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Bartmanhomer
2017-01-16, 11:17 PM
So many players believe the heart of the dice because they believe they could win with successful rolls such as a critical hit, maximum damage, and successful skill checks. But to tell you the cold hard truth. It's doesn't work that way in real RPG games. There's always bad luck when you're in a frustrating situation that is so hard to win. I don't believe in the Heart Of The Dice because it's all garbage. I believe in how the outcome of the dice which I think it's fair even if it's bad luck. I believe in fairness of the dice, not believe to have the outcome my way. So what your thoughts about this topic?

JAL_1138
2017-01-16, 11:26 PM
Injection-molded dice are typically not "fair" even in the absence of manufacturing flaws such as air-bubbles or warped faces. Rounded-corner pipped d6es are particularly unfair, their shape and weight distribution causing them to roll 1s more often than they should. Machined dice with pips or numbering filled with equal-density material (for equal weight distribution) are fair if manufactured to appropriate tolerances (e.g., casino dice, although casino dice are poorly-suited for rolling on a typical table for a variety of reasons, as they're designed to be thrown against the backstop of a craps table).

Questions of manufacture aside, dice are malevolent entities full of bile, anger, and hatred.

Maglubiyet
2017-01-16, 11:42 PM
The dice represent the capricious nature of the universe and sometimes it all works out okay.

At the very least, it works out the way it's supposed to.

Pauly
2017-01-16, 11:43 PM
Dice are like a penis. They have no memory or conscience.

Keltest
2017-01-16, 11:44 PM
Tempt not the wrath of the dice, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

GorinichSerpant
2017-01-17, 01:26 AM
Dice are like fairies, demons or hurricanes. One must be careful with any faith you out in them, for if you allow them what they want you may wake up one morning to find out that a 100 years have passed since your child has died of old age and your kidneys are gone or you stubbed your toe on a chair.

DaedalusMkV
2017-01-17, 02:28 AM
Dice are malevolent entities, endlessly seeking the ruination of your plans. Every effort must be made to keep them in line. Rerolls are an excellent tool, as is rolling large numbers of dice where no one die has much influence over events. Even still, they will eventually overcome your control and betray you. Under these circumstances, it is wise to make an example of one or more recalcitrant dice. Whether it be banishment to the garbage, crushing via stone or burning at the stake, punishment must be meted out regularly and with gusto lest the remaining dice get ideas about acting up themselves.

Talakeal
2017-01-17, 02:55 AM
Not only are dice evil, but they like to taunt you as well.

I was in a life or death fight tonight, and a crit could have swung the balance, and low, three times in a row did I roll a natural 20 on my attack roll only to follow it up with a 3 on the confirmation roll.

The dice killed me tonight, but not before getting my hopes up and dashing them against the rocks like the spiteful imps that they are.

Madbox
2017-01-17, 07:07 AM
I dunno. Once upon a time, I had one of those blocks of 36d6 made by Chessex. I played a wizard, and I usually rolled averageish for things requiring lots of d6es.

Fast forward 6 months, and it's my turn to DM. We have a newish player who is playing a wizard, who just leveled and got lightning bolt. I let him borrow my block 'o dice. He casts lightning bolt 3 times that session, and his lowest roll was 34 (8d6, average damage would be around 28). Due to the way the math works out, as you roll a greater number of dice the higher your odds are of rolling close to average, so this is mildly surprising. I know the dice aren't rigged, since they're my own. I tell him to keep the dice, joking that they clearly like him.

Fast forward another few months. We play once a week, and he is there almost every time. I have seen him roll below 30 for lightning bolt only two or three times. And that's his go-to combat spell, so he casts it a lot.

Another player at my table is hated by all d20s. His rolls are always low, and I roll crits against him so often that I have taken to rolling openly when attacking him, just to make sure no one thinks I'm picking on him and making stuff up. Furthermore, he gets critted on frequently by other GMs.

Sometimes, the dice have a will of their own.

Knaight
2017-01-17, 07:12 AM
I generally assume dice will be at least somewhat skewed. Usually this doesn't matter, but I have seen this interact with certain mechanics in less than ideal ways - exploding dice that can themselves explode get really fun when the probability of an explosion goes through the roof because the die is unbalanced. Are there some people who seem to be freakishly lucky? Sure. Do people also tend to have specific dice preferences? Also yes.

GungHo
2017-01-17, 10:25 AM
We do allow mulligans at the table for really bad rolls, but there's a limited number per night.


Injection-molded dice are typically not "fair" even in the absence of manufacturing flaws such as air-bubbles or warped faces. Rounded-corner pipped d6es are particularly unfair, their shape and weight distribution causing them to roll 1s more often than they should. Machined dice with pips or numbering filled with equal-density material (for equal weight distribution) are fair if manufactured to appropriate tolerances (e.g., casino dice, although casino dice are poorly-suited for rolling on a typical table for a variety of reasons, as they're designed to be thrown against the backstop of a craps table).

Questions of manufacture aside, dice are malevolent entities full of bile, anger, and hatred.

I think this has gone a different way than Bartmanhomer really intended, but since it went that way... Unless I am running a casino, I don't really care about the provenance of the dice. If someone wants to use trick dice, I probably won't notice. I could sit there and throw someone else's dice and do scatter plots and confidence intervals to figure out if I should reject my null hypothesis, but I'd rather stick the webby part of my hand between my thumb and index finger into an automatic stapler. If someone is shady, they'll reveal themselves another way, because cheaters just can't help themselves any more than that lady down the hall who is cooking the books knows not to start buying Louis Vuitton even though she's living paycheck to paycheck and in debt up to her eyeballs. And, if they are are smart and just fake the dice and nothing else, then good on them. They tricked ol' GungHo at a game of throw-em dice and their imaginary friend beat up my imaginary friend. Ooooooooohhhhh (/hand shakey emote)

Knaight
2017-01-17, 11:12 AM
I think this has gone a different way than Bartmanhomer really intended, but since it went that way... Unless I am running a casino, I don't really care about the provenance of the dice. If someone wants to use trick dice, I probably won't notice. I could sit there and throw someone else's dice and do scatter plots and confidence intervals to figure out if I should reject my null hypothesis, but I'd rather stick the webby part of my hand between my thumb and index finger into an automatic stapler. If someone is shady, they'll reveal themselves another way, because cheaters just can't help themselves any more than that lady down the hall who is cooking the books knows not to start buying Louis Vuitton even though she's living paycheck to paycheck and in debt up to her eyeballs.

While I do agree with all of this, I will say that the dice can still matter. I have a set of d6s that I'm beginning to suspect have at least one die heavily weighted towards 6. I was recently using them in a system with exploding d6 damage rolls, and as a result PCs were taking stupid amounts of damage every so often from triple or even quadruple sixes (which should be a lot rarer than they were). The system does have stuff to mitigate that, bu tit was still mildly irritating in a way that normal dice wouldn't have been.

Âmesang
2017-01-17, 11:24 AM
Dice are like refrigerators; they're about 6 ft. tall, weigh 300 lb… they… make ice?

HidesHisEyes
2017-01-18, 02:36 AM
My dice roll high for me and low for the players. The players have switched to dice-rolling apps now.

Elderand
2017-01-18, 04:18 AM
to peer into the infinite possibilities
to face the endless clarion of chances
in a frenetic ballet of steel in endless dances
to endure, courageous capricious hostilities

such is the fate of all those who play
lady fortune tugs at their heart's strings
the bitter axe of the pale fey
or the inflamed breath of the bane of kings

a slip, a roll a muted gasp for the one that cannot be recast
a frantic search for the unfettered dice
Not one, not thrice but then times twice
A natural twenty you rolled at last.

Bartmanhomer
2017-01-18, 08:38 AM
I think everyone is misunderstood what I'm trying to say. I'm talking about everybody believes to get the maximum roll from the dice which is high luck. But in my opinion dices doesn't go the way people wanted to get the maximum roll.

