Too Many

Is it possible to have too many dice? That's a question I recently asked myself after attending Gamehole Con and CleriCon this month. 

When I was younger, my answer would certainly have been no, in large part because, in the '80s, there weren't that many dice to buy, at least where I grew up. For the longest time, the only dice I ever owned were the ones that came in RPG boxed sets. They were almost universally terrible – either the infamous "low impact" dice associated with the Holmes D&D Basic Set or the almost-as-bad Dragon Dice from other TSR offerings. I think the first decent dice I acquired were the Gamescience set included in Call of Cthulhu, but it's possible I'm misremembering.

Regardless, I cherished every set of dice I acquired, even the bad ones, because, as I said, I didn't have the luxury of being able to pick and choose from a vast array of options. Even when more options became available to me, whether from Gamescience or The Armory, I still rarely bought them – not that I didn't want to do so. Being young, I didn't have a lot of money and what money I did I have I saved for being more games and adventure modules. 

When that changed, I started buying lots of dice, so many, in fact, that I filled several bags with them. I soon had dice of every conceivable color and manufacturer. The trouble was that I rarely made use of most of them. I had a few favorite sets – I'm particularly fond of green dice, for example – with the rest primarily being purchased "for show." I'd pick up almost any dice or sets of dice that I thought looked cool or that caught my fancy in some way or other. 

Sometime later, I looked at all the dice I'd accumulated and thought, "Do I really need this many dice?" It was a fair question, given how few of them I ever actually used. Furthermore, I play increasingly online and make use of a variety of dice rolling bots or apps, making physical dice ever less useful to me. I started to feel as if maybe, just maybe, I should stop buying dice. After all, I already literally had more dice than I could ever use. What was the point of buying more?

That remained my position for some years and, truthfully, I didn't find it hard to refrain from buying more dice. That changed last year when I was seated at a table at Gamehole Con and a player seated near me had a few of these delightful gelatinous cube dice that glowed in the dark. I was so enamored of them that I asked where she'd gotten the dice and then, the next day, bought a couple for myself. There was also a complete polyhedral set of similar design, but I held off on buying it. Once I got home from the con, though, I regretted not buying the full set and vowed to correct my mistake next year.

When next year finally arrived, I made good on my promise and bought the set, along with a handful of other dice from the same manufacturer. I also bought myself a(nother) set of DCC RPG dice from the Goodman Games booth – they were 25% off; how could I resist? – and spent an inordinate amount of time staring at dice for sale at the Chessex booth and elsewhere. I resisted buying any more dice, but, as I did last year, I found myself slightly regretting not being more indulgent. Maybe next year, I thought.

What is the appeal of dice? Why do we gamers want to have so many of them? Why do I find myself thinking about getting more of them when I already have so many? Objectively, it's ridiculous and yet I still ponder these and related questions on a regular basis. What's wrong with me?