Dice Tray by Tabletop Tinkering
I can’t remember the last time I was compelled to review an actual piece of gaming accoutrement, but after a chance encounter with a post on Bluesky by Frankie (@tabletoptinkering.bsky.social), I discovered one of the cleverest pieces of gaming kit I have seen recently. One prod of a daughter later, a timely birthday and now I have a lovely new dice tray, that actually works as a dice tray, and I am thrilled.
You see, my gaming pals and I have a long-running joke that the standard neoprene-style dice trays we know and love don’t actually get used as dice trays. You don’t roll your dice in the tray – instead, you corral your dice in the tray for safe-keeping and then pick up your dice and roll them outside the tray on the table. This totally destroys the entire purpose of the dice tray, which I have always seen as providing a controlled rolling environment for your dice.
The Tabletop Tinkering trays – and I accept they might not have had the original idea, but I saw it there first so under Neil’s house rules, you licked it, it’s yours – deal with this issue in an ingenious manner. They offer a storage area for your dice AND a rolling area. In the same product!
Mind blown.
The tray itself is about the size of a tea plate and has obviously been engineered to hold standard sized dice in its little holders. The heptagon design holds your standard array of dice – d20, d12, d10, d%, d8, d6 and d4 – which is clever, and you can comfortably fit three of each dice into a slot. The inner design is cloth and looks to be glued into the tray, with no obvious flappy edges and the base has a well-trimmed and stuck felt bottom. I’m no expert but the tray itself looks like it’s 3D printed and has a pleasing form factor whilst being light and portable.
OK, that’s the technical stuff, now the important bit. When you roll the dice there is a lovely muted clinking noise. It’s very satisfying indeed. When the dice are in their slots, you can give the tray a right jiggle and they aren’t coming out, which means an accidental tap isn’t going to worry them. And, as we discovered last night, if you turn the tray upside down you can play some passable finger bongos on it too. I’m not sure this is part of the product’s appeal but we enjoyed the distraction.
Trays are priced from £14.00-£16.00 depending on design, from https://tabletoptinkering.com/ and you can reach out on Twitter/X (@TabletopTinker), on Facebook (Frankie’s Tabletop Tinkering), on Insta (@tabletoptinkering), on Etsy (Tabletop Tinkering), and on Bluesky (@tabletoptinkering.bsky.social)
