Dice Delve: Halloween Comes Early

I give Q-Workshop a lot of grief, mostly because I want them to be better than they are. Their designs are lovely and also many times indecipherable to the naked eye, which makes them a bounty for collectors and an eyesore for gamers who harbor more practical considerations.

That said, I was quite taken with their Top Drawer Dice Kickstarter, which featured a set of dice with a Halloween theme, Halloween Pumpkin dice. This was one of five total sets of interesting dice, some of which were clearly aimed at specific games, and some of which were just cool. I didn't mind some of the other designs, but the Halloween-inspired designs were, to my way of thinking, the clear and only choice.

Well, they came in, and I had a chance to do an interesting side-by-side comparison with another set of dice, also with a Halloween theme, produced by Bescon. Side-by-Side! Head-to-Head! A Grudge Match to end all Cage Fights! Carnage Mayhem! Ah HAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAA!

Okay, maybe not. But here's my breakdown for those of you with an interest in all things October-y.

The advertised color scheme.

The stretch goal scheme.

I'm going to go down the line starting with the packaging. Q-Workshop has always used cheap packaging for their dice, and I don't necessarily mean "inexpensive." All of their boxes look exactly like the packaging you would find in a U-Tote-Um Truck Stop on a spinner rack that sells replacement cell phone chargers and five dollar ear buds.

That it's packaging that gets the job done is certainly beside the point. And I have been on the other side of manufacturing and so I know how expensive packaging is. I just really miss blister packs, okay?

The Kickstarter included free dice bags. These canvas doo-dads are silkscreened with the same artwork that comes on the cell phone chargers. I know these are free, but I will never ever use them, not ever. They are terrible. No dice bag would have been better than what I got sent.

I am decidedly underwhelmed by this. 

Rhetorical question: if you were going to include a dice bag, why on Earth wouldn't you make it a black bag with the pumpkin design you created for your dice silkscreened thereon? I can't believe that a one color silkscreen is more expensive than full color sublimation printing. If you were really interested in using the canvas bags, then print the design in black. That's a bag I would use, since I bought the dice based on that design. This looks like something I would have bought at a Spenser's Gifts in 1987. You have a great design on the face of your dice. Showcase that.

In the midst of these dice is
the bonus d20 included in the
Kickstarter that clearly illustrates
my point: nice design, invisible
numbers. 

Okay, now that I've thrown a little shade, I want to say this: I'm impressed with these dice. They are well made, acrylic plastic, nothing fancy, and have nicely rounded edges (but not round). You can't really mess up pale orange ink on black dice, either. But it's the design that most impresses me.


In the past, Q-Workshop has seemingly designed a wonderful pattern or image and then inserted the number into it. This time, it looks like they designed the numbers and then designed around that number. Every face is legible and easy to spot. I also like putting the symbol on the highest number. In D&D, that's a bonus reward for rolling a crit!

The stretch goal alternate color scheme is likewise in keeping with a ghoulish Halloween theme and the nice contrast of plastic and ink color really makes these dice pop. Black and orange, green and purple. With the design, both scream Trick-Or-Treat. Lovely.

While these were being manufactured, I stumbled across these Bescon dice, and I ordered a set, mostly to assuage my impatience waiting for the Q-Workshop dice to show up. I also idly wondered how the two would compare.

Bescon d20 (below) is slightly
bigger, but not slightly better.

First off, the Bescon dice are a skosh lighter, and the edges more rounded off. You can really see it on the d20s. Also, the orange ink on the dice is several values darker, running more to red than yellow. Ordinarily, this would not be an impediment. However, in the case of the Bescon dice, their designs are much thinner and more wriggly, and that includes the numbers. Just eyeballing it on the table, they were harder to read on every dice save the d4.

Click to enlarge. You may well
like the Bescon designs. They aren't
bad, not at all. I think Q-Workshop
did the better job of making good dice.

Also, their skull symbol was nothing I didn't already have on other dice. This was a bit disappointing, considering the rest of the die faces had an almost vintage feel to the design work. It would have been nice to see a similarly delineated piece of art for the face--a black cat head, or a creepy moon, or I don't know, maybe an original skull instead of clip art.

Q-Workshop Pumpkin Dice Polyhedral Set

Rating:  5/5

These are exactly the kind of thing I not only love to see but that deliver across the board as well. I sincerely hope to see more like this from Q-Workshop in the future. 

Clarity   Yes
Heft       Yes

Color     Yes

Theme  Yes

Value    Yes

And in the Interest of Fairness:

Bescon Halloween Dice Polyhedral Set

Rating:  3/5

I don't know if there was a case of parallel development at work here or a rush to market, but either way, these dice don't quite make the cut.

Clarity   No
Heft       No

Color     Sort of

Theme  Yes

Value    Yes