Jay R
2017-01-18, 09:09 AM
Dice are manufactured to produce random numbers. Games use them to produce random numbers. People roll them for the purpose of generating random numbers. That’s the only function they have.

That’s why there is so much interest in treating them like they aren’t random.

JAL_1138
2017-01-18, 10:30 AM
I think everyone is misunderstood what I'm trying to say. I'm talking about everybody believes to get the maximum roll from the dice which is high luck. But in my opinion dices doesn't go the way people wanted to get the maximum roll.

I'm sort of agreeing with you in a roundabout way. What I was getting at in my earlier post was that the main factor influencing die rolls away from true randomness is manufacture (which can bias the die), not luck. One other factor I didn't mention is rolling technique (it's possible to roll in such a way that certain numbers are more likely, for instance not giving the die a proper shake or throwing the die so that it skids rather than tumbles). That's pretty well it. They're inanimate pieces of plastic. Belief or luck don't enter into it, which I think was your point.

The bit about the dice being actively-malevolent entities was a bit of hypocritical humor--stating that not only do dice not go the way people want them to, they deliberately frustrate you, giving you low rolls when you need to roll high, high rolls when you need to roll low, etc. This isn't the case either in reality, of course--unless a die is biased because of shape or weight-distribution, or the rolling technique doesn't properly randomize the die, they're going to be random.

Bartmanhomer
2017-01-18, 03:34 PM
I'm sort of agreeing with you in a roundabout way. What I was getting at in my earlier post was that the main factor influencing die rolls away from true randomness is manufacture (which can bias the die), not luck. One other factor I didn't mention is rolling technique (it's possible to roll in such a way that certain numbers are more likely, for instance not giving the die a proper shake or throwing the die so that it skids rather than tumbles). That's pretty well it. They're inanimate pieces of plastic. Belief or luck don't enter into it, which I think was your point.

The bit about the dice being actively-malevolent entities was a bit of hypocritical humor--stating that not only do dice not go the way people want them to, they deliberately frustrate you, giving you low rolls when you need to roll high, high rolls when you need to roll low, etc. This isn't the case either in reality, of course--unless a die is biased because of shape or weight-distribution, or the rolling technique doesn't properly randomize the die, they're going to be random.

What about dice rollers like the one we have in this forum? What's your thoughts about that?

icefractal
2017-01-18, 04:38 PM
I've sometimes seen something referred to as having player skill / needing more player skill ... when it comes down to a die roll! The only way skill is involved in a die roll is if you're cheating. :smalltongue:


I think everyone is misunderstood what I'm trying to say. I'm talking about everybody believes to get the maximum roll from the dice which is high luck. But in my opinion dices doesn't go the way people wanted to get the maximum roll. I think people do overestimate the odds of a max roll sometimes, and/or get more impressed by a large number of dice than is warranted. Like if you have two characters, one does 1d10+65, the other does 20d6 - the first is very slightly better. But people will often assume the second is better, to the point of calling it broken, and then point to "up to 120 damage!" as a reason. That's a 1 in 3 quadrillion chance - go buy a lottery ticket if you think you're that lucky!

JAL_1138
2017-01-18, 07:51 PM
What about dice rollers like the one we have in this forum? What's your thoughts about that?

Dice-rolling programs typically use algorithms to generate pseudorandom numbers. They can be pretty good or pretty dodgy depending on how they're programmed. I don't generally trust them as a result. I'll reluctantly use the ones built into a VTT if playing online, but I don't like dice apps at the table unless someone needs them due to some impairment. (In addition to questions about how good the algorithm being used to generate the numbers is, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that are intentionally biased to roll higher averages, for that matter.) The only computer-RNG I know of that I do fully trust is random.org, which uses atmospheric noise data to generate true random numbers instead of using an algorithm, but unfortunately it's not set up for TTRPG use.

