Dungeon Degenerates Dice Bag & Dice Review
The Dungeon Degenerates Dice Bag & Dice is a black velvet bag with the game’s logo on it, containing fifteen 12mm Chessex dice made in Denmark. It costs $13.
That description is the whole review, and it is worth stating plainly because this product is widely misdescribed as a custom dice set. It is not. The dice are off-the-shelf Chessex, chosen because they match the ones already in Hand of Doom. Nothing is engraved, nothing carries game artwork, and no die shows a character or a monster.
Buy it if you own Hand of Doom and want more matching dice without hunting for the right Chessex line yourself. Skip it if you were expecting a bespoke set, because that product does not exist.
What you are actually paying for
Two things, and it helps to separate them.
Matching. Hand of Doom uses ordinary d6s, and once you are running a full table with expansions you want more of them in the same colours. Working out which Chessex product matches is tedious; Goblinko has done that and bundled fifteen. The value here is curation, not manufacture.
The bag. Black velvet, drawstring, logo. It holds the fifteen with room for a few of your own. It is a nice object and it is the only part of this purchase that is specific to the game.
At $13 that is honest pricing for what it is. The comparison people reach for — Q Workshop’s carved sets, or Chessex’s own premium lines — is the wrong one, because those sell you the dice and this sells you the selection.
The price only makes sense next to the base game
Hand of Doom, by Sean Äaberg and Eric Radey, runs about 112.95 euros and is currently in its fifth printing. Against that, thirteen dollars for matching dice and a bag is a rounding error, and the reasonable way to think about it: if you have already committed to a game at this price, and you play it enough that dice run short, this removes a small annoyance cheaply.
The inverse is also true. If you do not own the base game, there is no reason to want this. It is not a general-purpose dice set with a nice theme; it is a supply run for one specific title.
Its fifth printing is worth knowing for another reason: this is a game that keeps selling and keeps being restocked, so accessories for it are not scarce and there is no case for buying one as an investment.
Where the real expansions are
If the plan is to spend money on Dungeon Degenerates, the dice bag is not where the interesting content sits.
The two big ones are the Adventurer Expansion and Freaks & Psychos, at $40 each. Each adds eight new adventurers with skill and loot cards, character sheets and standees — Freaks & Psychos throws in epic monster cards as well. That is a real change to what a session looks like, not a supply top-up.
Below those sit the Malingerers, Mean Streets and Dirty Deeds boxes, and a run of booster packs around 6 euros apiece: City Scum, Breaking the Law, Goblins Have More Fun, Hooray for the Bad Guys, The Dirty Thirteen, Badlands Breaks. The Choose or Lose books add mission content instead of components.
The sensible order is expansions first, dice when you find yourself short.
What works and what does not
Works well:
- Fifteen dice that match the base game, without you having to identify the right Chessex line.
- The bag is a genuinely nice object and the only branded part.
- $13 is fair for curation plus a bag, and trivial next to a 112.95-euro game.
- Chessex dice are reliably made, which a boutique custom run would not guarantee.
Does not:
- Every description calling these custom or engraved dice is wrong, including the one this post used to carry.
- No use whatsoever if you do not own Hand of Doom.
- Buys you nothing in gameplay terms, unlike a $40 expansion.
- Standard dice means no collector value, whatever the listings imply.
Verdict
6/10. It does what it says once you know what it actually says. The score is not a criticism of the product but a reflection of what it is: a small convenience purchase that solves a minor problem for people already deep into an expensive game.
Buy it with an expansion, not instead of one. And if you came here after reading that these are custom dice with artwork on every face, that was never true — the appeal is that they are ordinary dice that match.
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