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.
I nearly had this happen just last night. One of my players was rolling terribly all night. It got to the point where she didn't want to get involved in the ongoing combat. There was no point because "her dice hated her." She had elected to be lookout while the party went in to roust out a thief. Turned out there was a den of them and things started going badly, so she decided to look for another way in, going round back and trying various alternate entrances.
She hopped a low wall into the courtyard...barely. Then she tried to climb the oak tree there to reach a second story window; she rolled a 2. Failing that, she went to try and pry the boards off the back door. The highest she rolled, even with the modifier from her crowbar, was a 10. After three attempts she was ready to just go back around the building and through the front door. It was at this point that the thief they were after, having had enough, was escaping upstairs and going to shimmy down the tree and hightail it out of there. She saw him; he didn't see her. She shoots an arrow, rolls a 19, sneak attacks him and drops him to negative hit points. The subsequent fall to the courtyard killed him.
So I suppose the moral of the story is that if your dice aren't working for you, then just bide your time.
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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."
I have since destroyed said die with fire. It was necessary.
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.I nearly had this happen just last night. One of my players was rolling terribly all night. It got to the point where she didn't want to get involved in the ongoing combat. There was no point because "her dice hated her." She had elected to be lookout while the party went in to roust out a thief. Turned out there was a den of them and things started going badly, so she decided to look for another way in, going round back and trying various alternate entrances.
She hopped a low wall into the courtyard...barely. Then she tried to climb the oak tree there to reach a second story window; she rolled a 2. Failing that, she went to try and pry the boards off the back door. The highest she rolled, even with the modifier from her crowbar, was a 10. After three attempts she was ready to just go back around the building and through the front door. It was at this point that the thief they were after, having had enough, was escaping upstairs and going to shimmy down the tree and hightail it out of there. She saw him; he didn't see her. She shoots an arrow, rolls a 19, sneak attacks him and drops him to negative hit points. The subsequent fall to the courtyard killed him.
So I suppose the moral of the story is that if your dice aren't working for you, then just bide your time.
I happen to be one of his players and everyone does that just keep on rollin....Odds are they are gonna start rolling better odds are.
When it comes to dice rolling and luck, I can understand the occasional frustrated Man! or Crap! at a string of bad rolls, but to do it when it happens occasionally is a little overboard. Instead, I've learned to make fun of those times. Example: Once played a Drow rogue who in fights did okay...however, whenever he tried to roll out of combat, always seemed to be one less than needed. Finger of death trap on the doorway? Send the rogue up. (rolls dice) Rogue Died. Hallway of scintillating colors? I move in. Make a will Save (rolls dice) Hypnotized. (Slippery Mind roll) Breaks free, moves five feet (rolls Dice) Hypnotized, rinse and repeat for fifty feet. Still the funnest character I have ever played
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I have since destroyed said die with fire. It was necessary.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."
A severe burning but not to death can help. A friend set fire to an offending d20 at a convention. The fire alarm when off and we all had to leave the hall until the fire brigade gave the all clear. The dice was found on the floor when we returned, it wasn't detected by the fire dudes as the source of the mystery alarm, and it started rolling great from then on - it did however smell a little funny. The "burning die", as it was known from that point on, was "cleansed by fire" from the evil 1 and 2's spirit that it was hosting. Something to try, but, away from fire alarms.
2 cents.
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I think I've shared this story before on the boards, but I will do so again here. It's a cautionary tale about letting other people use your dice. Sometimes "tainting the die's luck" is the least of your concerns.
I had a friend who we were introducing to gaming, and since he didn't have his own set of dice, I gave him a spare set of mine that I wasn't really using.
Part way through a combat one time, he says, "Huh. Where's my d20?" We all look around, check the floor, check under our books, etc, and it's just not there. So he borrows one of the DM's d20s and carries on.
The fight ends, and he gets up to go to the bathroom. He comes back a few minutes later and says, "Umm. I found the dice. Somehow it was caught on my sleeve and when I went to use the bathroom it fell in the toilet. Does anybody have anything I can remove it with?"
Needless to say, I let him keep that set.
Not necessarily luck, but over time dice do wear out. Points and sides slowly round off, making rolls more chancy.
Up until last week, I had a set I had "permanantly" retired due to wear-n-tear and "cursed" status. This dice, I kid you not, would look like it was about to stop rolling on a higher number and then spin on a point and go to a much lower one. Last week, it rolled much better. I hear that Mountain Dew is an acceptable sacrifice to the dice gods.
A buddy of mine has a d10 that was eaten by his Pit Bull and later "brought back up", to put it nicely. All the painted numbers were dissolved off, but still usable. We joked once that it survived a Pit Bull attack, so it's not a die to be trifled with!
