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scurv
2013-02-15, 09:22 PM
As taboo as this topic is, I would like to poll on how people have seen loaded dice, and counter measures they use to combat it.

I have seen dice that were baked in the oven to warp them lighty (although quite often that leads to mixed results)

I have seen people use clear-coat paint on dice numbers they did not like to make them more round.

For the first one Look for discoloration, And oddly good luck when rolling. Also look for warped numbers and a die that just looks like it lost symmetry.

For the second one, Set up a light source so you can see the sheen off of the dice. Look to see that every number/side looks identical. And sense the dice will most likely not showing the suspect number up-top, Just keep in mind that it might take some head danceing to get good reflections to gauge by.

1337 b4k4
2013-02-15, 09:26 PM
Wouldn't it just be easier to play with people you trust to be honest? I think if I ever felt the need to check my players for loaded dice, I'd just rather not play at all. And usually the type of person that would be using loaded dice in the game behind your back is probably already committing a number of other social and gaming faux pas worthy of ejection.

ArcturusV
2013-02-15, 09:29 PM
I haven't put any thought into how to load a die. Beyond what I've seen people do when I worked at a hobby store. They just roll different dice for HOURS until they find one that seems to be naturally weighted, right out of the factory, towards whatever numbers they want. That happens to be the dice they buy.

As far as how I combat it? I've come up with a foolproof method that so far only people I've heavily suspected of having loaded dice have complained about. Anytime someone is rolling for a round or what not I'll flip a coin. Heads, normal roll rules (Natural 20 is a crit and is good, etc, low is bad in a D20 game), tails, inverted (Natural 1 is a crit and is good, etc. High is bad). I flip it after they roll, open flip, everyone sees the results.

Traditionally the guy I highly suspect of cheating will complain that's not fair, and I should flip the coin and announce Inverted or Not before they pick up their dice and roll (Probably so they can switch to the appropriately rolling dice). Everyone else will point out that unless you have loaded dice, it doesn't matter if a roll is inverted or not, it was random anyway.

Grinner
2013-02-15, 09:34 PM
I've heard of the first, and I've got to say that the second is quite creative.

A classic, if intensive, method involves drilling out certain portions of the die, making sure not to obscure the numbers, and filling it with a denser substance. Then primer, quality model paint, and fine-grained sandpaper are applied.

Edit: That would be for discouraging the die to land on the side you drilled under. I guess you could also do the inverse and fill the gap with a lighter material to encourage that result.

Techwarrior
2013-02-15, 09:38 PM
The closest I've come to loaded dice is something all of me and my friends do with our dice, just taken a little too far.

Now, I have no idea how it works, but it seems to us if you keep a set of dice in contact with your body for an extended period of time, they seem to 'want' to roll higher.

Now, one member of the group kept her twenty-sided in her bra constantly. In the last game we played in, she didn't go a single round of combat in which she made an attack roll without scoring a critical threat, and in no round that she made more than two attacks did she not confirm one.

However, she was a 2WF Rogue dualwielding scimitars, and went into the Dervish PrC. That was pretty much what her character was built for. I let it slide.

The dice gods made sure that she never made a single Fort or Will save on the Prime Material plane.

tl;dr
It's pretty much never come up. Her experience actually reinforced her character, so we ran with it.

Malak'ai
2013-02-15, 09:41 PM
I've seen "baked" dice that weren't warped. Mind you, they were quite large dice and apparently had been cooked at a lowish temp.

Generally I only allow my players to use my dice (not that I suspect they might have trick dice, it's so I know if any of my dice "magically grow legs") so I don't really worry about it.

One of my old Shadow Run GM's showed me a set of dice he confiscated off a player. They had drilled into the "1" pip a few millimeters and glued a tiny bit of lead in there then painted the exposed end of the insert white... It was actually really hard to spot... He only got caught because he stupidly kept using them all the time and the GM got suspicious and rolled each and every one of his dice 10 times each... Yeah, he hasn't been allowed in any gaming group in town since.

Ravens_cry
2013-02-15, 09:44 PM
I've seen them, but never in play. They were pretty obvious too just the way they rolled. One way I heard for making some subtle ones for plastic dice is to put them in the oven with the side you want facing up, set the oven to a low temperature, wait a few minutes, turn off the oven and wait for them to cool. The dice will slightly melt and settle in the position that is more stable with that side up, making it so they roll that side more often. As long as you don't wait too long, the effect is apparently very subtle.
As for combating them, nobody I know uses them or has used them. It's an honesty thing I guess.

Scow2
2013-02-15, 10:27 PM
I haven't put any thought into how to load a die. Beyond what I've seen people do when I worked at a hobby store. They just roll different dice for HOURS until they find one that seems to be naturally weighted, right out of the factory, towards whatever numbers they want. That happens to be the dice they buy.

As far as how I combat it? I've come up with a foolproof method that so far only people I've heavily suspected of having loaded dice have complained about. Anytime someone is rolling for a round or what not I'll flip a coin. Heads, normal roll rules (Natural 20 is a crit and is good, etc, low is bad in a D20 game), tails, inverted (Natural 1 is a crit and is good, etc. High is bad). I flip it after they roll, open flip, everyone sees the results.

Traditionally the guy I highly suspect of cheating will complain that's not fair, and I should flip the coin and announce Inverted or Not before they pick up their dice and roll (Probably so they can switch to the appropriately rolling dice). Everyone else will point out that unless you have loaded dice, it doesn't matter if a roll is inverted or not, it was random anyway.

No, it's not fair to flip after you roll, if you decide to give them an arbitrary 50% chance of failure after they've already rolled the dice, because I HIGHLY doubt you use this method on every roll, especially not the ones they've flubbed.

From what it sounds like to me, you let them roll, and after the fact, if you decide their luck is suspiciously good, you then slap on an additional 50% chance of failure on it.

Also - it screws up dice karma, which, despite what people who study probability insist, IS a thing.

ArcturusV
2013-02-15, 10:37 PM
Nah. I do it every round of combat, for example, or round of skill tests and such as needed. It's actually bit people in the ass other than the guy who I thought was loading his dice. Not that they complained any about it.

You seem to be under the impression that it went:

DM: Hmm... the guy who I think cheats rolled a natural 20. I'll flip a coin to see if it's inverted.

When actually it is:

DM: So no one thinks I'm picking on them and to discourage trying to cheat rolls in general by slight of hand, rolling technique, or loaded dice, every time someone's turn comes up and they make a roll I flip a coin to determine if it's Inverted or Not.

It doesn't even add all that much time to combat, sure I'm flipping coins a lot but I'm flipping them at a time I wouldn't be doing anything else anyway. Maybe adds a total of 15 seconds to a 2 minute long combat turn. It's not a 50% miss chance tax on if I am suspicious of someone or not. And if your dice isn't loaded, you should be rolling towards 1 just as often as 20 on a 20 sided dice. So it shouldn't really impact you.

Excepting superstitious beliefs of course.

Scow2
2013-02-15, 10:45 PM
Excepting superstitious beliefs of course.

They AREN'T superstitions!

Hiro Protagonest
2013-02-16, 12:06 AM
Also - it screws up dice karma, which, despite what people who study probability insist, IS a thing.

Come on, it can all be boiled down to probability.

A specific rolling style, with a specific die with its miniscule flaws, can cause it to roll badly all the time for one person, but a different person, with even a slightly different style, could use it just fine.

Good rollers actually do exist, as do bad rollers, but it's not because of luck or a die spirit.

In addition, a ritual like kissing the die in a particular spot could make it like a spitball, skewing the die's weight distribution, aerodynamics, and friction.

Surfnerd
2013-02-16, 12:37 AM
I remember hearing somewhere that when dice are manufactured they are tumbled to remove impurities and this is what causes the die to roll certain numbers even on unloaded dice.

I don't think I own any untumbled dice and its been driving me crazy since I heard this. I feel like I have a box of little cheaters.

FreakyCheeseMan
2013-02-16, 12:50 AM
One of the girls in my last gaming group truly and openly believed that her dice had sentient spirits, and that it was just a matter of figuring out what they liked (weather, different members of the group, etc.)

Closest my group had to loaded dice was a habit of buying lots of cheap but fancy looking dice - metalic flakes and the like. Because they're inconsistent and the smelting process is imperfect, they're likely to have random weight distributions, so they're weighted to begin with. You just have to do the paperwork to figure out which ones are loaded in your favor.

At least, that's what they though. I'm not sure if it was accurate.

bbgenderless100
2013-02-16, 12:52 AM
Just go with whatever feels right in that situation, because one's solution may be another's problem and so on and so forth.

The Random NPC
2013-02-16, 01:24 AM
I remember hearing somewhere that when dice are manufactured they are tumbled to remove impurities and this is what causes the die to roll certain numbers even on unloaded dice.

I don't think I own any untumbled dice and its been driving me crazy since I heard this. I feel like I have a box of little cheaters.

Try here (http://www.gamescience.com/) for untumbled dice.

AntiTrust
2013-02-16, 01:39 AM
I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

Zeful
2013-02-16, 01:56 AM
I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

Okay that first part actually sounds pretty impressive. And is a great way to bring verisimilitude to the curse.

And that "I can use your own dice against you," thing is a great way to discourage the use of loaded dice, as players will have more dice thrown against them than enemies will, making playing with loaded dice a dangerous prospect.

TuggyNE
2013-02-16, 02:06 AM
I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

That's awesome.


Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

Hmm, "players roll all the dice" (if properly implemented) could work quite nicely here.

Speaking as a white-hat, though, it could still be gamed by playing a caster or other "I don't roll much" character, and then baking the dice so they roll low.

TheOOB
2013-02-16, 02:15 AM
It is actually illegal to sell loaded dice in my state, and I believe by law they have to be marked. Not that it's ever enforced for home gaming groups.

The microwave trick is the most common intentional trick I've heard of(not that anyone in my group would, we all understand a dramatic death can be fun). Whats more common are unintentionally loaded dice. Ignoring that fact that any die with rounded edges(read almost any die not in a casino) is inherently biased, as they get those rounded edges by putting the dice in a rock tumbler which is not exactly a precision instrument. Further, dice companies don't really care about making anything other than d6's unbiased, they save their best materials for d6's, have the best quality control, heck many of them only make d6's certain times of day so their cool correctly. Fact is most people don't care if other dice are biased a little. That means if your d20 seems to always roll well, it probably actually does.

