Okay - while browsing the shop for some new dice, I came across a Chessex product called "cheat dice" - are these for real? Anyone have these? Do they role 20 everytime? Is this why my players role so many critical hits?! These things should be outlawed!!
I had some 6 sided cheater dices that usually rolled 6 not always, but I would say 85% of the time. I never played with them, but I did roll stats for a pc who ended up with several 18. The DM and I laughed over it then he told me to roll again and took the dice...they're were fun as a joke, but they would RUIN a game.
Fizz
Where did you find these? I have a hugley overpowered stone giant PC that needs to be taken down a few notches. I have a d4 that almost always rolls a 3 or a 4.
Director of Game Development
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Apparently they are. While nice for a joke, yes, they would ruin a game. However D&D players are notoriously suspicious folk, and if a player tried to use such a thing in play I think that the other players would revolt if the DM hadn't yet.
I trust my players to come to the table honest. Not only would you just ruin the experience for yourself, but for the whole group.
Where did you find these? I have a hugley overpowered stone giant PC that needs to be taken down a few notches. I have a d4 that almost always rolls a 3 or a 4.
Stone giant pc that just sounds like it would be trouble. I ordered a huge thing of dice off ebay, and the cheater dice came with it.
p.s. the owner of a local game store told me you can microwave a die, with the side you want it to roll most offen up, in short burst repeatedly, and it will slightly melt the die changing how it will roll.
Fizz
Apparently they are. While nice for a joke, yes, they would ruin a game. However D&D players are notoriously suspicious folk, and if a player tried to use such a thing in play I think that the other players would revolt if the DM hadn't yet.
I have a set of blue and gold dice that i love and my group hates. They never fail me. I keep them in their own dice bag that matches them, and NO ONE else gets to touch them. I was actually asked not to use them because they rolled so unbelievably. There is nothing special with them. I bought them from the store The Gameboard, with is a chain (I think), because they looked cool. But, I have to agree we do tend to be a distrusting lot, and I would be lynched if they caught me using cheater dice.
Fizz
Anyone caught cheating like that in my game would be shown the door.
I've seen these. Or at least, these specific ones:
Chessex "Cheat Dice":
d20: has two 20's
d10: has 2 0's
d6: has no number 1
d6: has no number 6
Pretty awful that a company would do this, in my opinion.
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Chief Technical Officer
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D'oh! Looks like the correct description of the cheat dice got overwritten. (I won't be able to fix it until next week.)
It's much simpler than weighted dice—they just mess with the numbering. If I recall correctly, you get a "high" d20 that has two 20s and no 1; a "low" d20 that has two 1s and no 20; a high/low pair of d10s; a high/low pair of d6s; and a regular (non-cheat) d6.
Anyone caught cheating like that in my game would be shown the door.
How 'bout the DM?
Anyone caught cheating like that in my game would be shown the door.How 'bout the DM?
If the DM stoops that level, with all of the other legitimate tools available them, then that DM is not worth playing with, IMO.
No, you shouldn't PLAY with die that have two 20's, and as a DM- I would never use them in a game either...
BUT, some people do house rules for stats- re-rolling 1's for instance, some people just don't want automatic failures, but I couldn't imagine a game without that possibility included.
And honestly, if a player to attempt to use such a set of dice would have to be pretty good at real life sleight of hand to avoid being discovered.
But, I could find other uses for these die, for instance NPC HP with the d6's (monsters too, though honestly, rerolling 1's is more...effective and fair really)
For instance... I dug in my dice bag, and eventually settled on two die options for randomly rolling things like DC- I have D30 (I give a base dc of 10 for that die though) and I have a 10 sider that essentially is like a 10 sided 5 sided percentile die but goes from 00-40 instead of the normal 10 sided 00-90. I say I should pair that with a normal single digit d10 and go that way.
Though, I would think that no one should ever bother setting a DC at 1 or say 11 much, though numbers in between would be very acceptable...I guess dice with no 1's in that case or a 20 instead of a 1 could be used in generating a random DC as well.
