My Dice Got the Boot

The best gaming item among my Christmas gifts wasn't actually a game, but a new dice boot. I've been wanting one for a long time, so when Gillian gave me an Amazon Gift Card, I knew the perfect thing to spend it on.

If you're not familiar with them, a dice boot is a tall box with an opening on top. Gamers drop dice into the opening on top, and, as the dice fall, they tumble through a series of ramps until exiting through a hole at the bottom into a small tray. The tower-like box and the tray at the bottom give the apparatus a boot-like appearance. (They are also known as "dice towers.") The boot I got from Amazon is relatively inexpensive (less than $20) and is made of plastic. Others are made of wood and are quite elaborate. VixenTor Games is known for making beautifully-thematic dice towers. I'm very happy with the functionality of my boot, although I'm considering putting some stickers on it to make it a little more attractive. It took about 10 minutes to assemble, and I followed the advice of a reviewer at Amazon, who suggested adding a few rubber bands around it, in order to reduce the noise cause by the plastic pieces not being perfectly snug.

Most of the games my group plays have too many pieces to roll dice on the board, and the boards are so large that there isn't much room left on the table. When playing the old Avalon Hill games, we used to roll into the box lid (which could easily be passed around). About ten years ago we started using a metal brownie pan. (Incidently, if you're hosting game day for my group, you can be out of snacks, the air conditioning can be broken and the cable box can be stuck on the Oxygen Network; but by God you'd better have a brownie pan.)

So, why did I want a dice boot? The problem is that a brownie pan (or a box) is susceptible to one of my gaming pet-peeves -- people who simply "drop" the dice without actually having them roll. The irony is that this isn't an actual problem with my gaming, since no one in my regular group is guilty of this. The real problem, I'm sad to say, is me: since I know that I get angry when anyone else "drops" the dice, I overcompensate when I roll by launching my dice in the air with various spinning motions. While this bolsters my credentials of sportsmanship (at least in my imagination), it's really bad for my aim -- the dice too frequently bounce out of the pan or miss the pan altogether. (Incidently, Preston Fuller has an hilarious Geeklist at BoardGameGeek about "people and their dice issues.") That's why I wanted a dice tower. Dropping the dice into the tower eliminates any suspicion that I'm "dropping" the dice while almost eliminating the "dice rolling across the kitchen floor" situation.

The only problem is that now Patrick is trying to figure out how he can cheat with the thing. Sigh.