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4 Sided Die

 
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Four-sided dice are often used in role-playing game
Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a role-playing game system of rules and guidelines....
s, such as Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by TSR, Inc....
, to get small numbers for things such as damage or character statistic increases. Each die
Dice

A die is a small polyhedron object, usually cubic, used for generating Statistical randomnesss or other symbols. This makes dice suitable as gambling devices, especially for craps or sic bo, or for use in non-gambling tabletop games....
 is a tetrahedron
Tetrahedron

A tetrahedron is a polyhedron composed of four triangle faces, three of which meet at each vertex . A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral", and is one of the Platonic solids....
 with 4 equilateral
Equilateral

In geometry, an equilateral polygon is a polygon which has all sides of the same length.For instance, an equilateral triangle is a triangle of equal edge lengths....
 triangle
Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or wikt:vertex and three sides or edges which are line segments....
-shaped faces. This type of die does not roll well and is thus usually thrown into the air or shaken in a dice box instead.






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4 Sided Dice 250
Four-sided dice are often used in role-playing game
Role-playing game

A role-playing game is a game in which the participants assume the roles of fictional characters. Participants determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization, and the actions succeed or fail according to a role-playing game system of rules and guidelines....
s, such as Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons

Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by TSR, Inc....
, to get small numbers for things such as damage or character statistic increases. Each die
Dice

A die is a small polyhedron object, usually cubic, used for generating Statistical randomnesss or other symbols. This makes dice suitable as gambling devices, especially for craps or sic bo, or for use in non-gambling tabletop games....
 is a tetrahedron
Tetrahedron

A tetrahedron is a polyhedron composed of four triangle faces, three of which meet at each vertex . A regular tetrahedron is one in which the four triangles are regular, or "equilateral", and is one of the Platonic solids....
 with 4 equilateral
Equilateral

In geometry, an equilateral polygon is a polygon which has all sides of the same length.For instance, an equilateral triangle is a triangle of equal edge lengths....
 triangle
Triangle

A triangle is one of the basic shapes of geometry: a polygon with three corners or wikt:vertex and three sides or edges which are line segments....
-shaped faces. This type of die does not roll well and is thus usually thrown into the air or shaken in a dice box instead. Some games like daldøs
Daldøs

Dald?s [dal'd?s] is a running-fight board game only known from a few coastal locations in Scandinavia, where its history can be traced back to around 1800....
 use a four sided rolling-pin that rolls much better.

Four-sided dice are unique in that the number rolled does not show up on the topmost face as with other dice, but as the correctly oriented number that shows up on all three visible triangles.

There are three configurations for four-sided dice. One places the numbers on each face at the midpoint of each side of the triangle. The number rolled is indicated by the number that shows right-side up at the base of all three visible triangles. Another configuration places one number at each angle of each face of the die. The rolled number is shown, correctly oriented, at the apex of the triangle on all 3 visible faces. The final configuration places one number on each face, and the rolled number is shown on the downward face.

Because of their size and shape and the tendency of dice to fall on the floor, with a point facing up and underfoot, gamers frequently refer to four-sided dice as caltrop
Caltrop

A caltrop is an antipersonnel weapon made up of two sharp nails or spines arranged in such a manner that one of them always points upward from a stable base ....
s.

See also

  • Dreidel
    Dreidel

    A dreidel is a four-sided spinning top, played with during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is used for a gambling game similar to Teetotum....