SowZ
2013-02-16, 02:44 AM
Try here (http://www.gamescience.com/) for untumbled dice.

I didn't even know it, but the d20 I am using right now is untumbled. I just like sharp edges and points on my dice because it feels nice in my hands. Apparently, that is a good thing for dice. Who knew?

sreservoir
2013-02-16, 03:59 AM
I didn't even know it, but the d20 I am using right now is untumbled. I just like sharp edges and points on my dice because it feels nice in my hands. Apparently, that is a good thing for dice. Who knew?

untumbled d4, anyone?

huttj509
2013-02-16, 04:03 AM
I didn't even know it, but the d20 I am using right now is untumbled. I just like sharp edges and points on my dice because it feels nice in my hands. Apparently, that is a good thing for dice. Who knew?

Yeah, basically as you roll it, over time, the edges wear down (depending on material, quality of die, etc, the old ODnD dice allegedly go nigh spherical by now).

For prepainted dice, unless it's hand painted, they're generally tumbled to remove the paint outside the recessed number. This "pre-rolls" the die a lot when it comes to wear and tear. In fact, they're often over-tumbled.

Now, *what* number the dice are weighted towards will be fairly random, but you do get d20s looking distinctly more egg shaped out of the box than they should.

With a decent quality die you'd need to be really abusing it for the edges to wear noticeably in play, even over a decade or so. So general wear and tear isn't usually an issue. Or just put a bunch of them in a rock polisher for hours, that'd do it for wear and tear.

I'm just annoyed my Gamescience d20 turned out to be a 20 sided D10. I need to color half the numbers somehow without making it hard to read (black translucent die, white painted numbers).

In general usage it doesn't really matter unless you happen to notice which of your dice are "lucky." Since the weighting from tumbling is random, if you randomly select the die, there you go.

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who'd honestly consider doing a 300 roll T-test to see if my dice were reasonably fair, but I'm odd that way.

Badgerish
2013-02-16, 04:50 AM
Never seen loaded dice in play, but have seen a person with a rolling technique that produced better than average numbers (thus, he had to roll in a tupperware box).

testing dice:
roll them into a bucket of water and observe the results. If they are loaded via weight-distribution it should have clear results in 10 throws.

The greater fall-time in water (as opposed to air) means the weighted effect has much more time to have an effect

Chilingsworth
2013-02-16, 07:43 AM
afiak, I've never encountered loaded dice in play. One of my DM's has a die that seems to roll both 1's and 20's more often than usual, though.

Also, I think I got a pair of loaded craps-style dice as a gag christmas present when I was a kid, once. No clue what happened to them, though.

Jay R
2013-02-16, 09:34 AM
Personally, I'm the sort of guy who'd honestly consider doing a 300 roll T-test to see if my dice were reasonably fair, but I'm odd that way.

That actually calls for a chi-squared test.

Greenish
2013-02-16, 09:49 AM
untumbled d4, anyone?Also known as the gamer's caltrops.

I used to have a cheap gag-store loaded d6, though it was so obviously weighted you couldn't miss it (the weigh inside would rattle as you shook it). But, if the best balanced dice are d6's, there's a variant rule (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/bellCurveRolls.htm) for using them in place of a d20 in 3.5, which could probably be ported over to other d20 games.

scurv
2013-02-16, 11:34 AM
I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

I'm going to steal this idea!

AttilaTheGeek
2013-02-16, 11:59 AM
untumbled d4, anyone?

Actually, this set (http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/eb26/) of untumbled gaming dice has truncated points on the d4, and I quote, "for the safety of your bare feet" :smalltongue:

SowZ
2013-02-16, 01:52 PM
Yeah, basically as you roll it, over time, the edges wear down (depending on material, quality of die, etc, the old ODnD dice allegedly go nigh spherical by now).

For prepainted dice, unless it's hand painted, they're generally tumbled to remove the paint outside the recessed number. This "pre-rolls" the die a lot when it comes to wear and tear. In fact, they're often over-tumbled.

Now, *what* number the dice are weighted towards will be fairly random, but you do get d20s looking distinctly more egg shaped out of the box than they should.

With a decent quality die you'd need to be really abusing it for the edges to wear noticeably in play, even over a decade or so. So general wear and tear isn't usually an issue. Or just put a bunch of them in a rock polisher for hours, that'd do it for wear and tear.

I'm just annoyed my Gamescience d20 turned out to be a 20 sided D10. I need to color half the numbers somehow without making it hard to read (black translucent die, white painted numbers).

In general usage it doesn't really matter unless you happen to notice which of your dice are "lucky." Since the weighting from tumbling is random, if you randomly select the die, there you go.

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who'd honestly consider doing a 300 roll T-test to see if my dice were reasonably fair, but I'm odd that way.

My d20 has super sharp edges and has that really obvious blemish. And I also need to do something about the numbers. The numbers aren't painted a different color than the faces. I wonder if that is a thing with some gamescience dice?

TheThan
2013-02-16, 01:53 PM
I knew someone who had dice that were warped badly enough they rolled 6s (D6s here) 66% of the time. They actually graphed it to see if that was truly the case. And yeah, they were just badly made dice (or well made dice depending on your perspective). He didn’t use them that much, just when he was getting mad at rolling badly a lot (hey bad streaks happen).

I’ve seen people use certain dice to attain certain results in miniatures games; Such as having to roll leadership (read low rolls) in warhammer 40k/fantasy. They would use casino dice for every roll but those, there they would break out some other dice they had on hand. It really turns me off, if you’re going to go through the trouble of buying casino quality dice you should be using them for the whole game, not just for attack/damage rolls. They’re trying to play the probability game (warhammer 40K and fantasy are based around the number 7), which stinks of poor sportsmanship to me.

EccentricCircle
2013-02-16, 02:35 PM
I tend to think that people who cheat in Roleplaying games are only cheating themselves. I've never checked whether people are using weighted dice, but I doubt that anyone in our groups has, as our roles tend to be terrible all round.
Maybe we should invest in some...

The New Bruceski
2013-02-16, 03:15 PM
I'm just annoyed my Gamescience d20 turned out to be a 20 sided D10. I need to color half the numbers somehow without making it hard to read (black translucent die, white painted numbers).


For my Gamescience dice (blue unpainted) I used a fine-tip sharpie for the numbers, so it's definitely possible. Try to get it inside the lines, then lightly rub it with a kleenex or something to remove any slop outside the number's depression. This will add a little unbalance, but if you're careful (and not throwing big blobs of paint around) it shouldn't be much.

As for what to use, you've probably thought of this but instead of painting 1s everywhere pick some noticeable paint that still has contrast with the black, such as orange or a bright red. Then paint half the numbers with that color. Make sure to choose ones with a good distribution around the D20, not just one hemisphere.

Just make sure to clearly and consistently declare which color is high. No flip-flopping now.

SowZ
2013-02-16, 04:24 PM
For my Gamescience dice (blue unpainted) I used a fine-tip sharpie for the numbers, so it's definitely possible. Try to get it inside the lines, then lightly rub it with a kleenex or something to remove any slop outside the number's depression. This will add a little unbalance, but if you're careful (and not throwing big blobs of paint around) it shouldn't be much.

As for what to use, you've probably thought of this but instead of painting 1s everywhere pick some noticeable paint that still has contrast with the black, such as orange or a bright red. Then paint half the numbers with that color. Make sure to choose ones with a good distribution around the D20, not just one hemisphere.

Just make sure to clearly and consistently declare which color is high. No flip-flopping now.

The sharpie seems to rub out of the numbers when I tried that, though.

huttj509
2013-02-16, 04:53 PM
My d20 has super sharp edges and has that really obvious blemish. And I also need to do something about the numbers. The numbers aren't painted a different color than the faces. I wonder if that is a thing with some gamescience dice?

The blemish is due to how the die is removed from the mold, and really doesn't affect things much (the tumbled dice have the blemish tumbled off). Can carefully use a file or something if you like.

The unpainted numbers is common for gamescience. Since the numbers are handpainted, rather than mass tumbled, and many gamers like to do their own numbering. The booth at GenCon had where you could pick your dice, then get them numbered and come back when done for free. I had just picked up a pre-painted d20 I liked the look of and didn't register everything was one digit.

As to Chi-squared vs. T-test...dangit, I always get those confused until I'm actually using them...

Windy
2013-02-17, 01:14 AM
My d20 has super sharp edges and has that really obvious blemish. And I also need to do something about the numbers. The numbers aren't painted a different color than the faces. I wonder if that is a thing with some gamescience dice?

The blemish is part of the molding process on all dice, but Gamescience doesn't remove it because removing it would change the balance of the die. This video explains a lot about dice:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU

After looking at this video I was considering getting Gamescience dice, but then someone said that the dice are "unfinished" - you have to sand off some rough spots. I'm fine with my dice being imperfect after all.

Balain
2013-02-17, 03:33 AM
Many Years ago there was an article in Dragon about Cheating made easy and even easier. As well as ways to spot cheating (reading the first two articles) and ways to stop them. I can't think of the exact number but it was somewhere around 185 -190 I think It was an April issue so somewhat silly but with valid points.

Jay R
2013-02-17, 09:43 AM
My d20 has super sharp edges and has that really obvious blemish. And I also need to do something about the numbers. The numbers aren't painted a different color than the faces. I wonder if that is a thing with some gamescience dice?

Yes and no. They sell painted and unpainted dice. Most places just paint over the whole die and have it worn off in the tumbling process. Since Gamescience doesn't do the tumbling process, the numbers have to be painted by hand. One minute with a sharpie.


Also - it screws up dice karma, which, despite what people who study probability insist, IS a thing.

Of course. That's the point. The game is supposed to use a purely random result, every time. It's not an anti-cheating device; it's a pro-random-result device, and works equally well on all non-random rolls - karma, prayer, telekinesis, loaded dice, whatever.

Chilingsworth
2013-02-17, 09:56 AM
Of course. That's the point. The game is supposed to use a purely random result, every time. It's not an anti-cheating device; it's a pro-random-result device, and works equally well on all non-random rolls - karma, prayer, telekinesis, loaded dice, whatever.

