FU uses dice to generate a response to a closed question, with Yes, No, And, But providing six distinct possible results. While these answers can be generated with a standard six-sided die, I thought it might be fun to have something a little more custom. Today I am sharing two easy ways to make your own custom FU dice.

Custom Dice Option 1 – Blank Dice

I’ve had a couple of packets of Chessex blank dice floating around for years. As a game designer I am always collecting odds and ends to build prototypes and picked these up some place long ago, but you can still get them here.

I simply wrote the possible results on each die face using a Sharpie. Depending on how steady your hand is and how fine the marker is, you may get a simple symbol (“Y” or “Y+”) or the whole phrase (“Yes, and…”). I really like the ultra-fine Sharpie, as I could fit the entire phrase on each side of the die. You may need to spray your dice with some varnish or clear coat when you are done to improve their longevity.

I used a standard D6 as reference so I knew where to write each result. For these dice, I didn’t use the “Beat the Odds” chart but simply made higher results better than lower results.

Custom Dice Option 2 – Lego Dice

Lego dice, available in the Lego board games, have rubber edges making them quite bouncy and unpredictable! They’re also large, which makes it satisfying to hold in the hand (though you probably couldn’t hold more than a few).

I used colour Lego pieces for each face of the die; green for “Yes” and grey for “No”. I then used a secondary colour to represent And/But results – in this instance white for “And” and red for “But”.

Have you made your own custom dice for FU? Or are you happy with the standard D6? What do you think about the classic “beat the odds”? Or do you prefer high rolls to be better than low rolls?

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This article was first published on June 22, 2016

This article originally appeared on a website dedicated to Freeform Universal. I have consolidated that material here in order to bring everything into one easy-to-find location.