DMing Problems: Bad Luck

[Lappy9001]

Playing with a group that rarely gets to play for more than a few sessions, and with the Pathfinder Beginner Box, we've got a pretty good campaign going.

However, the dice seem to hate this group, and it's getting really bad. Now, I'm no stranger to fudging dice rolls behind the screen; I'll tweak a roll of a monster that's hounding a party member a bit too much, or up the ante to make a lame battle far more climactic. I'll even sometimes alter the AC if the group can't seem to hit.

Yet, I don't know what to do when the players' dice are doing poorly. The fighter in particular, rarely rolls above a 4 (she's fairly optimized, but they're just reached level 3), and even when she does hit, the damage dice start rolling straight 1's. I gave her a permanent Elixir of Fire Breath (still 3/day) so she can at least force some saves with an auto hit, but it only goes so far.

The cleric spends most of his time healing, but even his healing dice often fall short. The wizard does fine, 'cause she forces saves and uses Magic Missile judiciously. The rogue also does okay, but she doesn't hit too often, even with plenty of flanks.

I gave the group Action Points, but even they're not going all the way.

The bad dice are ruining entire encounters, and we're all really getting frustrated. Any tips?

[Tyndmyr]

Well, first off, are the dice really rolling that badly, or is it just subjective? I suggest keeping a log of all dice rolls to see if the dice really are performing badly.

And, if they are...buy new dice.

[Vladislav]

Microwave the old dice, while the new ones are forced to watch. That'll put the God's fear in them.

[Lappy9001]

Well, first off, are the dice really rolling that badly, or is it just subjective? I suggest keeping a log of all dice rolls to see if the dice really are performing badly.

And, if they are...buy new dice.

No seriously, five 3's for attack rolls in a row last night.

And I have over 2 lbs of dice that anyone in the group is free to use...

Microwave the old dice, while the new ones are forced to watch. That'll put the God's fear in them.

I spent good money on those

[Morithias]

No seriously, five 3's for attack rolls in a row last night.

And I have over 2 lbs of dice that anyone in the group is free to use...

I spent good money on those

He's not joking, if you put a die with the 20 side up and microwave it for about 2-3 seconds, it'll weight the die.

It's cheating, but god dammit the dice deserve it.

[Asheram]

No seriously, five 3's for attack rolls in a row last night.

And I have over 2 lbs of dice that anyone in the group is free to use...

I spent good money on those

Try reading scripture for them while outside and with the 20 on top. Seriously, jinxed dice are not a joke.

[Arbane]

Play casters? One character I made is based on the idea of "If I have to roll dice, I HAVE FAILED."

[Totally Guy]

It sounds like you are having difficulty putting something at stake other than the character's lives.

The problematic point being that if they lose those then that'd be the end of the game.

Try to find ways to put other things at stake (does pathfinder support this?). Threaten the welfare of the town, the relationships and the organisations they care for. That way you won't have to fudge any dice. You can accept that the players can lose and still continue.

After that, when the players do choose to risk their character's lives it'll be because you've created a situation that is compelling and cared for enough to risk that much. Not going all out to respond in kind would be doing that situation a disservice.

[Sutremaine]

I spent good money on those

Put one of the old dice on a really solid surface and arrange the new dice in a semicircle around it. Then hit the old die with a hammer while the new ones watch. It won't do a damn thing about the rolls, but it'll make you feel better and you'll only be down one die.

Keep track of what's rolled for everything. It's pretty likely that the average is normal, but that the high rolls are being ignored because 1. they're going on unimportant things, or 2. you're paying more attention to 4s and 5s rather than 16s and 17s.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://www.gamescience.com/

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

And play casters that don't need to roll to do their things, and don't care what anyone else rolls. There are caster builds that can still win even if you assume that they roll all 1s and other (mundane) characters roll all 20s.

[Katana_Geldar]

Get new dice, Game science dice. These dice aren't polished to buggery so they aren't weighted against you or pathetic cheap ones from Taiwan.

[CrazedPachyderm]

I can't tell if everyone in this thread is joking or seriously misunderstand probability. Changing dice isn't going to help you at all unless they're cheating. "Bad Luck" happens, but you're just as likely to have "Good Luck" next session.

If you really think this is a problem, take further steps to reduce the variance. Action Points is a good step. You might want to consider a variant rule like rolling 3d6 in place of 1d20. It makes the extremes in either direction less likely.

[Katana_Geldar]

You're assuming that all dice are precision cut and have an equal chance of landing on any side, but the problem is they aren't. Most dice have the daylights polished and tumbled out of them which makes them slightly egg-shaped, and they tend to favour particular sides as an object will always want to rest on it's lowest centre of gravity.