And there's probably a host of other creative and homebrew style uses for the 2 out of 20 or 2 out of 6 odds for maxing on those die...assuming the dice would be used open-handed or to not overly influence the game.
Hell, I'd consider buying a set just to mess with my old DM who's holding onto his hybrid version of 2nd ed (mixed with some 1st and house rules for Faerun) like a life-raft, unfortunately...even as a joke...I don't think omitting one on the d20 (or a d10) would benefit me too much. It's actually sort of counter intuitive...but 2e characters (npcs or pcs) could actually be CURSED by die that can't roll ones. (though if I'm recalling this properly the d6 without 1's would actually be pretty overpowered/unfair as well as cheating).
<shrugs>
I could just imagine tossing them in my Skull & Bones dice bag and rarely dusting them off for use, like my 10 sided d5 (or the 5 sided d5, which really has more "sides" that just what it lands on- to be fair on rolling).
I've scarcely touched my dungeon creation die since I bought them. But Chessex and other dice makers offer a wealth of weird die for loads of uses...game designs vary enough even within the d20 system that such optional die might be useful for DMs and even players alike. (D30's for luck rolls in my old DM's hybrid for instance, or d100's as if you really needed 'em for players to more directly determine their own fate.)
I probably won't buy them, as blank die or even mentally assigning a different number or re-rolling...even if they had a "cheat" percentile die, for special circumstances to avoid rerolling instances...then it still wouldn't be THAT useful.
But yeah, I'll put it on my consider to buy if I see 'em die list...right behind weather die and d6's with something other than 1 on them (like "D'oh!" or the skull dice- which are plentiful enough so I'm not saying I'm very likely to buy cheat die just if I see them at the next Chessex booth I go to at a con or whatnot.)
Oh well, I weighed in a few pounds over on this one...as usual.
Just a follow up - I really do have a player that seems to have uncanny luck at rolling critical hits. Much greater than would be statistically expected...
I *hate* to confront him over this, because if I'm wrong, I'm sure he'll be offended and probably stop playing, leaving our group a man short.
But if he *does* have one of these trick dice then he's probably laughing at me behind my back.
Next game, during a big battle, I'll be sure to walk around the table a lot, and ask to "borrow" his dice for a critical life-or-death roll...
"God doesn't play dice with the universe" -- Einstein
My personal opinion is that not all die are “cut”, “molded”, or “weighted” the same from the factory, depending on what they are made of and design. I think this is why we all have THAT set of dices that is our favorite. The dice you don’t want to use till it’s a life or death situation. Hey it my just be luck, or the luck that seem to accompany the young and fool hearty. I have never and would never use cheating dice, but I know they are out there. Go to Los Vegas and drop the dice you’re rolling with on the floor and see how quickly they will snatch them away. Oh tempers fly high our treasure in my group, I would hate to see what would happen if someone was caught with cheating dice.
Fizz
Chessex "Cheat Dice":
d20: has two 20's
d10: has 2 0's
d6: has no number 1
d6: has no number 6Pretty awful that a company would do this, in my opinion.
There may be more to the story here.
These dice are not so much designed to cheat (but obviously you can if you choose to,)
but ALLOW YOU TO ROLE DIFFERENT PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS.
Here is a cool article on the mathematics of dice (written by a sixth grader in England): http://plus.maths.org/issue41/features/hobbs/index.html
die 1 has faces: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4
die 2 has faces: 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8
Yet, together they roll the *SAME* distribution as two "normal" d6!
Chessex rules!
Here is a cool article on the mathematics of dice:
http://plus.maths.org/issue41/features/hobbs/index.html
Chessex rules!
That's interesting, I've never heard of Sicherman dice before. =)
Pretty awful that a company would do this, in my opinion.
rogue die wrote:
There may be more to the story here.These dice are not so much designed to cheat (but obviously you can if you choose to,)
but ALLOW YOU TO ROLE DIFFERENT PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTIONS. ...
I can imagine the design people at Chessex saying, "Let's create new dice so people can combine them and create new probability distributions. We can include a booklet about basic probablity with each pack!!"
