DnD dice towers: what they do, plus wooden, folding and printed

A dice tower is a small box you drop dice into. Inside, sloped ramps called baffles tumble the dice before they exit into a tray at the bottom. Towers take the thrower’s technique out of the roll, help players who find rolling hard, and keep dice on the table. Wooden, magnetic, folding and 3D printed towers are the main types.

What does a dice tower actually do?

Wikipedia’s description is plain: dice go in the top, “bounce off various hidden platforms inside it,” and come out the front. Those platforms, the baffles, knock the dice around enough to give a random result.

That solves three table problems:

1. Suspicious rolls. Towers “eliminate some methods of cheating” possible when rolling by hand.
2. Hard-to-roll dice. Players who find hand-rolling difficult can drop dice in instead.
3. Runaway dice. Many towers end in a walled tray with a short lip so dice do not scatter across the table or the battle map.

The idea is old. The Vettweiss-Froitzheim Dice Tower, found in Germany in 1985, is a Roman tower of copper-alloy plate from the 4th century AD, with three levels of baffles inside. It is kept at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn.

Types of dice towers

Wooden dice towers

Wood is the classic choice. Silverwood Wood Designs makes an 8-inch solid hardwood tower, 3.5 inches wide and 3 inches deep, weighing 1 pound. Buyers pick the wood (alder, maple, walnut, cherry and others) and a finish: hand-rubbed tung oil for a matte look or polycrylic for a satin shine. A matching hardwood tray, 6.5 by 8.5 inches, is sold separately.

Wyrmwood’s Magnetic Dice Tower is held together only by rare earth magnets, so it “can be assembled or disassembled in seconds.” It stands 8.38 inches tall and weighs 35 ounces. Taken apart, it stores inside Wyrmwood’s Personal Dice Tray along with a dice vault.

Folding and flat-pack towers

Folding towers are made from panels that stand up and lock together. Forged Gaming’s Draco Castle is PU leather lined with soft felt and held with magnets and snaps. It folds to a 9.5 by 11 inch square, 0.75 inches thick, then sets up as an 8-inch, three-level tower with an attached tray. That flat size slips into a bag with a campaign binder.

Gamegenic takes another route with its Premium Dice Tower: a compact tower for dice up to 25 mm that fits most standard deck boxes. Its closing flap becomes a dice stopper, and with the cover on it works as a dice case.

3D printed dice towers

Printed towers are made layer by layer in plastic, so small sellers can offer themed shapes that would be hard to cut from wood. Before you buy, check:

• What the landing area is lined with. Felt pads soften the sound, as in the felt-lined folding towers above.
• How it is assembled. Tall designs are often printed in sections that fit or glue together.
• The fit of your dice. Oversized or spiky novelty dice may jam narrow chutes.

Wooden, folding and tray dice towers

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Noise and table space

Dice hit several surfaces on the way down a tower, so linings matter. Felt linings, like the one in the Draco Castle, soften the clatter. A lined tray below matters as much as the tower, since that is where dice land hardest.

Space is the other cost. The towers above are about 3 by 4 inches at the base, but you also need the landing tray. Forged Gaming lists the Draco Castle at 9 by 5 inches assembled. At a crowded table, one shared tower at the end is often easier than one per player. If space is tight, a folding tray alone may be enough; see our guide to dice trays and rolling mats.

Which dice should not go in a tower?

Most plastic, resin and metal dice are fine. Gemstone and glass dice are the exception. Norse Foundry’s care directions say to avoid dice towers and dice cups for them, because the repeated impacts “increase the risk of gemstones becoming damaged.” Roll those one at a time on a padded mat instead.

Very large dice are the other limit. Gamegenic’s tower, for example, takes dice up to 25 mm.

Dice towers as gifts

A tower suits a few kinds of recipients:

• The friend who hosts. A shared tower with a large tray settles arguments about cocked dice.
• The dungeon master. A tower next to the screen lets the DM roll in view or behind it.
• A player who travels to games. Folding or magnetic towers pack flat.
• A birthday or first-session gift. A tower picked to match a new player’s first dice set makes the set feel complete.

Pair a tower with a dice vault or bag from our dice boxes and bags guide, or browse more ideas in our D&D gifts guide. If the gift includes dice and young children live in the house, remember that dice are small parts: the CPSC bans small parts in products meant for children under 3.

The Dice Tower is a different thing

“Dice tower” is also the name of The Dice Tower, a board game media organization. Its site describes itself as “all about board games and the people who play them,” with reviews, podcasts and conventions such as Dice Tower West and Dice Tower East. It is not a tower maker, and this site is not affiliated with it.

Towers are one piece of the kit; our DnD dice sets guide covers the dice themselves.