Loaded dice

[scurv]

As taboo as this topic is, I would like to poll on how people have seen loaded dice, and counter measures they use to combat it.

I have seen dice that were baked in the oven to warp them lighty (although quite often that leads to mixed results)

I have seen people use clear-coat paint on dice numbers they did not like to make them more round.

For the first one Look for discoloration, And oddly good luck when rolling. Also look for warped numbers and a die that just looks like it lost symmetry.

For the second one, Set up a light source so you can see the sheen off of the dice. Look to see that every number/side looks identical. And sense the dice will most likely not showing the suspect number up-top, Just keep in mind that it might take some head danceing to get good reflections to gauge by.

[1337 b4k4]

Wouldn't it just be easier to play with people you trust to be honest? I think if I ever felt the need to check my players for loaded dice, I'd just rather not play at all. And usually the type of person that would be using loaded dice in the game behind your back is probably already committing a number of other social and gaming faux pas worthy of ejection.

[ArcturusV]

I haven't put any thought into how to load a die. Beyond what I've seen people do when I worked at a hobby store. They just roll different dice for HOURS until they find one that seems to be naturally weighted, right out of the factory, towards whatever numbers they want. That happens to be the dice they buy.

As far as how I combat it? I've come up with a foolproof method that so far only people I've heavily suspected of having loaded dice have complained about. Anytime someone is rolling for a round or what not I'll flip a coin. Heads, normal roll rules (Natural 20 is a crit and is good, etc, low is bad in a D20 game), tails, inverted (Natural 1 is a crit and is good, etc. High is bad). I flip it after they roll, open flip, everyone sees the results.

Traditionally the guy I highly suspect of cheating will complain that's not fair, and I should flip the coin and announce Inverted or Not before they pick up their dice and roll (Probably so they can switch to the appropriately rolling dice). Everyone else will point out that unless you have loaded dice, it doesn't matter if a roll is inverted or not, it was random anyway.

[Grinner]

I've heard of the first, and I've got to say that the second is quite creative.

A classic, if intensive, method involves drilling out certain portions of the die, making sure not to obscure the numbers, and filling it with a denser substance. Then primer, quality model paint, and fine-grained sandpaper are applied.

Edit: That would be for discouraging the die to land on the side you drilled under. I guess you could also do the inverse and fill the gap with a lighter material to encourage that result.

[Techwarrior]

The closest I've come to loaded dice is something all of me and my friends do with our dice, just taken a little too far.

Now, I have no idea how it works, but it seems to us if you keep a set of dice in contact with your body for an extended period of time, they seem to 'want' to roll higher.

Now, one member of the group kept her twenty-sided in her bra constantly. In the last game we played in, she didn't go a single round of combat in which she made an attack roll without scoring a critical threat, and in no round that she made more than two attacks did she not confirm one.

However, she was a 2WF Rogue dualwielding scimitars, and went into the Dervish PrC. That was pretty much what her character was built for. I let it slide.

The dice gods made sure that she never made a single Fort or Will save on the Prime Material plane.

tl;dr
It's pretty much never come up. Her experience actually reinforced her character, so we ran with it.

[Malak'ai]

I've seen "baked" dice that weren't warped. Mind you, they were quite large dice and apparently had been cooked at a lowish temp.

Generally I only allow my players to use my dice (not that I suspect they might have trick dice, it's so I know if any of my dice "magically grow legs") so I don't really worry about it.

One of my old Shadow Run GM's showed me a set of dice he confiscated off a player. They had drilled into the "1" pip a few millimeters and glued a tiny bit of lead in there then painted the exposed end of the insert white... It was actually really hard to spot... He only got caught because he stupidly kept using them all the time and the GM got suspicious and rolled each and every one of his dice 10 times each... Yeah, he hasn't been allowed in any gaming group in town since.

[Ravens_cry]

I've seen them, but never in play. They were pretty obvious too just the way they rolled. One way I heard for making some subtle ones for plastic dice is to put them in the oven with the side you want facing up, set the oven to a low temperature, wait a few minutes, turn off the oven and wait for them to cool. The dice will slightly melt and settle in the position that is more stable with that side up, making it so they roll that side more often. As long as you don't wait too long, the effect is apparently very subtle.
As for combating them, nobody I know uses them or has used them. It's an honesty thing I guess.

[Scow2]

I haven't put any thought into how to load a die. Beyond what I've seen people do when I worked at a hobby store. They just roll different dice for HOURS until they find one that seems to be naturally weighted, right out of the factory, towards whatever numbers they want. That happens to be the dice they buy.

As far as how I combat it? I've come up with a foolproof method that so far only people I've heavily suspected of having loaded dice have complained about. Anytime someone is rolling for a round or what not I'll flip a coin. Heads, normal roll rules (Natural 20 is a crit and is good, etc, low is bad in a D20 game), tails, inverted (Natural 1 is a crit and is good, etc. High is bad). I flip it after they roll, open flip, everyone sees the results.

Traditionally the guy I highly suspect of cheating will complain that's not fair, and I should flip the coin and announce Inverted or Not before they pick up their dice and roll (Probably so they can switch to the appropriately rolling dice). Everyone else will point out that unless you have loaded dice, it doesn't matter if a roll is inverted or not, it was random anyway.

No, it's not fair to flip after you roll, if you decide to give them an arbitrary 50% chance of failure after they've already rolled the dice, because I HIGHLY doubt you use this method on every roll, especially not the ones they've flubbed.

From what it sounds like to me, you let them roll, and after the fact, if you decide their luck is suspiciously good, you then slap on an additional 50% chance of failure on it.

