National Dice Day Date in the current year: December 4, 2024

Dice (singular die or dice) are small objects with marked sides that can rest in multiple positions after being thrown. A traditional die is a cube with each of its sides marked with a different number of dots, but dice may also have other shapes: there are dice with four, five, seven, nine, ten, eleven, and more landing positions – up to 120!

The origin of dice is uncertain because they have been used since before recorded history. One of the earliest games to use what can be considered a form of dice was the ancient Egyptian game of senet; it used two flat throwsticks indicating the number of squares a player could move. Dice were also known in ancient Greece, Rome, China, and Japan. In Greece, they were used for both games and a form of divination called astragalomancy.

Today, dice are primarily used as a crude form of random number generator in a wide variety of games, including dice games (games that incorporate dice as their sole or central component), board games, role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), and card games. An example of a dice game is craps, a gambling game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of the pair of dice, wagering money against each other (street craps) or against a bank (casino craps).

In board games, dice are rolled to introduce an element of randomness, typically to decide how far pieces will move along the board. In some board games, dice are used to determine what resources players will obtain, settle conflicts, perform various actions, or accomplish specific goals.

Some role-playing games, such as D&D, use different types of polyhedral dice for different purposes, i.e. to see how much damage a character has done in a fight or judge whether a character has succeeded in an activity. Others use only one type of dice; for example, Exalted uses ten-sided dice to determine the outcome of events.

Dice are also still used for divination in some parts of the word. For instance, the Dalai Lama is said to consult a Tibetan form of astragalomancy called Mo when making important decisions. Some people use the so-called astrology dice as a standalone divination tool or to complement tarot readings. A set of astrology dice consists of three twelve-sided die representing the planets, zodiac signs, and houses. The Magic 8 Ball used to answer yes-no questions contains a specialized icosahedron (20-sided) die.

The origins of National Dice Day are unclear, but there is no doubt that dice deserve to be celebrated, so invite your friends over for a game night and play a bunch of tabletop games that require dice. You can also start a D&D campaign, use dice for divination, hang those fuzzy dice on your rear-view mirror, buy a set of custom dice, or start a dice collection. And don’t forget to post about the holiday on social media with the hashtag #NationalDiceDay.