The Marketing people's eyes probably glazed over at that, and said, "Umm... no. But, we can call them CHEAT DICE !!"
hahaha...
I remember playing at University of Arizona over 20 years ago. A couple of us noticed that one of the other players almost always rolled a 6 when needed. We watched how he rolled one night and discovered with the typical dice we all had could produce these results. If you gripped it with the 6 facing you and the 5 and 4 up and gave it just a little backspin; it rolled a 6 about 50% of the time, a 4 or 5 about 1/3 of the time and we rolled about 200 times before it came up 1. It also required a fairly hard clear rolling surface like a good wood table.
I would imagine that you can find similar methods for most dice.
We just changed the rules on the table that made doing most of that a lot harder.
We just changed the rules on the table that made doing most of that a lot harder.
Rolling dice from a cup, rather than by hand, will prevent this. =)
We just changed the rules on the table that made doing most of that a lot harder.Rolling dice from a cup, rather than by hand, will prevent this. =)
For dice rolls, we have an Official Dice rolling area. All dice rolls must be made with it, and must be verified by more that one person. We have several rules that have been voted on and amended over time concerning leaning dice, on the floor rolls, etc.
Btw, our Official Dice Rolling area is a clear plastic contraption someone made in highschool shop class. It is a tower, think bong, (which I personally believe it was intended to be originally before the teacher saw it) with a tray at the bottom to catch the dice. Inside is a maze work of floors and spokes, so it is kinda fun to watch the dice fall and clatter through it before being deposited in the tray.
But if the DM is looking to help his players, but just doesn't want to say "you did it", he might use those dice in favor of his players. Not every cheating DM is cheating "against" the players...
It just depends with which intention you use cheat-dice.
Given all the other tools DMs have at their disposal, why should they bother? Besides, near misses can be as cinematic as critical hits; the players don't have to succeed at everything. Sometimes, the BBEG gets away to plot and scheme again (or even forces the party to retreat or face a TPK).
In my first gaming group ever I seem to recall a guy claiming he could skew the dice distribution a D6 by shaving a certain corner and making it roll more 6s. Now this was 19 years ago and I was 14 so I don't remember if its worked or not lol. But my gaming store in Montreal sold what were called "loaded dice" that were supposed to roll high. I never bought any so I can't tell you if they work.
Be safe all.
There should also be dice with NEGATIVE numbers, and some with both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE numbers!
If you roll them in combination with other dice they would alter the outcome probabilities.
Chessex has the right idea selling dice with non-standard numbers.
They need to expand on this area!
It could transform the game and have us worring about our PCs overall probability distributions rather than just +/-'s . :)
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p.s. the owner of a local game store told me you can microwave a die, with the side you want it to roll most offen up, in short burst repeatedly, and it will slightly melt the die changing how it will roll.
Fizz
Well he's wrong. A microwave won't affect a plastic die. Microwaves aren't ovens, they just heat up water molecules.
One way to load the die is to rub very fine sandpaper over the side you want to land facing up. Reducing the weight by just a fraction can dramatically alter the way it rolls.
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Okay - while browsing the shop for some new dice, I came across a Chessex product called "cheat dice" - are these for real? Anyone have these? Do they role 20 everytime? Is this why my players role so many critical hits?! These things should be outlawed!!
An easy test I think would prove a die had a weight imbalance would be to put it in a cup of water; theoretically the weighted side should end up at the bottom every time.
I played with a guy who seemed to throw an inordinate amount of criticals, and we put his dice in the tub and they checked out fine.I've also heard of people with sleight-of-hand ability that can roll dice skillfully and make the roll they want come up more often, and that that is why in Vegas when you shoot craps you shoot them across a 4 or 6 foot table or whatever...I don't know if it's true or not, but I think it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility considering the other slight-of-hand tricks which exist. The guy I know seems like the kind of person that would know something like that.....
Well he's wrong. A microwave won't affect a plastic die. Microwaves aren't ovens, they just heat up water molecules.
