Dice luck is pretty much a religion to some people. People who are atheist, think the whole man in the sky thing is preposterous, but pretty much worship imaginary dice gods. Can't let other people touch their dice, even if it would speed gameplay, do special dice rituals, punishing bad dice, ect.
This does not bother me until I have to hear about it over and over from players who think that every die roll is out to get them because they are cursed somehow. After every roll that does not go their 100% their way is followed by sighing, groaning, and "Of course!!!".
I see this with some players in d20 games as well as table top miniature games I play and it has been annoying the piss out of me lately. When your opponent laments your below average damage roll that you already do not like it really sucks something out of the game. That something is called fun. Try having it some times guys, you will live longer.
Oh, respond if you want to, I really am just ranting.
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You mean you don't keep your dice in the fridge, or discipline them with your fiercest model? Or don't smash a dice that rolled a 1 as an example to the others?
I sense your rant is fueled by the anger of Dice Karma, making your own rolls roll badly.
I also sense i'm being unfair...
On a more serious response, my group buy into it including me, but mostly its just harmless fun. Sounds like for you, its being taken to extremes.
It is more of a problem in Warmachine and Hordes for me than d20 because I want to have fun and set up some nice damage rolls and even if I roll under average on a really good set up I have to hear this guff. It takes away from the fun of really getting a good roll in because you have to hear all this crying about of course you would make that roll, and such when I was really stressing about making it.
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Never was a big believer in dice gods, but after 6 sessions each averaging bout 5-6 hours, I have a player who has the WORST dice luck I've ever seen. I estimate 85% of his dice rolls are 5 or lower, its the oddest thing Ive ever seen. I feel terrible for the guy, as its one thing to roll bad, its another thing to ALWAYS roll bad.
Never was a big believer in dice gods, but after 6 sessions each averaging bout 5-6 hours, I have a player who has the WORST dice luck I've ever seen. I estimate 85% of his dice rolls are 5 or lower, its the oddest thing Ive ever seen. I feel terrible for the guy, as its one thing to roll bad, its another thing to ALWAYS roll bad.
Does he roll bad with any d20? My little brother is like that, and he tends to get discouraged, and it snowballs into more bad dice rolls, then more negativity... his rolls suck!
Really does spoil some of the fun when you have to cheer-up a bad roller all the time.
It's weird when I pick-up his dice, and can't roll under 15 for the life of me.
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Never was a big believer in dice gods, but after 6 sessions each averaging bout 5-6 hours, I have a player who has the WORST dice luck I've ever seen. I estimate 85% of his dice rolls are 5 or lower, its the oddest thing Ive ever seen. I feel terrible for the guy, as its one thing to roll bad, its another thing to ALWAYS roll bad.
You weren't talking about my rolling, were you, Kabump? You described my rolling exactly. That being said, i never worshipped my dice, punished them by my scariest miniatures, froze them after every game, or even disallowed others' to touch them. Hm, come to think of it, perhaps i should try those options. Heck, i can't get any worse rolling.
Thoth-Amon
It is hard to tell who rolls bad and who just whines the loudest about it so it stands out in your mind more. I don't care how you roll or what you believe, just don't ruin other people's fun with bad attitude.
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You mean you don't keep your dice in the fridge, or discipline them with your fiercest model? Or don't smash a dice that rolled a 1 as an example to the others?
Hilarious, you had me laughing. I do have gamer friends that actually follow the rule that no one can touch their dice - no matter what. I've even seen one guy touch another guys dice. What did the dice owner do? He threw out his complete dice set (pretty expensive), left the game, and came back next week with a brand-spankin' new net of dice.
I've also seen players open new sets of dice, roll them 5 times, and the ones that didn't make the grade (the ones that didn't roll high), were thrown out in the trash or hucked into the woods. It's a very strange site to see.
Thoth-Amon
Then you have the practice roll guys with the less-than-stellar grasp of probability. "I rolled 3 consecutive practice 1s...this next one will be my real roll-I'm due for a high number!"
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I don't so much have a problem with my bad dice luck as I do with my DM's good dice luck. One of my PFS DMs rolls above 15 probably 80% of the time. Another DM buddy of mine, if I throw a fireball and there's a group of enemy that each have a 50% chance to make the save, 75% of them will make it. I call it "DM saving throws." It's also why I don't use a lot of save negate spells. Half damage is something, at least.