But... God does not play dice, so how could prayer affect dice rolls? :smalltongue:

Scow2
2013-02-17, 12:40 PM
Of course. That's the point. The game is supposed to use a purely random result, every time. It's not an anti-cheating device; it's a pro-random-result device, and works equally well on all non-random rolls - karma, prayer, telekinesis, loaded dice, whatever.

When you screw over Dice Karma, it doesn't give a random result. A cursed roll is no less random than a blessed one.

But... God does not play dice, so how could prayer affect dice rolls? :smalltongue:
He determines the number before it falls, instead of leaving it to "Chance"

Rhynn
2013-02-17, 02:59 PM
When talk turns to dice, it's always hard to tell if roleplayers actually believe in magic or not...

On-topic, though, dice-cheating does and will happen (it stopped in my friends-playing-games group around the time we grew out of our teens, years and years ago), and the ways to deal with it are simple:
1. Everyone rolls on the table, in full view of everyone else. Dice that fall off are not counted.
2. Everyone calls out anyone grabbing up a die and shouting the supposed result - just leave them where they fall until they're needed again.
3. Everyone uses the same set(s) of dice, provided (or chosen) by the GM. Superstitions aren't an acceptable excuse not to, because magic is not real.

Flipping a coin (after the roll) on whether you needed to roll high or roll is a cool idea. It just seems like it would be very time-consuming to do on all rolls (or even all rolls of a d20, for instance), which is the only fair way.

Incidentally, in pre-3E D&D, some d20 rolls, like saves, needed to be low, while some, like attacks, needed to be high - it was something of a built-in anti-cheating device, unless a player had separate loaded/weighted dice for high and low rolls... which would be easy to spot, mostly.

Raimun
2013-02-17, 03:11 PM
Loaded dice isn't the way to influence your dice rolls.
... And neither are practiced roll techniques, mind you!

Instead, you should look for legal ways to influence dice.

The basic trick is obviously to roll more dice. Like being more skilled in dicepool-games, having extra attacks, etc. With more dice, you are more likely to score "hits".

However, some games (mostly D&D) allow you to actually influence a single die roll, with certain abilities you can pick for your character. I've used these four in games of D&D (3.5&4e):

* Re-roll. The weakest of these but still great.
* Roll in advance, record it, replace another roll. Results may vary but at least you know what you are getting.
* Roll two dice, take the highest. Simply amazing. When you roll 1 and 20 together, you'll know what I mean. Way superior to re-roll.
* Turn the die to 20. The ultimate ability. I've used this once for a killing blow and it was just priceless.

So, if you want to influence probabilities, you should look for these ones instead.

MukkTB
2013-02-17, 07:43 PM
Tumbled dice do not deliver even probabilities. However determining a dice's probabilities to moderate degree of accuracy requires a stupidly huge number of roles. Therefore from a scientific perspective it is difficult to determine if a dice is 'lucky' over the course of normal play.

A cheater with an accurate ruler could buy a ton of dice, measure them, and select the most valuable ones without ever modifying the dice from their factory conditions.

I like using precision dice because I don't have to worry that they may be 'unlucky,' deformed in such a way as to be detrimental. However I don't think it matters. A person who cheats at D&D is a pretty sad person. Its not like you're gambling and someone is stealing money. Its a cooperative recreational game. There's little profit in cheating. The only thing you can walk away from D&D with is fictional make believe accomplishments. Cheating to get there is pathetic more than frustrating.

ArcturusV
2013-02-17, 07:48 PM
Well, frustrating for other people at the table. It is that. Particularly if you're playing an open ended system where you can technically TRY anything but are supposed to be trained to have a rat's ass chance of actually being able to succeed. In those games the Loaded Dice guy becomes "I can instantly do anything".

... at which point the whole Cooperative part of Table Top RPGing goes away, game stops being fun. Can be frustrating too when your specialist is still trying to do something and have fun when the guy with the loaded dice comes in and just goes, "Aside mere mortal, I shall cheat to greater successes than you ever could have accomplished with your mere training!"

scurv
2013-02-17, 08:42 PM
I pay attention to the crits, I know that for every 3 sessions in our group (numbers based on recorded experience) Everyone should have at least one crit miss that they miss a save on (custom chart that works for us) And every session I expect to see 3 crit hits from each player.

Now understand these numbers are not set in stone, But IF a player has 5 crit hits a night, and I never see them pick up the fumble chart.....yea. That is when discussion begins.

Geddoe
2013-02-17, 09:23 PM
I still remember a friend's "Werewolf" dice. Where 8 successes on 10 dice is a regular occurrence. Did make it brutal when he was the GM for L5R though.

ManInOrange
2013-02-17, 10:18 PM
I like to think that my games rely far more on a person's ingenuity and role-playing abilities and on a character's mechanics. I introduce game-rewards for those who make the game fun and interesting, and I do not introduce these rewards for those who simply do what their characters were designed to do.
E.g., Jumping from the roof of a second story building, plunging your sword into the back of a rabid grizzly bear, and also doing damage according to a falling object of the appropriate weight earns an action point of badassery.
Getting a critical hit and one-hit-killing a juvenile green dragon with a flaming burst scythe, although truly awesome and worthy of DM-description, does not.

With that said, I like to think that those who would use loaded dice are not going to be very interested in my game-style anyway.

Jay R
2013-02-17, 10:21 PM
3. Everyone uses the same set(s) of dice, provided (or chosen) by the GM. Superstitions aren't an acceptable excuse not to, because magic is not real.

Actually, if the magic or superstition were real, that would be a much stronger reason not to accept it as an excuse. If you want to use a different set of dice from everyone else because you think you'll do better with them, then no. The point of using communal dice is to give everybody the same chance.


A person who cheats at D&D is a pretty sad person. Its not like you're gambling and someone is stealing money. Its a cooperative recreational game. There's little profit in cheating. The only thing you can walk away from D&D with is fictional make believe accomplishments. Cheating to get there is pathetic more than frustrating.

Agreed. That doesn't change the fact that it can spoil somebody else's fun.

Spoiling somebody else's fun when it matters is bad enough. Doing it for fictional make believe accomplishments is unacceptable.

Rhynn
2013-02-18, 01:19 AM
Actually, if the magic or superstition were real, that would be a much stronger reason not to accept it as an excuse. If you want to use a different set of dice from everyone else because you think you'll do better with them, then no. The point of using communal dice is to give everybody the same chance.

Curse your superior understanding of magic!

True enough.

TypoNinja
2013-02-18, 01:24 AM
I pay attention to the crits, I know that for every 3 sessions in our group (numbers based on recorded experience) Everyone should have at least one crit miss that they miss a save on (custom chart that works for us) And every session I expect to see 3 crit hits from each player.

Now understand these numbers are not set in stone, But IF a player has 5 crit hits a night, and I never see them pick up the fumble chart.....yea. That is when discussion begins.

That'd get me to walk away from your table pretty quick if your willing to assume cheating because of 5 crits and no critical fumbles. I gotta say at the games I'm in sometimes nobody crits anything (1 or 20) other days crits rain from the heavens, that's the thing about random, its random.

You cannot look at a D&D game and say out of 100 rolls 5 should be 20's and 5 should be 1's. Your sample size is laughably small. Probability only evens out in a large enough sample size and those sizes are usually pretty damn large. In sample sizes that are too small you tend to see streaks of results that are very lopsided from that reference point but would average out on a larger sample.

People expect random to be evenly random (That is to say people expect random results to be evenly distributed) in reality it tends to be more 'clustered'. You can see this for yourself by simply flipping a coin over and over. You don't alternate heads and tails back and forth, you will get a few heads, then a few tails, then a few heads, then maybe a few alternating, or a couple of heads and one tails, then a few heads.

The same principle applies to D&D, roll distribution is only useful to track in two cases. Somebody has really loaded dice and are skewing the results so badly that even a small sample size is conclusive, or you have large samples sizes (Think 10,000's of rolls).

Glad there's enough trust in my group that we've never bothered to think up auto-cheating thresholds.

AntiTrust
2013-02-18, 01:53 AM
Everyone always says it takes a ton of tracked rolls to determine the true averages of a die. Does anyone know some math formula to determine how many times you'd have to roll a d4,6,8,10,12, and of course d20 to get a good estimate of its average?

ArcturusV
2013-02-18, 02:07 AM
It's not a question of how much before I know it's loaded... it's usually how little before the bonds of believably and trust have been broken.

For example: Playing Anima: Beyond Fantasy with a guy. His dice rolled 100, 8 times in a row... on every single roll in a session. So you're talking about 160 results of 100 on a d100, and 20 results that were more like 80.

The Fury
2013-02-18, 02:16 AM
...Wow. Personally I'm just blown away that this is a thing that people worry about. This is coming from someone that owns two loaded D6s, which I will occasionally use but only as a joke, (if I'm not caught I own up to the fact that they're loaded and re-roll.)
Maybe I'm just lucky that my group is generally pretty honest like that. Hell, one guy finds his own low die rolls funny-- especially when they're poorly-timed.
Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that some players do load their dice somehow I'm really just surprised that it's apparently such a problem in some groups.

TypoNinja
2013-02-18, 02:48 AM
Everyone always says it takes a ton of tracked rolls to determine the true averages of a die. Does anyone know some math formula to determine how many times you'd have to roll a d4,6,8,10,12, and of course d20 to get a good estimate of its average?

It depends on the level of certainty you want, and the number of faces on the die. What you are looking for is the number of times you need to roll to get the expected number of each faces. Say you wanted to test a d6. You'd expect you'd need to roll it around 6000 times to see each face 1000 times. How many times you actually roll it, and the deviations that show up give you the shifts in probability.

The 'catch' to this approach is that you'll probably never find a die that actually matches the math because the real world isn't that tidy.

This is where large, huge even, sample sizes come in. If you roll a d6 30 times expecting to see each face 5 times your end results will probably be a complete mess, the data is nearly useless from a statistical standpoint. Rolling even one more of one number and one less of another will represent a huge shift in results compared to expected outcome.

On the other hand if you roll a d6 3000 times expecting to see each face 500 times but you've got a one at 499 and one at 501 you can be a lot more confident that your deviation is not significant.

Compare that one roll difference its a 499vs501, in a smaller sample size its 4vs6. To maintain that probability (that is if the odds of rolling that number hold the same as you might expect if the dice were loaded in favour of that number) at a larger sample size of 3000 it'd need to expand to 400vs600.

