PDA

View Full Version : Gamer Tales Dice... Why you no!



KnotKnormal
2014-12-04, 11:31 AM
So last weekend I held a session, that fell apart. The players were great, I was told I DMed well, The setting was fantastic, but the dice... the dice tried to destroy the world.

We usually start around noon, and by 3 P.M. I had to call diner break because players were getting frustrated with their dice. Also I needed to think about how to repair the situation the characters were in. 2 of the players actually went out during the break and bought new dice. (this Didn't help) After a 3 hour unwind we got back to it, I decided to keep tally on fails for fun. we finished about 4 hours later after once again becoming frustrated with dice. after the game I counted my tallies and... 57!!!!
57 Nat 1 failures with in 4 hours of play! I have no idea what my players did to invoke this kind of bad karma.

With in the session my players, were caught by guards, thrown in jail, escaped their cells, got lost, cleared the barracks of guards, still couldn't find their way out, locked themselves back into their original cell, broke out again, got lost again, got caught again, got thrown in again, knocked unconscious, severely wounded, knock out again, broke keys off in a lock, set off a dozen traps, and lost their stuff... the list could go on.

Do you have any fun fail stories?

EDIT: I believe that the only thing more paranoid and superstitious then baseball players, is D&D players. (or other tabletop RPGs)

Heartspan
2014-12-05, 01:25 PM
My fail wasn't dice so much as bad planning. It involved a slip-knot, a cliff, a gargoyle, and explosives. Maybe hire a witch to bless your dice? Thats usually what i do~

WolfLordBran
2014-12-05, 02:42 PM
I usually opt for sacrificing a goat to the Dread Lords of the Random Number, anointing my dice bag in the goat's blood and devouring its still beating heart as a sign of devotion to my cruel and capricious gods.

If barbaric blood-worshiping isn't you're thing then, I suggest going for a fear route. Take the one that did worst and shatter it before the rest! Let them all know what happens to those that fail you too many time!

:belkar:

KnotKnormal
2014-12-05, 03:07 PM
I usually opt for sacrificing a goat to the Dread Lords of the Random Number, anointing my dice bag in the goat's blood and devouring its still beating heart as a sign of devotion to my cruel and capricious gods.

If barbaric blood-worshiping isn't you're thing then, I suggest going for a fear route. Take the one that did worst and shatter it before the rest! Let them all know what happens to those that fail you too many time!

:belkar:

My one friend line up all his dice as he burned one of the D20s alive with a blow torch.

Psyren
2014-12-05, 03:17 PM
Preroll the ones out. (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0099.html)

GorinichSerpant
2014-12-05, 03:55 PM
There is an old Russian saying that goes something like "If you're getting unlucky in cards, you'll be lucky in love". By cards I mean gambling, but sense D&D isn't exactly gambling, it means you'll get lucky in something like love, but not exactly.

WolfLordBran
2014-12-05, 06:26 PM
There is an old Russian saying that goes something like "If you're getting unlucky in cards, you'll be lucky in love". By cards I mean gambling, but sense D&D isn't exactly gambling, it means you'll get lucky in something like love, but not exactly.

I would argue against that based on prior experience... :smallfurious:

(Un)Inspired
2014-12-05, 11:10 PM
My fail wasn't dice so much as bad planning. It involved a slip-knot, a cliff, a gargoyle, and explosives. Maybe hire a witch to bless your dice? Thats usually what i do~

Have you actually tried this? I think my sister is a witch or something. Maybe I should ask for her help next time I'm rolling for ability scores.



If barbaric blood-worshiping isn't you're thing then, I suggest going for a fear route. Take the one that did worst and shatter it before the rest! Let them all know what happens to those that fail you too many time!

It sounds incredibly satisfying to smash a die that causes you too much grief.

Coventry
2014-12-06, 05:55 PM
There is a reason why I am usually the DM. The average of my D20 dice rolls over the past 25 years is roughly 8.

In the first edition, I refused to draw from a Deck of Many Things because of that luck. I then offered to show them why after getting assurances that none of the draws counted in game. Five draws - five black cards. The fourth one was Donjon, which would have prevented the fifth draw, but still.

