I have this one unlucky dice that always rolls blanks.

I have this one unlucky dice that always rolls blanks.

Times all my green dice.

As a note, it's common in tabletop gaming to refer to a "die" as "dice,"even in singular, usually for consistency. Often, there is some note in the rules, etc., explaining the convention, but it's not really that strange. Certainly not deserving of a thread...

Not in any tabletop gaming I have seen. Die is singular, dice is plural.

There is a point in the article though where FFG screws up and says he can "change any dice of your dice results ", but that is just a screw up on FFG's part, the card itself is clear it is a single die.

To be completely fair, they have a decent bit of spelling mistakes in their articles sometimes, which even paid writers for news websites have every now and then.

For instance, in the same article about Palpatine, it says doge and not dodge.

Now, one could see this as a spelling error and rightly so.

One could also read too far into it and think it's a spoiler for the doge expansion, coming sometime in 2016.

Much X-Wing. Very dice. So Doge. Wow.

You slay me man, LOL, that was a good one.

Well at least we don't have a thread complaining about turrents!

Or tourettes!

As a note, it's common in tabletop gaming to refer to a "die" as "dice,"even in singular, usually for consistency. Often, there is some note in the rules, etc., explaining the convention, but it's not really that strange. Certainly not deserving of a thread...

Not in any tabletop gaming I have seen. Die is singular, dice is plural.

You might want to check again, both Warhammer and D&D have long used dice, rather than die. Hence the term twenty-sided dice, or six-sided dice.

I'm looking at my Player's Guide and when Gygax is talking about a single die, he uses the word "die". When he is referring to multiple, an undetermined or variable number of dice he uses the word "dice".

PSA: Languages are malleable and the rules are determined by usage not PSA's.

Then why not use the new, improved and even more malleable word... "dices", it is just as incorrect.

... but cooler

You can use whatever you want. If it is understood by the person you're communicating with, then it becomes part of the language. That's kinda how language works.

From doing some very shallow Internet research it seems that using "dice" as both the singular and plural form is much more common outside of the United States (which could explain anything by GW that does this). I'm unable to find cases of the opposite being true.

Does anyone ever use "die" to refer to multiple dice?

From doing some very shallow Internet research it seems that using "dice" as both the singular and plural form is much more common outside of the United States (which could explain anything by GW that does this). I'm unable to find cases of the opposite being true.

Does anyone ever use "die" to refer to multiple dice?

I've been known to shout "DIE!" at multiple dice. Does that count?

GW uses dice as singular because lots of things die in their games and they wanted to avoid confusion.

There is a point in the article though where FFG screws up and says he can "change any dice of your dice results ", but that is just a screw up on FFG's part, the card itself is clear it is a single die.

To be completely fair, they have a decent bit of spelling mistakes in their articles sometimes, which even paid writers for news websites have every now and then.

For instance, in the same article about Palpatine, it says doge and not dodge.

Now, one could see this as a spelling error and rightly so.

One could also read too far into it and think it's a spoiler for the doge expansion, coming sometime in 2016.

Much X-Wing. Very dice. So Doge. Wow.

You slay me man, LOL, that was a good one.

Well now it just looks like we're playing Starfox.

On a similar note: The plural of codex is codices, not codexes.

You can use whatever you want. If it is understood by the person you're communicating with, then it becomes part of the language. That's kinda how language works.

Yes it is, I could not agree more as far as day to day conversational language is concerned.

HOWEVER - in some cases, particularly legal or rules systems specific definitions are important.

In these cases, clearly defined terms give a common ground for rulings and judgments to be made.

Irrespective of how a given term is used in general parlance - the given legal system or ruleset overrides this within it's context.

If a game system uses "Dice" to refer to single or multiple polyhedral random number generators, then within the context of that system any ruling or rules interpretation is obliged to abide by said usage.

In the context of X-Wing, FFG repeatedly uses the term "Die" for singular and "Dice" for multiple.

