I tried using a weighted dice tower and it changed how my group plays Catan

I got a heavy ceramic dice tower for my birthday last month and set it up for our weekly Catan game. The dice stopped bouncing off the table and hitting the floor, so we saved like 10 minutes of searching under furniture each game. What I didn't expect was how it made everyone more careful about rolling - no more sloppy tosses. I swear the resource distribution felt more balanced too, but that might be in my head. Has anyone else noticed a difference in game outcomes after switching to a dice tower?

2 comments

2 Comments

wrenstone5d ago

You're totally right about the sloppy tossing thing. I noticed that too with my group. People used to just flick the dice off their fingertips and half the time they'd land cockeyed against the board or roll into the bank of resources. Now with the tower everyone kinda pauses and does a proper drop. It adds this little ritual to each turn. And yeah the resource spread seemed more normal to me too. Less streaks of nothing but sheep for five turns straight.

webb.val4d ago

Wait, you actually had five turns straight with nothing but sheep? That's wild... I've had bad streaks but never that bad. Our group's dice tower turned into a whole ceremony too, everyone takes a second and drops them like they're casting a spell or something. And you know what, I bet the ritual part is what's making the resource spread feel more fair in my head. When you're sloppy tossing, you're not really paying attention, but with the tower you see every single pair land and it messes with your memory of the streak. I caught myself last game thinking "man, I rolled three 8s in a row" and then I realized that was across like two hours, not a real run of bad luck... the tower just made me count them differently.