Terrible luck ruining my fun as a GM


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This is mostly a rant... Anyway, the title is self-explanatory: I have terrible luck with dice rolling as a GM. When I first started to suspect I had bad luck I charted every d20 result over several sessions, and sure enough my rolls where in fact sub-par, averaging an 8.6 [over about 70ish rolls that I tracked].

It's beginning to impact my fun because I spend a lot of time designing encounters to be challenging to my players. Then when the players simply roflstomp an encounter I've spent several hours designing merely because my rolls where terrible it makes it feel like all my preparation was just a big waste of time.

I've thought about giving my important story NPCs hero points, but I don't know if that's going to solve the problem, because it's not any single roll that's frustrating - I've had encounters be decided on the 1st round because the boss NPC failed an easy save, but I accept that as the nature of the game. What's truly frustrating, for example, is when I design a baddie to be a big-damaging martial threat, but fails utterly because over two rounds of full attacking the baddie hits once because I couldn't roll above a 7 on the attack roll.

I almost* always roll in the open so everyone can see the result of the dice, so fudging rolls isn't an option - and frankly I'm not interested in fudging rolls either, since it represents a slippery slope to me. Besides, rolling in the open increases the excitement at the table, such as when the PC gets crit-threat by the scythe-wielding barbarian, and has his eyes glued to the confirmation roll.

I just wish my dice would be more cooperative for producing such dramatic tension in the first place.

*(I sometimes use a dice-rolling program, but only when I don't want the players to know that I'm making a roll to begin with or don't want the players to know how powerful an NPC is. This most commonly occurs on opposed bluff/sense motive and perception/stealth rolls.)


Roll the dice and subtract the result from 21.


BigDTBone wrote:
Roll the dice and subtract the result from 21.

Teehee, unfortunately I don't think it's my dice that are the problem - my friend uses my dice all the time because he forgets his and they roll great for him. (The bastard)

I think it's just I'm personally cursed.

Sovereign Court

Have you considered the possibility that there's something wrong with your dice?

One of my GMs nowaways uses my dice, in the open. (They're easy to read.) So when a whole scenario long he doesn't roll less than 18 to hit against me, I can't blame anyone else but my own dice.

Shadow Lodge

theres not much to do about it besides changing of dices. Truth is most dice are not exactly accurate, this is the reason many players have "lucky dices". There exist however scientifically balanced dices, i dont remember the brand but i think you will find them if you google it


Use a different d20? I've heard gamescience (I think that's what they're called) makes great balanced dice.


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Could always use a gamescreen....

Grand Lodge

This sums up all our bad d20's.


Design SOME encounters to be less die-dependent... Hunt down those boring static +'s so you end up with a NPC boss who can, and will, hit on a 5... Backed up by a number of mooks (adepts with wands of magic missile is very effective)...

Some monsters at high level have quickened spell like abilities... Change theese to be quickened true strike...

Area spells gives the players reflex saves... No roll to hit...


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Use a die rolling program or web page instead of little pieces of plastic.


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Most likely, what you are experiencing is just an unlikely streak of bad rolls. These will occur, but will be balanced out over time by a roughly equal number of good rolls. That's just how probability works.

Replace your dice if you must, but it is most likely not a structural defect in the plastic; as you said, your friends roll well with them. My advice would be to simply accept that chance will always play a role in your game and learn to live with it.

If you start making your encounters tougher to account for bad rolls and then start to roll well, you may end up TPKing your group if you're unwilling to fudge. Unless there are re-roll mechanics involved, encounters should generally be built on the assumption that all rolls, on both sides, will result in a 10 or an 11 before modification. To do otherwise is spiking the punch.


That is why I have three sets of dice in my dice bag so that when one dice fails to roll properly I can cycle through them.

The Exchange

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Sounds like you need to recharge your dice.

