This is probably unusual for most gamers, but I don’t really have a favorite set of dice. I’ll use pretty much whatever is at hand, and since I run a lot of the games using my laptop, I often just use a dice-rolling app like Dice by PCCalc on the MacBook Air. This app works well for me as you can set up strange sided dice, like d5s and d7s — which are useful if you play Lex Arcana with it’s strange dice mechanic. It allows for Fate dice, as well.

However, there is a new trend in games of having bits and bobs to go along with it — especially stuff on Kickstarter where stretch goals usually include some form of card deck and dice. Of those specialty dice, the ones from Broken Compass were pretty neat — with faces reading N, W, E, S, and a compass face. You don’t really need numbers in a game of (essentially) Yahtze, where you are looking for matches. The red and black ones from DIE are neat in that the highest face has a graphic representation of the type of die you’re using. The facehugger dice for Alien were cool, and helped craft a mood — but necessary? Not so much. I particularly liked the specialty dice for Avatar Legends, which have the sigils of the various elements on the 6 face.

Are any of these necessary? No — but they are fun and help set the mood.