I think one of our player has a weighted die

[Akisa]

So we're in session and someone in our group kept rolling 1s, 5 ones in a roll. We than joked that he should reverse his roll and he rolls 10 on d10, and than rolls 1 next roll on official roll. We started to joke the player had a weighted die and he did it wrong.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Bad luck happens. Then again, so do bad dice, especially if you get a bunch of surplus dice by buying a pound-o-dice or something. There are a couple ways to check, if you're really curious.

[Fizban]

There's also poor rolling habits: picking up the die/dice and then throwing them back down from a short distance without bouncing them around (or only jiggling them in a mostly closed hand) can often result in a string of similar rolls, creating suspiciously strong characters or a very "luck" slanted combat. Using a dice cup for a proper tumble will mitigate that. As for checking the dice, If I was gaming I'd probably give mine a check since there are some I've always been a little suspicious of. I think it'd be a fun activity: after playing for however long and getting everyone's dice superstitions locked in, test all the dice and see if they're true.

[Tohsaka Rin]

There's also poor rolling habits.

This happens more than people think. I had to institute a rule to apply to the table because of this, because we all did it so often without paying attention.

"A die must turn three faces to count as a proper roll."

You wouldn't believe how many times a die was dropped, or slid across the bare table, landing on the same face as it was picked up upon. I will say, a cloth placemat does wonders for motivating dice to turn sides in a hurry.

[xyamius]

My group has a few bad rollers and one or two with bad luck some days amazing the next with the same dice. General rules to go by is if doesn't roll and just slides or drops it doesn't count. The other is if you hit the damn mini's during combat -1000xp. So roll responsibly also. I have mine set up sometimes to throw against a book wall that way they roll hit and bounce back.

For stat rolls we all sometimes roll for everyone else once and pass the sheet around so you can pick a good stat block since sometimes you get people who are on fire during creation and other times you get crap luck.

[Celestia]

My dice are weird. The d6s are always great, and I can count on them to give awesome rolls. I swear the d20s are out to get me, though.

[Guizonde]

Bad luck happens. Then again, so do bad dice, especially if you get a bunch of surplus dice by buying a pound-o-dice or something. There are a couple ways to check, if you're really curious.

mind sharing? i have one d20 that is visibly cooked (left the thing in a metal box out in full sunlight), and that thing either rolls 18's or 2's. i never use it. but i've another set of dice that are jinxed. even "lucky" players can't roll well with them, but they don't look deformed or unbalanced. a friend has got horrible luck, and i'm starting to wonder if his dice aren't out to kill him (he once found his d4 by putting on his shoe). i'd like to rule reality out of the picture before admitting he's got killer dice.

[The Vagabond]

mind sharing? i have one d20 that is visibly cooked (left the thing in a metal box out in full sunlight), and that thing either rolls 18's or 2's. i never use it. but i've another set of dice that are jinxed. even "lucky" players can't roll well with them, but they don't look deformed or unbalanced. a friend has got horrible luck, and i'm starting to wonder if his dice aren't out to kill him (he once found his d4 by putting on his shoe). i'd like to rule reality out of the picture before admitting he's got killer dice.
Make a glass of salt water, roll your die into the salt water a couple of times, you'll see if it always lands on one item if it's unbalanced.

[Spore]

I don't think most dice are "casino grade" so the material always has slight imbalances. One of these dice has ruined a whole character for me. It just rolled a 6 or 7 constantly on a d20.

[gkathellar]

My dice are weird. The d6s are always great, and I can count on them to give awesome rolls. I swear the d20s are out to get me, though.

A d6 that has rounded edges and/or domino-style "pips" instead of numbers will see very uneven rolls. The pips guarantee uneven weight distribution, and the rounded edges guarantee that the dice will be able to roll into that uneven weight.

So long as the faces on a die are scattered (as in, no 19 and 18 next to each other), additional faces tend to result in greater randomness. As a result, d20s are pretty random, and while brand or manufacture can cause issues, they tend to be limited to "this half of the die makes up 2/3 of rolls," which is not as bad as you might think.

[the_david]

Make a glass of salt water, roll your die into the salt water a couple of times, you'll see if it always lands on one item if it's unbalanced.

Like this. (https://youtu.be/tSPJXPkVvGI)

[Venger]

buy some gamescience dice for everyone to use. it doesn't sound like your player is cheating on purpose since he's getting such poor rolls.

[ExLibrisMortis]

If you have a die roller app with some way to display the results to the whole table (even just a tablet with a large font size will do), you can do away with physical die problems. I wouldn't use phone screens, though, too small and easily concealed--someone might get the wrong idea.

[Venger]

If you have a die roller app with some way to display the results to the whole table (even just a tablet with a large font size will do), you can do away with physical die problems. I wouldn't use phone screens, though, too small and easily concealed--someone might get the wrong idea.

make sure you test them out first. not all online die rollers are equitable.

[gkathellar]

buy some gamescience dice for everyone to use. it doesn't sound like your player is cheating on purpose since he's getting such poor rolls.

The only exhaustive tests I've seen suggest that gamescience dice are only marginally more random than other brands, if at all. The Gamescience brand makes a big deal out of sharp edges and such, but it's just marketing. It doesn't really matter to the main issue with d20s (clustering around a few numbers on opposite sides of the dice), which is itself a pretty small issue.

[ClericalTank]

If anything, my rounded d20's tend to like me more often than the sharper ones, but this one time I remember: I was rolling initiative on a new sharper die, just to test it out; I rolled seven or eight times, and none of them were lower than an 18.

Never got it to do that again.

As for rolling dice on the forum...It really depends. My superstition is when you unceremoniously roll the dice (just the roll tag and nearly nothing else other than what the roll is)...they are TERRIBLE. But when I want to roll just to see how well I'm singing? Nat 20. When I act like my next HD will be life or death? Near max. When I pull out my trusty wand of Cure Light Wounds to top everyone off after a well fought battle? Nat 1. When a dire boar is threatening to kill the venerable sorcerer? Max damage.

My ONLY problem ever...is with the d8. As a person whose go-to class is the cleric...this will always be why I trade my spontaneous healing spells for spontaneous fly, or fire shield, or even expeditious retreat; it's because I can never roll a d8 to save a life.

[Amphetryon]

A die tower is another option for eliminating poor rolling habits. Just make sure the tower actually tumbles the dice.

[TerrickTerran]

I remember one year at Gen Con.....rolled at one point four straight 1s on 3 different die........then later my last roll (which finished the game) was a natural 20......just one of those games.

[ayvango]

So we're in session and someone in our group kept rolling 1s, 5 ones in a roll. We than joked that he should reverse his roll and he rolls 10 on d10, and than rolls 1 next roll on official roll. We started to joke the player had a weighted die and he did it wrong.
I had experienced similar encounter once. With online dice roller :)

[Akisa]

make sure you test them out first. not all online die rollers are equitable.

I'm not accusing of anyone, I'm just poking fun of what happened in game.