Regardless of how you, I, or the public at large use the terms, in the context of X-Wing miniatures the "Die" means singular and "Dice" mean multiple.

EDIT: Reformatted paragraph

Anyone checked their Oxford Dictionary of English lately? There is absolutely nothing grammatically wrong with using the word "dice" in the singular. Yes, in some forms of English - North American English in particular - "die" is also used, but both "die" and "dice" will respectively sound quirky to different listeners and with the internet, and what not, the usage of one word or the other will become less and less dependent on geographical based versions of English.

True, as gamers it is very useful with a significant distinction between the singular and the plural (though even the plural "dice" is a irregular mess in its own right) and it can be helpful when game designers stress the use of "die" versus "dice" for functional reasons, but you cannot read anything significant into a ruleset's use of "dice", because there simply is no single correct usage of dice in the English language (or a single English language for that matter). Nor can you hassle people for speaking poor English if they use "dice" in the singular, such as I've seen some commenters do to non-native English-speaking X-Wing podcasters and youtubers otherwise making great content for the community.

People use incorrect spelling all the time to. It's like your not good at English...

Anyone checked their Oxford Dictionary of English lately? There is absolutely nothing grammatically wrong with using the word "dice" in the singular. Yes, in some forms of English - North American English in particular - "die" is also used, but both "die" and "dice" will respectively sound quirky to different listeners and with the internet, and what not, the usage of one word or the other will become less and less dependent on geographical based versions of English.

True, as gamers it is very useful with a significant distinction between the singular and the plural (though even the plural "dice" is a irregular mess in its own right) and it can be helpful when game designers stress the use of "die" versus "dice" for functional reasons, but you cannot read anything significant into a ruleset's use of "dice", because there simply is no single correct usage of dice in the English language (or a single English language for that matter). Nor can you hassle people for speaking poor English if they use "dice" in the singular, such as I've seen some commenters do to non-native English-speaking X-Wing podcasters and youtubers otherwise making great content for the community.

As was stated in the OP, the usage of the word "die" on the Palpatine card was the cause for this thread. There's no ambiguity with that word, it is singular.

There is a point in the article though where FFG screws up and says he can "change any dice of your dice results ", but that is just a screw up on FFG's part, the card itself is clear it is a single die.

To be completely fair, they have a decent bit of spelling mistakes in their articles sometimes, which even paid writers for news websites have every now and then.

For instance, in the same article about Palpatine, it says doge and not dodge.

Now, one could see this as a spelling error and rightly so.

One could also read too far into it and think it's a spoiler for the doge expansion, coming sometime in 2016.

Much X-Wing. Very dice. So Doge. Wow.

You slay me man, LOL, that was a good one.

Well now it just looks like we're playing Starfox.

I don't know what this Starfox is, but the more I look at it the more tempted I am to make a pilot card.

One could also read too far into it and think it's a spoiler for the doge expansion, coming sometime in 2016.

Leonardo Loredan, fifteenth-century Doge of Venice.

Not in any tabletop gaming I have seen. Die is singular, dice is plural.

You might want to check again, both Warhammer and D&D have long used dice, rather than die. Hence the term twenty-sided dice, or six-sided dice.

As others have said, it's possible you're right (I don't have any sourcebooks in front of me), but I've never seen D&D say something like "one twenty-sided dice".

You can use whatever you want. If it is understood by the person you're communicating with, then it becomes part of the language. That's kinda how language works.

Sure, but that's a big "if". And it's an especially big "if" when you're talking about rules, which are much more legalistic/algorithmic in nature than conversational language. It becomes much more important that the speaker and the audience share not only the general concept but the specific meaning.

Here, "a friendly ship's die result" incorporates two key phrases:

• "friendly ship", meaning any ship that is controlled by the same player as the ship carrying Palpatine, and
• "die result", meaning the face shown on one die.

Well at least we don't have a thread complaining about turrents!

Or tourettes!

#$(&@@&*!!!!!!!