Never was a big believer in dice gods, but after 6 sessions each averaging bout 5-6 hours, I have a player who has the WORST dice luck I've ever seen. I estimate 85% of his dice rolls are 5 or lower, its the oddest thing Ive ever seen. I feel terrible for the guy, as its one thing to roll bad, its another thing to ALWAYS roll bad.
There's a young woman who I game with, who rolls very badly as a matter of routine. If she needs an under-roll (Palladium % dice), she rolls 97-00. If it's d20 combat, she rolls 5 and under. It's so consistent that we can't let her character - nominally a starship pilot - near the controls lest we wind up in the wrong dimension.
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Dice Gods, dice anthropomorphizing, the necessity of dice punishment, even 'luck'... these are all ignorant superstitions.
As we all know, there are microscopic Dice Lice which inhabit the nooks and crannies in each die. This is normally not a problem. However, when they swarm on a particular face of a given die, they naturally affect the roll by 'weighting' the die.
Tell your poor rollers to kill the lice by either:
1. Spraying the 'cursed' die with Windex or a similar cleaning product
OR
2. Dipping the die (briefly) in a small glass of Robitussin.
Yours,
Stormraven, DVM
I have one player who rolls so poorly that there have been times when it's been necessary for me to use DM fiat to fudge his rolls! >_<
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In a game that lasted about 4 years (me playing a fighter) I rolled a Crit ONCE... against a PC (the ONLY time I had to attack a PC)...
I have the WORST dice luck! stupid dice *hurls them against the wall and calls down curses upon them from Polyhedron the patron god of gamers*
what????????
:)
I played a War Machine game once where I only managed to hit once (even if I needed 3 or above to hit!) and my opponent missed once (even if he needed 12 to hit)! That game sucked. Yes I lost, thanks for asking.
Played with a guy once who was a probability sink..his own dice would almost always roll well for him..if he touched any one elses then that dice was gauranteed to roll badly for the whole session.
My own dice luck goes from..incredibly good when I'm a player to abysmal whenever I try and run something.
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You mean you haven't taken a sledgehammer to a die before? The other dice behave for the next hour or so...
My luck tends to be the exact opposite of yours Wellard, I generally roll crappy in the 3.5 game I play in, but in the 4e game I run, the SAME EXACT DICE like to get nat 20's pretty much one out of every 4 rolls. *sigh*
Of course, this is nothing to say of my luck in VTT games. I WISH I could take a sledgehammer to the dicebot in OpenRPG and MapTools some days.
In a game that lasted about 4 years (me playing a fighter) I rolled a Crit ONCE... against a PC (the ONLY time I had to attack a PC)...
I have the WORST dice luck! stupid dice *hurls them against the wall and calls down curses upon them from Polyhedron the patron god of gamers*
what????????
:)
I played a War Machine game once where I only managed to hit once (even if I needed 3 or above to hit!) and my opponent missed once (even if he needed 12 to hit)! That game sucked. Yes I lost, thanks for asking.
You remind me of one of the last times I played Battletech. We were having a nice little free-for-all between teams and my partner had 3 separate mechs in 3 consecutive turns all roll snake-eyes when he activated their MASC systems, leaving them immobile. That's the kind of luck I like to avoid.
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I don't usually sweat the bad roles when playing D&D/Pathfinder. I absolutely HATE THEM when I am playing Blood Bowl, though.
It drives me nuts to have a carefully planned strategy fall completely to pieces because all I had to do was NOT ROLL A "1" ONCE OUT OF TWO TRIES!
...and yet I roll...1st try: 1....burn a re-roll...2nd try: 1.
ARRRGGH!
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I made a dude cry while playing Axis and Allies.....
He had an overwhelming force attack me. Over 30 various land forces vs. my 8. First set of rolls he landed one hit. I took out 8 of his. Second set he missed all, I took out 6 of his. 16 vs 7 now. Next round he scores 3 hits, I hit all 7. 9 vs 4......he tried one more attack taking one more of my valiant forces while I took out another 4 of his. At 5 to 3 he finally relented.....the next 30 minutes were a laughfest for myself and the other players as he went through a 45 minute rant about how impossible it all was.....
The Dicegods laugh at those who try to use overwhelming numbers to cheat them of their due.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I made a dude cry while playing Axis and Allies.....
He had an overwhelming force attack me. Over 30 various land forces vs. my 8. First set of rolls he landed one hit. I took out 8 of his. Second set he missed all, I took out 6 of his. 16 vs 7 now. Next round he scores 3 hits, I hit all 7. 9 vs 4......he tried one more attack taking one more of my valiant forces while I took out another 4 of his. At 5 to 3 he finally relented.....the next 30 minutes were a laughfest for myself and the other players as he went through a 45 minute rant about how impossible it all was.....
