I recently adapted the Dicepool system from WHFRP 3e to the MSH (FASERIP) RPG, with a few tweaks, and I'm thinking of expanding on it and having some custom dice made with symbols specifically suited to the genre.

anyone have any suggestions of the best (financially speaking) way to go about this or place Ic ould order this from?

I had some friends recently who had a D&d-themed wedding and had some custom d10s made as wedding favours for guests (just like normal d10s, except the "0" was replaced by their own coat of arms and the date of the wedding), and they ended up shelling out $600 for them. I'm hoping to find do this for a bit less if possible.

I just got a handful of thorn dice from shapeways there, stainless steel with brass sintering to give them a very subtle bronze hue behind the blue metal, they set me back almost a hundred bucks but now I can roll like Sauron, so totally worth it. Maybe have a chat with some of the designers on that site?

Chessex and Q-Workshop both do this but unless you order in bulk, it's an expensive option. FWIW if some dice sides are blank, then it can be cheaper as you pay per side with a symbol on it. This is how I got my Exalted dice done as 5 sides are blank.

What about a sticker sheet option, like they used for the Star Wars Beta?

I've never had anything to do with it but for a time the total lack of availability of D&D dice in this country led some artisans to make their own; so that there are some plastic dice available, and also (another neat option) metal dice! I have a metal D20 that makes a very satisfying THUD every time it lands and rolls on the table.

RPGPundit

We're planning to buy a high quality 3d printer in the not-too-distant-future, so could probably produce them that way

Quote from: Mistwell;588508We're planning to buy a high quality 3d printer in the not-too-distant-future, so could probably produce them that way

that would be awesome to have. what about doing figures with something like this?

Quote from: Stephen (Alto);588793that would be awesome to have. what about doing figures with something like this?

Yes, figures can be made with it.  But, it still needs to be designed. I've heard it's not hard to download some designs, and we have a good artist (a guy who also has professionally drawn for Disney, and a comic book company).  So, I see some unique minis in my future

"Expensive" really depends on what you're looking for.

http://www.chessex.com/Dice/Custom_Dice_Home.htm

I've bought custom dice from Chessex, and it was incredibly cheap, considering that, well, they're custom dice.

If you're looking to customize all faces of a die, it's going to be more than if you want to leave them mostly blank, or if you want to have only a single face customized.

You'll need to talk to their sales department for more details, but, here's the details from the last time I ordered:

Chessex carries a number of varieties of 16mm d6, 19mm d6, 30mm d6, 50mm d6 and "standard" size d10 that have a single face that is blank.

In the case of the D6, depending on the style, either the "1" or the "6" is blank.  On the d10, the "0"/"10" is blank.

They also have a bunch of dice in other denominations (d12, d20) that have all faces blank, available for customization.

At the minimum order (10-25 dice), the charge is $1.00/face to customize them, but drops significantly the more dice you order.

At 100 dice, it's $0.60 per face, so, with shipping, 100 d10's with the "0" face customized for me cost $67 shipped.

That's pretty cheap, to me.

I'd love it if they'd run up a batch of d20's with the "20" face blank, so I could do some of those, but that's not something they regularly stock for this.  That said, I'm sure a significant enough order could prompt them to do more than the normal offering.

Quote from: Mistwell;588508We're planning to buy a high quality 3d printer in the not-too-distant-future, so could probably produce them that way

The future is going to be such a weird place. I can't wait!

RPGPundit

In general you're going to be looking at around $5 a die if you're not going to produce in bulk, and with WFRPG3E you're looking at multiple different kinds of dice, each of which would need to be produced in bulk to get the best price. I'm actually looking at options for manufacturing dice to use in Edge of Empire, because at this point it doesn't have any available.

Anyway, I've been working with Q-Workshop, and wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. I also highly recommend Chessex, but they couldn't produce the dice I needed because the design went across edges. But sadly neither of them are really feasible for producing dice for a retail market (the required markup is just too high IMHO). For that you'll need to look at overseas manufacturers like you can find on places like Alibaba.com

Finally, if you're looking at manufacturing dice yourself, you could do worse than purchase a low cost laser engraving machine ($1000-$2500) and a bunch of blank dice, or contact someone who already owns such a machine. You should even be able to get the same blanks Chessex uses from Chessex unless there's some policy in place. After all, they're basically custom dice with no sides engraved.