Polyhedral dice, showmanship, and loss

I forget now how I originally discovered him, but some time in the late 2010s Louis Zocchi, Air Force Technical Sergeant, magician, and—most relevant to me—manufacturer of polyhedral dice appeared on my radar. I was just about to play in my first D&D game as a player and I was shopping for dice. I stumbled upon this YouTube video of Zocchi at a convention selling his dice. If you can, give it a few minutes to get a sense of the man’s passion and nerdity. I noticed that his t-shirt had Biloxi, MS on it, and I was immediately intrigued, as I’m a fellow Mississippian. I would later find out my uncle, who lives near the coast, had been shopping at this man’s shop for years. Gamescience dice have sharp edges. As Zocchi explains in the video, this is because they aren’t put through the rock polishing process that other dice manufacturers use. His description of other manufacturers’ process goes something like this: The dice are submerged in paint so that the number groves are filled with…