Using Story Cubes as an Oracle

It was my birthday recently and my wife gifted me a bunch of Story Cubes. Specifically, four sets of them: Classic, Actions, Voyages, and Fantasia.

A version of this concept for those who do not own these dice exists here.

Left to right: Fantasia, Voyages, Actions

Four sets gives me 36 dice in four colors, for a total of 216 possible random pictograms if I draw dice from a bag. Very nice. My immediate thought was that this is effectively a d666 table (see below), but there's more than that. Let's look at what we can do with these.

Spark tables based on the dice

I wrote down what each face of each die looks like to me. Some are a little subjective and there's definitely word-association to be done with the visuals, which makes using the real dice far more effective at providing inspiration. But in lieu of owning the dice, you can use this as a spark table. Some of these are modern and don't necessarily suit all genres, but for a spark table I genuinely don't think that matters. If you roll "airplane" in a fantasy medieval setting, surely that still gives you some idea you can work with!

Result 266 was the rightmost pictogram in the above photo - I found this one particularly hard to interpret. Let me know if you know what that's actually supposed to be.

Classic	1	2	3	4	5	6
11	walking cane	mobile phone	weighing scales	expressionless mask	diagonal arrow	lightning bolt
12	ID card	rainbow	stone tower	pyramid	open eye	tree
13	planet	flashlight	apple	friendly face	modern tower	airplane
14	keyhole	comedy and tragedy	parachuter	striped fish	chaos symbol	sunflower
15	open book	bee	bridge over water	abacus	crescent moon	magician's wand
16	question mark	fountain	key	sad face	shooting star	teepee
21	sheep	padlock	learner plate	magnet	footprint	fire
22	house	speech bubble	sleeping face	light bulb	arrow (weapon)	clock
23	open hand	a six-sided die	magnifying glass	scarab	menacing shadow	turtle

Actions	1	2	3	4	5	6
24	push	falling object	press button	steal	set alight	think
25	listen to music	enter door	hide	falling person	play with dolls	hit ball
26	sore thumb	read book	surprise	gift	turn	touch (blindfolded)
31	climb tree	thumbs up	counting	kick ball	catch butterfly	eat lunch
32	drying laundry	reach high	point	knock	build wall	awaken to alarm
33	bounce	cough	walk	carry	light weights	lead the way
34	dance	break/snap	dig hole	shout/call	fight	fill hole
35	jump down	scissors cut paper	drop ball	cry	knock down vase	drawing
36	fork in road	ask question	hang from bars	throw ball up	rocket collision	laughter

Voyages	1	2	3	4	5	6
41	torii gate	dino skull	coin bag	tunnel entrance	waves	beans
42	backpack	monkey	goblet	cactus	sunrise/sunset	gauge/meter
43	skull and crossbones	six pointed star/sun	spotted mushroom	submarine	raincloud	gears
44	cauldron	spectacles	camera	pointing/accusatory	pill	elephant
45	rice bowl	stairway down	bandit	horned helmet	pouring flask	bacterium
46	exotic city	jewel pendant	octopus	crab	miniature person	mirror
51	circus tent	angry	cracking egg	opening chest (facing away)	road to mountains	puzzle piece
52	"ping"	crown	treasure map	snake	whip	ray gun
53	crow	scared	musical note	telescope	ladder	axe

Fantasia	1	2	3	4	5	6
54	frog	flute	bindle	slinky cat	shadowy imp	old crone
55	Zeus smiting	summit temple	sailship	minotaur	giant brute	last stand atop high ground
56	maze	harp	trojan horse	hypnotized/entranced	sly/convincing/hiding dagger	Icarus flying too close
61	monk	princess with sword	market stall	jester cap	pig on a spit	quill and inkwell
62	trident	opening jewelry box (facing away)	Charon the ferryman	Medusa	hermes' winged boots	high throne
63	wolf howling at moon	robed figure	birdcage	Gnome miner	path into forest	baby basket
64	bow and quiver	tankard of ale	crusader helmet	cart of hay	morningstar	longhouse
65	dragon	troll/ogre	shackled prisoner	castle gate	potion	wizard
66	tiara	hand mirror	path to hilltop tower	figure inside swirl	fairy	well

Yes/No Oracle

Draw three story dice from the bag and roll them. If the pictogram is something that would be beneficial to the situation or question, count one "yes". If it is not beneficial or is negative, count one "no". Majority rules.

You can get "yes, and" results if all three are positive rather than just a majority. If you use five dice, you can create a sliding scale including "no, and", "no, but" and "yes, but". Three positives or negatives is a softer yes or no, while a unanimous result is stronger.

You could theoretically play an entire storygame using this and only this. Do the heroes beat the army of orcs? Abacus, lightbulb, morningstar... It looks like superior intellect, strength and a brilliant strategic idea bring the heroes a decisive victory!

Character Generation

In games based around tags, traits, or aspects drawing a few dice and rolling them is all you need to generate a character. In any other game, you could use this to come up with the character concept and then use the usual generation methods to get there.

Four elements

You can also associate the four colors with the four elements and use that as your oracle, an idea that I got from the solo RPG Diedream. The colors of the sets I own are grey, blue, green and pink, which map closely enough to air, water, earth and fire. The tables above are colored as such, but you might as well roll a d4 if you're doing it that way. Sometimes these broader categories might be all you need, or they might color your interpretation of the images.