Blackhawk748
2017-01-18, 08:33 PM
Dice are malevolent entities, endlessly seeking the ruination of your plans. Every effort must be made to keep them in line. Rerolls are an excellent tool, as is rolling large numbers of dice where no one die has much influence over events. Even still, they will eventually overcome your control and betray you. Under these circumstances, it is wise to make an example of one or more recalcitrant dice. Whether it be banishment to the garbage, crushing via stone or burning at the stake, punishment must be meted out regularly and with gusto lest the remaining dice get ideas about acting up themselves.

This is why my brick of dice wound up in the gulag (aka my freezer) for a month.

iceman10058
2017-01-18, 08:43 PM
You must make regular virgin sacrifices to the dice gods. Only scientificly proven way to get consistant good rolls.

Cluedrew
2017-01-18, 10:42 PM
(In addition to questions about how good the algorithm being used to generate the numbers is, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that are intentionally biased to roll higher averages, for that matter.)I have heard that some programs will bias the results so that similar outcomes are less likely to appear near each other. So if got a 6 on a d6, you are more likely to get a low number. This is to make it appear random... but ultimately is less random than before.

Anyways, I don't really follow much about luck or the other things in dice. I spend too much time calculating odds I guess. But there was a time where... luck seemed to become a thing for me... a very bad thing. For 2-3 months I had terrible luck on any die roll I made, and this is playing weekly dice games and similar, so I was doing a lot of dice rolling. I counted sometimes, in particular I seemed to have real trouble rolling 4+ on 2d6, and once I totalled them up it turned out I was getting about half of them... 11/12 odds in my favour by the way.

I try not to think that the game that seemed contain the last of it ended with me one-shotting the pope-analog with an 18 on 3d6... but after that I seemed to have average luck there after.

"[Cluedrew] Luck" was a thing in my group for years because of that". In fact after I moved away and then came back for a visit someone was rolling a bunch of dice and getting all sorts of misses, "Could you stand further away?" I did, "There we go." I don't know what the dice actually said but apparently it made a difference.

Jay R
2017-01-18, 10:47 PM
The purpose of dice is to give an unpredictable result. You bought them specifically so you would have no control over the result. The game uses them precisely to give you no control over the result. That’s why there is so much effort spent trying to control the result.

Having said that, here’s my take on why your dice hate you.

Dice are pedantic mathematicians, and if you want to them to treat you well, then treat them well.

1. One die; two dice. Never anger them by referring to a singular dice or plural die.

2. Proper dice have opposite sides that add up to n+1. If the opposites sides of your die don’t add up to the same number, then they are not proper dice, and cannot be trusted. Wrap them up in fancy paper and give them to some kid you don’t like.

3. It’s not a twelve-sider, it’s a dodecahedron. Once you’ve made friends with it, you may get less formal and call it a d12. But it’s still not a twelve-sider.

4. Use correct plurals. They are not polyhedrons (tetrahedrons, octahedrons, etc.); they are polyhedra (tetrahedra, octahedra, etc.) How can you expect them to give you high numbers if they know you can’t handle numbers larger than one?

5. Don’t mix dice from different manufacturers. If you put Koplow dice and Gamescience dice in the same bag, the Koplow dice get envious and the Gamescience dice get insulted. They can tell the difference.

6. The five basic dice (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron) are Platonic solids, or regular polyhedra. Many dice out are Catalan solids (the d24, d30). Any die whose faces all meet at two unique points (d10, d16), whose faces aren’t all the same shape (d5, d7) or which isn’t a polyhedron (d100, d3), should be kept in a separate bag. The Platonic and Catalan solids know that these upstarts aren’t “real” dice.

Finally, use the right die. I once had a player upset that he was rolling low numbers. I eventually noticed that he was rolling attack rolls with a d12.

GungHo
2017-01-19, 09:35 AM
I think everyone is misunderstood what I'm trying to say. I'm talking about everybody believes to get the maximum roll from the dice which is high luck. But in my opinion dices doesn't go the way people wanted to get the maximum roll.

Like dice, threads, once thrown out onto the table, also don't often go the way you want.