Yesterday I had about the worst bad luck streak I've ever had. We had two encounters during the session; the first was alright. But I literally didn't hit once during the second encounter. I was rolling a gamescience d20, but after the third sub-5 I started trying others' dice. It was weird; my between-turn test rolls went okay, but I couldn't roll above a 5 when it actually mattered. When different dice didn't help, I asked a fellow player to roll for me. A 4. Finally the fight ended with the DM saying "Well, there's only one monster left and he's cornered..."
It's not the dice, it's me. Sometimes I just radiate unluck.
I was playing Dark Heresy the other day, and was trying to use a psionic power. I had a 60% chance to succeed on the invocation roll. and failed 3x in a row. I only needed a 2 for the power roll on a 1d10 to get the power off and failed 2x. I finally succeeded the invocation roll and the power roll the fourth and third time respectively. The whole group was joking about the rolls, but at least my character saved the Firebrand Redemptionist cleric of the party. Not that he will appreciate it.
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I was playing Dark Heresy the other day, and was trying to use a psionic power. I had a 60% chance to succeed on the invocation roll. and failed 3x in a row. I only needed a 2 for the power roll on a 1d10 to get the power off and failed 2x. I finally succeeded the invocation roll and the power roll the fourth and third time respectively. The whole group was joking about the rolls, but at least my character saved the Firebrand Redemptionist cleric of the party. Not that he will appreciate it.
Kinda OT, but what are your thoughts on Dark Heresy? I've heard mixed reviews...
Kinda OT, but what are your thoughts on Dark Heresy? I've heard mixed reviews...
I am enjoying the game. The basic rules are based on the last addition of whfrpg. They have kept true to the fluff of wh40k. The combat system is deadly, so the first action in any firefight is to take cover. The insanity system is straight forward, and so is the corruption system. We have a top notch GM whose descriptions of the scenes are mindboggling. The description of the nurglings coming out of the toilets in the restroom of a casino was something else.
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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).
If he actually reads Tarot Cards in real life, that's a very good thing to be freakish about. The whole point of Tarot is that the Reader attunes him/herself to their cards on an almost spiritual level. Physical touch is the primary means by which this is done. As such, it is intrinsically bad for others to touch your cards. It negatively impacts your link to your cards and as such, throws your readings off.
I read Tarot, and other people touching my cards is one of the few things in life I do not tolerate well. There is only one time at which someone can touch my cards, and that's during a reading - and even then, only upon me inviting them to do so.
Feel free to unabashedly deconstruct Tarot if you please, that's something I'm used to. I will defend it, however, until my dying day. My cards have given more people more good advice than Dr. Phil could hope to help in five lifetimes.
Edit to say: Sorry for the entirely off-topic post.
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).If he actually reads Tarot Cards in real life, that's a very good thing to be freakish about. The whole point of Tarot is that the Reader attunes him/herself to their cards on an almost spiritual level. Physical touch is the primary means by which this is done. As such, it is intrinsically bad for others to touch your cards. It negatively impacts your link to your cards and as such, throws your readings off.
I read Tarot, and other people touching my cards is one of the few things in life I do not tolerate well. There is only one time at which someone can touch my cards, and that's during a reading - and even then, only upon me inviting them to do so.
Feel free to unabashedly deconstruct Tarot if you please, that's something I'm used to. I will defend it, however, until my dying day. My cards have given more people more good advice than Dr. Phil could hope to help in five lifetimes.
Edit to say: Sorry for the entirely off-topic post.
I dated a girl once who read tarot cards, and gave me a reading. The results were freakishly accurate. I'm usually pretty skeptical about a lot of things, but this made a believer out of me. She read things I didn't tell ANYONE, and predicted a few events that she simply could not have know otherwise.
I dated a girl once who read tarot cards, and gave me a reading. The results were freakishly accurate. I'm usually pretty skeptical about a lot of things, but this made a believer out of me. She read things I didn't tell ANYONE, and predicted a few events that she simply could not have know otherwise.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).If he actually reads Tarot Cards in real life, that's a very good thing to be freakish about. The whole point of Tarot is that the Reader attunes him/herself to their cards on an almost spiritual level. Physical touch is the primary means by which this is done. As such, it is intrinsically bad for others to touch your cards. It negatively impacts your link to your cards and as such, throws your readings off.
I read Tarot, and other people touching my cards is one of the few things in life I do not tolerate well. There is only one time at which someone can touch my cards, and that's during a reading - and even then, only upon me inviting them to do so.
Feel free to unabashedly deconstruct Tarot if you please, that's something I'm used to. I will defend it, however, until my dying day. My cards have given more people more good advice than Dr. Phil could hope to help in five lifetimes.
Edit to say: Sorry for the entirely off-topic post.
Oooh.... tangent. A friend of mine's mother is from Lebanon and reads coffee grounds sometimes when we go eat at their restaurant. One time, she read for a friend that something about the number three and airplanes was going to occur. Sure enough, at 3pm, she got a call from Boeing about a job where they'd have to fly to move in 3 weeks.