That's seems like a fairly significant indicator doesn't it? 100 rolls off. But 100 rolls out of 3000 is not quite 3.5% of our rolls. 3% off doesn't seem quite so definitive anymore, its not exactly a huge margin of error is it?

If you keep expanding it say 300,000 die rolls and expect to see each 50,000 times. A deviation of 100 would be less impressive, less than .1% of our rolls now.

So you can see how with larger sample sizes, the oddities of real life, the simple fact that reality isn't neat and tidy, get averaged out.

Testing a d20 gets worse, with 20 faces 10,000 rolls only gives you 500 of each, the same level of certainty of from a measly 3000 d6 rolls.

So like I said before, you want tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of rolls to be 'sure'.

tl;dr More is better, math is clean, reality is messy. At no point whatsoever will any dice you test match expected probability, you aim for larger and larger sample sizes so that deviations are less significant, and you can have more confidence in your results.

Your average D&D session is going to provide pathetically small sample sizes.

huttj509
2013-02-18, 04:19 AM
Everyone always says it takes a ton of tracked rolls to determine the true averages of a die. Does anyone know some math formula to determine how many times you'd have to roll a d4,6,8,10,12, and of course d20 to get a good estimate of its average?

If you wanna know if a die is loaded, you might not really need to roll it too many times (depending on die size. Something like 200 rather than the 1000's people toss around).

So, the chi-squared test (X^2, I'll write it as X2) is a statistical test to see if "what I observed" matches well to "what I expected."

First off, I'll leave this here. (http://www.easycalculation.com/statistics/chisquare-table.php) We'll use that table later. Don't worry, I'll explain how to use it, and it's not that bad. you'll only be using 1 row and probably one column, then just comparing to that number. It just has information for a lot of possibilities.

So, the X2 test compares observed distributions to expected distributions. I'll use a d4 as an example, just making up some data.

So, I roll my d4, let's say 100 times for easy math. I write down how many times each number comes up, or the number of times each result is observed.



# O
1 20
2 27
3 29
4 24

Now, we also need to know how many times each roll is expected. Since we're rolling a presumably fair die, we expect to see each face equally, so our expected number of rolls for each face is 100 / 4 = 25.



# O E
1 20 25
2 27 25
3 29 25
4 24 25

To calculate our X2 value, we just calculate, for each face, (O-E)^2 / E, and add them all up.



# O E O-E (O-E)^2/E
1 20 25 -5 1.00
2 27 25 2 0.16
3 29 25 4 0.64
4 24 25 -1 0.04

X2 = total of last column = 1.84

Ok, we have our value for X2. What do we do with it?

Well, we're going to use that table linked earlier. But let's look at what information we need.

We need to know the degrees of freedom in our test (df), and we need to know a X2 value. If we know ahead of time what "probability the die is fair" we're looking for, that can make the lookup easier for repeated tests.

So, degrees of freedom. This is a way of saying "how many ways can the results change?" For rolling a die, it's just (# of faces - 1). Why -1? Well, if we have a 1 sided die, the result can't change. There's one possible result, but no freedom of variability at all. Following from this, a coin has one degree of freedom. It's either Heads or Not-Heads. You'd only need to note if the result was not-heads, because the alternative can be taken as default.

Our d4 example has 3 degrees of freedom (a d20 would have 19). So we'll be using the row labelled df 3.

We then look across the row until we find our X2 value (well, until we find a number larger than it). But wait, there's a large jump in this table...why?

Because the way this particular table is laid out is assuming you're looking for either "very certain this thing matches the expected" or "very sure this thing differs from the expected."

The number at the top is the probability, for that degree of freedom, and that X2 value, of having the distribution you did if the die is fair.

So, the table I linked doesn't give us our number offhand (it works out to .6 or so), but is there another way to answer the question?

How certain do we want to be? I view an accusation of unfair dice to be pretty hefty, so I'm gonna say that we'll only consider the die unfair if we have a probability of less than .05, similar to a critical fumble if the die was fair.

So now we can look across the top to .05, look down to df = 3, and we have 7.815. This means, for a 4 sided die, if your X2 is more than 7.815, there's only a 5% or less chance the die is fair.

The example X2 was much less, 1.84. So we conclude, not that the die is necessarily fair, but we don't have sufficient reason to declare it unfair, which is good enough.

Now, you might be a stickler and decide you only want to use absolutely fair dice. You might set the threshold at .95 probability, which would be saying "if there's less than a 95% chance this die is fair, I'm not using it!" That'd be a bit harsh though.

So to reiterate:

Determine criteria (how much of a stickler do I want to be? 5% chance it's fair? 1% chance?)
Determine degrees of freedom (die faces - 1)
Determine X2 (total of (observed - expected)^2 / expected)
Google a Chi squared table.
Compare X2 to number from table for that df and probability. If larger, the die fails.

So yeah, even for a d20, 200 rolls might be sufficient to say one way or the other, or it might be in that murky middle where you want to get more data.

Note that the X2 test won't tell you what value(s) the die is weighted towards, just if it's statistically skewed.

Rhynn
2013-02-18, 06:22 AM
People expect random to be evenly random (That is to say people expect random results to be evenly distributed) in reality it tends to be more 'clustered'. You can see this for yourself by simply flipping a coin over and over. You don't alternate heads and tails back and forth, you will get a few heads, then a few tails, then a few heads, then maybe a few alternating, or a couple of heads and one tails, then a few heads.

I see a great chance to start a tangent on the old Wikipedia argument about whether you're more likely to flip tails after flipping heads 10 (or 20, or 100) times in a row...

(You're not.)

Seriously though, TypoNinja is right - you cannot look at somebody' rolls, go "Oh, they're too lucky!", and conclude they're cheating. "Luck" does happen, in the sense that sometimes random events will go somebody's way several times in a row. huttj509 has provided the only way to determine from observing rolls whether something is fishy.

scurv
2013-02-18, 07:29 AM
That'd get me to walk away from your table pretty quick if your willing to assume cheating because of 5 crits and no critical fumbles. I gotta say at the games I'm in sometimes nobody crits anything (1 or 20) other days crits rain from the heavens, that's the thing about random, its random.



I said it is cause for discussion We all have runs of luck, But when someones luck can be counted on to act as almost a law of nature Is when investigation needs to take place, Think of it more like the Oil light on your car, It most likely means the oil is low, But it could indicate a bad sensor or faulty pressure.


So it is at this point I start asking questions (Both as player and DM) Are the die rolls being hid? Are they doing the roll and grab, Are the die rigged? Can simply having the person sit in the middle of two interested party's affect the outcome of their luck? (You would be surprised how often that happens) And yes, Before I call for all die rolls to be made public, I tend to encourage players to keep an eye on the rolls being made by the person next to them. I find that enforced solutions that are applied in a broad policy stroke tend to detract from the atmosphere in our social dynamic. And considering the DM tends to have his own table when we play we tend to adapt our soultions to that.

But as a rule, IF someone is offended at a subtle measure to determine if there is dishonesty about, I tend to hear about them 6 months later from the other group in the area that welcomes walk ins Quite often they will be echoing some flavour of the discussion our group had.

But so far in the almost two decades we been doing this. I think I have found only two people who did not clean up under a little social pressure.
One was kicked from the group explicitly for said reason. The other left after the second discussion The DM at the time had with him.

<edit>
Also keep in mind, If the rolls check out by co-player accounting, And no obvious antics are going on. We tend to be quite content with it and view it as a non-issue. Besides with our crit/fumble charts, they are based on level and our fumble chart is forgiving 85% of the time with nothing but a slap on the wrist

<edit 2>
A fun link that is not entirely off topic http://noosphere.princeton.edu/

As a note, I tend to enjoy studying history, sociology, anthropology and theology. and well anything. So keep in mind that Quite a few faith paths (nearly all, and a few that are atheistic) Tend to hold some belief in a system that could be described as magical. If looked at in one context or another. Hell for that bend look at Einsteins reactions to quantum physics and quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance) so in that effort. Keep in mind that when you declare from your faith path/ non-faith path that magic is make believe. That it can be offending the beliefs of quite a few people.

Synovia
2013-02-18, 11:40 AM
As far as how I combat it? I've come up with a foolproof method that so far only people I've heavily suspected of having loaded dice have complained about. Anytime someone is rolling for a round or what not I'll flip a coin. Heads, normal roll rules (Natural 20 is a crit and is good, etc, low is bad in a D20 game), tails, inverted (Natural 1 is a crit and is good, etc. High is bad). I flip it after they roll, open flip, everyone sees the results..

This sounds like a pain in the butt to me.

Frankly, if I suspect someone of cheating like this, I'd rather just not play with them.

Synovia
2013-02-18, 11:54 AM
The blemish is part of the molding process on all dice, but Gamescience doesn't remove it because removing it would change the balance of the die. This video explains a lot about dice:

If Gamescience really wanted to be serious, they'd stop casting their dice, and start milling them.

That being said, the level of difference it makes is probably so low as to be absurd to even worry about. Then again, the same thing can be said about comparing 95% of dice to GameScience's dice.

Joe the Rat
2013-02-18, 12:32 PM
Note that the X2 test won't tell you what value(s) the die is weighted towards, just if it's statistically skewed.

Hooray stats!

Just to make it clear, you already know which way(s) the die is skewed - look at that frequency table you made to start with.

Synovia
2013-02-18, 01:32 PM
If you roll a d6 30 times expecting to see each face 5 times your end results will probably be a complete mess, the data is nearly useless from a statistical standpoint.

It isn't really true that your data is useless. If you roll a d6 30 times, and get 20 6s, you can be sure to a relatively high probability (something like 99.95) that the chance of rolling a 6 is not 1/6.

The number of samples you need is determined by how far from expected the results are.

TypoNinja
2013-02-18, 05:04 PM
It isn't really true that your data is useless. If you roll a d6 30 times, and get 20 6s, you can be sure to a relatively high probability (something like 99.95) that the chance of rolling a 6 is not 1/6.

The number of samples you need is determined by how far from expected the results are.

Well yes, if its that far off it'll show up sooner, but considering the number of loaded dice vs normal dice in the world chances are you'll be preforming this test on presumably normal dice and attempting to prove they really are random and/or are curious how much the manufacturing process skewed its performance. In those cases its pretty much 'more is better' because deviations will be slight.