I don't know if it works or not, but I would think you could melt a die in a microwave. I'm not saying it would be rollable after that, but I think it would melt. I have melted cups and plates in a microwave several time. In fact in college my roommate melted the microwave somehow by microwaving a shirt.
Fizz
You could be right. I have no clue how a microwave really works. I'm a law student if it's not a legal book or a DnD book I don't have much time to read about it.
There should also be dice with NEGATIVE numbers, and some with both POSITIVE and NEGATIVE numbers!
Interesting. So if you cast a 10d6 fireball, but are in a watery environment you would have to add in, say, two -d6 to limit effect. ( Where a -d6 has numbers -1,-2,-3,-4,-5,-6 and getting a negative result equals no damage. )
Yay, I like it. I am going to start making modifiers like this and see how it works out.
1.> 2d4 + a die that rolls -2, -1, 0. (d6: 1,2= -2, 3,4= -1, 5,6= 0) for my brass knuckles.
nice.
Check out the Fudge Dice - that's kinda what you're looking for. :)
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Weighted dice have been available nearly forever. The usual sort are trivially easy to detect, at least if you've ever seen one roll: watch for the wobble. There's no good use for these; you can't trust that you know the resulting probabilities.
Dice with changed numbers are harder to see (though trivial to verify once you suspect a problem). They also have more legitimate uses. For example, the most popular ancients miniatures rule sets from the '70s and '80s used "average dice" (2-3-3-4-4-5) to reduce the variability of results for regular troops.
If you do decide to buy non-standard (to use a charitable definition) dice, be extraordinarily careful to keep them segregated from your normal dice. It can be more than just embarrassing to use one by mistake and then be caught. While less embarrassing, it can also be pretty painful to use a six-sided d3 or a 20-sided d10 by mistake. It's really hard to roll a 20 when the die only goes to 9.
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A couple of the people who I play with have some various cheat dice, though they are more for amusement then to actually be used in any actual games.
We do have one that we always use to mess with any new DMs we might have, but thats just because its so blatant but is still enough to throw them off stride for a moment. It looks almost exactly like a normal d20 but it actually has 26 sides.
Its always amusing to toss it down the first time and call out a natural 26. Normally that follows with them trying to clarify 'You mean 26 total, right?' 'Nope, I got a 30 total. I rolled a 26'. And then we realize we have broken another DM. Thus I have to run the games.
I have thrown weighted d6 dice, and indeed they get quite good probability of rolling a 6...
In a sense there might be interesting uses for either weighted dice or dice with abnormal numbering...
I read a while ago about an indie RPG, Panty Explosion (yes, it takes place in Japanese girls' school) and it apparently has a system that one must roll 5+ to succeed but different characters use different dice...the most popular girl in the school rolls d12 while the social outcast rolls d6 :)
Yes, it is pretty far from fair game but when playing a fair game is not a major concern ideas like that can become real fun.
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Chief Technical Officer
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If I recall correctly, you get...
I recalled incorrectly. You actually get:
1 d20 numbered with two "20"s and no "1"
1 d10 numbered with two "0"s and no "1"
1 d6 numbered with two "6"s and no "1"
1 d6 numbered with two "1"s and no "6"
1 standard d20
1 standard d10
1 standard d6
And then there's me. I go through phases of dice jinxdom. I know many men of science who will confirm this for you. I seem to roll more 20's and 1's, 6's and 1's, than any other numbers, regardless of whose dice I use. Great for Yahtzee. Really annoying for gaming.
PINGO THE DYSLEXIC MNOK
Str: 18, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 3, Wis 3, Cha 3
Oddly enough, on a 1d4 I almost never roll a four. I'm serious. I hate that effin' thing. I literally avoid choosing weapons that require a 1d4 damage roll. I get the feeling that if I used a weighted d4 it would just stand up on its corner. JK, I'm not actually superstitious, just paying attention to a reoccuring pattern is all.
I don't doubt that you're being honest.
That doesn't mean that your DM agrees with me. The long runs of good or bad luck make the game what it is.
A long term study of chaos theory isn't going to stave off an experienced DM though.