Place them in front of the television so the highest value is facing up.
Now reward them by showing them a suitably epic fantasy movie so they understand what is expected of them. I find lord of the rings trilogy, the hobbit movies, Indiana jones movies or even the range of marvel movies works nicely.

Also, dice get tired too. Remember to rest your dice occasionally and let some of the others out to play. By rotating the working team in this way, you get much more life from your dice before you have to put them out to pasture as stand in height markets or scenery pieces on the battlefield.


One of the important things in this game, is to learn to embrace failure. Enjoying also when a Conan clone behaves like a Conan Clown because of bad luck. The dice are there to put a element of randomness in to the story. Allow your self to be surprised and pehaps have a backup, to up encounters with, if you feel the story is suffering from your bad luck.


Given the constraints, there isn't a whole lot you can do. Even replacing your dice with a rolling program will take away the suspense of rolling in front of everyone.

Talk to your players. Does it bother them, or just you? If they are getting bored (I wouldn't blame them), considering upping the CRs. You'll be running a slightly higher risk of an accidental TPK, but if you and your players are OK with that, it will solve your problem. At least until your luck turns...

Sovereign Court

If you think there's an issue with your dice (probable) just start using electronic dice.

While overall I prefer gaming in person - one advantage of sites like rolld20 (other than convenience when my buddies & I are scattered about the country) is that we can be sure that the dice rolling is totally random.


You could ofc use your players... Have them roll some of your dice...


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Meh. This is not a situation for negotiation. When the dice start thinking it is acceptable to ruin things for you like this, it is time to take off the kid gloves. Punish the dice. Find the most egregious offender and execute it in front of the others. I find that hammers work well. Once this is done, you will find the dice roll VERY well a period afterward... But after things start to sag again, another example is needed. Get new dice to replace those lost, and treat those VERY well. Do this, and you will have shown your dice that they serve you, not the other way around. You should be able to reach 10.5 quickly, maybe even a little bit more.


Sissyl wrote:
Meh. This is not a situation for negotiation. When the dice start thinking it is acceptable to ruin things for you like this, it is time to take off the kid gloves. Punish the dice. Find the most egregious offender and execute it in front of the others. I find that hammers work well. Once this is done, you will find the dice roll VERY well a period afterward... But after things start to sag again, another example is needed. Get new dice to replace those lost, and treat those VERY well. Do this, and you will have shown your dice that they serve you, not the other way around. You should be able to reach 10.5 quickly, maybe even a little bit more.

...I need to try this.

On another note, try using averages for non-important enemies. If the enemy isn't a named NPC/important character, assume they roll a 10, then a 15, then a 5 each round. Rinse and repeat until they die. You can also average the damage so you don't have to worry about rolling that either. It speeds up play against lots of enemies and also makes the really important ones feel a bit more epic when there's actually chances for them to crit.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

Dice superstition is one of the fun parts of tabletop gaming for a bunch of people. Each of my players (none of them superstitious at all otherwise) has their own dice "attunement" methods. Common methods include things like keeping the dice with you at all times, not letting other players or their dice touch your dice, or even rolling certain dice only in specific ways. Find your mojo method and make those dice work for you.

Of course, the dice gods (especially Statistics, god of wasted lottery tickets and bad poker hands) are fickle, and none of this may matter, but it at least gives you something to blame bad rolls on.


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Xexyz wrote:
Teehee, unfortunately I don't think it's my dice that are the problem - my friend uses my dice all the time because he forgets his and they roll great for him. (The bastard)

I found your problem. Or at least, thats what the superstitious part of me says. I'm not a particularly superstitous person, but dice superstition is one thing I have fallen into.

Seriously though, don't let other people use your dice. They don't like it and it kills the mojo.

;)

Liberty's Edge

You could always just roll a d1, that way you'll always win!


