You've Activated An Infodump!

[sorcyress]

canyonwalker commented on my most recent post with the following:

I'm curious about the dice reward system you've mentioned several times recently. Are you talking about actual dice, like the kind used in tabletop RPGs? What kind of dice do you like, and how does the reward system work?

...and then I accidentally wrote my whole day's worth of words in response. It turns out I am REALLY EXCITED TO BABBLE ABOUT DICE. Probably this fact is not surprising to people who've been haunting my journal since 2004 (how do I not have a tag for this?) but I'm always happy to squee more!

Here we go:

***

I am talking actual dice! I like RPGs well enough, but my true love has always been the clicky-clacky polyhedral math rocks and over my lifetime I have acquired...more than most people. I'm no Seanan McGuire (who obtained an old Library card catalog to store and sort her own collection) but I'm no slouch either.

(The link above is some photos showing the ~600 dice I have in sets or otherwise with some sort of "special" factor to them. Not pictured is the ~300 loose random dice that aren't in sets, which I use for various math teacher purposes and pretend not to notice when my students steal one or two.)

I like all dice, but my preference is for plastic over metal or wood. I have a few metal sets and they're nice enough -and the weight is great- but I am always more worried that they'll scratch each other up if I store them in bags and I don't have an interest in getting heaps of fancy storage boxes. My preference is for ALL THE COLOURS, but you'll notice a distinct bias for greens and oranges (which matches up with my colour bias for, uh, everything else I own!).

I've found that I'm picky about inclusions in my dice --I appreciate that lots of dicemakers want to put lots of cute things into their dice, but I find the effect most often falls flat. I still own a handful¹, but I've been trying to be _very_ selective about which additional ones I purchase since I don't like being disappointed. The dice are just usually too distorted to clearly figure out what's supposed to be inside.

(Speaking of Seanan McGuire though, I *do* have a set of Evergreen Burrow's Scrollie Rollies with fragments of a copy of the book Middlegame embedded in the resin. Those are absolutely *not* a disappointment, they are _gorgeous_.)

My go-to companies are Foam Brain Games (bigger dice company that does some originals and lots of outsourcing, their convention displays are *so* delightful to peruse), Ice Cream Dice (small company with food inspired dice that is so candy-bright and delicious to look at!) and Dead Eye Dice (small company I found on Etsy with totally handmade sets). I'm not exclusive though --my spreadsheet² includes 14 different companies (and it's not complete, I'll probably find another four or five companies when I next update!)

***

As for the reward system, I bought one of Black Oak Workshop's Advent-ure Calendars last year. I didn't actually have anything in particular to count down to, so it languished for a couple months until I figured out that I could use it as an incentive for Getting Things Done. I was already keeping my Dailies list (a group of about twenty things I should do every, or at least most, day(s)) so it was easy enough to just consider opening one door of the calendar as a reward for hitting 15/20. 75% is a healthier (and more attainable!) goal than 100%.)

I've managed to earn a die about 40% of days since implementing this system, which maybe means my threshold is still a little too high, or maybe just means I really do need to push myself a little more to Get Things Done. Many of my dailies are things that could be done in 10 minutes or less, I just need to...make myself fit it into the rest of the day!

What I have managed to do is not buy any more dice since starting the system...sortof. I actually have four still-sealed packages in my room, each holding 3-6 sets of dice from a different company, which will allow me³ to restock the calendar once I've opened all the doors. Given a 40% rate, it might take me all year to open and have those other pretties, but I've been considering ToDo list methods that could earn me a second die for each day.

***

Part of me wants to end this post with some kind of defense of the money and space I've spent here, but nope! Not doing it. The money would be a lot if you looked at it all at once, but I've been collecting dice since I was twelve, and the amounts and kinds I buy are commensurate with my disposable income. Own Pretty Things That Make You Happy --as Ms. Kondo would say, my dice spark joy, and therefore are a good part of my life!

~Sor
MOOP!

1: And if I were writing this comment at home instead of during free time at work I'd be diving into my dicebags to photograph more examples...

2: What? Obviously I have a spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets almost as much as I love dice, and it's a nice way to keep organized about All This.

3: Well...technically I'll have someone else load it for me. It's just more fun if I don't know exactly what I'm going to get (and because I ordered some mystery sets from some of the companies, there really will be some complete surprises for me!)

Comments

[canyonwalker]

When I asked I thought you'd point me to an old journal entry, not write a whole new one. 😅

I'm still curious how your system of dice as rewards works. It seems to be a big motivator....

[sorcyress]

Haaaa! My journal is epically disorganized. I have a pretty good memory for things I've written, but finding those things can sometimes be a slight challenge. In this case, I was pretty sure I didn't have an on-dreamwidth pile of information (there are assorted other pictures on twitter, but those are harder to find).

The actual system is very simple --complete 15 dailies (or more), open one door of the advent calendar and receive one die! It is sorta agonizing to be acquiring the sets this slowly (I'm at the mercy of whatever RNG sorted the dice behind the different doors, which means 24 days in and I have a full set of 7, two sets of 6, a set of 5, and two extra random dice).

It hits the same dopamine receptors as like...getting a gold star or a sticker on your calendar. Maybe that's a juvenile way to think about it, but there's a satisfaction in slowly earning rewards sometimes! I'm going to enjoy having these sets of dice and knowing that I _earned_ them.

(For what the "dailies" are, here's an incomplete selection:
*brush teeth in the morning
*read my webcomics and dreamwidth friends list
*do at least one pull-up
*do at least five push-ups
*brush teeth in the evening
*write 750words
*do some form of room cleaning
*do some form of house task (cleaning, shopping, cooking...)
*inbox0 for the day
*play Pokemon Go (enough to get my catch streak, spin streak, and research task)
and other such things. Some are fun and silly, some are more serious, most can be done in under 15 minutes. Almost all of them are things that, in an ideal world, I really would be doing close to every day!)

~Sor

[canyonwalker]

I'm curious, when you aim to write 750 words daily, is that all here on DW? If not, where else do you write?

My writing goal is to average at least 1.5 posts/day on DW. I count posts rather than words because I have no trouble writing at length. Too many times to count I've sat down thinking, "I don't need a lot of time to do this, I'll just dash off 100 words..." only to find the journal entry growing past 400.

[metahacker]

I *may* have shared your dice twitter pix (twix?) around the household.

[sorcyress]

I am pleased to hear it! I hope everyone enjoyed seeing them :3