:smallbiggrin:


Dice-rolling programs typically use algorithms to generate pseudorandom numbers. They can be pretty good or pretty dodgy depending on how they're programmed. I don't generally trust them as a result. I'll reluctantly use the ones built into a VTT if playing online, but I don't like dice apps at the table unless someone needs them due to some impairment. (In addition to questions about how good the algorithm being used to generate the numbers is, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that are intentionally biased to roll higher averages, for that matter.) The only computer-RNG I know of that I do fully trust is random.org, which uses atmospheric noise data to generate true random numbers instead of using an algorithm, but unfortunately it's not set up for TTRPG use.
Unfortunately the people who are making cheap gaming oriented dice rolling programs aren't really computer scientists or cryptographers, and if you ask them about Monte Carlo simulations they think you're complaining about a NASCAR game.

The Insanity
2017-01-19, 01:01 PM
I don't see the point you are trying to make. You don't believe in luck. Some people do. Deal with it, I guess.

Jan Mattys
2017-01-19, 01:07 PM
Dice-rolling programs typically use algorithms to generate pseudorandom numbers. They can be pretty good or pretty dodgy depending on how they're programmed. I don't generally trust them as a result. I'll reluctantly use the ones built into a VTT if playing online, but I don't like dice apps at the table unless someone needs them due to some impairment. (In addition to questions about how good the algorithm being used to generate the numbers is, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that are intentionally biased to roll higher averages, for that matter.) The only computer-RNG I know of that I do fully trust is random.org, which uses atmospheric noise data to generate true random numbers instead of using an algorithm, but unfortunately it's not set up for TTRPG use.

Fun fact: there's a very high probability that even the worst "random dice" algorithm you can find is about a bajillion times "more random" than the actual, physical dice you use at the table. :smallwink:

Knaight
2017-01-19, 01:57 PM
Fun fact: there's a very high probability that even the worst "random dice" algorithm you can find is about a bajillion times "more random" than the actual, physical dice you use at the table. :smallwink:

Especially if you use anything but Gamescience dice (or any number of other options for d6 specifically).

JAL_1138
2017-01-19, 02:49 PM
Fun fact: there's a very high probability that even the worst "random dice" algorithm you can find is about a bajillion times "more random" than the actual, physical dice you use at the table. :smallwink:

Not necessarily. Pseudorandom algorithms produce bizarre results depending on how they're programmed—as Cluedrew mentioned, some may bias the results so that similar numbers don't appear in sequence. They may average the same as true randomness would, but don't behave randomly. Others may be flat-out poorly-programmed, as GungHo mentioned, and produce either biased results or very predictable results. And still others are quite good, producing a great semblance of true randomness (despite being based on a theoretically-predictable program).

Most injection-molded dice—which includes Gamescience—have slight biases over a significant number of rolls. You might notice them over, say, a handful of rolls over few thousand, absent a major manufacturing flaw like an air-bubble or a warped face. Or poor design, like rounded-corner pipped D6es. Even Gamescience D20s will roll significantly fewer 14s than they ought to unless the sprue-mark is sanded down flat (very carefully, so as not to damage the edge!). But even with those slight biases that throw the average off, they can sill behave in a more random fashion roll-to-roll than a poorly-programmed dice app that averages better but produces predictable results or tweaks the outcomes to keep the same number from repeating too many times, or causes the same number to repeat several times to ensure its average over a set number of rolls comes out a certain way.

If someone made a dice app powered by the same or similar random-number-generation method as random.org—not using an algorithm—I'd endorse its use wholeheartedly. Until then, I can't police the app being used to know if its RNG is decent or crap.

Knaight
2017-01-19, 03:31 PM
Not necessarily. Pseudorandom algorithms produce bizarre results depending on how they're programmed—as Cluedrew mentioned, some may bias the results so that similar numbers don't appear in sequence. They may average the same as true randomness would, but don't behave randomly. Others may be flat-out poorly-programmed, as GungHo mentioned, and produce either biased results or very predictable results. And still others are quite good, producing a great semblance of true randomness (despite being based on a theoretically-predictable program).
This is relatively uncommon - there are generators in videogames that do this very deliberately, but dice emulators usually just use whatever the underlying programming language has as a rand() equivalent. Those generally appear random to normal use.


