Introduction

Admittedly I am a dice whore, as dubbed by my long time GM Dave, so I thought I would try reviewing dice.  It hasn’t really been done on RPGnet.  After the last dice review I wrote got some really great commentary and discussions I decided to do my companion piece to the Gamescience dice review I wrote a couple weeks ago. 

Chessex currently reigns supreme for dice manufacturing in the gaming, but are their dice any good.  The simple answer is yes.  Their dice are sturdy, varied and good looking. 

The Goods

Chessex dice come in a tremendous variety of colors: opaque, mother of pearl, translucent, speckled, vortex, marbleized, glitter, frosted, transparent raw, glow, and nebula.  Their web site does a solid job of showing each type of dice style, with some exceptions.  Though in reality I have found that dice shopping is more spontaneous and an at the store sort of experience.

The dice offered by Chessex are of typical size (say an inch across for a d20) and almost always have rounded edges.  Imagine an old Gamescience dice with crisp geometric sides put into a rock tumbler.  The one exception to this is the raw translucent sets introduced last year, which are a throwback to Gamescience dice.  They would be very spiffy and a fine tribute but keep in mind the moniker “raw.”  The dice still have rough spots from the mold and the points are exceptionally sharp.  So much so the d4 could be used as a caltrop…talk about taking d4 damage!!  The rounded Chessex dice have no mold marks.  They hold up well after repeated rolling since the sides are already rounded, maybe the quality of plastic is not as critical as dice with crisp edges.

Chessex makes some novel dice outside of the core polyhedral sets. Some examples of this are the very big dice that are roughly twice as large.  Some of the large dice are split between two different speckled plastics, which are very cool, somewhat hard to find and somewhat spendy.  One dice set that Chessex produces that I truly do not agree with is cheater dice, which for example on a d20 there are no 1’s and two 20’s.  While making the cheater dice is cheesy, using them is far cheesier.  As a point they are always in the mother of pearl style and the label on the box is clearly labeled.

Dice Details

Virtually every style is represented in the standard polyhedral set.  Chessex also does specialty dice on occasion, but I am focusing on the standard dice types for the review.

D4:  The result is at the top of the three-sided pyramid and this die by Chessex is one of my favorites.

D6:  Chessex makes the best d6’s and basically come in three standard sizes.  The smallest (12mm) usually comes in bricks of dice and are about a quarter inch square and more rounded in the corners than the standard d6.  The medium (approx 14mm) die is the one that comes in the polyhedral sets.  The larger (16mm) comes in bricks or loose and its corners are more rounded than the standard d6.

D8:  There is nothing spectacular about the Chessex d8, but they do meet the generally good standards of the company’s dice.

D10:  Ten sided dice are amongst my favorite and the most useful given my gaming proclivities.  The Chessex d10 is a good-looking die that looks best with the speckled styling.

D12:  The 12 sided die is not the prettiest die by Chessex, but as with the 8 sided is well made.

D20:  I guess any die manufacture could be judged by how their d20 looks, since it is one some commonly used in RPG’s and a little less often in war games.  The Chessex d20 is not their best die in regards to looks, but it is not a bad looking die either.  There is just nothing exceptional about it, regardless of the style of the die.

Speckled:  The speckled dice are the best looking dice by Chessex.  There is a tremendous variety of color combinations and the company has done a good job changing the combinations since they were introduced in the mid 90’s.  Many of the color combinations are a little too similar to each other.  Unless you have a good eye for color this variety is kind of splitting hairs.  I bought my first set at Gencon ’94, camouflage with red numbers, and it has remained one of my favorite dice sets. 

Translucent:  Chessex translucent dice are good, if not spectacular, the coloring is consistent.  This is a good dice style to compare to other manufacturers.

Opaque:  There is only so much that can be said about a solid colored die, but Chessex has good plastics and the colors are consistent and rich.  This is the Chevy of dice, not sexy but entirely functional.

Vortex:  Imagine a couple colors swirled in a blender.  The colors are usually too close to each other for a terribly dramatic effect.

Frosted:  Imagine a translucent die, which has been sandblasted.  They look cool in the box, but I imagine they will get a bit grimy looking once the frosted surfaces are handled.  I have not personally used these dice. But do have glassware that is like this and hate to use them because they get grimy looking after handling.

Nebula:  Chessex nebula dice are basically crystal clear plastic with wisps of colors inside (hence the moniker nebula…).  I think this is an interesting dice style in practice, but think the dice came out looking bland.

Mother of Pearl:  Basically take a solid color and mix in silver.  Armoury and Koplow also made this type of dice, but Chessex has higher quality dice in general so if you like this style they are probably the way to go.

Glitter:  Take a clear plastic and put in metallic bits.  Not my favorite type of dice.  Just personal preference and not how Chessex makes them.

Transparent Raw:  As above.  They are rough out of the mold and while an interesting dice set in theory, in practice buy a Gamescience set.

Glow:  These are really cool and glow very well.  They are amongst my and a buddy’s favorite dice by Chessex.  The have been produced in yellow, green and pink.  Fun dice in a low light gaming campaign like some Cthulhu sessions I have played in.

Marbleized:  Resembles the pearl styling but looks sort of like cut marble.  This is not a terribly appealing dice style.

Summary

Of all the dice that a gamer can buy without any effort, Chessex is the best dice to buy.  They produce a consistent product regardless of the style of dice, be it speckled, opaque or any one of the others.  Chessex makes good dice and a complimentary assortment of other gaming accessories.  Chessex dice could be even better and varied if they had any serious competition.