"Rolling" a d4...

They have 8 sided die number 1-4..

This was the first hit on a google search:

http://shop.store.yahoo.com/gsonline/8sid14numdic.html

They are $1 each, but I imagine they would give discounts for high quantity purchases.

-Darke

I don't like dice in general any more than the average member here, but in games that use them, I like getting away from the same old d6 cubes. To me, anything other than yet another cube is an improvement, and the more shapes of dice the game, the better. Despite it being mostly a dice-fest, I really like Formula De.

As somewhat of a digression, my favorite die by far would have to be the D30, if only for the novelty. In fact, the one time I played Formula De, my main strategy revolved around getting going fast enough going into the last straightaway so I could shift up to 6th gear and roll the 30 sided die. (I managed to come in with my cars 1-2, so it may have been a good strategy...)

Obviously, you'll make your life so very much easier in every way if you can find a way to use a D6.

Another route of novelty you could pursue would be instead of having the sides of the dice covered with 1 to 6 "pips", you could have them mean something different. For example, the new "War of the Ring" board game uses dice to indicate what actions you're allowed to take. Granted, this is beyond the scope of a game for a 4 year old, my point is more that a way to get beyond the "been there, done that" feel of roll and move might be to have die rolling that does something different than just tell you how many spaces to go.

For your specific game, I suspect that if the child is sick of die rolling, he's unusually experienced for his age! The only reason I'd favor a d6 rather than d4 is that it's much easier to explain how to read the result.

Best of luck with your design!

-Jeff

I for one would love to see the double-numbered d8 version of a d4 become more readily available in the gaming world. There are so many great uses for them. I frequently use them for determining...

1) Random directions in square tile-based games
2) Random starting player for each round of a 4-player game
3) Bell-curved roll centered on 5 (as noted above)

It's a shame they are so rare.

The d4s that the folks at Crystal Caste make don't have any of these problems and work like a charm. I'm not a huge fan of the other number of sides (they're ok, but not superior to the standard polyhedrals), but the d4s rock my socks. http://crystalcaste.com/miva/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=CC&Produ...

Found a "d8 as d4" die here: http://www.advancinghordes.com/product_info.php/products_id/397

The site has all kinds of interesting dice for sale, including some unusual blank dice.

-- Matthew

I recently tossed a couple of these new style d4 around and they seem to work nice. I personally like them better then the other d4s.

It was very easy to read(improvement for non-gamers). But the odd edges made be wonder, how are these dice "balanced" to give a true random roll?

I would assume that the company had to go through some type of acceptance to prove these dice provide true random outcomes, maybe not, but I would bet that a casino would not trade in a good old d6 for one of these new style d6.