Most injection-molded dice—which includes Gamescience—have slight biases over a significant number of rolls. You might notice them over, say, a handful of rolls over few thousand, absent a major manufacturing flaw like an air-bubble or a warped face. Or poor design, like rounded-corner pipped D6es. Even Gamescience D20s will roll significantly fewer 14s than they ought to unless the sprue-mark is sanded down flat (very carefully, so as not to damage the edge!).

Most of the dice - not including Gamescience - then spend some time in a rock tumbler to smooth them out and round their edges. That's where the distribution starts getting really skewed.

Segev
2017-01-19, 03:55 PM
If you REALLY want to change it, you could make yourself some index cards that have the numbers on them. Then the randomness is up to how well you can shuffle.



What does interest me is that people seem to have fewer rituals and superstitions surrounding rolling aps and other pseudorandom number generators. With dice, I've seen people who have elaborate punishment rituals for "bad rolling," people with superstitions about others touching their dice, and a few others. I, myself, tend to roll pairs of (easily distinguished) dice and call which one is "real" in order to "trick" the dice. (Really, I think it just helps make sure I'm not accidentally picking it up and dropping it in a way that biases the roll.) I'll also switch dice if one seems to be rolling too poorly on a given evening. I know better, but it makes me feel better.

Dr paradox
2017-01-19, 04:23 PM
I've got two players at my table who, for seven years, have been two sides of this coin. One of them seems so preposterously lucky that he'll go a whole night without rolling lower than a thirteen, and the other will flub every roll that he makes, especially if it's important. Apparently there's a superstition that unlucky dice should be soaked in vinegar, but most of us didn't know this, so we were a little confused when he rolled a one, then called out to the heavens,

"Somebody soak ME in vinegar!"

I know, I know, statistically speaking, flaws in injection molding, confirmation bias, but it's too funny a dichotomy not to buy into after gaming together this long.

JAL_1138
2017-01-19, 05:25 PM
This is relatively uncommon - there are generators in videogames that do this very deliberately, but dice emulators usually just use whatever the underlying programming language has as a rand() equivalent. Those generally appear random to normal use.



Most of the dice - not including Gamescience - then spend some time in a rock tumbler to smooth them out and round their edges. That's where the distribution starts getting really skewed.

The rock-tumbler apparently doesn't have as much significance as Gamescience's marketing suggests. Some tests by 1000d4 showed several dice brands to have consistency close to Gamesciences, but results variations that weren't explicable by a consistency problem but rather by a problem with overall shape, e.g. flawed molds. The rock-tumbling (which is a means of inking the numbers, mostly) can certainly have an impact if a die gets stuck in one position in the tumbler, of course, but from their tests seemed to have a minimal effect in most cases compared to the molds used. Other issues like air-bubbles would also have a more noticeable effect in most cases.

Kane0
2017-01-19, 06:43 PM
I've only had one Dice Rebellion since I started placing misbehaving dice in the microwave while the others watch.

JAL_1138
2017-01-19, 07:33 PM
I should also point out that I am a complete and utter hypocrite. Dice superstitions are utter bupkis...but that doesn't stop me from constantly switching out dice that roll low, or setting them 20-side up (or 1-side up for skill-roll dice in AD&D), keeping them separated by brand, blowing on them before a roll, and all that jazz.

Keltest
2017-01-19, 08:41 PM
See, I treat my dice well. I let them go out to parties, stay up late, the works, and they do their jobs well. Too well sometimes, because its rare that I will get any particularly lucky or unlucky streaks, and those are the best parts of the game.

Mith
2017-01-20, 09:03 AM
My perspective on switching out dice is that I have not run tests to see if my dice have any bias, so switching dice every so ofyen gives me a different bias to work with. And it's pretty random when I switch, and for which dice, so that breaks up trends even more.

