Dice Review: Mystery Dice Goblin

 Thanks to Mystery Dice Goblin for getting in touch with us and asking us to review some of their mystery bags! We’re always happy to have something new to throw at the table. Each bag contains the full set of dice you would expect to play a game of D&D, specifically, a D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20, and a percentile dice.

We were quite excited to open up the bags and see what we’d got, and I have to say, we’re happy with what we received. The red set with the gold edging was a favourite amongst the club members (though, I’m personally a fan of the white and blue ones -they look like they taste of peppermint). All of the dice are well cast, without any imperfections, and they have a nice depth of colour -the red and gold ones are particularly lustrous, while the yellowish-green ones have some gold flakes in them, giving them some sparkle. As nice as it is to choose a set of dice, there’s certainly an unwrapping-a-present appeal to opening the mystery bags.

Of course, the real question with a set of dice is ‘how well do they roll?’ And the best way to test them is to use them in anger. I (the DM) took the minty-looking blue and white set, while one of the party’s fighters took both the red and gold and yellowish-green sets, and, over the course of a three-hour session, did not roll any other dice. So, how did it go? To cut to the chase, very well for the fighter. He successfully passed a number of important contested grapple checks, and even a few wisdom saves that he really, really should have failed -the dice were treating him really rather well. Meanwhile, I was rolling a reasonable average, but kept falling short just as it would have been useful to roll high. So it goes. Towards the end of the game I (forcibly) swapped my minty dice for the fighter’s red and gold set, to see if the problem was the dice or me. It was me, as the blue and white dice immediately began rolling much higher, while I’m pretty sure my first roll on the red and gold D20 was a three or lower.

By the end of the night’s session, I had, as usual, failed to kill off any player characters, though I believe that is a failing on my part, rather than on the dices’. Maybe next time. As for the dice themselves, what can I say? It’s a set of the seven dice you need to play D&D, and they’re well cast and seem to be evenly balanced (though possibly designed to mess with me specifically), and we liked the colours we received. I think the best part of the dice is the aforementioned Christmas present feeling of opening up a bag of them and not being quite sure exactly what you’re going to get. I can see them making excellent gifts, especially as stocking-fillers, a birthday present for someone in your group, or even as a treat for yourself. The mystery bags run at £6.99 each, or you can subscribe to receive a new bag every monthly for £6.50 a month.

 All in all, I’d give the Mystery Dice Goblin mystery bags 7 Surviving Player Characters out of 7. Take from that what you will.