Four-Sided Dice

I can’t remember when I first fell in love with dice. Perhaps it was when I opened my first Dungeons and Dragons box set and was exposed to the weird polyhedral varieties. Maybe it was the first time I went to a real gaming store and bought my first set of glitter dice.  Either way it was a long time ago, and since then I have collected more dice than one person could ever possibly need. I have some dice that I use with specific miniature armies.  I have others that contain eldritch symbols that are only useful in specific circumstances. I even have dice that serve no purpose whatsoever...why do I have a d30?

But there is one die I have never loved, the four-sided die.  The four-sider is the true dud of dicedom. Not only does it offer a very small possibility field, but it is shaped like a small pyramid that has no roll potential.  You don’t roll four-siders, you just drop them onto a table and watch with hopeless inevitability as they land on a sad little number. To make matters worse, in their early incarnations you had to read the number presented on the bottom of each of the visible sides to get a result. Seriously, it took the industry decades before it realized that it could put the resultant number on the top point of the pyramid instead.

Too many great games have used the four-sider for them to be expunged from our dice bags (AD&D and Deadlands spring to mind), but I have begun to hear rumours of eight and even twelve-sided dice numbered 1-4 that can be used as substitutes. If true, the days of the little pyramids are numbered.