Does anyone have plans or know where to locate plans on how to make a wooden dice tower? I have found plans to make a paper or cardboard dice towers, but I am looking.

• Build Your Own Dice Tower

The primary goals of a dice tower being. Keeping the dice on the table. Improving the randomization by reducing the ability to manipulate the dice. There are several good designs, however, the basic principle to check for: it should have at least 3 slanted faces, and all the slanted faces should be covered in felt or corduroy.

Friction is your friend, here. The shape is almost always an L. Let's compare it to a cowboy boot. The toe is opened up so that you can see the landing zone.

Build Your Own Dice Tower

It needs about a 3/4' to 1' high rim. The heel has a slanting plate, angled to kick the dice out to the toe. The shaft of the boot: deflectors.

Plates: The shaft has anywhere from 0 to 5 angled plates within, usually about 30° to 45° downward, angled to toss the dice about in the tower. I don't use ones without at least 2 additional plates.

Most have a top plate, angling down to the front, and a second plate below angled down to the back. The plates should cover about half to 2/3 the cross section.

Better designs may have left and right angled plates, or even a narrow center triangle, to toss the dice side to side. Dowels: if plates are too much trouble, dowels can be used instead. The dowels should be about 3/8' to 1/2' hardwood, and are placed in levels.

Top is usually a front to back and a side to side cross, centered. 1.5'-2' down, 2 off center parallel; a crossing set another 1.5' to 2' down. Taller ones may have additional crosses, or even run dowels corner to corner. Plastic, Foamcore, Bare Wood, Felt, or Corduroy? What do I cover the thing with?.

only the inside of the tower and the tops of the deflectors need covering if you opt to do so, and dowel deflectors can have slipcovers rather than glued down ones. Bare wood is noisy, and some dice will slide flat along it. It's acceptable, but not preferred. Felt: cheap, easy, reduces noise, no nap, so it produces less hang potential than corduroy. Corduroy: has a clear nap. This will help catch and tumble the dice.

The nap, however, should be arranged to put the lines at a downward angle of 20°-40°, so that the dice also get some sideways motion and better tumble. Probably the quietest of the mentioned materials. Bare plastic: extremely noisy, very slick. Least tumble. Foamcore: as slick as plastic, but not as noisy, but often puts more bounce on the dice. A foamcore sole of the boot can easily result in dice bouncing OUT of a low toe.

(personal experience.) Also, damaged by water, unless sealed with paint or glue. There is another design for a dice tower I've seen used: spiral staircase. Each stair was angled 30° down, and it went clockwise with 1/4' drops off each stair. Being bare wood, it was rather noisy, but it also was very random. Plans & howto's The plans at are decent enough; it's a short 2 deflector boot-style.

Plans for a 2 deflector tower. Building with plaster molded 'stones'. Another set of plans for a square boot.

A square castle design, using 3 deflectors. Spiral path in square tower; wood core with polycarbonate sides. Commercially made towers I have one of these! It's noisy as a monkey house.

But it's good and random, tho' it lacks side-to-side deflectors. The toe plate is a little short, however. Also, it's friction fit, so it can be taken down and stored flat. This is great for the GM on the go. Unless you space where you shelved it! The same clear boot after adding some felt to the deflectors. Kits to construct both small and large dice towers.

Glue, rubber bands and about 10 minutes.' The mini is a 'land in drawer' mode, and the larger ones are a variation on the boot. Assembled dice towers started on Kickstarter. Alternatives to the tower The dice tray: a dice tray of some kind (we've often used the box lid) controls the dice, but doesn't add much to the randomization unless requiring a bounce off the back wall. Dice Cups: all the material issues for towers apply to dice cups. Plus, as dice stacking displays show, it's possible for the skilled to manipulate them pretty well, tho' it's still MUCH harder than in a tray or tower. It does, however, take some practice to shake-flip-slam so that the dice don't roll across the table.

Again, good ones are felt or corduroy lined (my good one is). An inepensive one can be made by taking a soup can (not a poptop, tho), carefully filing the edge smooth (steal your sister's emery boards!). Then line with felt or corduroy, gluing it to the inside.

Use some more, or some inexpensive leather, to cover the outside. This gets you a lunch and a dice cup for under $15.

Building one is probably your best bet, as they're pretty easy to make. The design is basically a tower with a hole out front that spills dice into a little pan. The tower has projections on the inside to scramble dice around so that you get random rolls. I would do this using an arrangement of parallel pins that cross the inside of the tower semi-randomly.

The tower also needs a slanted bottom so that dice roll into the pan after falling down. If you're feeling ambitious and you have a saw hanging around then you can make one out of. Balsa wood is probably best because it is both light and easy to cut, albeit expensive. If you want an less involved project then get some card stock and print a dice tower design on it , or cut your own with an X-acto knife. Fold, add a little bit of glue, and voila!

If you want to save money and you've got some Lego sitting around there's a great post showing off some dice towers.