This is just an idea that occurred to me on the way to class to day.

What if the the GM recognized character achievements by given the player special dice for them? This is not a game mechanic, just a social recognition of achievement.

For example, the party slays a ancient black dragon, so the GM gives them all a 'dragonstooth' white d4. So if a character has killed a half dozen dragons he has his bragging rights right there on the table next to his character sheet. Say another character manages to combine three waring merchant guilds into a single large guild, so the GM gives him a gold and silver (colored) d6. You bring down a cult of the elder gods and get a cthulhy d20.

This way a player has a physical reminder of major accomplishments within the game and the GM has a tactile way of showing the players they've done something important.

Now, of course not every event warrants a dice (that would be both expensive and would destroy the value of the dice awards) only major, heroic or otherwise remarkable events earn you dice.

This would only really work for systems that use a full set of poly-dice (D&D, Savage Worlds, etc.) and only relatively long term games would allow players to gather more than a couple dice.

What do you think? Is this something you would try as a GM? Is it something you would be interested in as a player?

What happens to the dice after the character dies or the campaign ends? Does the player keep them or does the GM get them back to hand out again to new characters?

And, most importantly, do won dice roll better than the others?

This is an ineteresting idea you've had.
Here's another wrinkle for it: as the dice are a tangible token of narrative mana, can they be transferred? For instance, Farkus won a Dragonslayer die for having rushed up and flung his sword down the gullet of the evil Greysmoke Dragon, saving the princess, the castle, the campaign, and the party. Some time later, Samara rescues Farkus by worming her way along a ledge in the castle to get to the window of the room where Farkus is dallying with (unknown to him) the evil sorceress Clerihew, and blowing sleeping dust over the sorceress before she can get her claws into Farkus. It might not have been quite as heroic and Farkus' act, but he is personally very grateful. Can he award her the Dragonslayer die that he won?

I'd rather play a game that this sort of mechanical reinforcement built in. Burning Wheel's traits come to mind: they're added as part of a vote between the GM and players. They can be purely descriptive or affect the dice, depending. Reputations and affiliations can also work that way.

I've tried something very similar in the past and had good responses out of most but a few players that the group was already having trouble with would buy dice of their own and try to say work it in as something I'd given them and attempting to make the rest of the group jealous. That was a failing of itself and was dealt with shortly thereafter but it left a bad taste in my mind about the idea, having someone else come up with the idea makes it sound better to me again so I'll see about implementing it in my new upcoming campaign.

Punt those assholes to the curb!

False dice cause the weapon used by the perpetrator of false dice to burn their hand. The damage rolls explode... If it rolls a one, they critically fail. If they roll a two, they roll again twice for damage. If theyroll a three, their spirit, soul, and body are sundered. If they roll a four, their limbs fall off. If they roll a five, they lose all five senses. If they roll a six, they just die, but are reincarnated as an arthropod, a small one which someone shortly steps on.
Or, in my world, they could, upon detection, sacrifice the false dice upon the rock of repentance and be forgiven.

I do a variant of this at ever convention game I run. At the end of the adventure, I hand out individual dice from a set of nice-looking ones that I buy for the occasion, ensuring that each player gets at least one. The D12 goes to the guy who got the biggest hit in, the D4 goes to the unluckiest player, etc. Stuff for good RP, keeping the group moving, funniest player IC or OOC, just a little thing to make sure that even the guy who didn't hit a damn thing all night still goes home rewarded. Lots of players have told me they like this idea, and it's seen some transfer to other GMs as well.