The Grue
2014-12-06, 10:45 PM
...57 Nat 1 failures with in 4 hours of play!

...caught by guards, thrown in jail, escaped their cells, got lost, cleared the barracks of guards, still couldn't find their way out, locked themselves back into their original cell, broke out again, got lost again, got caught again, got thrown in again, knocked unconscious, severely wounded, knock out again, broke keys off in a lock, set off a dozen traps, and lost their stuff...

Sounds to me like you were playing with some kind of Skill Check Critical Fails house rule. I think this may have been the cause for this string of seemingly improbable luck.

Raimun
2014-12-06, 11:39 PM
The Truth About 20-Sided Dice: (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1223)

"There are a limited number of “twenties” in any given d20. That is, no matter how many times you roll a d20, you cannot roll another twenty once the supply has run out. These twenties can only be replenished by rolling a corresponding one with the same die. Thus every gamer is duty-bound to protect their supply of good rolls. If a friend rolls a twenty using your die, not only have they stolen your good roll, but they have doomed you to the extra one required to replenish the twenty.

Some players get excited when they roll several twenties in a row, concluding the dice are “hot”. Don’t make this blunder! This is like driving your car for 400 miles without gassing up, and then concluding that your car is a perpetual motion machine. After a few good rolls, pass the die off to an unwitting companion and let them charge it up for you.

Statisticians have known about this behavior for years. They call it “the probability seesaw”. Unlike the bell-shaped curve, in the seesaw system the odds of rolling high or low is directly proportional to what has been rolled in the past. They usually pretend this isn’t true. If a statistician hands you a die insisting that “any given roll has the same odds of rolling a one or a twenty”, it means he’s handing you a depleted die in the hopes of taking advantage of you. Don’t fall for it!

Now the secret is yours. Please put this knowledge to good use*.

*By “good use” I mean, “take advantage of other players”."

TheThan
2014-12-07, 12:23 AM
A story
The party monk was able to turn a tough encounter against two ogres into an easy one. He landed two stunning fist attacks, critical hits I believe, one against each of the ogres. The DM (me) critical failed both saves. I rolled the dice out in the open so I couldn’t fudge them to keep them in the fight longer.

So this monk rolled up against to horned nightmares twice his size and kicked them in the family jewels. All he needed was a mike drop.

Sajiri
2014-12-07, 03:38 PM
Just last night I was playing in my single player game. I busted into a bar where some of my NPC crew were getting thrashed, shot the boss that was beating them up, then the dm told me to roll d100 and I rolled a one.

My character then proceeded to get punched in the chest and shot three times up close in the gut. Boss fight over.

DigoDragon
2014-12-07, 07:08 PM
I'm in a pbp game on this site and one thing that's consistent with my doctor, is that he has managed to injure Every Single Patient he's tended to with the first Medicine roll. Here's a sampling of what he's done:


Cracked a patient's skull trying to treat a head injury.
Nicked a patient's artery trying to patch a small cut.
Dislocated the patient's left shoulder while tending to an ear wound.
Killed a patient while attempting to treat broken ribs.


In a party of 5 PCs, my character has injured all but two of them. One being himself.

Valefor Rathan
2014-12-08, 12:35 PM
In a d6 (WEG) Star Wars session years ago...

My character (Large Alien Jedi) runs into one of our ship mounted turrets and breaks it trying to shoot down the bad guys. Then leaves this turret so it can be jury-rigged by another player and runs into the other turret. The second turret is then broken by a critical failure so I run back to the first turret which is now operational. The mechanic runs to the second turret to fix that one. I then critically break the first turret all over again. I was then ordered into the cargo bay to "sit on my Force-loving hands and don't touch anything with lights on it". The only other PC not involved in the space battle proceeded to get hammered while waiting to counter-board. We failed enough of our Willpower checks that we were drunk enough that the counter-boarding resembled a drunken frat house brawl.

But we won. Eventually. My character has yet to be allowed into a turret since and the above incident took place about 10 years ago.

