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Face it, we all get bored. Whether you’re at work, waiting in line, or just standing around, that feeling of wanting to do something else tends to creep up on you. And, unfortunately, it can even creep up on you while you’re playing D&D.

Perhaps you’re in a battle, and you’re way down on the initiative list. Or maybe you’re the party rogue, but you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere rather than in the middle of a bustling city with many pockets to pick. Well, since you probably have dice, why not amuse yourself with them?

Here are two ideas to try out:

1. Dice Towers
This is probably the most classic way of amusing oneself during a slow period during a D&D session. Start with one die as your base, and just keep stacking them up as high as you can go, or at least until you run out of dice to stack.

With this, you can start off easy. Just use the standard 6-sided die. However, if you’re looking for a bit more of a challenge, use your entire assortment of dice, from your d4s to your d20s. I recommend using just a single d4 for the top-most piece, but feel free to experiment.

Now while the tower is probably the easiest structure to create using dice, you should never be limited to something so simple. Go wild create and crazy things! Maybe even try to create a whole castle using nothing but dice! In fact, if you build something incredible, take a picture, upload it somewhere, and post a link in the comments. I’d love to see how creative people can get when using only dice.

Oh, and no glue or tape.

2. Maracas
This is something for those of you who are more musically inclined (I myself have played alto sax as a child, and my girlfriend is a composer). And if you happen to be the group’s bard, this will even help you get into character!

Simply finish off your current bottle of water (which you should be drinking plenty of to begin with). Then just start popping your dice right into it. A word of caution though: make sure the neck of the bottle is wide enough! If it’s not, your dice might get stuck, which would suck.

Once you have enough dice in it, just put the cap back on, hold it by the neck, and shake it up! It might be good to have some appropriate music playing in the background to shake your newly-made maraca to. And of course, if you’re up to it, make a second one so you’ll have one for each hand.

However, as a word of caution, this does have the potential to annoy everyone else in your party. Be especially wary if you’re not the DM, since you might find your bard suddenly having a very hard time.

Of course, these are probably hardly the only ways to amuse yourself when you’re bored. As usual, there are other more mundane ways to amuse yourself, like drawing, randomly rolling your dice, writing random fan fiction, etc., etc., etc. But I do wonder what other creative things can be done to amuse yourself during times of boredom, particularly with dice. If you have any other ideas, please mention them in a comment!