Dice superstitions in the Playground

[Badgercloak]

Sometime ago I read a Wizards of the coast article on dice superstitions, those outragious things people do with and to their dice.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060609a

Today I thought lets see what sort of superstitions are in the Playground.

Before each game I give my dice a "warm up" by rolling them till each has hit its highest number atleast twice. This is acompanied by congratulating the high rollers and admoniting the lows.

[Joran]

If the DM is rolling high, we steal his die and substitute it with the player's die who is rolling low.

I'm pretty tame, I have 3-4 dice and just rotate around if I'm particularly displeased with a result. I'll do a couple test rolls and then choose a die.

[Flickerdart]

The dice roller bot in the IRC channel is named "The_TPK", and it doesn't disappoint. We don't have any rituals to make it stop, though we probably should.

[evisiron]

Me: "Sure, you can borrow some of my dice, which would you like?"
P1: "Uh, the white ones."
Me: "Are you sure? They are... cursed"
P!: "Ha, funny" *Scoops dice*

*17 failed attacks and 1 character death later*

P1: "These dice are cursed!"

[The Dark Fiddler]

Read Darths and Droids?

I can't do it, but I'd love to do the pre-rolling the ones out presented there.

[The Rose Dragon]

If a dice rolls 1 twice in a row, I save it for special occasions. Obviously it can't roll a 1 the next time due to the extremely low probability.

Also, if a dice rolls 10 twice in a row, it's out of the game, and should be saved until it can roll 1 twice in a row (obviously out-of-game).

[Bigbrother87]

I consciously refuse to give the die any credit, and believe in chance being stronger than individual dice.

That being said, sometimes when I'm bored at the table, I stack the die into a tower, wait for someone to bump the table and make them fall, and then see what I got.

[Zincorium]

Gambler's fallacy- it has *exactly* the same probability of rolling a one mathematically.

But in real world terms, if you throw it the same way onto the same surface that it rolled previously on, it'll have a higher chance, because evidently your manner of casting the die and the manner it lands produce 1's. The humor was supposed to be in the silliness of it.


Personally, I don't roll dice I don't find aesthetically pleasing. I feel they would sense my dislike by the way I hold them and seek to punish me. I also will occasionally roll some blank dice I ended up with when I'm a DM.

"Hey uh, what are you rolling back there?"
"Frankly, I have no idea."

[shadow_archmagi]

But in real world terms, if you throw it the same way onto the same surface that it rolled previously on, it'll have a higher chance, because evidently your manner of casting the die and the manner it lands produce 1's.

I thought that was the point of the massive process of "pre-rolling" the 1's that was outlined in Darths and Droids. To find dice that have freakishly high probabilities of getting 1's and then give them to friends for important rolls.

[Ichneumon]

I am sorry, but I can't tell you want I think about my dice or else they will punish me by rolling bad.

[Melamoto]

To a certain extent, lucky and cursed dice won't stay like that forever. It works on an incredibly small scale, but the more you throw the dice and it keeps landing on a certain number area, the more worn away the edges on the bottom will become, making it a more rounded side. This makes it less likely to land on that side, so whichever side it normally lands on will switch to the opposite side of the dice. Although this happens on such a minuscule level I can't really see it having a proper effect on dice results.

[kemmotar]

Actually, after a particular session I never bought dice again...the dice I own always get cursed....when I started I bought some really nice white dice that were slightly reflective...

The very first roll I ever made was a double 1 and then I saved from killing myself in the first attack of my first game ever...I should have thrown them away that day...

Instead I continued playing and one day I got fed up with all the ones and misses and failed saves i kept piling up (my only critical with that d20 was against a poor goblin in a random encounter...I killed it instantly...but it was pointless) and so passed them behind the DM screen while he was getting pizza and took his...

From that point on in that session he almost never hit us or made a save...it was only at the end of the session the DM realised what had happened when I asked for my dice back

No one touched them ever again...

[MCerberus]

My blue and clear d20s are cursed to the point where my players have dubbed them "The eyes of satan" and have statted out a magic item to reproduce the effects it usually has.

My d10's usually don't act up until I roll a random encounter. Always the most situationally inappropriate.

[Ent]

I must roll "on a book". Usually the PHB or equivalent.

[evisiron]

Oh yeah, I am a character-gets-their-own-dice kind of player. At a Con, I got some red dice to use with my upcoming fire based sorcerer. I joined a game though that was low on dice, so I used my new ones.

A 3 hour combat intensive session against generally low AC monsters, and through it I got 1 successful hit.

I actually missed more than anyone, since in the system when you missed shooting into combat, you rolled to hit your ally against their AC. I missed both rolls every time bar that single attack. The amount of almost friendly fire worried many a player.

[The Rose Dragon]

Gambler's fallacy- it has *exactly* the same probability of rolling a one mathematically.

Which part of "superstition" eluded you again?

[valadil]

I don't believe superstition affects my dice, but I have a few rituals I go through because I get bored when it's not my turn.

At the start of game I roll all my dice and sort them in descending order. I start with the dice that rolled high. When one of them rolls low it goes to the back of the line and I use the next best die instead. If a die fails me repeatedly or on important rolls it goes back in the bag.