GorinichSerpant
2014-12-08, 12:37 PM
I would argue against that based on prior experience... :smallfurious:

I'm not exactly sure what your alluding to, but I'm guessing something didn't go well.

Milodiah
2014-12-08, 01:24 PM
Last session it became apparent that the BBEG needed to improve his dungeon security hiring standards.

Out of all the rolls the pack of hell-hounds and the chain devil handling them had, 80% were 1-4. They landed two attacks in the entire combat, and they were both on the Ranger's dog.

Also, in a Delta Green game, we managed to have the Three Stooges of illegal government conspiracy.

PC1 is stuck in a pit trap and fails four climbing rolls in a row, once critically so he falls back on the spikes. PC2 tries climbing a tree to get a better vantage point, but drops his sniper rifle and damages it, then gets stuck up there when he fails his climbing roll to go get it. PC3 tries sneaking up to the window, but manages to trip and slam his head against the side of the metal trailer home.

Michael7123
2014-12-08, 03:26 PM
So I'm the party dread Necromancer. Cast Ray of enfeeblment on an Orc, goes through, and deal 9 points of strength damage to him.

That's where my luck goes south.

The Orc bull rushes me. Being a spellcaster, I fail the attack of opportunity. Not too bad. Then comes the strength check.

The Orc rolled a modified 20. My strength modifier is +1, so I'd have to roll a natural 20. Which I do. Right off the table, which in our game means rerolling. On the second roll, I got a natural one.

Next turn, I tried to cast vampiric touch on it with defensive casting. I dropped the dice before I intended to roll, and failed the consent ration check by 1 point. Rolled it again, matched the DC, which the DM ruled as a failure.

The party fighter rolled a natural one on his listen check to hear the fighting in the room next to his. He continues looting the body of a dead Orc.

Then my teammate rolled a 1. On her role to confirm the crit miss, she rolled another 1. The DM decided that she critically hit me. At this point, I'm at 3 health. I'm not risking dying like this, so I use one of my 2 daily negative energy bursts, and kill it.

It's body has a cure moderate wounds potion on it. Which is useless to me with tomb tainted soul.

Hbgplayer
2014-12-09, 03:15 PM
In my group, I have the temperamental dice. Some nights they're rolling great, the average roll 15+, other times, I'm lucky if I get a four.
One time, while playing a Star Wars game, the party was off to raid an Imperial Base for weapons. The plan was to ambush a convoy while they flew through a canon (I can't remember why they went through rather than over), take control of the cargo-speeders and get into their uniforms, and sneak in and out of the base with no one being the wiser. My dice had other plans. It was one of those nights. To start off, I rolled a 5 on my pilot check for the speeder bike; with a skill base of +4. So of course, rather than gracefully sweeping in over the rim, my engine stalls, then back-fires, bucking me and my passengers off and onto the rear skiff (Well, two of the three of us made it anyway...). My partner proceeds to be shot by one of the troopers before I'm able to kill one (the only 10+ roll that evening). After I walk to the pilot and place a gun to his head, threatening to kill him if he doesn't cooperate, I fail a balance check, inadvertently blast him and set the skiff on fire. I hurriedly take the controls and actually stabilize the flight, though it is quickly descending due to the fire aboard.
While all this was going on, the rest of the party was doing fine, except for one group of NPC's who's speeder with 5 people was shot and was going down quickly. I, being the last in line, decided to try to save them. After several more Nat 1's, the last that was seen of that character, and 1/3 of the resistance group, was a silhouette of our bodies in a gigantic fireball.

IZ42
2014-12-10, 12:49 AM
Also, in a Delta Green game, we managed to have the Three Stooges of illegal government conspiracy.

PC1 is stuck in a pit trap and fails four climbing rolls in a row, once critically so he falls back on the spikes. PC2 tries climbing a tree to get a better vantage point, but drops his sniper rifle and damages it, then gets stuck up there when he fails his climbing roll to go get it. PC3 tries sneaking up to the window, but manages to trip and slam his head against the side of the metal trailer home.

It would've been funnier worse if P1 was pushed into the pit by P2 falling on him, then after PM climbs up the tree and drops the rifle, it lands on PM knocking him into the metal rail, causing him to fall backwards on P1, who had just made it up the side of the hole. That is 3 stooges right there.