Synovia
2013-02-18, 06:01 PM
Well yes, if its that far off it'll show up sooner, but considering the number of loaded dice vs normal dice in the world chances are you'll be preforming this test on presumably normal dice and attempting to prove they really are random and/or are curious how much the manufacturing process skewed its performance. In those cases its pretty much 'more is better' because deviations will be slight.

Right, but if a player is rolling:

1:8
2:8
3:8
4:8
5:8
6:10

Does it really matter? If the deviations are slight, do we really care? This isn't a casino. The sort of skew that isn't readily apparent isn't going to make a difference. Even the example above, where the chances of a 6 are 25% higher than the chances of any other result, it's a difference of 10 damage over 100d6.

Acanous
2013-02-18, 07:03 PM
as an aside, does anyone know the software used for THIS forum's dice roller? I've had an amazing streak of 1's lately, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the time of day I frequently post at.

Gavinfoxx
2013-02-18, 07:14 PM
I would strongly suggest Gamescience:

http://www.gamestation.net/Search_2?search=gamescience
http://www.gamescience.com/

For accurate roleplaying dice. Get the clear ones if you are extra worried.

Eldonauran
2013-02-18, 07:36 PM
I can honestly say that I never even thought about loaded dice in my RPGs. Congrats, you have just made me paranoid. :smalleek:

As far as I can tell, none of my players use them. They roll poorly and well, often enough to allay my suspicions.

I do have a quirk that I always buy a new set of dice for any new characters that I play (Also have a set of DM dice that I always use). Knowing that the die are all tumbled fully explains why some of the characters were 'luckier' than others.

scurv
2013-02-18, 07:44 PM
Hay peoples, No die is going to be perfectly manufactured. Fact of life ( I work optics and I can give you horror stories about small deviations and manufacturing imperfections. And most of them can not be seen with the untrained eye).

But it is a far cry of difference between minute manufacturing differences in dice, And willful manipulation of the die or roll dynamic to acquire a favorable roll.

TuggyNE
2013-02-18, 09:17 PM
as an aside, does anyone know the software used for THIS forum's dice roller? I've had an amazing streak of 1's lately, and I'm wondering if it has something to do with the time of day I frequently post at.

I seriously doubt that; standard UNIX-style timestamps have 1ms resolution, and if you use even a vaguely-reasonable hashing scheme you'll get some massively different results from seeds 1ms apart.

It's possible that the PRNG used is sub-par (more precisely, that it's really really bad; it's certainly not going to be cryptographic quality, but that doesn't make much difference), but it's more likely a result of clumping and confirmation bias than of flawed code.

Generally, even a half-decent software PRNG gives better random numbers than even a pretty high-quality physical die, barring some serious bug.

Sajiri
2013-02-18, 10:47 PM
My DM has a set of cheater dice. We were in a game store looking at the dice rack when he spotted them, and the guy behind the counter admitted to ordering them by mistake which is why it was the only set we'd ever seen there.

I grilled him why did he need that set, he hasnt used them yet, but I memorized exactly what they looked like.

Jay R
2013-02-19, 08:12 AM
I grilled him why did he need that set,...

What does "need" have to do with buying dice? I recently got a d1.

Years ago, I was in a game store, and saw a die I'd never seen before. It was a d34. I told the clerk, "That's ridiculous. Nobody has any use for a 34-sided die. They just made that to find out if anybody was stupid enough to buy a die that has no purpose whatsoever.

"Gimme two."

geeky_monkey
2013-02-19, 10:05 AM
My DM has a set of cheater dice. We were in a game store looking at the dice rack when he spotted them, and the guy behind the counter admitted to ordering them by mistake which is why it was the only set we'd ever seen there.

I grilled him why did he need that set, he hasnt used them yet, but I memorized exactly what they looked like.

I had a DM who owned a set of Cheat Dice. There was a D20 with the 1 replaced by a second 20 and a flipped one with a second 1 replacing the 20.

The only time I know he used them was when he had a temple to a god of luck - you could pray there and a flip of a coin decided whether you were lucky or unlucky for that day. If you were lucky you got the dice without a 1 for the session, if you were unlucky you knew you'd not be getting any crits that day.

Worked really well and was a memorable campaign.

Sajiri
2013-02-19, 07:27 PM
What does "need" have to do with buying dice? I recently got a d1.

Years ago, I was in a game store, and saw a die I'd never seen before. It was a d34. I told the clerk, "That's ridiculous. Nobody has any use for a 34-sided die. They just made that to find out if anybody was stupid enough to buy a die that has no purpose whatsoever.

"Gimme two."

Need doesnt really have anything to do with it, but I also happen to be married to him and outside of game time I like to amuse myself. That, and the evil laugh when he picked them up was highly worrying.

He's an evil DM sometimes.

ArcturusV
2013-02-19, 07:28 PM
Evil DM sounds redundant. :smalltongue:

jogiff
2013-02-19, 09:27 PM
What I like to do is buy a blank die and paint 20s on every side (or 6s for a d6 and 8s for a d8 etc). It's foolproof because the dice aren't physically altered, you just change some of the marks.

TheOOB
2013-02-21, 02:20 AM
Right, but if a player is rolling:

1:8
2:8
3:8
4:8
5:8
6:10

Does it really matter? If the deviations are slight, do we really care? This isn't a casino. The sort of skew that isn't readily apparent isn't going to make a difference. Even the example above, where the chances of a 6 are 25% higher than the chances of any other result, it's a difference of 10 damage over 100d6.

Whats the point of using a RNG if it's biased. Part of the fun of Roleplaying games is the risk. Your character might die.

Kane0
2013-02-21, 03:32 AM
I have a set of 'killer dice' (dubbed 'Graham killing dice' by my players) that i have stashed away. I have never had reason to use them but when they get brought out its a sign that the party should lay off the stupid antics or tone down their actions. If i ever need to use them i'm sure they would get my hint that they are way past the stupid decision mark and are on their way to completely destroying the campaign/gameworld.

Synovia
2013-02-21, 08:47 AM
Whats the point of using a RNG if it's biased. Part of the fun of Roleplaying games is the risk. Your character might die.



Every dice based RNG is baised. EVERY SINGLE ONE. My point is that we shouldn't worry about it too much unless its way off.


If you want an accurate RNG, use a computer based one. They're way more random than dice.

Krazzman
2013-02-21, 09:44 AM
Every dice based RNG is baised. EVERY SINGLE ONE. My point is that we shouldn't worry about it too much unless its way off.


If you want an accurate RNG, use a computer based one. They're way more random than dice.

This is why I keep thinking about switching...

I usually roll pretty high all the time/have genius streaks of luck and well this goes on my nerves.

Rant about random chargen:
In the campaign we started yesterday we had 3 blocks with 4d6b3, reroll one single die(one single d6) roll of the chosen block. My stats went 16 16 16 15 14 14. Perfect for what I had in mind. Other's weren't that lucky and now run around with 11 (13-2), 19 (17+2), 16, 10, 17, 10. And that was me rolling with the dice of my GF since MY dice were at home and this again proved my point. Randomisation sucks when generating/advancing characters. I have seen Wizards (although this was his own fault) that started with 8 hitpoints on level 6. Barbarians with 30 HP at level 6. And a Sorcerer with 34 HP on level 6. (yes in the same group)

The point is... rolling damage, skills, interaction stuff and such can be randomized as luck. But when generating, advancing or other such buildstuff I have the opinion that everyone should be on the same side. I have seen both spectrums. Having a low array and still contributing to the game as hard as I can and having low roll and seeing everyone else overshadow you. As well as having high rolls myself and just rock the first few levels where stats are important. (An 18 16 19 14 20 11 Dwarven Druid in a pathfinder game for example)

About loaded dice... well I either it is my rolling-skill or habit or my dice are loaded but we tested it, my dice are completly random but they are still rolling rather high when it comes to certain things... my Warblade/Fighter mix currently has over 4 levels after the first lost maybe 5 HP compared to the maximum possible. 11, 9, 9, 10 or similar, don't track them when advancing.

In Warhammer... the reason why I don't really like this game so far is... random character traits, random careers, random home region, random looks, random family, random everything except equipment gained by career.

And loaded dice make this worse. They make the DM suspiscious of you when you have a lucky streak, hell in my case they even once said I had to reroll a crit I rolled... because I threw both d20 on the same time and both showed up with a nat 20 for the two attacks I had that round... both totally identical but their reasoning was... I didn't declare beforehand which dice was for which attack...

ArcturusV
2013-02-21, 02:29 PM
Actually Synovia I tend not to like the Computer based Random Number Generation due to it being TOO even. Might just be me, but it seems like it's less "Random" and almost predictable because they spread out the results so well. I've never seen someone on it have a hot streak, or a cold streak, or any kinda streak. I'll ask a guy to roll a d20 over 50 times in a night and I'll get about 25 results over 9 and 25 results under 10. But that's just me. It got to the point where I could usually predict what my friend's Computer Dice would spit out at the table before he even touched it. Well not exactly but I'd go, "Hmm, we haven't seen 1-4 in 4 rolls. It'll be there. Oh look... it's a 2."

When I more or less "Know" what a dice roll will be before it comes up... eh... Losing the point of the dice loaded or not. I want my dicerolls in game to be something someone sweats about. Every time they pick it up there's no clue where it'll land and it gives just that little bit of extra pressure to the situation the roll is called for. Heck, it's why I don't let players Take 10 in Third Edition unless they are in a calm, stress free situation. Sure they can Take 10 on dirt farming during a quiet week. Or studying in a library, etc. They can never Take 10 on trying to bluff some Demon Lord they are trying to weasel information out of though due to potential soul devouring danger... You better roll it.

Synovia
2013-02-21, 05:50 PM
Actually Synovia I tend not to like the Computer based Random Number Generation due to it being TOO even. Might just be me, but it seems like it's less "Random" and almost predictable because they spread out the results so well. I've never seen someone on it have a hot streak, or a cold streak, or any kinda streak. I'll ask a guy to roll a d20 over 50 times in a night and I'll get about 25 results over 9 and 25 results under 10. But that's just me. It got to the point where I could usually predict what my friend's Computer Dice would spit out at the table before he even touched it. Well not exactly but I'd go, "Hmm, we haven't seen 1-4 in 4 rolls. It'll be there. Oh look... it's a 2."

When I more or less "Know" what a dice roll will be before it comes up... eh... Losing the point of the dice loaded or not. I want my dicerolls in game to be something someone sweats about. Every time they pick it up there's no clue where it'll land and it gives just that little bit of extra pressure to the situation the roll is called for. Heck, it's why I don't let players Take 10 in Third Edition unless they are in a calm, stress free situation. Sure they can Take 10 on dirt farming during a quiet week. Or studying in a library, etc. They can never Take 10 on trying to bluff some Demon Lord they are trying to weasel information out of though due to potential soul devouring danger... You better roll it.

What RNG are you using? I've never seen one behave the way you're stating. They're relatively evenly distributed if you run hundreds of thousands of simulations, but that makes sense. If you run a couple dozen rolls, they're all over the place, just like dice are.

If you're not seeing this behavior, you're using a poor algorithm.

TypoNinja
2013-02-21, 09:26 PM
Every dice based RNG is baised. EVERY SINGLE ONE. My point is that we shouldn't worry about it too much unless its way off.


Techincally yes, since it costs too much money to make perfectly shaped dice any die you buy will roll slightly off. However the margin of error introduced is typically miniscule and not worth worrying over.



If you want an accurate RNG, use a computer based one. They're way more random than dice.

Careful with that, you've got pretty good odds of only getting a pseudo-random generation, since truly Random results take a decent amount of effort

ArcturusV
2013-02-21, 09:37 PM
Probably the problem. Those "Psuedo-Random Generators" he mentioned. There's something... flawed? Flawed, sure, with the code that goes into them. Like whoever designed them wanted to have a "memory" to them where they make sure that you get a nearly equal distribution of the end results so you don't have a "loaded" dice. Or were being too careful about the idea and trying to make sure you can't have Streaks, either Hot or Cold.

I dunno. I don't program. But I have seen enough results from computerized RNGs to realize that's a thing that happens. I mean I will NEVER, rolling a dice, even good casino quality ones, really get the even distributions of every result that Statistics and Probability tells me I should get. But I get it all the time from the computerized RNGs.

huttj509
2013-02-22, 03:51 AM
Probably the problem. Those "Psuedo-Random Generators" he mentioned. There's something... flawed? Flawed, sure, with the code that goes into them. Like whoever designed them wanted to have a "memory" to them where they make sure that you get a nearly equal distribution of the end results so you don't have a "loaded" dice. Or were being too careful about the idea and trying to make sure you can't have Streaks, either Hot or Cold.

I dunno. I don't program. But I have seen enough results from computerized RNGs to realize that's a thing that happens. I mean I will NEVER, rolling a dice, even good casino quality ones, really get the even distributions of every result that Statistics and Probability tells me I should get. But I get it all the time from the computerized RNGs.

*blink* Um, unless something's really off with the computerized RNG, they're generally WELL beyond what humans can reasonably notice without detailed statistical analysis.

The only time "pseudo" vs. "true" random number generators really matter is with scientific studies, where "the generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance." Wait, what's that? Someone used the Coveyou quote in its proper context? Are we sure this is the internet?

Also, humans are really bad at eyeballing random distributions. I mean REALLY bad. We are built to notice patterns, because generally the disadvantage of seeing a pattern that's not there is less than the disadvantage of not seeing a pattern that is.

Now, if you have a computerized RNG where you roll a d6 60 times, and each face comes up 10 times...consistently...get a different RNG. Seriously, I don't even know how lazy coding (time in ms mod 6) would get that precise.

I know of no general dice rollers or random number generators that have built in "probability levelers." It seems like a fair amount of extra work, with zero benefit except for a specific purpose which the RNG would have specifically been made for.

Also, note the possible mental effect of the RNG confirming your expectations. If you think "he hasn't rolled under 4 in a while," then he does, you notice. If he still doesn't, it doesn't have as much mental impact...until he does in the next couple rolls, then it's easy to think "aha, I knew it would even it out, silly RNG."

Dynodragon
2013-02-22, 06:37 AM
There's one player in my group....:smallsmile: he rolls the dice and ignores it, just speaks the number he wanted, its quite funny when he get annoyed at a game every roll becomes a critical with maximum damage, the only rolls he will allow himself to fail/roll low are perception and initative type rolls.

When I gm I deal with it by making this player a plot device, it another player can fairly pass the test, he gets the reward only if everybody else fails does plot device player succeed and advance the game.

Synovia
2013-02-22, 08:53 AM
Careful with that, you've got pretty good odds of only getting a pseudo-random generation, since truly Random results take a decent amount of effort

The pseudo-random generation that most low end algorithms use is still less biased than most dice.

Synovia
2013-02-22, 08:55 AM
Now, if you have a computerized RNG where you roll a d6 60 times, and each face comes up 10 times...consistently...get a different RNG. Seriously, I don't even know how lazy coding (time in ms mod 6) would get that precise.


It wouldn't be lazy, the program would have to be directly looking for that. None of the random algorithms that come with any modern language will do that.

The only way to get that sort of result would be to start weighting the distribution.... essentially programming in "dice Karma".


I think the poster has some perception bias issues.

(just as an example, I just generated 50 random 1-6 in Excel using the RandBetween function. )
First time:
1:9
2:9
3:10
4:8
5:1
6:13

2nd Time:
1:7
2:4
3:12
4:9
5:8
6:10


There's been a ton of money spent over the last 20 years in making sure that random algorithms are as close to truly random as possible. They're the basis of cryptography, and a whole lot of other things.

If you're seeing "balanced" results in a dice rolling program, that program is intentionally designed that way. Its not a result of "pseudo-random numbers"

TuggyNE
2013-02-22, 09:32 PM
I'm tempted to do a nice long run of analysis of the AnyDice, WotC, and d20srd.org rollers, but I'm not sure I have the patience for that. :smalltongue:


Careful with that, you've got pretty good odds of only getting a pseudo-random generation, since truly Random results take a decent amount of effort

Let's put it this way: most PRNG results are orders of magnitude better than most dice, and cryptographic PRNGs are even better.


Probably the problem. Those "Psuedo-Random Generators" he mentioned. There's something... flawed? Flawed, sure, with the code that goes into them. Like whoever designed them wanted to have a "memory" to them where they make sure that you get a nearly equal distribution of the end results so you don't have a "loaded" dice. Or were being too careful about the idea and trying to make sure you can't have Streaks, either Hot or Cold.

I dunno. I don't program. But I have seen enough results from computerized RNGs to realize that's a thing that happens.

I honestly don't know how this would be a thing; no standard PRNG algorithm will do that at all. There are generally much subtler flaws (in particular, starting with the seed of the current time, or similar, makes it predictable in theory), but unless the programmer of the die-roller specifically puts considerable effort into "correcting" the results, they'll be pretty free of any particular patterns.


I mean I will NEVER, rolling a dice, even good casino quality ones, really get the even distributions of every result that Statistics and Probability tells me I should get. But I get it all the time from the computerized RNGs.

I'm not sure which way you're arguing now :smalltongue:


It wouldn't be lazy, the program would have to be directly looking for that. None of the random algorithms that come with any modern language will do that.

The only way to get that sort of result would be to start weighting the distribution.... essentially programming in "dice Karma".

Yeah, basically.


I think the poster has some perception bias issues.

This is almost always the case with probability and randomness, and no one is immune to it.

Templarkommando
2013-02-22, 09:52 PM
Let me agree with the second post right quick. How do you win at RP? I remember when I was in my early teens (I'm in my mid twenties now) that I would spend weeks pestering mom or dad to get me the coolest new video game and as soon as I would get it, I would get online and look up the cheats for it, and while I still pick up cheat codes very occasionally I never do it right after purchasing a brand new $50+ game anymore. Why? Because it absolutely ruins any hope that I would get to struggle with what the writers were thinking about. The levels in Starcraft for example where you have to scramble for resources and units in order to hold out against the Zerg for just a little bit longer... it loses its luster if you type in the god mode cheat and just kill all of the Zerg before the stage is over.

huttj509
2013-02-22, 10:03 PM
Let me agree with the second post right quick. How do you win at RP? I remember when I was in my early teens (I'm in my mid twenties now) that I would spend weeks pestering mom or dad to get me the coolest new video game and as soon as I would get it, I would get online and look up the cheats for it, and while I still pick up cheat codes very occasionally I never do it right after purchasing a brand new $50+ game anymore. Why? Because it absolutely ruins any hope that I would get to struggle with what the writers were thinking about. The levels in Starcraft for example where you have to scramble for resources and units in order to hold out against the Zerg for just a little bit longer... it loses its luster if you type in the god mode cheat and just kill all of the Zerg before the stage is over.

The goal of different folks at the table is different.

For some, it might not just be to be the most successful at the table, but for the perceived feelings (positive or negative) of others towards you when you are. "Showing off," if you will.

In your example, imagine the guy who uses the god mode cheat, beats the game, then goes around commenting on how awesome the endgame cutscene is, and how neat the last mission is, so people know he beat it that quickly. If that's the player's goal, the cheating is more comprehensible.

Templarkommando
2013-02-22, 10:25 PM
The goal of different folks at the table is different.

For some, it might not just be to be the most successful at the table, but for the perceived feelings (positive or negative) of others towards you when you are. "Showing off," if you will.

In your example, imagine the guy who uses the god mode cheat, beats the game, then goes around commenting on how awesome the endgame cutscene is, and how neat the last mission is, so people know he beat it that quickly. If that's the player's goal, the cheating is more comprehensible.

Well, and I can sort of sympathize with that now - since I'm looking back at having done it for years and years. It's still kind of painful to me knowing that I actually did that with several of the best games that I've ever played though.

scurv
2013-02-23, 11:55 AM
I did a bit of field work on the loaded dice question.

I made a dozen attempts at low temp baking them, Very mixed results and very little that was consistently useful. Although I make no claims as to this being a bad method.

Using a small amount of clear coat to pad out the numbers I did not like.
Fairly useful actually, Although it leaves evidence that is easily view-able to a discerning eye. used 12 die and was able to make it so they would consistently be far under likely at rolling numbers i choose
How to spot, Well when said person rolls a 20 due to the number one tending to be on the opposite side of it the 20 side will tend to have some discoloration or extra shininess due to its surface being built up and rounded.

