Let’s say for a second that you AREN’T a dice fanatic. That you don’t have a shoebox or a Crown Royal bag or a glass vase full of dice somewhere in your house. Maybe you are a new player. Maybe you just don’t like the clutter.
How do you roll?
Electronic dice rollers have been around since computers first started to become a thing. Knowing the probability of something can be useful for a lot of reasons. But also, the first computer nerds were BIG roleplayers. Over the years, there hasn’t exactly been a ton of innovation in the dice rolling app world. But these are some
Let’s look at how easy it is to roll stats the traditional way (roll 4d6s, reroll the ones, keep the three highest scores) in each app to get an idea for how the apps function with multiple dice and multiple functions.
Roll20
I recently used Roll20 for the first time in about ten years. Not even lying-- I’ve been lucky enough in recent years to only get to play local games. When Roll20 first started, it was barely more than a glorified chat program. I was super impressed by how much has changed! And my favorite part? The dice rollers.
Once you figure out how to use them (type in the formula for the dice you want to use), Roll20’s dice rollers are quite simple and straight forward. But they have also thought of just about everything. In fact, you may be surprised by how many different types of dice rollers they have. FATE dice, exploding dice, rolling so that only your Dungeon Master can see, and much, much more. Check out this page from the Roll20 wiki to see all the functions you can perform.
Yeah, you read that right. One of the many secret wonders of the great Google is that you can roll dice in it. How? Simply type in your desired dice (such as 3d6 or 2d12) and it will automatically roll and add the results for you. She’s not exactly flashy and it doesn’t seem like she can do much more than your basic polyhedral set (I typed in ‘2d36’ and it was, as they say, no dice). But she’s quick and she gets the job done.
Recently, they even added a modifier button, so you never have to do even the simplest math ever again. We truly do live in the future.
CritDice
With a rating of five stars, CritDice - Dice Roller is listed as one of the top dice roller apps on the market. It’s set up like a calculator app, making it easy to add dice or other numbers to a roll. So long as you know what the rolls consist of (such as 4d6+2), you can make it happen in this app.
The only complaint people seem to have is that you can only use one function at a time, meaning you can’t edit your dice rolls after and add extra functions. For example, if you’re looking at our stat rolling, after rolling the 4d6, you can either reroll the ones or you can keep the top three. Not both. Either way you go, you will have to do some manual addition.
RollaDie.net
Perhaps the simplest dice roller on the whole Internet, there is something really nice and easy about RollaDie.net. no bells, no whistles. it has a mobile version too, which is rated as one of the top dice roller apps for Android phones.
Not only can you input any number you want for the dice size, but it has a handy table that you can use to add other dice to the roll. Say you are playing Dungeon World and you need to roll your damage. Your weapon does a d8 but a modification on it adds a d4. Click on the small, red d20 and whichever dice you want to add will pop up. Pick the one you need to add to the roll, and boom! You're good to go.
With this addition, you can see how easy it is to roll our stats.
Dice Ex Machina
A simple enough name and a simple enough premise, this dice roller app is best known for its speed. It is one of the top-rated dice roller apps in the Apple store because it lets you save sets for your characters in the app itself, making it easier to access things like modifiers. A simple click on the stat you want and it rolls the dice and adds the modifier.
This app also includes a regular old calculator for when those numbers get super hard (I see you, Shadowrun). The only thing it doesn’t satisfy is the need to collect dice. When do we get a Dice-e-mon Go game? Get on it, Niantic!
D20 Collective’s Dice Roller
Shall we toot our own horn? If you are spending tons of time lusting over our dice but you don’t have the cash to make those clickity clacks yours, it’s quite alright. We recently added our very own dice roller. Our graphics are more stylistic than other sites, but we wanted to set ourselves apart.
What makes ours the best? You can roll a d300,000,000. That’s right. See that d box on the far right? You can enter any number you want and we’ll roll it for you. I did the above. d300,000,000. I got 25,069,062. With my modifier of 2, I guess that means I win!
Final Analysis
There is no such thing yet as a perfect dice rolling app. But there are plenty of good ones out there to satisfy all needs when in a pinch. Forget nice graphics. Ones that let you add additional dice easily, or let you dictate numbers beyond the normal d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20 are especially handy, in my humble opinion.
Which one do you prefer? What should we add to ours to make it easier to use? Tell us in the comments below or on social media.