I almost always DM... and my players have always believed that I wasn't trying to deliberately kill them. ;)
I once considered buying one of those electric random die roll machines. Extremes can get very monotonous.
Its always amusing to toss it down the first time and call out a natural 26. Normally that follows with them trying to clarify 'You mean 26 total, right?' 'Nope, I got a 30 total. I rolled a 26'. And then we realize we have broken another DM. Thus I have to run the games.
That's all it takes?! Whips!
Check out the Fudge Dice - that's kinda what you're looking for. :)
Yes, I have not seen these before but they should prove useful.
Years ago I had a really unassuming looking purple d20 that rolled an inordinate ammount of 20s. I frequently rolled three 20s in a row with it. It also rolled a ridiculous number of 1s. At the time it was being used most (back in 2e) I was playing a paladin with a sword of sharpness. I severed hundreds of limbs with that combination of die and weapon, including my own arms and legs a few times. Playing that character at times was like running a blender with its blade loose in the socket.
That die was either stolen or lost years ago. From time to time I still buy purple 20 siders just to see if I can conjure the old magic, but alas. . .
I have it. You left it at my house. Do you want it back?
In my first gaming group ever I seem to recall a guy claiming he could skew the dice distribution a D6 by shaving a certain corner and making it roll more 6s.
Yes, that is true. If you shave the corner where the 1, 2 and 3 meet, the die will tend to roll more 4s, 5s and 6s. I read about that trick in Dragon magazine many, many years ago and decided to test it... with an ivory-finished die, so that grinding down the corner made it quite obvious that it had been tampered with.
Occasionally it rolled low, but there was a much higher probability of rolling high with it. As someone else mentioned, the high-probability seemed to correlate with rolling on a hard surface. Thaat probability was decreased on softer surfaces where the die experienced less 'play' in motion.
Also occasionally, I would pull that die out to mess with new DMs. It was so blatantly obvious it was altered. :D
I remember playing at University of Arizona over 20 years ago. A couple of us noticed that one of the other players almost always rolled a 6 when needed. We watched how he rolled one night and discovered with the typical dice we all had could produce these results. If you gripped it with the 6 facing you and the 5 and 4 up and gave it just a little backspin; it rolled a 6 about 50% of the time, a 4 or 5 about 1/3 of the time and we rolled about 200 times before it came up 1. It also required a fairly hard clear rolling surface like a good wood table.
I would imagine that you can find similar methods for most dice.
We just changed the rules on the table that made doing most of that a lot harder.
Back in highschool when everyone I played with was either a munchkin or insane, one of the players in a Rifts game I was in was badgering the GM for a stat rolling method that would give him uber stats. The GM finally said "fine, you can roll as many statblocks as you like and take the best one!"
Incidentally he programmed his calculator to roll sets of stats until he got one that got an 18 in every stat. But anyway, the GM was pretty brutal so this was something you wanted to take him up on. As I was rolling stat blocks I was inadvertently sleight of handing the dice. Since I only has a single d6, to speed the rolling I'd just place it in my palm and tilt my hand so that it fell out onto the table. Same motion every time. The side facing up on the die always became the side facing down on my palm. Turns out when I placed the 6 side (or any side) facing down on my palm, the degree I was tilting my hand made the dice tumble twice and the side I placed facing down always showed up. If you're dexterous enough you can do this so that it comes up every time, but I didn't notice this because I'm not, and figured all the repeats I was seeing were just luck.
The GM watched me roll a phenomenal 37 or 38 in one stat (Rifts still had that if you rolled a 17 on a stat you can add a d6 to it, and if you rolled a 6 on that d6 add another d6 ad infinitum. Or maybe that was a house rule. Either way...) and a 28 or something in another. Looked convincing enough that he allowed it too, but at that point I couldn't believe that was random luck and after going through how I'd been rolling the die I realized why I was seeing so many repeats.
Being dumbly honest I told him this. Naturally he didn't believe me that I wasn't actually intending to sleight of hand it, but he let me use the stat-block anyway.
I have it. You left it at my house. Do you want it back?
Holy thread resurrection, Batman!