Dice are small objects made of wood, plastic, bone or other hard materials. Dice are always polyhedral in shape, i.e. they are three-dimensional objects with several two-dimensional polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners. The two-dimensional sides are usually marked with numbers, letters or symbols.

Dice are usually thrown as part of a game of chance, and can come to rest in various positions, with the side that is face up most commonly used to obtain a random result. The most common use of dice is for generating random numbers, normally as part of tabletop games, including dice games, board games, role-playing games, and games of luck.

The traditional shape of a die is 6-sided - also called "d6", but there are many other shapes available (for example d4, d8, d10, d12, d20, etc...).

Polyhedral Dice

The following six polyhedral dice are the most popular shapes, with the 6-sided die being by far the most common:

Dice Probabilities

Rolling dice is a classic way of generating random numbers, whether for the purpose of playing games or any other reason. The exact probability of achieving any kind of desired result can be precisely calculated for any type and number of dice. To learn more, see our blog series on "Dice Probabilities".