Milodiah
2014-12-10, 04:58 AM
It would've been funnier worse if P1 was pushed into the pit by P2 falling on him, then after PM climbs up the tree and drops the rifle, it lands on PM knocking him into the metal rail, causing him to fall backwards on P1, who had just made it up the side of the hole. That is 3 stooges right there.

To be fair, there was a particularly ripe moment in this same scenario in which two of them attempted to squish a spider that was skittering all over the third's person.

You can imagine how that went.

IZ42
2014-12-12, 06:43 PM
To be fair, there was a particularly ripe moment in this same scenario in which two of them attempted to squish a spider that was skittering all over the third's person.

You can imagine how that went.

Hehehe... Anyways, donating my own share of screwy moments from my group.

Playing RHoD and fighting Karn in Brindol, our DM rolled count them... 8 natural twenties against us. FIVE of them were against a single player (Aasimar Oracle of Nature). One got rolled against me (Human MoMS HG VoP Monk) and you know how when you're low-level in skyrim and a giant hits you and sends you flying? That happened. On the bright side, the same DM has failed the saving throws for just about EVERY major boss that we've fought up to this point when hideous laughter was cast upon them.

arcane_asp
2014-12-15, 10:53 AM
Earlier this year, a group I was DM'ing was just getting into its stride when disaster struck.

Party had just cleared out a haunted mine, found the deed to the mine, and were going to a dwarf town to see about selling the property. Everyone was excited, planning big shopping sprees and wondering about the new plot thread they were following. I rolled a random encounter for them as they went through the mountains - seven orcs and an ogre show up in hot pursuit, the ranger spots them and they lay a trap.
The ranger & rogue hid behind a large boulder perched over a gorge, whilst the Invoker, Barbarian & warlord tucked themselves away in a bend in the path. They all passed their stealth checks, then when the unsuspecting ogre lead the orcs through the gorge, they tried to push the boulder down on him. Both tried, failed, blew their surprise round. They had high init, so went first anyways, both blew it again. The barb & warlord charged out to draw the orcs attention and the Invoker opened fire to distract attention away from the vulnerable rogue and ranger.
The front rank of orcs took minimal damage, then 3 out of 4 of them scored natural 20's! This devastated barb & warlord, then the ogre closed, drawing a AOO from the barbarian. He rolled a crit fail, then a 91 on our crit fail table, knocking himself out. The ogre just laughed, and put the barbarian down for good.
The rogue and ranger finally got their boulder moving, which landed on one of the orcs still in the target zone, rolled minimum damage. Trying to save it, the Invoker then proceeded to roll a natural 1, then rolled a 100 on our crit fail table, which was the worst result possible. He exploded with uncontrolled divine fire, charring himself to a corpse.
The orcs swarmed the lone warlord, who then proceeded to roll a critical fail and a 96 on the crit fail table - he stabbed his own leg with his sword, taking him to -4 hp, allowing the orcs to overrun him.
The ranger and rogue ran for it, but the rogue took an hail of orc arrows to the back, all of which maxed their damages. The rogue had nearly made it to the edge of the map and freedom, but turned to fire a last pistol crossbow bolt. Guess what, critical fail, then 99 on the crit fail table. He shot himself through the jaw.

Only the ranger lived to escape, and he formed the core of a new (more successful) party.

We have stopped using that crit fail table, we thought the really unlikely that people could roll a 1 on a d20 and then 90+ on a d100 but fate has proved otherwise. I might even have tried to fudge it in the PC's favour but our disbelief and laughter made it too hard...

braveheart
2014-12-15, 12:41 PM
I'm in a Pokémon campaign and for some inexplicable reason my Dratini's thunder wave is absolutely perfect, every time that it has been used the GM cannot roll a 5 or higher to break out of paralysis we so far every round the GM rolls 1-4 on the paralysis check. we have actually begun to use this fact in our planning of battles because it inexplicably continues. (note other Pokémon using thunder wave does not get the same result, it is just Dratini