The Dicegods laugh at those who try to use overwhelming numbers to cheat them of their due.
FH, man, the real strategy of A&A (and Risk, for that matter) is contingency planning to deal with the inevitable, INEVITABLE dice mishap. The essential question is how much you leave to defend.
My DM is a consummate dice thief. I'm not so worried about him effecting their luck so much as the fact that he will steal my dice and then drop them behind his screen afterword and forget about them so that I can't find my d20 when its my turn.
I try and sit on the opposite side of the table so he can't get at my dice but sometimes the seat beside him is the only one still open. Last time I was there I crafted an elaborate coral for my dice involving some silly putty and toothpick 'spikes' to defend my dice from the clutches of the evil DM.
Owner - Johnny Scott Comics and Games
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My luck with dice varies. I typically make all my skill checks with rolls of 15+, but when it's time for combat, Hellooo fumble!
In tabletop games, like War Machine and Warhammer Fantasy, my luck is pretty bad all the way around. Although, it can be fun in a twisted sort of way - I actually enjoy making goofy sound effects and cowardly remarks when my Skaven break en masse after a charge...
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I don't have any superstitions about dice (indeed, the only superstitious behavior I've seen in my gaming career is a fellow gamer who would freak out if anyone touched his tarot cards).
But, in twenty years of gaming with the same people, I've had special rules crafted just for me, allowing me a 'mulligan' reroll if I roll a character that has no net positives (as in, the total positive adjustments of all six ability scores is +0 or less), or if, back in 1st edition, I didn't managed to qualify for *any* class (Str below 9, so no Fighter, Dex below 9, so no Thief, Wis below 9 = no Cleric and Int below 9 = no Magic-User).
We even had a house rule that every time I rolled a 1, I would get a token, that I could spend at a later time to cancel out another roll of a 1 (basically halving the number of fumbles I'd get during a game). I'd go through three or four tokens in a game, and, to be fair, the rule applied to everyone. The other players would be all excited if they ever got a token, since it didn't happen every game for them.
Thankfully it doesn't seem to apply to PBP games. It seems that I get a critical hit in my first combat of every PBP, even in the cases where I only make a single attack in that PBP... Funky! The Paizo dice roller also seems much kinder to me than Invisible Castle.
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You all know, that most RPG dice are lopsided with uneven sides right (particularly the d20's and d12's because of their small edges)? This makes it possible for any particular die to in fact, always roll high/roll low...
The only truly random dice are those that are precision made...
Of course that doesn't explain the wackiness of some people and their dice...
But still...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
Crap!
Crap!
Crap!
Can I try my luck?
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This is why I always swallow any new dice I buy, so that we may be synchronized in purpose and fortune once they've returned to my hand.
I had a cat once that ate a friend's d10...
When he got the die back, my friend considered that die his "lucky ten-sided"...
To each his own I guess...
The cat BTW, was fine...
I've been trying to feed my dice to newborns as I figure they must be innately lucky. The problem is the mothers keep stopping me and won't see reason when I try and explain.
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Contributor
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Dice luck is pretty much a religion to some people. People who are atheist, think the whole man in the sky thing is preposterous, but pretty much worship imaginary dice gods. Can't let other people touch their dice, even if it would speed gameplay, do special dice rituals, punishing bad dice, ect.
This does not bother me until I have to hear about it over and over from players who think that every die roll is out to get them because they are cursed somehow. After every roll that does not go their 100% their way is followed by sighing, groaning, and "Of course!!!".
I see this with some players in d20 games as well as table top miniature games I play and it has been annoying the piss out of me lately. When your opponent laments your below average damage roll that you already do not like it really sucks something out of the game. That something is called fun. Try having it some times guys, you will live longer.
Oh, respond if you want to, I really am just ranting.
BURN THE HERETIC!
:)
I once had a chipped, beat up d20 with rounded corners. It was old-style, with 0-9 each printed twice instead of having 11-20. I remember an adventure when my wizard waited outside a room while the party entered, triggering a trap that dropped a portcullis at the entrance and released monsters from the other side of the room. My 9 strength wizard with a 1% chance to bend bars gave it a try. The second toss after a '0' rolled all over the table, keeping everyone in suspense, and finally landed on 'A'. It took people a moment to realize that 'A' was actually 1 (this was an old-style d20), then everyone burst into cheers.