I'm often the player who rolls nothing but 2s. The exception to this is if I lend someone else a bag of dice. The moocher will get my bad luck while my dice make up for all their bad rolls. This has worked reliably for the last 6 months or so and I've stopped encouraging the new guy from buying his own dice.

The best superstition I've heard is about training your dice. A friend of a friend punishes his bad dice. When a die fails him repeatedly he lines up all the other dice to watch as the failure die is microwaved into a steaming pile of fluid. Apparently his other dice behave very, very well.

[Asheram]

I don't really have any rituals over my dice...
But whenever I roll low, I change the die to another and bless the dicecup.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

If the DM grabs a player's die to make a roll, that die recieves "bad DM ju-ju" and must be cleansed. This used to consist of rolling the bad luck out of it by passing it to each player in order until each of rolls over about a 12, but, as of last night, we may have a new tradition.

Which, strange as it may seem, consists of our one female players spontaneously grabbing the die in question and dropping it down...well...a rather chesty area. Her claim was that (and I quote) "Boobs make everything better."

That said, I did roll exceptionally well the rest of the night...

[Zincorium]

Which part of "superstition" eluded you again?

Er, not one whit of it?

I was *Identifying* the particular type of superstition, in an 'oh, I know that one!' sort of way.

If it really irks you, I can stop.

[Lord Loss]

My accursed ''DM D20'' never fails to dissapoint. My DM d20 always ends up rolling against the PCs. If a player forgets his die, I lend him this die, and he has a hideous evening rolling LOW. If I roll it, it gets whatever helps the enemies of the PCs. The Kobolds about to get speared? Natural 20!

I have a long list of rituals to cleanse bad dies (out of bordeom, not superstition). A most famous day was the time I threw my Sapphire Blue D20 off the balcony into myu pool when my Final Boss failed his save on hold person wth a natural 1...

[The Dark Fiddler]

Which, strange as it may seem, consists of our one female players spontaneously grabbing the die in question and dropping it down...well...a rather chesty area. Her claim was that (and I quote) "Boobs make everything better."

That said, I did roll exceptionally well the rest of the night...

This is hilarious, I cannot stop laughing at it.

That said, I may adopt you PREVIOUS method of cleansing the dice.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I have several sets of dice, all varying shades of blue and green. The aquamarine d20 has never rolled any result but 1, 2, 19, or 20 for me while playing. I kid you not; I've rolled this thing a bunch of times, and though my players can borrow it and get the full spectrum of results, and I can roll it randomly a bunch of times and get other results, every time I actually use it for an in-game roll it gets one of those 4 results. It's gotten to the point where any time a player says "You know what would be cool...?" I roll that die for it, figuring that doing anything but succeeding spectacularly or failing spectacularly wouldn't do his crazy idea justice.

I won a set of those dark blue "deluxe" dice in a design contest on the WotC forums, and they seem to have the opposite problem--once again, out of game any old result comes up, but while we're actually playing none of them will roll the minimum or maximum result, whether my players are rolling or I'm rolling. These are my "fudge" dice--if I know that maximum damage will kill a player or above-minimum damage will kill a monster and a lower result wouldn't, I use these dice (though I must admit, I only used them for the former once, and only because I had misread a monster ability; I generally use them while playing so I have the best kill ratio in the party ).

[Asheram]

Oh, by the way, I just remembered something about my dice. They do hate being rolled onto a hard surface.
A friend were borrowing my dice and complaining about the low rolls. I asked her to roll them onto a notebook, and the average went from about 5 to 12.
Be kind to your dice, and punish those who doesn't roll well, then they'll behave properly.

And by the way there are three gods that every gamer should worship: The Lady, Murphy and Fate.

[-Cor-]

Nope... no real superstitions... or dice rituals.

I use whatever dice are handy behind my DM screen at the moment for what I need right then. Sometimes I have off nights... sometimes I can't roll under a 16 to save my player's lives....

That said, we used to "Woogie" the dice at a friend's house whenever we let them make a decision for us (like where to eat, what game to play next, etc...) Woogie-ing meant pointing at and chanting in some way at the dice while they were being rolled. If you Woogied, you had to obey the dice or the Gods of Chance would punish you.

[Magicus]

Whenever my dice are rolling poorly, I try to Turn them like a bunch of undead, using whichever die has been rolling well as my holy symbol. It gets out the evil spirits infesting them, you see. Strangely, though, it only seems to work when I'm not the DM...
My Turning abilities also work on traffic lights, but that's a different matter.

[shadzar]

Never loan your dice to anyone else.

Never roll a dice until you need to roll it.

[AstralFire]

I uh...

I...

I don't really pay attention to how it does on average?

[Ograbme]

When rolling on an uneven surface, like a battlemat, and the dice tries to climb a hill but can't quite make it, it will ALWAYS roll backwards onto a lower number. No exceptions.

[Haven]

Which, strange as it may seem, consists of our one female players spontaneously grabbing the die in question and dropping it down...well...a rather chesty area. Her claim was that (and I quote) "Boobs make everything better."

That said, I did roll exceptionally well the rest of the night...

I've never been able to get into any ritual that consists of actually rolling the dice, because what if you get a really good roll? Then you've used that up!

But I really can't disagree with the logic behind this idea.