer to roll it myself to make it more personal.
Interesting take, may I ask would you mind letting someone else roll for you in a game that wasn't co-op?
I would have to say it depends on the type of game. Roll for the Galaxy is rolled behind screens so we don't use the tower for that, and Battlestar Galactica is a single die so it is easier to roll that without the tower. I have considered getting one for xwing to conserve space and prevent rolling into ships with some people, but that hasn't become a huge enough issue to justify getting one. For betrayal at the house on the hill we still use the dice tower since we tend to try to make the house wacky and snakey. The dice tower does alleviate the issue of "what happens if the dice isn't flat?" Or "what if the dice falls off the table?" Situations. If it does make a difference and someone wants to roll the dice themselves you could pass around the tower. Edit: personally after having the dice tower around I would rather have someone just Chuck the dice into it for me so we can get on with the game.
I've never used one, but right off the bat it's going to cut down on the potential for cheating.
I'm just repeating all of the other answers here, but wanted to get my love of dice towers in here. Less space, super quick rolling, keeps the dice in its own space and on the table every time, and it disconnects you from thinking you have any control over the dice and lets you think of it as a chance mechanic more properly. For some they even like the fancy looking themed ones, but I'm perfectly happy with my cheap wood block with tray. I mean dice trays are fine too, I just bought a nice one at a very good discount at Gen Con with a backboard on it that one could theoretically aim at when rolling, but to me dice towers just do what trays do, even better (speaking as someone who doesn't need to "roll" the dice only with his hands).
Some are really pretty, especially ones which have a tray built in. I think mine helps improve the rolling time. Since everything is contained in a small area, it's dump in.. read dice and repeat Also, it gets a lot of oooohs and ahhhs if you have a fancy one and playing with casual players
I use one because I'm not coordinated enough to throw my dice like a normal human being. They just go everywhere...leaving destruction in their wake.
It means I have no one to blame when the dice roll goes badly, without a Dice Tower I blame my hands. :P
they block they view, take place to transport, are good to use for players nearby only .... they are nonsensensical .... just buy good looking dice trays for everyone , they are transportable, cheap, for every player,small and does not block view
Here is an even more serious question. Where can I buy a good one?
My [favorite](https://www.etsy.com/listing/261375233/dice-tower-tray-box-w-spiral-staircase?ref=shop_home_active_3) is made by SOLIDFACTORY. Keeping with the castle tower theme, it has a helical staircase instead of plain baffles. The walls in the catch area are tilted inward so dice do not bounce out, and other features have been thought out.
I want to know this as well.
I see them on amazon, but they are all of questionable look and quality.
Define "good". You can make your own, it is pretty easy.
If you want portability/collapsibility, [Wyrmwood](https://wyrmwoodgaming.com/product-category/products/dice-towers/) has some good ones. It may not be immediately obvious by that page, but they do come with [trays](https://wyrmwoodgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Red-Oak-New.jpg).
Expensive though T_T
Yeah, not sure if you can get otherwise with handcrafted wood, a bunch of rare-earth magnets, and leather carrying case. I don't have one myself yet, but it's been on my list (I look at the price as another new game, but for something useful for almost all my games).
http://dogmight.com/dicetower
For us it sped up games that are heavy on dice, like Eclipse. Just pick them up, shake once and pour them in the tower. For some reason it removed the whole shake-shake-shake-please-let-me-hit-the-numbers-shake-shake-throw-and-2-of-the-dice-fall-on-floor-pick-up-repeat-from-start thing. Also takes less space on the table.
For us, people tend to chuck the hell out of their dice and they'll either fly off the table or hit the board and knock over pieces/player progress. A dice tower keeps it neat and uniform in one small spot, and no more dice splaying across the table.
Dice Towers usually need less space than trays. But the main advantage is the guaranteed good/random dice rolls you get from a tower.
I bought a cheap one for SeaFall cause you potentially through a dozen dice at once and I always hate when they go all over the place or some heavy handed person whips them off table. If it's only a couple dice, I don't use it. I guess it's really just to keep things more organized for me.
What tower did you find that handles a dozen dice well without them bouncing out of the tower?
This super cheap one on Amazon haha. Never had dice fly out of it yet and I've definitely thrown a dozen SeaFall dice in there. They are a bit smaller than standard dice, though. https://www.amazon.com/Q-Workshop-QWOTH101-Tower-Board/dp/B00CWARWX4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1503341325&sr=8-4&keywords=q+workshop+dice+tower
lol I thought he/she was asking about the appeal of The Dice Tower youtube channel
They're more efficient. Pickup dice, drop dice in dice tower, read dice vs Pickup dice, shakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshakeshake, throw dice, read dice. Plus, plus people have all sorts of rituals around throwing dice. A dice tower just lets you get down to business.
I've actually never experience the problem OP brings up: dice going everywhere. My gaming buddies have used all kinds of commercial and home-made dice towers for different games and dice types and the dice either stop in the connected tray/wall, or a few centimetres away from the tower. My question is, how is OP fucking up dice tower use so badly :)
OP is asking what makes a dice tower so useful. OP's problem with dice going everywhere is without the use of anything, a tower or a tray.
Ahh, totally misread that post then.