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Sissyl wrote:
Meh. This is not a situation for negotiation. When the dice start thinking it is acceptable to ruin things for you like this, it is time to take off the kid gloves. Punish the dice. Find the most egregious offender and execute it in front of the others. I find that hammers work well. Once this is done, you will find the dice roll VERY well a period afterward... But after things start to sag again, another example is needed. Get new dice to replace those lost, and treat those VERY well. Do this, and you will have shown your dice that they serve you, not the other way around. You should be able to reach 10.5 quickly, maybe even a little bit more.

The biggest thing on this is that you MUST keep the hammer or hot plate or sulfuric acid or whatever on the table in view of the other dice AT ALL TIMES. They cannot be allowed to forget what happens to misbehavers.

^Also, what Claxon said ! +Eleventy


Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I also agree with Claxon; sharing dice is a great way to earn a bad luck streak. Even more so when it's a GM and a player, since GM/player mojo are antithetical to one another. It will end in poor rolls for one or the other until the tainted dice are quarantined and purified.

Shadow Lodge

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Purification through fire. Buy a new set, and place them out where they can watch you burn the old set into a pile of molten slag. Then take said slag after it has cooled down, and keep it in the dice bag with your new dice as a constant reminder of the price of failure.

Alternatively, you could run encounters where the enemy only misses on a 1. Your party may find survival a lot harder, but at least you'll hit them.

Another alternative is to drop the dice altogether for your hit rolls, instead get yourself a deck of 52 cards and a sharpie marker. on four cards write Critical Hit, on 4 cards Write Critical Fumble Write hit on 22 and Miss on the remaining 22. every time you would make an attack roll, instead flip over a card from the top of the shuffled deck. Treat criticals just like normal, requiring a hit card to confirm. If you want more difficult encounters, you can adjust the ratios up, weaker encounters, adjust them down.


Ack. I had a situation once. I had designed two custom encounters for the session. One was meant to be a nigh-epic battle with an agile undead monstrosity, after which the party would win an important weapon. I promptly rolled 1s and 2s and my players stomped on the poor undead.

The second encounter was meant to be a challenging, but not overwhelming encounter to set up a later showdown with a villain. And ... to compensate for the previous encounter, my dice were hot. Really hot. Like "roll two criticals with a war scythe" hot. The PCs survived through the application of Plot Twist cards and by emptying out their mythic power ...

This led to my players REALLY recalculating their perception of certain foes. They also get panicky when I say, "Your enemy swings his scythe. I rolled a natural 20 ... "


One thing you can do is to control the results randomness.

Say you want result to be between 1 and 20 but want to have the same amount of 20 than 1 or 2 or 13... Just use 20 cards (1to20) and take one card at a time, shuffle between set. The random will be "fair" to you and your players.

If your players keep track of the fact the "20" or the "1" happened, just make a larger stack (3-4 or 5x20) for your entire session. It's also less shuffling.

Hope that help

Scarab Sages

You're spending too much time designing encounters. :P

I specifically decided that I needed to lighten my encounter prep time when I had precisely this kind of thing happen to me. You learn to not be so attached when you only spent 15-ish minutes preparing (or an hour of prep for several months worth of encounters like I do...).


The 1-20 deck of cards thing is genius for solving this.l if there isn't player resistance to it. Though it does change the probability.

Also, as a GM that rolls in the open, unless you are sharing stat blocks and modifiers, you can still fudge. Sure, you have a limit. You can't turn a 1 into a success but if you miss by one or two? Turn it into a hit if things have been horrible luck wise for you. Players usually don't even look that close at the dice, but you might want to be consistent about it anyway (if you fudge an 11 to hit, it hits from now on).

Shadow Lodge

Davor wrote:

You're spending too much time designing encounters. :P

I specifically decided that I needed to lighten my encounter prep time when I had precisely this kind of thing happen to me. You learn to not be so attached when you only spent 15-ish minutes preparing (or an hour of prep for several months worth of encounters like I do...).

What he said.


The players see your dice rolls but not the NPC's. You could add a little to their static bonuses if your baddies aren't presenting enough of a challenge due to bad rolls. Just don't go overboard and be consistent because your players will likely be doing the math backwards to figure out those static bonuses.


