Dice Delve: Halloween Comes Early

I give Q-Workshop a lot of grief, mostly because I want them to be better than they are. Their designs are lovely and also many times indecipherable to the naked eye, which makes them a bounty for collectors and an eyesore for gamers who harbor more practical considerations.

That said, I was quite taken with their Top Drawer Dice Kickstarter, which featured a set of dice with a Halloween theme, Halloween Pumpkin dice. This was one of five total sets of interesting dice, some of which were clearly aimed at specific games, and some of which were just cool. I didn't mind some of the other designs, but the Halloween-inspired designs were, to my way of thinking, the clear and only choice.

Well, they came in, and I had a chance to do an interesting side-by-side comparison with another set of dice, also with a Halloween theme, produced by Bescon. Side-by-Side! Head-to-Head! A Grudge Match to end all Cage Fights! Carnage Mayhem! Ah HAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!

Okay, maybe not. But here's my breakdown for those of you with an interest in all things October-y.

Dice Notes: Some Friendly and also Unasked-For Advice

There is always a dice project on Kickstarter, it seems, and most often, more than one at a time. If you are dice-happy, or worse, dice-drunk, like some people I know, this can be both heady and frustrating. Mostly because we all have bills to pay, and people to feed. I've tried eating dice, and it just doesn't work.

I am no stranger to buying interesting dice. However, I'm seeing some...trends, let's call them, that are not just making me crazy, but also really dampening my interest in funding an otherwise great idea. In some cases, I think these are poor decisions based on a lack of experience and/or graphic arts training, and in other cases, they are just things that I personally don't like. I'll try to let you know which is which.

In any case, I'm not randomly throwing people under the bus. I really want your project to be a success, to be something interesting to add to the hobby, to be something I can partake in. I'm not being mean for the sake of being mean, nor am I trying to be funny at the expense of someone's hard work. I know these are all labors of love. And having been on the other side of the manufacturing process, maybe I can offer some constructive criticism.

Without any further explanation, here we go: