Crazy Eights: Eight questions with Adam Hackett of Metallic Dice Games

If you have played any kind of RPG, then rolling dice is a big part of the experience.  There is something about the die roll, waiting for it to land on a number, causing your success or defeat.  Will you shout for joy as your party basks in the defeat of the enemy, or will you groan with the appearance of a one causing everyone to go down in a blaze of glory?  While dice have been made out of different materials like bone, metal, ivory, and wood, these days most dice are made of some kind of plastic.  These days metallic dice are expensive, but Adam Hackett wants to change that.  I asked him eight questions about him and his company, Metallic Dice Games.

Can you tell us about yourself and your company?

I’m Adam Hackett, CEO of Metallic Dice Games LLC. Business is my passion; I love bringing RPG fans quality, unique dice that are different than what is currently seen in the market.

Our dice and customer service are what’s most important; I am just the man behind the scenes.  We try to be available at all times of the day. We want to hear from you and what you want us to deliver to the dice market. Gamers are whom our products are for, we want to allow them to control the market!

We can be reached through our twitter account, facebook, and email. Renovations for our website are happening at the moment.

We currently have our polyhedral metal sets in 7 different colors. With our 7 colors, we offer the largest selection and are what we believe the most affordable metal dice on the RPG market. This follows our slogan “Luxury Dice For Less.”

Why did you decide to make metal dice?

Metal dice were a great starting point for us because we have seen the lack of selection and quality in the market. We love heavy dice. These solid metal dice feel nice to roll!

We will be getting into other dice materials such as wood, stone, and acrylic in the future!

Can you explain the process you use to make your metal dice?

Manufacturing quality, solid metal dice is extremely difficult. This is what generally creates the higher price point for metal dice. We mold our solid zinc dice, then plate them in polished nickel. This polished nickel is what makes our great colors. Numbers are carefully painted after this process.

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Each die is then individually wrapped and formed into sets in our clamshell packaging.

How do you know that these dice won’t be weighted to favor a particular side?

Our dice mold has been tested and is extremely quality. More importantly, we have given these dice to gamers to see the quality first-hand. We have had a great amount of positive feedback from gamers regarding the randomness of our dice rolls.

How did you come up with the colors that your dice come in?

Our colors have developed by balancing beautiful colors while maintaining great quality. We will not release new colors unless we are able to manufacture them up to our quality standards. Gold, silver, and copper were all in our first release of metal dice.

We had great feedback to these colors, but also wanted to make some dice that look more aged and rugged. This is how our antique line of antique gold, antique silver, and antique copper metal dice arrived (these just released to begin February!).

Along with the antique color line, we were finally able to perfect our black metal color with white numbers. These released as part of our 4 new February dice sets.

Did you use Kickstarter to start producing your dice?

I did not use Kickstarter to start my business. I think crowd funding is great for entrepreneurs, but decided to take Metallic Dice Games LLC. in my own hands and have invested a lot of time and capital into the company.

One thing that is great about Kickstarter is that it gives new companies not only funding, but customer awareness. This is where I may be a bit behind, but know the power of our RPG fans’ word of mouth!

Do you plan on making custom engraved dice or game tokens?

Our metal d6’s can actually be custom engraved right now. We don’t do much of it, but will always try to fill custom orders if we can!

Your current set appears to be geared towards tabletop RPG players. Can we expect other sets in the future?

This is actually our very next project. We have seen demand for metal d6’s so will be releasing sets of 5 d6’s in all of our colors, along with a mixed set with our 5 top-selling colors.

As always, we will continue to consider all suggestions and form our product lines around our RPG fans’ needs. We would love to hear from you!

Since doing the interview, Adam has provided a couple of these sets to me.  I have to say that I’m impressed with the quality of these dice.  They have a nice heft to them, making the rolls feel more substantial.  From the dark black dice to the aged antique colors, these dice will stand out while playing with your friends.  Check out their website and see what they have available.