Time to retire those dice. Get some sets, plus some extra rad-looking extras. Carefully choose the dice you will use for the session, and -do not- share the dice.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Get one of those giant red d20s that lights up when you get a 20. >:D


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Over time, there's no such thing as luck.

So, your dice are simply poorly made (or your sample size not large enough). Get a few more, they are cheap.

Shadow Lodge

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I had a special set of "extra large dice for the mentally challenged" that i allowed players to borrow when they forget to bring their own dice to my game. It generally made them the focus of ridicule for the evening and players went a long time between forgetting their dice as a result. Then again, my friends and I are comfortable with a level of mockery that might make some people uncomfortable.

RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Someone in your group may be a luck vampire.

I generally roll average, unless I'm in a game with a specific other player. The universe has set up a siphon between him and me, such that when we're in the same game together, his rolls wane while mine wax. He gets a bunch of 7-, while I get a bunch of 14+.

This has been consistent for 3+ years of gaming. There is no known cure, you must accept your fate or avoid the luck vampire.

Edit: This effect doesn't occur when either of us DMs, and we play on VTT so the dice are virtual.

Sczarni

One of the best topics so far that includes dice superstition.

I like it. :)

I usually have my pinky dice. It has both good and bad days but it's mostly set on my mood meter. If I am feeling bad, it rolls good, if I am feeling good, it rolls bad. A stable relationship between dice roller and dice.

Offtopic aside, try to change dices a bit. It's common advice, but I have bunch in my sack and tend to switch them sometimes.


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Malag wrote:
I have bunch in my sack and tend to switch them sometimes.

I snickered like a 11 year old

Sczarni

Claxon wrote:
Malag wrote:
I have bunch in my sack and tend to switch them sometimes.
I snickered like a 11 year old

Yeah, it's getting contagious :)

Shadow Lodge

I feel you. I like designing NPCs and custom or advanced monsters - spending time on encounter design is part of the fun for me - but they only get one chance to do what they are designed to do and sometimes it's a letdown.

Two ideas:

1) Design encounters that work well even when the dice are against you. That doesn't mean just increasing the CR until the baddies always hit. Instead, choose abilities that increase to-hit (Weapon Focus, weapon enhancement, Menacing, Heroism) rather than ones that increase damage instead of or at the expense of to-hit (Power Attack, flaming weapons). If you roll badly, you'll hit. If you roll well, you won't do as much damage per hit so you're less likely to accidentally kill a PC when your luck changes. Higher crit range vs crit multiplier weapons also do this. For magical foes, choose save half / save partial effects rather than save negates. Avoid ability combos that rely on multiple rolls going your way, like Cockatrice Strike.

2) Roll more dice. More attacks mean you're less likely to have an encounter full of misses. Haste, natural attacks, and TWF help here (the extra attack from TWF does make up for the attack penalty). AoO may also give baddies extra chances, especially for foes with reach. Alternatively, try reroll or roll twice take better abilities, like the preacher archetype, Fortune hex, or luck domain.

Sovereign Court

Solid information pdf has solid information.

be sure to read up on the fame rub.


Davor wrote:

You're spending too much time designing encounters. :P

I specifically decided that I needed to lighten my encounter prep time when I had precisely this kind of thing happen to me. You learn to not be so attached when you only spent 15-ish minutes preparing (or an hour of prep for several months worth of encounters like I do...).

I really don't know how to reduce my encounter prep time. I'm kind of a perfectionist and everything has to be logically consistent in terms of what the encounter is, why it's occurring, and of course the number-crunching and customization necessary to challenge my players, which are mostly all optimizers.


Take the wheel from the game of Life, relabel it like the outside of a dart board (1 through 20 mixed up). Spin to your heart's content.

Also, bonus, if you fail on a spin, you can always say, "That's Life!"


