Animated Dice

Animated dice are here! You can now get the satisfaction of watching your dice tumble around in their own customizable Dice Tray.

With all of the uncertainty (and disappointment) with Wizards of the Coast’s actions with the OGL, it felt like we needed something to bring a bit more fun to the (virtual) table. We hope this will make your experience playing on Shard even more fun and memorable, and remind us all that WotC will never be able to take that joy away.

We have always wanted to have a more in-person like dice rolling experience, but were always worried about how we could do that while maintaining our principles around having Shard work great on phones and all devices. 3D dice work great when running on a big screen or a modern PC or laptop, but can present a challenge on many devices, especially phones that struggle to have room to show dice and computers or tablets that either lack the performance or battery life to make 3D dice practical.

So, we decided to compromise and build 2D animated dice instead. Now when you roll your dice they move around using 2D animation. This provides some of the extra drama of waiting for the dice to land and works efficiently across a wide variety of devices. To make the experience more complete, we now include dice rolling sounds as well as an optional dice tray for the rolls. There is definitely something more exciting about a fireball roll with the dice clicking, bouncing and gradually landing (“LOOK AT ALL THOSE 6’S!”).

We have also tried to ensure that the animated dice don’t interfere with playing. The animated dice only show for the user performing the roll, so that other people rolling does not interfere with you interacting with your character sheet or the map. All of the new features are optional and can either be configured when selecting dice or on the account page (including sounds).

This release also makes it possible to extend the dice sets and trays, as well as token borders and backgrounds. We will be working with publishers to produce new options for the Marketplace. For all subscribers, The Core Content Pack has been updated to include a wealth of new trays and dice (shown below). Gamemaster Pro accounts will be able to create these with their own custom versions to allow them to personalize their campaigns even more.

Dice Trays available to all subscribers

Dice available to subscribers

Have fun, and as always, let us know what you think.