What are your (or your gamers) dice superstitions?
I have had players who have "home" dice and "away" dice depending on where they play.
I have had players who vary their dice depending on what class they play.
I have had players who will ditch an entire site and pull out another one if the ST touches their dice.
To top it off, I have had players who, if their d20's roll poorly, will put them in the freezer to punish them.
Most (if not all) of my players line their dice up with the highest numbers facing upwards.
Is there a high concentration of lead in the drinking water of my gaming group? :)
Oh no. There are many gamer superstitions concerning dice, so your players are not crazy. Some of the more memorable ones in my groups include:
- Never put your hands in another man's dicebag.
- Only use one set for rolling statistics.
- Have a backup set in case one is rolling poorly.
- Keep the Pepto Bismol pink dice for players who forget their dice.
- You can never have too many dice.
There are more, I'm sure...
One of my players actually put their poorly-rolling dice in ice-cube trays and froze them in water with the highest number facing up to "show them who's boss"
Yeah..... that was a new one on me.
We have a superstition in our group. We christen all new dice on the next GMs belly before they are rolled, strangely enough it works. O.O
Rubbing dice over the signature of the game's creator for good luck. (I have Gygax's signature in my 3.5 handbook and in my copy of Keep on the Borderlands.)
We have the lucky board, all dice that roll on it have never rolled in the lower half of numbers.
Rubbing dice over the signature of the game's creator for good luck. (I have Gygax's signature in my 3.5 handbook and in my copy of Keep on the Borderlands.)
Lucky!
All I have is the Paizo staff sigs in my core book (that shall not be touched by anyone but me).
Knowing my luck if I tried that I would roll nothing but 1's and my players would all roll 20's.
I had a friend that would wash his dice when they were rolling badly.
We have a clear red die that rolled 20s like it was going out of style. When I DMed, I discovered this die and terrorized my players with it. The next DM started using it and did the same to us until one of the guys grabbed it off the table, threw it in an ash tray and lit it on fire with a butane lighter.
We still have it although it doesn't roll 20s anymore. Of course, there's no 20 left on it to roll.
I line up my dice with the highest numbers facing up, but it's not because of superstition, it's because I like looking at 20's. (I get to see them so rarely as it is. >.>)
Yeah, you see them about what, 5% of the time. ^_~
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The biggest superstition in my group is to NEVER EVER let the Gm touch the players dice. Almost every time this happens we roll 10's or lower for everything.
One of the funnier superstitions in my group is the use of the "Fortune Cookie" it started as a joke that one of my friends thought up to pray to the fortune cookie god to get better rolls. It involves standing over your dice while shouting "Fortune cookie" over and over and then you roll... I swear we crit hit and confirm more often than not using this method.
Well I subscribe to the place all your dice with the highest value facing up tradition. I have also taken my dice out to the driveway/fire escape and smashed one with a hammer to show the others that their crumy rolling wouldnt be tolerated.
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Never put your hands in another man's dicebag.
Thats not just about dice. Its a general rule.
Also, never leave your dice sitting with the 1 side face up.
Also also, I find that if (for example) I need to roll a 12, and I say "I need a 13 on this", Im far more likely to get the 12 I need, than if I had said "I need a 12 on this". Sometimes you just gotta outsmart the dice.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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This one's not so much an overall superstition as a single (funny) superstitious action:
I'd rolled two or three 17s in a row on my d20, so my GM asked to see it. He flashed an evil grin as he rolled it in his hands and blew on it once or twice. He gave it a test roll, landing somewhere in the 5-or-less range. With a second evil smile, he handed it back.
I accepted it graciously, then immediately made a test roll of my own: 17.
The whole table erupted with laughter. ;)
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I have the "drama die". It's a red d20 numbered differently than most "standard" d20s. The numbers 1-10 are in sequence on one half and 20-11 are in sequence on the other half. (the game Dicecapades also came with d20s numbered this way) I bought mine 15+ years ago at a teacher's supply store.
Just FYI, that is generally refered to as a 'spindown' die, which MtG utilizes alot. The point is so you dont have to spend time searching over the die for the particular number, as they are all in order.
Also, they are generally considered to be banned from organized play of anything type of game where you would roll a d20. obviously, no one can stop you from using it in a home game aside from the GM though, so feel free, lol.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Also, they are generally considered to be banned from organized play of anything type of game where you would roll a d20. obviously, no one can stop you from using it in a home game aside from the GM though, so feel free, lol.
...Why? It's still 20 sides with unique numbers, so as long as you're giving it a good roll (as opposed to trying to drop it straight down on one side), shouldn't it be every bit as random?
Also, what do you mean by "generally considered banned"? Is that official from somewhere, or just the habit of yourself and those you most consistently associate with?
I have a player that will hurl dice across the room if they continually roll bad.
Another player uses certain pink d6's for rolling stats.
I constantly am rolling the same two d20's in my hand like meditation balls. Been using the same d20's for 5 years now, player's hate them.
Another player will "curse" your dice if he touches them (you'll go from rolling well to ones and twos)
Where you sit makes all the difference to what your dice roll.
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One player won't let anyone else touch his dice and if they do he refuses to use them EVER again.
One player who has two dice bags. If a die fails to many times it goes in the bad dice bag and stays until he runs out of that kind of dice in the good dice bag.
A girl I knew who would kiss her dice and pet them if they rolled well.
A player with the curse touch. oddly more often than not once he touches a die it won't roll well for anyone but him the rest of the night.
A guy that is the single unluckiest person i know. He can not roll high. I have seen him roll 4 botches aka 1's with confirmed botch in a row. Though he is killer at games where you need to roll low.