I've never let her read me because it's too weird.
And just to bring it back on topic, you should look up the videos on mass produced dice and the finishing process that results in abnormalities in shape of dice. As it turns out, it's not always luck that makes some dice unlucky. (I have a black die that rolls 18s and 3s pretty consistently).
EDIT: http://www.gamescience.com/ is where the videos I saw were from.
Not necessarily luck, but over time dice do wear out. Points and sides slowly round off, making rolls more chancy.
Up until last week, I had a set I had "permanantly" retired due to wear-n-tear and "cursed" status. This dice, I kid you not, would look like it was about to stop rolling on a higher number and then spin on a point and go to a much lower one. Last week, it rolled much better. I hear that Mountain Dew is an acceptable sacrifice to the dice gods.
As a certain two-headed golem unfortunately discovered....
Yeah I hear ya. I game with a bunch of atheists too and you can choke on the superstition, so thick it is.
What's mindboggling is that the superstitions aren't even internally consistent. They'll abandon dice that have rolled well because the luck has been rolled out of them, and they'll abandon dice that have rolled badly because they're cursed.
We use an online roller on my Saturday game. Our fighter consistently rolls 15s or better, particularly when it really matters. I consistently roll under 10 on combat rolls.
Sometimes the Dice Gods simply hate someone, and sometimes they love them.
*Shrug*
Shadowborn would attest to this one, as being the second casualty for his Second Darkness campaign. Seriously 4 rounds of hold person and my dice never rolled above a 5 for my save. And to top it off I failed the DC 19 Fort save for the coup de grace ( the drow in question did 9 pts and my Fort save was a +8 with everything added together ).
But as they say things happened. If they raise Morvaius, I'll be happy. If they don't, the game goes on :)
Its all about having fun. Even if Murphey pitches a tent on your shoulder
Dice need to find loveing homes. Thats all there is to it.
My friend was cursing his dice and saying that they were evil and wouldn't roll well for anybody.
3 other players rolled them to prove his point and as this was my first game with this group I said "if their evil dice they belong in the hands of an evil person, allow me" I rolled amazing and wound up with a new set of barely used dice. I only use them for shadowrun but my dice love me and always roll well if not great.
My second sets of D&D dice are all grey marble with red numbers and roll 1's only on initiative(like thats a problem) I use them just for D&D and naver wind up with crap charecters.
Dice karma is real, so you should be nice to your dice.
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I believe in Dice Luck. Or whatever you want to call it.
My group(s) have both good rollers (the DM, whose dice I SWEAR are attuned to evil, as I can roll his well but mine not-so-well) and bad rollers (my ex, who can't seem to roll above a 4 at any point in time; one threat max, never crits).
Me? I'm convinced I'm cursed.
I never win lotto ticket prizes, never roll all that well, and if I borrow someone else's dice? Yeah. They roll low for DAYS.
This is why I play a character...not a collection of stats. ;)
Anyone got a better way to reverse the bad juju other than a salt water bath, freezing, burning, Mountain Dew, rum, and rubbing the dice on a cat?
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No dice gods for me. I determine what material each die is made from, use a graduated cylinder to determine its volume, calculate its mass, and then use a digital balance sensitive to a microgram to mass it and compare my calculated and measured mass values and if they are not within machine sensitivity I toss them in the trash.
I don't believe in dice luck, or curses, or whatever.
I do believe in the existence of confirmation bias.
I also don't believe that most commercial dice are so misshapen when new that they "always roll high" or whatever. That said, I recently had to buy a new set because my existing dice were all from ca. 1980; the edges of the d20s were so rounded that they just rolled like balls off the table.
I don't like other people touching my dice.
But then, I don't like them touching my pencils, my paper, my character sheet, etc., etc.
I occasionally switch dice if I've been having trouble with rolls; I know it's ridiculous, but I've got enough dice that I can switch out the whole set two or three times in a game session... sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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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.
Is he by any chance rolling 6 sided dice instead of d20?
Anyway, some people actualy are "unlucky" or "lucky", in the sense that the mathematical principles of probabilty actualy allow for certain persons to consistently roll either good or bad results. Actualy, I believe the existance of such people is obilgatory - it's an anomaly, but anomalys do occur.
Having said that... people b*~@! about their luck way too much :P
Sometimes it seems like my dice are predisposed to roll good or bad depending on the situation. Currently I'm running a cleric. I get asked to roll a save. Boom, 19. I make an attack roll. Boom, 15. Okay, roll for initiative. Wah-wah-waaaaah...now I'm rolling a 6 or less. I'll just twiddle my thumbs over here for now, guys. So far this trend has been holding fairly consistently for about three weeks now and has been the running joke at the table.