VixenTor makes Dice Towers. This is a review of their "Dice Dungeon" themed Deluxe Dice Tower which can be found for sale at
their web site.
The Tower
The tower itself is composed of two parts: a three-sided tray which is four inches wide and about nine inches deep and a tower which is ten inches tall and not quite four inches wide. You set the tower into the back of the tray, and then when you roll the dice they bounce down through the tower and eject into the tray. According to the web side, everything is made out of a quarter-inch ply-wood. To me this just translated as a very sturdy wooden tower.
Because the tower is two parts, you can lay the tower down in the tray when you're transporting it, which not only saves room, but keeps the tower safely compact. I do much of my gaming outside of the house, so this is a nice feature for me.
The tower itself has three slanted inclines to bounce a die back and forth before it exits the tower. If you pay $5 extra (for a total of $42) you can also get the tower lined with felt, which is actually an attractive, rubbery substance which is intended to deaden the sound of the rolling dice. It does, and quite well. I had no concerns about using the tower at a crowded game store, and some players even found the sound of the dice hitting the felt sides of the tower attractive.
Each deluxe tower is also themed. The one I'm reviewing is a "Dice Dungeon", but VixenTor also has a number of SF themed towers. The theming is accomplished by some sort of full-color decal that's affixed to all the sides of the tower and tray. It's relatively seamless, and is a fairly nice design.
Overall the manufacture of the VixenTor deluxe dice towers is excellent. They're high-quality, sturdy, and attractive. Just about everyone who used them was pleased by the towers and excited to use them again.
The Diceplay
In my playtests I used the Dice Tower for four different games: a board game called Genesis, a tactical wargame called Battlelore, The Order of the Stick board game, and an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons session. I threw lots of different dice through the Tower, but mostly six-siders, 12-siders, and 20-siders.
Generally the dice bounced through the tower cleanly and ended up in the tray. The only notable problems I had were missing the tower (user error) and once knocking the tower over (user error). Some of the 12 siders were actually somewhat troublesome in the tower, because they tended to bounce all the way to the end of the tray, then rebound all the way back into the tower where it was hard to read them. This was particularly true for more rounded 12 siders and was a bit of an issue when playing The Order of the Stick--but then who really uses 12-siders beyond that? The other really round dice, the d20, didn't do the same thing, and everything else was fine.
I also had some problems with the fact that the height of the tray edges sometimes blocked dice toward the edges of the tray. This was less of a problem if the tower was right next to me, on a lower table, or being used by someone taller.
The visceral experience of the tower is superb. Something about tossing the dice into the tower feels really good. The people I played Genesis with both said glowing things about it afterward, and the next week each asked me if I'd brought the tower back. (I hadn't, but I probably will in the future when it looks like I'll be playing a game involving dice.)
The other important feature of the tower, for me at least, was that it keeps dice from going all over. I liked this element a lot, as did all the other board gamers I played with. I suppose this could be accomplished equally well with simply a dice tray, so that's ultimately a question for your own aesthetics.
(The other point of a tower like this is, I suppose, to make sure that no one is cheating, hence the multiple inclines that a die hits on the way down. I generally wouldn't play with someone who I was worried was cheating, but if it's an issue, I'm sure this dice tower would do well.)
My roleplaying group, generally, was less excited by the tower than the board gamers I played with, and likewise I wasn't quite as excited to use it in that context. I'm not sure why; maybe it's because die rolling is more of a focus of an RPG, and you want those dice to be more central and obvious than in a board game when you want them off the board and away from everything else. Perhaps if you were a GM who preferred to keep your rolls secret you'd feel different about this.
Overall, I though the Dice Tower worked well and I was pretty amazed by how excited most of the other players were to have it. I think it's the most exciting for board games, and particularly for games where you roll a ton of dice at once. I had some minor usability issues with not being able to see dice on the edges (and with d12s, but that's even more minor), but on the whole I'd give the tower a "4" out of "5" for Substance: great to use.
Conclusion
VixenTor's Deluxe Dice Towers are very well-designed and fun to use. They'll be great for any game where you ever have problems with dice getting in the way.
Review Summary