Making a Dice Tower
Let's talk about dice towers. There's something about building a tower. From the early days of life when it's just stacking blocks to adulthood, it's enjoyable to stack blocks one on top of another. There's also something incredibly fun about taking whatever tower you just made - and dropping dice through it.
Dice towers are very popular and fun for players of tabletop games. They can range from the very simple to the Rube Goldberg-esque complicated. They aren't necessary for playing tabletop games but they are mighty fun!
Tower Requirements
The ideal dice tower needs:
- A hole to drop dice through
- An area to catch the dice
The self-loading dice tower MOCs are cool and I've messed around with them some. My only note is, in the midst of a game amongst the excitement it's very easy to catapult the dice across the room - so watch out!
For my own dice tower, I prefer to keep it simple. It's a bit of an homage to the Classic Castle sets and has gone through some iterations. A big one is the wall that catch the dice. The tower itself is a bit high so the dice come down with quite a bit of speed. having a good backstop to catch the dice is important or else they will fly out and you'll be chasing dice across the floor or under the table.
Another issue I've encountered is the dice shooting off the ramp and going into orbit. If the opening of the bottom of the tower is too large and the ramp is at the correct angle, the dice tower will occasionally turn into a dice launcher, which could be its own type of fun!
Building Notes:
- Dice opening should be about 4x4 studs wide. This should cover most D20 sizes.
- Wall to to stop dice should be about 3 bricks high. Ramp works best with solid angled bricks, using a plate works but can be tricky and if conditions are right - launch your dice.
I have some dice tower instructions that I will be posting this month. In the meantime, I'll be rebuilding my own tower to see what kind of amusing variations I can come up with. Thanks for reading. Happy building!