Using a buffer to make select sides smaller. Good results with this one as well. Although the more reliable you wish to discourage some numbers the more material you need to remove from the edges. on the opposite side. I did 12 runs with this as well and was able to nicely make some numbers far more unlikely to be rolled.
How to spot, Look for a worn polished look on the edges of the numbers, especially on the higher number values. You will also note that the paint in said numbers may very well need to be replaced

Now I have 36 d20's i can not use for gaming and i need something somewhat productive to do with them.

TechnoScrabble
2013-02-23, 12:29 PM
Make jewelry out of them and say you took them from the corpses of those you caught cheating.

Grinner
2013-02-23, 12:59 PM
Now I have 36 d20's i can not use for gaming and i need something somewhat productive to do with them.

Money out of your own pocket for the sake of scientific inquiry.

You are a hero among men. :smallbiggrin:

scurv
2013-02-23, 01:10 PM
I like hard data, Statistics and engineering is nice. But those only approximate the real world, Or to say it in words that has been said before. The map is not the terrain.

That and when I get motivated I am going to find some good examples of them to post pictures of. And yes I do get pissy about dice loading. I have been at the table before with people who used rigged dice and it kinda takes the fun out of it and almost insults the intellect of all players/DM's there when they think they can pass of a 30ish percent crit rate as "Good luck" I'm not saying that sometimes people don't have good streaks. But at a point it occasionally begs the question.

Gavinfoxx
2013-02-23, 03:27 PM
Have you looked into these? I had to search a bit to get the actual d20's, but I managed to find the exact url's. I don't know of any other group that provides precision d20's. Does anyone know of an alternative that also sells clear sharps?

Gamescience D20 urls:

http://www.gamestation.net/Gamescience-Diamond-Precision-D20-No-Ink/productinfo/2802-0040/

http://www.gamestation.net/Gamescience-Blue-Moonstone-Precision-D20-No-Ink/productinfo/2802-0037/

http://www.gamestation.net/Gamescience-Emerald-Precision-D20-No-Ink/productinfo/2802-0039/

http://www.gamestation.net/Gamescience-Blue-Opal-Precision-d20-no-ink/productinfo/2802-0066/

http://www.gamestation.net/Gamescience-Tanzanite-Precision-d20-no-ink/productinfo/2802-0068/

Incom
2013-02-23, 03:42 PM
Dude, advertising. (And I'm pretty sure we all know about GS anyway)

Tsriel
2013-02-26, 04:13 PM
Dude, advertising. (And I'm pretty sure we all know about GS anyway)

I didn't. :P

Darius Kane
2013-02-26, 06:00 PM
I roll on my computer.

The Random NPC
2013-02-26, 08:52 PM
I didn't. :P

It was post #15, although it was hidden as a hyperlink.

Badgerish
2013-02-27, 04:47 AM
I did a bit of field work on the loaded dice question.
.
.
.
Now I have 36 d20's i can not use for gaming and i need something somewhat productive to do with them.
your sacrifice (and your dice's sacrifice) will be remembered!

If you do have the time/inclination, could you try rolling these dice into a bucket of water, to see if the weighting effects are more apparent?

Minitroll
2013-02-28, 08:45 PM
Well, I know one person in my group got 5 20's in a row, so...

But all their other rolls were normal, so I don't think their loaded. Unless there's a confession, we have no way of knowing.

Wardog
2013-03-04, 03:40 PM
I’ve seen people use certain dice to attain certain results in miniatures games; Such as having to roll leadership (read low rolls) in warhammer 40k/fantasy. They would use casino dice for every roll but those, there they would break out some other dice they had on hand. It really turns me off, if you’re going to go through the trouble of buying casino quality dice you should be using them for the whole game, not just for attack/damage rolls. They’re trying to play the probability game (warhammer 40K and fantasy are based around the number 7), which stinks of poor sportsmanship to me.

I remember on the old Games Workshop forums, there were a great many people who would not only insist that they used their own dice for their own rolls, but would not allow anyone else to touch them.

Furthermore, they considered that people who wanted everyone to use a common pool of dice were bad sportsmen (presumably because they considered such a request to be an insinuation of cheating).

Is this normal behavior? It seemed utterly bizarre to me (not to mention highly suspicious), but everyone on the forums seemed to consider it unremarkable (and objecting to it to be the unacceptable behaviour).

huttj509
2013-03-04, 04:04 PM
I remember on the old Games Workshop forums, there were a great many people who would not only insist that they used their own dice for their own rolls, but would not allow anyone else to touch them.

Furthermore, they considered that people who wanted everyone to use a common pool of dice were bad sportsmen (presumably because they considered such a request to be an insinuation of cheating).

Is this normal behavior? It seemed utterly bizarre to me (not to mention highly suspicious), but everyone on the forums seemed to consider it unremarkable (and objecting to it to be the unacceptable behaviour).

It is not uncommon for gamers to be a bit superstitious when it comes to dice, even when realizing it's bunk. Things like having your dice resting with the high faces up to "remind" them how to roll, and such.

I suspect it's related to how, often in games, the dice are the object through which the players exert their influence. The dice determine the outcomes, and become associated with the character's success or failure. There are people who use different dice for different characters, different types of rolls, etc. (Ok, I'm doing a fire attack so I'll use my red die, it always does well for fire attacks, but not for ice)

It's by no means absolute, or even really a majority, but it seems to be common enough that everyone tends to know of people who have their dice quirks, whether minor, or more prominent.

For me, I know I tend to get a little tetchy when people use my dice without permission. I think it's mainly a "personal space" thing, combined with a bit of a sense of "mine" from growing up sharing a lot of stuff with a twin, as well as that some of my dice have acquired sentimental value of varying degrees, depending on when/where I purchased them. In addition, I feel to some extent that they symbolize my "gamer"-ness. Books? Lots of folks read books. Computer? Eh, people use computers for all sorts of stuff. A fistfull of dice? Unless you're heading to a Yahtzee tournament, not much reason for folks to have that many.

Note that I'm generally fine with others using my dice, as long as they ask first. Using without asking tends to be a major gaming faux pas. Think of it like reaching for someone's fry at dinner. Not a big deal, but you still might get a look that implies if you try it again you'll pull back a stump.

ArcturusV
2013-03-04, 05:02 PM
Again you have to keep in mind something I learned back in Elementary school.

There was this teacher I had (4th grade I think) who used this trick several times. People would be acting up in class, disturbing the class during a lesson, etc. So he's just go, "Okay, whole class has detention today, 1 hour after school." or something.

Invariably there would be a chorus of complaints "That's not fair!" and "you can't do that!" and so on and so forth. Usually from the back of the room. And invariably those complaints would be coming from the people who were actually being disruptive behind the teacher's back so he'd go, "Okay, you, you and you, detention, everyone else can go."

So what did I learn? That it's usually the people who complain about something being "not fair" or the like that are actually at fault when blanket rules are announced. People who don't, generally don't have a real issue with it. May grumble or think it's silly, but they won't actually SAY anything about it. Or if they do it's kind of more in a "Why are you doing this?" "Just to keep things casual and balanced." "Oh... okay." sort of fashion.

Kurald Galain
2013-03-04, 05:35 PM
As taboo as this topic is, I would like to poll on how people have seen loaded dice, and counter measures they use to combat it.
One of our players had a d6+1, that is, 1d6 that read 2 through 7 instead of 1 through 6. Of course, using that for real purposes has a rather high chance of backfiring, so it was more of a novelty than something else.

Then there was this one guy that could "drop" dice without rolling them, so that whichever number was up in his hand would generally remain up. This was very conspicuous and only worked with d4/d6/d8, but the guy was really upset when we told him what the word "rolling" meant to us.

And then, I've met a few people that swear by using dice that are completely illegible except to themselves (and, of course, these people tend to be powergamers or munchkins). This I find suspicuous enough that I ban it whenever I'm the DM.

Lonely Tylenol
2013-03-04, 05:49 PM
So, about seven months ago, my group introduced Google Hangout attendance to the table, for a long-time player who was moving off-island for college. This happened shortly after a player (a friend of hers, who I was asked to let join on her behalf). The player who left got a dice roller and would just display rolled results on the log. I trusted her to be honest about the rolls, and there were never any "convenient" criticals or skewed results, so everything worked fine.

Fast forward about a month in. The new player is complaining that schedule conflicts keep her from being able to attend the game regularly (apparently she only got the car one night of the weekend, and so had to choose between the game and something else), and she'd like to use Google Hangout to play like her friend was. I was extremely skeptical (she lives within walking distance of our table, and four of us have our own vehicles, so there was no logistical problem here for me), but I let it happen anyway. We set her up with the same dice roller her friend was using, showed her how to use the Hangout, etc.

The second week she did this was a very combat-heavy week. A few rounds into the first combat, I got a text from one of the players: "doesn't it seem like [player X] is rolling a lot of high numbers?" So I started paying attention... And all her rolls were high. She would play dumb when we asked her to roll to-hit and damage, asking questions like "what dice do I roll?" and "what's my bonus on that?" (naturally, since this was her first group and she was new, we'd believe her and tell her), pause for a moment while looking at her phone (I figured to set up the right dice type and number), go "ummmm," and then ask, "does a 27 hit?" or something to that effect. She'd always been bad at numbers at the table, so I didn't think twice about this until I got the first text... And when I got a second text (more of the same, but with added snark), I began a tally.

After the tally began (and lasted the entire second combat), I had counted up 14 consecutive rolls with a result of 16 or higher, and no rolls under. For reference, the odds of this happening (just the tallied rolls alone, counting all of them at the "16-20" range instead of what she actually rolled) are 268,435,456 to one against; in other words, she was cheating.

I had a mind to throw her out outright, but the friend who introduced her had good stock with me--and, also, she was our gracious host for months before leaving--so I confronted her about it first. She apologized profusely, expressed surprise, and asked that she talk to her friend about it in my stead, since they're closer and everything--and, against my better judgment, I consented. I didn't even get the satisfaction of having justice done to the cheater; she insisted she had just gotten lucky, and when confronted with the odds, and the explanation that the ACTUAL odds against her rolling what she did that night are so improbable that they cannot be expressed on a calculator, she apparently said she got "REALLY lucky".