If you want to break your own dice rolling jinx, I'd suggest designing encounters in which the bads take advantage of terrain and environment: send crap falling on the PCs heads, release swarms of mutant hellrats at them, force them to fight tiny creatures on a sheet of thin ice, bombard them with splash weapons, trap them in tight spaces with oozes...that sort of stuff. If your dice are being naughty, make the party roll more!


Weirdo wrote:


Design encounters that work well even when the dice are against you. That doesn't mean just increasing the CR until the baddies always hit. Instead, choose abilities that increase to-hit (Weapon Focus, weapon enhancement, Menacing, Heroism) rather than ones that increase damage instead of or at the expense of to-hit (Power Attack, flaming weapons).

Unfortunately, I have found that when you optimize a character or encounter for a certain kind of die roll, that die will never roll higher than a natural 2.


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Because you let your dice master you. It needs to be the other way around.


deusvult wrote:
Solid information pdf has solid information.

If the definition of "solid" is "getting people to buy as many dice as possible," then I totally agree!

Shadow Lodge

pennywit wrote:
Weirdo wrote:
Design encounters that work well even when the dice are against you. That doesn't mean just increasing the CR until the baddies always hit. Instead, choose abilities that increase to-hit (Weapon Focus, weapon enhancement, Menacing, Heroism) rather than ones that increase damage instead of or at the expense of to-hit (Power Attack, flaming weapons).
Unfortunately, I have found that when you optimize a character or encounter for a certain kind of die roll, that die will never roll higher than a natural 2.

Then don't roll any dice. Auras or environments can deal automatic damage (which the baddie is immune to) to PCs. Retributive abilities like Thorn Body also work.


One of my players in particular spent most sessions on the floor due to the dice having particularly deadly luck towards him. I made concessions to not kill him every now and then.

Now the tables are turned with me as a player, over the last 2 sessions I've gone through 2 characters and nearly a third as the GM openly rolls 20 after 20 on attacks rolls against me. Me and the other players hosted a roll competition for ownership of the deadly player die, it took nearly 40 rolls for anyone to get a twenty, but sure enough. My last Warpriest, Dhampir and nearly Oracle have all been 20'd down over the last 2 sessions, some wound up dead, others did not.


Solutions:

Buy a set of new dice, you can never have too many, I recommend some specked chessex dice, I have a green die with black speckles that has served me well.

Buff the bosses.
"Bosses" have a poor function in 3.5 based products because of the random factor and aggression focus. A strong boss is likely to get one shotted by magic or surrounded & pounded. If you raise the CR too much the battle becomes a game of rocket tag because the boss is so accurate that all the players defenses are meaningless.

Also, the real secret to good bossfights without resorting to something weird is to make proper use of minions. An overabundance of minions is a better way to increase a Boss's cr then giving the boss higher statistics.

.
Here is a template I use for all of my truly major bosses.
CR +2.
HP: Maximise the HP gained from dice, double the new Hitpoint total (So a level 2 boss commoner with 10 con has (6+6)x2 hp.)
Defenses: Relentless. The boss gains a +2 bonus to all base saves. As an immediate action the boss may automatically break any condition on himself or automatically succeed on a saving throw by spending a Villain point, even mind control effects and effects that render him unconscious may be broken.
Other: The boss gains 1-3 villain points to spend each day, A villain point has the same effects and rules as a Hero point save that a Villain point cannot be used to prevent the boss from going under 0 HP. The number of villain points gained depends on the boss's CR pre-modification: CR 1-5, 1 villain point. Cr 6-9, 2 villain points. Cr 10+, 3 villain points.

Note: The Boss template is great, but its poorly balanced, in roughly level appropriate fights it works just fine, but as soon as you go 3 or more ECL below or above the APL it starts getting wonky, low CR enemies will become silly punching bags and high CR enemies become unkillable juggernauts. For a suitable long-duration resource exhausting bossfight an APL+2 guy with this added is just great fun. An APL+-0 guy with this added is a cool miniboss.

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