Dice Roller – The Digital Answer to the Overflowing Dice Bag
Trade your clacks for clicks with this intuitive Dice Roller app, which takes all the randomness out of rolling and does the math for you.
Welcome in, brave gamers! Whether you’re plundering an ancient crypt, battling a deadly dragon, or piloting a spaceship through the immaterium, you need to know how well you’re doing. While some systems care less about the mechanics and more about the story, most games require you to make a check. That means rolling dice and adding in a modifier.
Some folks (like me) dig the math of that part, but others want to get through it to the next phase. Even then, there are all those dice you have to carry around, which can get lost or damaged. That’s to say nothing of what a d4 can do if you step on it. If only there were an easier way! Well…there is. Introducing Dice Roller, a handy digital app for all your dice gaming needs.
What is Dice Roller?
Dice Roller isn’t a single entity. Instead, it is a genre of gaming assistant programs. You plug a series of inputs into the program, and the app rolls the dice and adds modifiers. Depending on your app, there may be more features, but they all boil down to the same basic program. These are game changers for people who don’t want to try to do all the math in their heads. Dice Roller apps also help TTRPG players speed up combat or skill encounters.
Dice Roller apps have the added bonus of replacing physical dice. While many gamers (myself included) love having a collection of pretty dice, sometimes they can be bulky. Perhaps you’re gaming on vacation and don’t want to risk losing or damaging your hard-earned collection. Dice Roller programs are designed not to replace dice but to ease their use. In fact, some people use both, saving their physical dice for really important rolls.
How Does it Compare to Actual Dice?
For a lot of people, nothing can replace actual dice. Whether it’s the feel of the dice in their hand, the sound of roll, or just collecting “pretty math rocks”, the collection is the point. However, in a lot of cases, you’ll want another option. Rolling dice digitally won’t have the tactile comparison to rolling real dice, but the rest can be supplemented.
You can customize your dice to look however you want if you get the right program. When you roll them, you’ll still hear the traditional clicking of dice. DnDBeyond’s roller even heightens the click the more dice you roll. Of course, there are always downsides. The speed of your system (phone or otherwise) can slow down the roll, and if the app crashes your dice rolls could be lost.
However, you can’t deny all the perks. Dice rolls are usually saved in the Dice Roller, so you can go back and check them. If you need to remember how much damage you did or how well you jumped a chasm, the roll is right there. Plus, since it does the math for you, you don’t have to worry about panicking and missing a number or two. It always feels good to do more damage than you thought you did thanks to bad math.
Is Dice Roller Fair?
Whether or not it’s fair is a strange question. The Dice Roller uses an RNG program to randomly generate a result, so if anything it’s a little MORE fair than physical dice. Imperfections in the mold, rounded edges, and even table surfaces can alter a dice roll. Digital dice don’t have those problems. Of course, a digital Dice Roller can be changed at the code level. However, if someone is doing that, they will cheat regardless. It’s unfair to say an app is unbalanced because someone can exploit it.
Is Dice Roller Just for D&D?
Absolutely not! Any game that uses dice of any size can benefit from a digital Dice Roller. While I don’t use digital dice much for TTRPGS (I do if I’m playing online), I use them a lot for wargaming. I play armies that require a lot of rolls at once, and doing it with a program streamlines everything. I also love rolling dice, but sometimes the app just makes it easier. Whichever way you prefer, may the dice be ever in your favor.
