We’re excited to announce our latest dice tray designs! These new trays have been redesigned from the ground up to be simply the best dice trays.
Introducing the highly stylized “Hand of the Zombie” Dice Tray and a less-zombified blue one.
Various people told us, “We love the Odin and Cthulhu octagon trays, but when we’re playing D&D, each player in my group likes to have his own tray, and the octagon trays are too big sometimes, depending on the table.”
So we mocked up several designs here at the office and found that a 6” wide x 12” long tray hits the sweet spot between being narrow enough to fit comfortably on the table in front of each player while still leaving plenty of room in the center of the table for maps, tiles, minis, etc.
Horizontal or Vertical
You can use the tray horizontally or vertically -- whatever feels most comfortable to you and fits the space you have. For D&D, if everyone has their own, horizontal might be best. If playing a board game, perhaps putting it vertical on the left or right side of the game board might be better.
6” Width
We iterated on the design over and over widening and narrowing to see just how narrow we could get it before it felt too cramped, and we have found that 6” feels great. We feel that the smaller dice trays just feel like you’re rolling dice in an ashtray and are not fun to use.
12” Length
We went over and over, “Should we make it shorter? Does it need to be so long?” For many, maybe not, but for us, we enjoy “the roll”. We like to throw our dice in that tray and watch them bounce around. We preferred the 12” length so that you can really put some power into your roll and every roll feels satisfying.
1” Height
We found that a 1” high wall is perfect. A d6 next to a 1” wall is visible from almost every angle.
Materials
A high density fiberboard wood is used for the walls, then wrapped in synthetic leather. The PU leather on these new trays is stitched. Our logo is imprinted into the leather, but in a stylish and very unobtrusive way.
Portability
Having a smaller footprint allows for greater portability. These new trays should fit in most backpacks just fine.
Designs
We have a zombie-themed design that everyone seems to like, and it’s so much fun to use it while playing Zombie Dice from Steve Jackson Games.
And we have a royal blue tray with no design because we want to expand the Darksilver Forge brand and bring in customers that maybe don’t play tabletop roleplaying games, or don’t like vikings, zombies, cthulhu, dragons, or wizards. (Does such a person even exist?) The blue tray is for the everyman out there. It could work with tabletop roleplaying games for sure, but it would look equally at home surrounded by a family playing Yahtzee or some friends playing Bunco.
So which type of tray should you get?
- Do you want a very large surface, something you’d put in the middle of the table and have everyone roll in? Get one of our octagon trays - Odin’s Battlefield or Cthulhu’s Lair.
- Do you want a smaller, more compact tray to save space on your gaming table? Get one of our narrow rectangle trays - Hand of the Zombie or Royal Blue.
No matter what, a Darksilver Forge dice tray is a fine investment. :)