Slicer and Dicer

Dice Rolling for Gamers!

By Carl Davis

Available for Windows (32-bit)

Overview

Slicer and Dicer is a dice rolling program designed for Fantasy Role-playing Gamers (FRPG). RPG games (like Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons and Dragons ) use a number of different kinds of dice during an adventure. For example, to determine if a character hits, a 20-sided die is rolled. If you still don't have a clue as to what I'm discussing, then you probably don't need this tool!!

Since I'm normally a Game Master (GM), I can think of many uses of this tool. My favorite is calculating damage from dragons (rolling 12d8's for example!). Setup your laptop or play near a PC and you can quickly roll up stats, damage, or 20 to-hit rolls for all your monsters. It's pretty handy for players...but honestly rolling a bunch of dice is really part of the fun of BEING a player!

Slicer and Dicer performs the job of a universal dice rolling machine. Some of the nice features are:

Has one-click access to most of the "standard" RPG die types
Allows for quickly generating multiple dice rolling and adding the results
Allows for an arbitrary sided die if needed that also allows multiple dice rolling
Can store single or a list of dice rolls on the clipboard for access by other applications

Finally, I'd like to give a little insight into what I was thinking when I made this program. The principals behind it were:

Simplicity. I really wanted something powerful, but ready to go on a minutes notice
Utility. Although, it's user interface is pretty easy to understand, I wanted most of the features that a gamer or Game Master (GM) needed to get things done. For example, you can create a large series of random numbers and copy them to the clipboard so they are available to your favorite program.
Size. I wanted to keep the executable small. Soon I'm planning to port to a hand-held device. Easier to be efficient now instead of stripping out source later.

Learning the MdN system

If you've been around RPG's for a while you've seen the terms like "d6" and "5d8" many times and know what they mean. For those who don't, here is a quick primer.

The number and kind of dice to roll can be easily expressed using the format "MdN". In this phased "M" represents the number of dice to roll and "N" represents the number of sides the die should have. For example, "3d6" represents roll three six-sided die and adding the values together (which gives a range between 3 and 18).

Using the Program

The figure below shows the main screen. Each element on the screen is also described.

d4 through d100 and the "M" text boxes	Rolls that particular kind of die. If the "M" box to the left of the die has a number in it greater than 1, then that man dice will be rolled and the values of each summed. When a die is rolled, the value appears in the "Result" area and the "Rolls" list (see below).
Generic (M, dN and Roll)	The generic area allows you to roll an arbitrary die type. Thus, if you place 30 in the "dN" text box, you'll roll a 30 sided die. If the "M" box to the left side of the "dN" box is greater than 1, then that many dice are rolled and the values summed. The result will appear in the "Result" and "Rolls" areas.
Result	The "Result" area shows the result of the last roll and the kind of die rolled. For example if the caption is "Result: 7d8", the value displayed is seven 8 sided dice summed together.
Rolls List	The rolls list show a history of rolls performed. Each time a single die (of any type) is rolled it is added to the end of the list. This allows you to look back at a history of rolls. Whenever a MdN roll is made (multiple dice), the "Rolls" window will be cleared and will display the individual rolls that made up the total. Each item is labeled with the die rolled and it's place in the sequence ("d8-2=5" means the 2nd d8 rolled which yielded a 5)
Clipboard	Checking the "clipboard" option sends each result (or series of numbers) to the clipboard. This allows the values to be placed into other programs. If the roll was singular, then only that last value rolled is stored. If it was a multiple roll (an "M" specified greater than 1) then all the individual rolls are stored separated by linefeeds.
Clear	Pressing the "Clear" button erases what was displayed in the "Rolls" list.
Seed Generator	Performs a re-seeding of the random number generator
About	Brings up the about box with some simple directions.

Licensing

This version (1.0) is available to all to download and non-commercial use without cost. However, I retain the copyright and may offer an enhanced retail version later. Until that time, you are welcome to share this version. However, if you maintain a website, I'd prefer you provide a link to my site for users to obtain the latest program.