That link I gave, watch those videoes, particular that picture that guy has of the dice all lined up on their same side and the different sizes.

And that dice that always rolls 20s or 1s? Maybe it was shoddily made so that it comes to rest on a particular side.

The fact that most dice you find in a gaming have rounded edges and vertices doesn't help probability either.

Don't believe me? Find a pair of casino dice, man those are sharp! And any pictures you've seen with casinos that have round edge dice have no idea what they're talking about.

[Vladislav]

Changing dice isn't going to help you at all

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

I was in a Magic: the Gathering tournament last week, and lost my first round match because I consistently drew way too much land (~60%, despite of having the standard 40% land in my deck). After the game, I took one land card out of my deck, and ceremoniously ripped it to shreds while the other cards were forced to watch. (for the rules purists, yes, I did replace it with another to keep my deck legal). I got reasonably good draws in every other game I played that day, eventually winning all other matches.

Please don't tell me it doesn't work. And even on the off-chance you're right and it doesn't work, you know what!? Ripping that card felt good! So there.

[CrazedPachyderm]

You're assuming that all dice are precision cut and have an equal chance of landing on any side, but the problem is they aren't. Most dice have the daylights polished and tumbled out of them which makes them slightly egg-shaped, and they tend to favour particular sides as an object will always want to rest on it's lowest centre of gravity.

That link I gave, watch those videoes, particular that picture that guy has of the dice all lined up on their same side and the different sizes.

And that dice that always rolls 20s or 1s? Maybe it was shoddily made so that it comes to rest on a particular side.

The fact that most dice you find in a gaming have rounded edges and vertices doesn't help probability either.

Don't believe me? Find a pair of casino dice, man those are sharp! And any pictures you've seen with casinos that have round edge dice have no idea what they're talking about.

Sure, no die is perfectly, mathematically fair, but I have doubts that the OP has enough data to show their dice are significantly unfair. Even these high-precision ones will become dull and rounded after rolling them a lot, which is why casino dice are retired so often.

If you want fair dice, the best way is to forsake physical dice altogether. Random number generators have their own problems, but they're an improvement.

Please don't tell me it doesn't work. And even on the off-chance you're right and it doesn't work, you know what!? Ripping that card felt good! So there.

Haha, I'm glad it made you feel good, because that's about all it did.

[Katana_Geldar]

Sure, no die is perfectly, mathematically fair, but I have doubts that the OP has enough data to show their dice are significantly unfair. Even these high-precision ones will become dull and rounded after rolling them a lot, which is why casino dice are retired so often.

If you want fair dice, the best way is to forsake physical dice altogether. Random number generators have their own problems, but they're an improvement.

True, but some dice are better than others. Some of my dice are so tumbled they're practically spherical.

[Anxe]

Sounds like you need a dice cleansing.

Here's a link I found. And here's what Kenzer & Co has to say.

[Arbane]

Obviously, the problem is that the gaming table has bad feng shui. You need to rearrange the way the players sit, put the DM at the other end of the table, clear up any clutter in the room, place some statues in the yard for good luck, and seize and burn the neighbor's garage for 5 power. Let's see if anyone gets THAT joke.

[Totally Guy]

This is not so much about luck but a matter of "losing should be fun".

(Could Xykon's "Power equals power" speech apply here?)

[DigoDragon]

He's not joking, if you put a die with the 20 side up and microwave it for about 2-3 seconds, it'll weight the die.

Just don't do this with metal dice.


Oh, and to add to the casino dice thing-- yeah I cut myself on one of those. However they do seem to be among the best dice to use that roll pretty randomly. Most casinos I've seen tend to sell 'em pretty cheaply too.

[2xMachina]

Oh, and to add to the casino dice thing-- yeah I cut myself on one of those. However they do seem to be among the best dice to use that roll pretty randomly. Most casinos I've seen tend to sell 'em pretty cheaply too.

Probably those they're gonna throw away for getting blunt. Still quite good, but not quite up to their high standards.

+1 to bad dice. Consistent rolls on 1 side are probably due to imbalance in the dice.

[Douglas]

Probably those they're gonna throw away for getting blunt. Still quite good, but not quite up to their high standards.

Yeah, the requirements for casino dice are insanely high. IIRC, each 6-sider has to be a perfect cube to within 1/5000th of an inch tolerance, with similarly strict requirements for uniformity of density throughout the die - and this is actually mandated by law. Normal routine use is enough to warp and erode dice to outside of that tolerance level in pretty short order, so casinos have to replace their dice frequently. Naturally, this leaves them with a lot of dice that are, say, 1/2000th of an inch off from perfect cube shape that they have to get rid of. That's still ridiculously higher quality than almost anything else you'll find short of pre-use casino dice, but low enough that the casinos themselves can't use them any more. The casinos are stuck with a constant influx of these dice whether they want them or not, so they sell them for whatever they can get.

