Review of Popable Polyhedrals

Before I discovered Dungeons and Dragons in the early 80’s, I was always a fan of board games and liked the pop-o-matic games like Trouble or Sorry. Not that they were particularly challenging, but they were fun and that pop-o-matic device at the center was mighty cool.

Fast forward a few decades and I stumble across Douglas Parker Grey on Facebook and his company Side Up which makes the PopAble Polyhederals. I had to have one and as a bit of disclosure, I was compensated with a discounted Pop-Able D20. That said, whether a product has been free or bought my praise or scorn is never affected.

The pop-o-matic device is removed from the original board game that came with it. It is disassembled and the original six sided die is removed. The base is painted and textured, a new die (or dice) are inserted and then the parts are reassembled. Douglas was very communicative in the process and followed up with the type and color of the product.

The overall paint quality is decent and was color coordinated with the die. In my case a stony red, black and grey base with a swirled red and black Chessex twenty sided die in the bubble. Even as a persnickety miniatures painter I had nothing serious to critique.

It looks darn cool and is one heck of a conversation piece.

My only complaint here is that as the pop-o-matic assembly is recycled from a used board game and in my case I suspect the copy of said game was old. The components for my Pop-able D20 had definitely seen use in its past life. There are minor marks on the clear dome, however these are not noticeable from a distance.

Big question is… how does it roll? I conducted a test of a hundred rolls starting with a 20 showing as a result. The rolling, or popping, was done on a level desk and the pop-able d20 was not moved from the spot I had it. Here are the results:

Over the course of the popping the d20 definitely exhibited some patterns, in rolling. This could be due to the limited randomization that the inside of bubble provides. I would not say this is a deal breaker at all, I have seen rolls go in batches across the gaming table but it felt slightly more pronounced.

I expected more than one null result of dice rolling, but the die 99% of the time yielded a result. From my own gaming experiences this is much better than rolls at a table.

There is a visceral feeling when using the pop-able d20 and I could only imaging how much fun it would be behind the GM screen and popping the die to deliver some result to a player. Like the board games when you were a kid, there is nothing subtle about popping a pop-o-matic. For secret die rolls, or a quiet room this may not be the best product to have on the table.

The Pop-Able D20 really brings me back to my childhood and marries it with the role playing games that I graduated to. It looks great, gives reasonably random results and makes that click-think sound.