Psyren
2017-01-20, 10:05 AM
What about physics-based dice apps? One of my favorites is the D&D Diceshaker on Android. Rather than being a (pseudo)random number generator, it simulates real dice by having you tilt and shake your phone, and you get the satisfaction of rolling that bucket of d6 if you want without any of the mess or imperfections.

snowblizz
2017-01-20, 10:58 AM
What about physics-based dice apps?

Real dice or no dice!:smallbiggrin:

I've never laughed so hard* as when I watched an advert from one of those super serious ppl selling precision dice to RPGers with the claim that "you character need not die in vain". I mean seriously, isn't this exactly why we have GMs, well from an idealistic view at least. Fudge a few dice here and there if necessry for a good experience.


* well, figuratively speaking, it's not objectively speaking the most fun I've had

And at least regular dice are expendable, imagine throwing that dice app in the floor when you have sucky luck.

Segev
2017-01-20, 12:31 PM
What about physics-based dice apps? One of my favorites is the D&D Diceshaker on Android. Rather than being a (pseudo)random number generator, it simulates real dice by having you tilt and shake your phone, and you get the satisfaction of rolling that bucket of d6 if you want without any of the mess or imperfections.

One thing that I like about Tabletop Simulator is that it handles die rolls with its physics engine. Admittedly, there's a touch of pseudorandom number generation as you "shake" it to determine initial orientation as it's released, but the physics contributes a lot more to the final result.

Esprit15
2017-01-20, 12:36 PM
See, I treat my dice well. I let them go out to parties, stay up late, the works, and they do their jobs well. Too well sometimes, because its rare that I will get any particularly lucky or unlucky streaks, and those are the best parts of the game.

My superstition is more that the dice have preferences that must be figured out. One die likes skill rolls, another saves, etc. One only performs during critical fights.

As for computer dice rollers, I simply try to keep my mind blank when rolling. The amount of times I have thought "Don't be a 1" and got a 1 is rather uncanny.

snowblizz
2017-01-20, 01:37 PM
The amount of times I have thought "Don't be a 1" and got a 1 is rather uncanny.

Tsch! Rookie mistake!

Âmesang
2017-01-22, 11:52 AM
I picked up some GameScience dice last year for both a feeling of accuracy/randomness/whathaveyou and because I wanted a set of dice that would be easy to read even from far away (white numbers against a black face).

Except for d6s. For those I use a set of "Oogie Boogie" dice I got from a Nightmare Before Christmas Yahtzee set. :smallbiggrin:

Talakeal
2017-01-22, 01:19 PM
I picked up some GameScience dice last year for both a feeling of accuracy/randomness/whathaveyou and because I wanted a set of dice that would be easy to read even from far away (white numbers against a black face).

Except for d6s. For those I use a set of "Oogie Boogie" dice I got from a Nightmare Before Christmas Yahtzee set. :smallbiggrin:

The problem with the game science dice is that the paint they use on them wipes away super fast, and they go from being easy to read to impossible to read within a handful of sessions.

JAL_1138
2017-01-22, 02:22 PM
The problem with the game science dice is that the paint they use on them wipes away super fast, and they go from being easy to read to impossible to read within a handful of sessions.

Order them blank and fill them in with a grease-pencil or crayon. Grease-pencil (a.k.a. china marker, wax pencil, etc) is generally better than crayon, as it's softer and less prone to crumbling out over time. Takes a while, but is very readable--moreso than paint IMO, because the number will be flush with the die face and the outline will be sharper--and is relatively durable, if done right, but will need to be touched up every now and again.

Âmesang
2017-01-22, 06:22 PM
Well I was cheap and, being that these were black dice, I filled in the numbers with an overabundance of liquid paper/white out.

…I actually made a thread awhile back explaining how I "cleaned off" the dice using an acetone-soaked cotton swab; physically the dice are still fine, just discolored a bit (honestly I think I did more damage to my d% using a nail file and sand paper, my first strategy), and while they may not be perfectly black anymore they're still dark enough to contrast against the whiteness of the liquid paper, allowing them to still be read from afar.