One of those wonderfully improbable gaming moments that stays with you...
Probability. Schmobability. Its physics. Plain and simple. No die is 100% perfectly balanced, no matter what the manufacturer claims. Some dice roll well, some do not. The way you roll and the surface interaction combined with certain weight ratios makes certain sides come up more often. So rolling on a battlemap can make a certain side (low numbers for me) come up more often than rolling on a hard surface. Plus if you roll in a way that lets the die roll more, those same ratios will make the die have certain other side come up more often.
Its like the old carnival bowling ball trick. There is almost no possible way for you to get the bowling ball over the hump and not have it come back. The surface interaction allows it to travel longer distances with little loss of energy; the momentium keeps it going up that little bump. You are statistically guaranteed to never get succeed at that game. Is it possible, sure. But you are far more likely to have a good night at a craps table in Atlantic City.
I have a reputation at my table of always rolling terrible, and only when it "counts". As in, when a character's life is on the line, I will always roll a 1. To attempt to balance this out, I tend to build optimized characters, usually multiclassed to hell and back with items and feats from at least 20 different books at a time.
One of my fellows once pointed out my character builds and tried to call me a "power gamer", but another player spoke up and said "yeah, but have you seen him roll? He HAS to munchkin out just to survive!"
i always roll horribly, i have bought way too many dice to confirm this. that's why i end up DMing alot cuz i almost never kill anybody,
Oddly enough, when I DM, I rarely roll under a 17(3e). My DM dice are ruthless to my players.
Try this. Have confidence in your dice and don't sweat any rolls. No matter how much something is on the line. I believe that the tiny amount of sweat from feeling the pressure of needing to make a roll causes the die to slip more.
Just be confident that your dice are going to roll well for you, even if there is no basis for that confidence whatsoever.
I don't give a fig about people touching my dice, or anything like that. (So long as they return them after borrowing them :D )
In fact, in my current group, I'm the only one who has dice, so if I were minded differently, we wouldn't be playing. XD
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Sorta OT, but one of the guys I game with has horrible luck as well. He rolls low no matter what. In a white wolf mage game, he got to roll 3 dice with a diff of 3 meaning a 3 or higher is a success. Not only did he fail but he botched(fumbled) which means you had to roll a 1(he rolled 2) and no success(his other was a 2). He did a lot in the game.
He is also a guy that tended to butcher himself in Rolemaster/Spacemaster by fumbling all the time.
On the other hand in games that take low rolls, like Axis and Allies he tends to just steam roll everyone.
This is why I always swallow any new dice I buy, so that we may be synchronized in purpose and fortune once they've returned to my hand.I had a cat once that ate a friend's d10...
When he got the die back, my friend considered that die his "lucky ten-sided"...
To each his own I guess...
The cat BTW, was fine...
If there had been a dog in this story I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. Dogs can be notoriously unprejudiced about the things they ingest.
But, a cat? That's just weird...
Pretty funny, but I had a CHARACTER that rolled badly. It was a year or so ago in a Dragonlance campaign. Totally min/maxed dwarven fighter, Kegnar Felhammer (of the Thorbardin Felhammers). Basic dwarf-in-a-can idea, he was supposed to harass monsters and get them to hit his nearly unassailable AC. It became a running gag in the campaign that even though I had the most attacks with the best attack bonuses in the game, my rolls were so bad that I always did the least damage in a fight, if I did any damage at all. Monsters seemed to be able to overcome my massive AC with little difficulty, in the event they ever considered him a threat. It got so bad I asked another player to roll for me for the last several sessions.
I eventually dumped the dice and got a sweet set of Gamescience emerald gem dice. I had one great session with them. Then... the old Felhammer luck took over.
And it was just him. Every other character I played had the expected variation of rolls. One night when I had first started playing in the campaign I'm running now (with the same group as the DL campaign), I had a run of bad luck, we deduced that it was because I had the dice in the bag with my Kegnar figure.
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I have a player (who's playing a Paladin) who did not once roll above a 10 during an entire play session. He threw the dice out in a fit of fury.
Next session same thing happened. I asked him what the hell was up with his luck and he responded, "I fished it out of the trash."
In theory dice rolls are based off of the basic probability, in reality there are so many other factors in play (oblong dice, the surface itself, the fact you insist on holding the dice 1 side up every time you roll, that hole you drilled in the end of one of them) that dice can be "unlucky" in that they just don't roll the average.
I punish those dice by not using them.