For me it is more of a obsession, I like all of my dice to be high number face up when not in use.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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...Why? It's still 20 sides with unique numbers, so as long as you're giving it a good roll (as opposed to trying to drop it straight down on one side), shouldn't it be every bit as random?
Also, what do you mean by "generally considered banned"? Is that official from somewhere, or just the habit of yourself and those you most consistently associate with?
It should be every bit as random, but lots of people (not pointing fingers at Veiled Nail here) like to cheat. if they can figure out how to roll it a certain way to make it always land high-number-side up, they will.
By 'generally' I mean in any game Ive ever seen that involves a d20 being rolled to generate a random number, ive never seen anyone ever be allowed to use one for the reason I stated above.
I dont think there is anything that specifically disallows it in PFS so roll away with it if you like, but I dont allow them for rolling at my table.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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It should be every bit as random, but lots of people (not pointing fingers at Veiled Nail here) like to cheat. if they can figure out how to roll it a certain way to make it always land high-number-side up, they will.
Okay, so not like weighted or anything. That's good.
By 'generally' I mean in any game Ive ever seen that involves a d20 being rolled to generate a random number, ive never seen anyone ever be allowed to use one for the reason I stated above.
I suspect it might not be as universal as you think, since I've used/seen others use MtG spindowns under multiple local GMs without receiving any comment.
I like mine because it has my favorite coloration and font of all my d20's and has a nifty emblem for the 20 (it's a Shadowmoor MtG spindown, if that means anything to you).
Good to be aware, though, that some GMs are wary of cheating when the spindowns show up. Understandable, I suppose.
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Our group tends to believe that the player's should avoid sharing any dice besides the d6s with whoever is the current GM. (IE: don't use his d20s, don't let him use your d20s. Can share d6s because everyone who needs them needs a lot and they sit in the common pool when not in use).
For me personally, I own 2 sets of Chessex Dice (and a 3rd d20 that I got for free a few years back), and I am constantly cycling through those d20s once they start to roll poorly. And oddly enough, the die that was rolling crap will eventually (after a cool-down period) start rolling better. Also, I always try to use dice with gold numbers or pips because they roll better. Also are bling dice (not really, but it always sounds amusing to say, "Help me find the bling dice.")
At some point, one of my friends pointed out something. I have graduated with a degree in mathematics and passed the first actuarial exam, so how can I have such superstitions given my knowledge of mathematical randomness. Now, I could have gone the route that the crazy gamescience guy, but I didn't. I went with chaos theory. And I shall share that argument with you, so as to destroy all who claim that giving a die a break before rolling in again.
So there are two basic facts you need to know for this argument. First, if you can get a set of equations that accurately and completely describes a situation (like rolling a die), and if you can accurately replicate a given set of initial conditions for that situation, then you can replicate the results reliably. In other words, if you could completely define rolling a d20 in all respects, and if you could perfectly replicate a given die throw, you could roll that roll's result on command.
The problem is that rolling a die is excessively complex. There is linear and angular momentum. The die rolls across a large number of irregular and regular surfaces (like your had for the former, and possible the table for the later). Then the die will probably bounce of a number of other die on the table, and good luck getting those lined up exactly as they were when you rolled that 20. And how do you account for the other people in the room?
That brings us to the next fact. If you take the set of equations I mentioned in the first argument, and then input even small difference in the initial conditions, the end conditions will be vastly different.
The second fact is the important part. As you hold your dice or pick them up to roll them, they slowly absorb some heat from your hands. That slightly and subtly alters the die. Setting them aside lets them cool off, thus resetting the die. Plus, just the act of rolling other dice can change factors we aren't even aware we are changing.
So the next time someone asks you why you rotate dice, tell them a math major used chaos theory to justify his superstition, and that's good enough for you.
I accidentally touched another player's dice at a recent game and I thought he was going to have a panic attack. I offered to let him take mine and rub his hands on them but he refused saying it was bad luck.
I don't really have any dice superstitions, I think. My group shares dice all the time (I have a modest collection of between 300 and 400 individual dice). I am, however, almost obsessively protective of them. In my 25+ years of gaming, I can say with absolute certainty I have only lost 2 dice. I have traded sets with gamers and given away a set or two as gifts to new gamers, but aside from those two (and a d100 that came apart when I dropped it) I have every die I have ever received.
I do, however, change my primary dice out for another set every now and then. It's not a superstition, it's just I want to use a different design or color for awhile. I also keep complete sets separately from incomplete ones, though. And I always have a bag full of plain, undecorated or incomplete sets of dice for general table use.
I have many, many dice that people just give to me, either because they have too many or they're getting out of the gaming hobby. I buy Chessex almost exclusively, mostly because that's what the stores around here stock, though one has begun to carry Gamescience dice. I reckon I'll be sinking some money into those soon.
I will take anyone's unwanted or unloved dice, though. See my post in Gamer Talk....lol
Our table has a baseball sized D20 that sits in a small house figure we sometimes use in our games. It "lives" in the house and whenever a big decision is needed people call on the "big die for big decisions" and pull the die out and roll it for critical rolls/decisions.
I pre-roll my dice when possible. I keep rolling a die until it hits a 1, or a sufficiently low number, then I set it aside. The theory is that it's "used up" it's bad roll and the next time I use it, it's less likely to roll 1 again.
Long ago, we were using 3d6 for rolling up stats (wasn't DnD, though)...
Friend took out his shiny new 3d6, rolled 16, 14, 18, 15, 18, 17. PAts his dice, praising them 'Now THAT's what I call good dice.'
I ask if I can borrow them. Sure thing, so I start rolling...
14, 7, 10, 4...
At which time he takes them from me. 'Nah, you can't roll them that way, lemme show you...'
10, 3, 5...
What does he do? Tosses the poor dice out of the window (3rd floor), and starts yelling at me for breaking his dice.