She still sits at our table today, but now she has to be physically there to participate at all. She is only allowed to roll physical dice (and the dice she rolls are mine), and I stand watch over every roll she makes with them.

I still don't trust her.

Synovia
2013-03-06, 08:56 AM
So what did I learn? That it's usually the people who complain about something being "not fair" or the like that are actually at fault when blanket rules are announced. People who don't, generally don't have a real issue with it. May grumble or think it's silly, but they won't actually SAY anything about it. Or if they do it's kind of more in a "Why are you doing this?" "Just to keep things casual and balanced." "Oh... okay." sort of fashion.

Punishing people who speak up for fair treatment sounds awesome.

mangosta71
2013-03-06, 11:16 AM
As far as how I combat it? I've come up with a foolproof method that so far only people I've heavily suspected of having loaded dice have complained about. Anytime someone is rolling for a round or what not I'll flip a coin. Heads, normal roll rules (Natural 20 is a crit and is good, etc, low is bad in a D20 game), tails, inverted (Natural 1 is a crit and is good, etc. High is bad). I flip it after they roll, open flip, everyone sees the results.
I have mixed feelings on this (and, as far as I know at least, all my dice are fair). On the one hand, having something I thought was a crit turn into a miss would suck. On the other, a critical miss on a fully-augmented argent strike getting turned into bunch of healing and not-wasted power points would be awesome...

Overall, I think I don't like it. Just like the blanket punishment "trick" that came up more recently, I'm not okay with being punished because someone else is breaking the rules, and I'm not the type to take something that I find outrageous quietly. However, the caveat is that I would let you roll my dice until you're satisfied that they're fair (in fact, I would insist upon it).

sreservoir
2013-03-06, 03:21 PM
Again you have to keep in mind something I learned back in Elementary school.

There was this teacher I had (4th grade I think) who used this trick several times. People would be acting up in class, disturbing the class during a lesson, etc. So he's just go, "Okay, whole class has detention today, 1 hour after school." or something.

Invariably there would be a chorus of complaints "That's not fair!" and "you can't do that!" and so on and so forth. Usually from the back of the room. And invariably those complaints would be coming from the people who were actually being disruptive behind the teacher's back so he'd go, "Okay, you, you and you, detention, everyone else can go."

So what did I learn? That it's usually the people who complain about something being "not fair" or the like that are actually at fault when blanket rules are announced. People who don't, generally don't have a real issue with it. May grumble or think it's silly, but they won't actually SAY anything about it. Or if they do it's kind of more in a "Why are you doing this?" "Just to keep things casual and balanced." "Oh... okay." sort of fashion.

if you're not a thoughtcriminal, you'ven't reason to fear the thought police, so if you object to the thought police, you're clearly a thoughtcriminal.

MesiDoomstalker
2013-03-06, 04:42 PM
As far as loaded dice, my group has some superstitions to make them loaded.

Some dice are hornballs. Stick them down the GM's bra for the first half of the session and enjoy ripping her monsters apart for the second half. Others are gay. Stick them in any of the male player's pants (preferably your own), and they will roll like no other.

Some are antisocial. If they are grouped with other dice or rolled along with other dice, they roll like crude. I have a friend who plays a 4e Rogue using a weapon thats 2d4 (I forget what it is). His big damage attacks have him rolling 6-8 die individually just to get those 3s and 4s. Inversely, some are extremely social.

Some are goth. Must be stored in the dark, have to be rolled in the shade, only with a brooding angsty character. Some are wizard dice. Only Arcane casters of the highest caliber will coax their cooperation.

These all sound like superstitions. But they aren't. We have something called "The Pink Die" Its a pink d20 that the GM gives out to anybody that says something incredibly stupid. They must use The Pink Die for the rest of the night. And The Pink Die is bad. Except when I get it. It loves me. We think its because its very selective in its 'dumb.' All the times I've acquired the die, my stupid idea has been implemented and worked marvelously.

Guizonde
2013-03-06, 05:38 PM
As far as loaded dice, my group has some superstitions to make them loaded.

Some dice are hornballs. Stick them down the GM's bra for the first half of the session and enjoy ripping her monsters apart for the second half. Others are gay. Stick them in any of the male player's pants (preferably your own), and they will roll like no other.

Some are antisocial. If they are grouped with other dice or rolled along with other dice, they roll like crude. I have a friend who plays a 4e Rogue using a weapon thats 2d4 (I forget what it is). His big damage attacks have him rolling 6-8 die individually just to get those 3s and 4s. Inversely, some are extremely social.

Some are goth. Must be stored in the dark, have to be rolled in the shade, only with a brooding angsty character. Some are wizard dice. Only Arcane casters of the highest caliber will coax their cooperation.

These all sound like superstitions. But they aren't. We have something called "The Pink Die" Its a pink d20 that the GM gives out to anybody that says something incredibly stupid. They must use The Pink Die for the rest of the night. And The Pink Die is bad. Except when I get it. It loves me. We think its because its very selective in its 'dumb.' All the times I've acquired the die, my stupid idea has been implemented and worked marvelously.

see, this is how i lend credibility to orks in wh40k. latently psychic, as you know, which is how they work. their trukks go faster since they believe that painting them red makes them go faster.
you've got superstitions, and lo and behold, your results are altered in accordance to your beliefs.

my dice hate me. except my yellow ones whenever i use them to play a cleric of pelor (or anything sun or fire related). my pink ones hate me, but hate undead even more. my green ones are jinxed. period. even my dice-lucky dm can't roll to save his life with them. my "lost lambs" get their best results when i loan 'em to a buddy in need, but otherwise they like me fine enough for me to count on them not to make me critically fail.

RandomNPC
2013-03-06, 07:20 PM
I've only met one dice cheater. He always rolled "blackjack" so something with an AC of 22 could beat him soundly without concern. They called him on it, he admitted it, and now everyone rolls towards the middle of the room, clearing dice before the next person rolls, because there's some dice superstition about "What's mine is mine and shouldn't get your 'not me' luck rubbed off on them."

Lea Plath
2013-03-07, 05:10 AM
In my Dresden Files game, we currently only have 2 sets of Fate Dice due to the local gaming shop being out of them.

One of our players has a running joke that they will always roll horribly for perception or altertness rolls. Even saying the word perception will make the roll bad.

This leads to a back and forth where I will say perception whenever she rolls the dice and she will say it whenever I roll the dice.

ShadowWhisper
2014-10-20, 08:40 AM
Again you have to keep in mind something I learned back in Elementary school.

There was this teacher I had (4th grade I think) who used this trick several times. People would be acting up in class, disturbing the class during a lesson, etc. So he's just go, "Okay, whole class has detention today, 1 hour after school." or something.

Invariably there would be a chorus of complaints "That's not fair!" and "you can't do that!" and so on and so forth. Usually from the back of the room. And invariably those complaints would be coming from the people who were actually being disruptive behind the teacher's back so he'd go, "Okay, you, you and you, detention, everyone else can go."

So what did I learn? That it's usually the people who complain about something being "not fair" or the like that are actually at fault when blanket rules are announced. People who don't, generally don't have a real issue with it. May grumble or think it's silly, but they won't actually SAY anything about it. Or if they do it's kind of more in a "Why are you doing this?" "Just to keep things casual and balanced." "Oh... okay." sort of fashion.

We had a guy at our table who NEVER fumbled and almost ALWAYS rolled 20's. Several members discussed this with the DM and the rest of the group, trying to figure out a way to break the habit while salvaging the roleplayer and limiting the 'bad blood' in the group. Many in the group kept a 'session scratch paper' specifically for counting 20's that each person rolled and this guy was definitely 'Vegas Lucky'

When we switched to Pathfinder, we hoped that the requirement to confirm crits by rolling a second die and hitting in the 'crit range' would stop the behavior, but the trend continued. High critical success rate, never 'didn't confirm'.

We checked his dice. Nothing loaded, no 'double 20's', ordinary dice. The guys sitting next to him tried to visually confirm his dice rolls, but he either quickly scooped or 'blocked' the dice like a kid covering his test paper. Eventually, the attempts to peek started being met with mild glares.

One session, a few of us were unboxing and 'blessing' new die sets when I cam across an idea. Quick sidebar with the DM later and we had a shooting solution.

We took the boxes from the new dice, as well as a few others I had lying around (Used to use them to hold screws and stuff) and passed one to each player as the DM announced our new house rule: "Your d20's go into the box and are rolled in there. Instead of doing the 'double-roll' to confirm crits, the critical roll must be visually confirmed by one of your neighbors and can be done so by carefully passing the box over for inspection. Any unverified crits are automatic fumbles." This was, as you can see, a blanket rule for the group.

At first glance, it might seem like we were all being punished for the sins of one guy but, in the end, he was the only one who hated doing it, since his 'luck' ran out rather suddenly. The rest of us enjoyed the boxes because:

Having a 'lucky' combat dice (which could be replaced by another if it started being 'unlucky') made finding your combat die easier amid all of the other dice, papers, and other gaming stuff
Our crit rates went up without having to do the confirm roll (even though we still often did it, just for a chance at a house-rule 'double crit as well as rubbing it in the guy's face that none of *our* luck had run out..lol)
Sometimes we did the whole "You look...the pressure is too intense...tell me what I got" sort of blind roll at the neighbor's station, often the luck feeling the same as when you cut the cards *just* right for the perfect poker hand.



Guy eventually left the group for a culmination of reasons, and we went back to regular rolling, but the dice boxes still stay stacked nearby and all newcomers get to hear the spoken tale of "Eric the Untrustworthy" as well as get the silent hint that the group will gladly go back to the boxes if the newbie should force them to have to do so.

To date, those boxes collect only dust though, so it works.

hifidelity2
2014-10-20, 10:53 AM
I have been playing and DMing for many a year and have always had, and insisted on open die rolling for players
Any rolls that are cocked or fall off the table are re-rolled
Only the DM is allowed to hide and fudge rolls !:smallsmile:

I have seen some loaded D6 but they were obvious and a D20 with two 20’s on it which was not so obvious
However the nearest I have seen to cheating is when someone will roll their dice while I am describing a situation and if its good leave it there and say “That was my roll” or if it was bad pick it up again and then wait for their turn and so roll again. If this happens to often I just say to the whole group only roll when I give you the OK

Vaynor
2014-10-21, 01:18 PM
The Red Towel: Thread necromancy.