It's really too bad that there aren't any widespread popular casino games that use the rest of the standard RPG dice shapes.

[Dr Bwaa]

If I were you, I'd just un-meta the dice entirely.

Start throwing hints around that whatever Diety of Luck you're using has a grudge against one or more of the characters in the party. Make it a real thing. When they put it together, they go on a quest to deal with this bad influence over their fortunes--all the while doing everything they can from an in-character perspective to avoid any situations where chance could come into play, since they know it will go against them. When/if they finally finish their luck quest, give them some IC reward (occasional rerolls, etc., maybe a free Luck Feat or something) to offset their dice (if they still haven't bought new ones yet).

Or just use an online dice roller for single-die rolls (attacks, skill checks, and so on) and use average values for damage, healing, HP, etc (5d6 -> 17).

[Bahamut Omega]

Create an encounter which doesn't involve or minimizes combat, but doesn't have a lot of time pressure. Prison escape or obstacle course of some sort perhaps. Say the dice are treating the players like crap, let the players get beaten down and tossed in prison and make an encounter out of their escape. Alternately, there's a dangerous temple holding some nice swag.

They might be able to minimize their rolls by depending on situations where they can take 10 or 20. Thus the Rogue can sneak around, the fighter can bash down stuck doors, the wizard can prepare support and utility spells, and the cleric can clean up when somebody slips into a pit. Players can also help each other by allowing them to assist each other whenever possible. Try to encourage the use of a lot of esoteric skills like Climb, Escape Artist (to squeeze through narrow spots), Linguistics, Survival, and Swim.

[valadil]

Traditionally I'm the player with crap luck. I've been to sessions where my d20 rolled more twos than everything else combined. I want to tell you to compensate for your players' bad luck. But I just couldn't respect any system that let you roll that badly and succeed. If you can stay in the bottom 20% percentile on all die rolls and still win, what's the point of playing? Even as the guy who rolls badly, I'd rather fail due to bad dice than win in spite of them because the game was too easy.

What has worked for me historically is to invest in items and abilities that give me back some control over the dice. Even a once a day reroll is enough to feel like I'm in charge some of the time.

[Kish]

I don't get what's ambiguous here. If you found out the dice had been deliberately crafted as loaded dice, you'd replace them, correct?

So why is this not the obvious solution when the dice being loaded wasn't done on purpose? Dice which roll low too often to be a coincidence are dice which roll low too often to be a coincidence. A pity about the money you paid for them, but they're still valueless.

[Synovia]

True, but some dice are better than others. Some of my dice are so tumbled they're practically spherical.

Close-to-Spherical dice are only bad if they're weighted unevenly. They'll roll longer, but they're still random.


Sharper corners just make the dice stop rolling faster.

[Sutremaine]

On the other hand, a sharp-edged die has far less chance of being unevenly weighted than a round-edge die (assuming that the rounded edges come from tumbling and not from being moulded that way).

[nedz]

Create an encounter which doesn't involve or minimizes combat, but doesn't have a lot of time pressure. Prison escape or obstacle course of some sort perhaps. Say the dice are treating the players like crap, let the players get beaten down and tossed in prison and make an encounter out of their escape. Alternately, there's a dangerous temple holding some nice swag.

They might be able to minimize their rolls by depending on situations where they can take 10 or 20. Thus the Rogue can sneak around, the fighter can bash down stuck doors, the wizard can prepare support and utility spells, and the cleric can clean up when somebody slips into a pit. Players can also help each other by allowing them to assist each other whenever possible. Try to encourage the use of a lot of esoteric skills like Climb, Escape Artist (to squeeze through narrow spots), Linguistics, Survival, and Swim.

this, and the exact opposite.

Create an encounter which involves rolling veritable buckets of dice. They will all average out. Not all of your encounters should be the same anyway.

[Tyndmyr]

No seriously, five 3's for attack rolls in a row last night.

1 in a million odds, right?

Well, actually, only one in 320,000.

Wait a minute, that odds is only for rolling EXACTLY three five times in a row. Out of only five rolls. What if it was three or less? Wow, barely over one in a thousand odds.

And of course, there are different sequences of rolls, like rolling the number three five times in a row, for different things, would still be a very memorable streak of bad luck. As would everyone rolling 3s at the same time. Or one person rolling all 3s on saves. On the flip side, you would also have noticed if someone rolled five 20s in a row.

Additionally, you all probably rolled a lot more than 5 rolls.

So, what I'm getting at is...this happens. This happens all the time. It's not even rare at all.

The log will tell you if it's perception or faulty dice. Your fix depends on that.