Also - it screws up dice karma, which, despite what people who study probability insist, IS a thing.

[ArcturusV]

Nah. I do it every round of combat, for example, or round of skill tests and such as needed. It's actually bit people in the ass other than the guy who I thought was loading his dice. Not that they complained any about it.

You seem to be under the impression that it went:

DM: Hmm... the guy who I think cheats rolled a natural 20. I'll flip a coin to see if it's inverted.

When actually it is:

DM: So no one thinks I'm picking on them and to discourage trying to cheat rolls in general by slight of hand, rolling technique, or loaded dice, every time someone's turn comes up and they make a roll I flip a coin to determine if it's Inverted or Not.

It doesn't even add all that much time to combat, sure I'm flipping coins a lot but I'm flipping them at a time I wouldn't be doing anything else anyway. Maybe adds a total of 15 seconds to a 2 minute long combat turn. It's not a 50% miss chance tax on if I am suspicious of someone or not. And if your dice isn't loaded, you should be rolling towards 1 just as often as 20 on a 20 sided dice. So it shouldn't really impact you.

Excepting superstitious beliefs of course.

[Scow2]

Excepting superstitious beliefs of course.

They AREN'T superstitions!

[Hiro Protagonest]

Also - it screws up dice karma, which, despite what people who study probability insist, IS a thing.

Come on, it can all be boiled down to probability.

A specific rolling style, with a specific die with its miniscule flaws, can cause it to roll badly all the time for one person, but a different person, with even a slightly different style, could use it just fine.

Good rollers actually do exist, as do bad rollers, but it's not because of luck or a die spirit.

In addition, a ritual like kissing the die in a particular spot could make it like a spitball, skewing the die's weight distribution, aerodynamics, and friction.

[Surfnerd]

I remember hearing somewhere that when dice are manufactured they are tumbled to remove impurities and this is what causes the die to roll certain numbers even on unloaded dice.

I don't think I own any untumbled dice and its been driving me crazy since I heard this. I feel like I have a box of little cheaters.

[FreakyCheeseMan]

One of the girls in my last gaming group truly and openly believed that her dice had sentient spirits, and that it was just a matter of figuring out what they liked (weather, different members of the group, etc.)

Closest my group had to loaded dice was a habit of buying lots of cheap but fancy looking dice - metalic flakes and the like. Because they're inconsistent and the smelting process is imperfect, they're likely to have random weight distributions, so they're weighted to begin with. You just have to do the paperwork to figure out which ones are loaded in your favor.

At least, that's what they though. I'm not sure if it was accurate.

[bbgenderless100]

Just go with whatever feels right in that situation, because one's solution may be another's problem and so on and so forth.

[The Random NPC]

I remember hearing somewhere that when dice are manufactured they are tumbled to remove impurities and this is what causes the die to roll certain numbers even on unloaded dice.

I don't think I own any untumbled dice and its been driving me crazy since I heard this. I feel like I have a box of little cheaters.

Try here for untumbled dice.

[AntiTrust]

I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

[Zeful]

I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

Okay that first part actually sounds pretty impressive. And is a great way to bring verisimilitude to the curse.

And that "I can use your own dice against you," thing is a great way to discourage the use of loaded dice, as players will have more dice thrown against them than enemies will, making playing with loaded dice a dangerous prospect.

[TuggyNE]

I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

That's awesome.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

Hmm, "players roll all the dice" (if properly implemented) could work quite nicely here.

Speaking as a white-hat, though, it could still be gamed by playing a caster or other "I don't roll much" character, and then baking the dice so they roll low.

[TheOOB]

It is actually illegal to sell loaded dice in my state, and I believe by law they have to be marked. Not that it's ever enforced for home gaming groups.

The microwave trick is the most common intentional trick I've heard of(not that anyone in my group would, we all understand a dramatic death can be fun). Whats more common are unintentionally loaded dice. Ignoring that fact that any die with rounded edges(read almost any die not in a casino) is inherently biased, as they get those rounded edges by putting the dice in a rock tumbler which is not exactly a precision instrument. Further, dice companies don't really care about making anything other than d6's unbiased, they save their best materials for d6's, have the best quality control, heck many of them only make d6's certain times of day so their cool correctly. Fact is most people don't care if other dice are biased a little. That means if your d20 seems to always roll well, it probably actually does.

[SowZ]

Try here for untumbled dice.

I didn't even know it, but the d20 I am using right now is untumbled. I just like sharp edges and points on my dice because it feels nice in my hands. Apparently, that is a good thing for dice. Who knew?

[sreservoir]

I didn't even know it, but the d20 I am using right now is untumbled. I just like sharp edges and points on my dice because it feels nice in my hands. Apparently, that is a good thing for dice. Who knew?

untumbled d4, anyone?

[huttj509]

I didn't even know it, but the d20 I am using right now is untumbled. I just like sharp edges and points on my dice because it feels nice in my hands. Apparently, that is a good thing for dice. Who knew?

Yeah, basically as you roll it, over time, the edges wear down (depending on material, quality of die, etc, the old ODnD dice allegedly go nigh spherical by now).

For prepainted dice, unless it's hand painted, they're generally tumbled to remove the paint outside the recessed number. This "pre-rolls" the die a lot when it comes to wear and tear. In fact, they're often over-tumbled.

Now, *what* number the dice are weighted towards will be fairly random, but you do get d20s looking distinctly more egg shaped out of the box than they should.

With a decent quality die you'd need to be really abusing it for the edges to wear noticeably in play, even over a decade or so. So general wear and tear isn't usually an issue. Or just put a bunch of them in a rock polisher for hours, that'd do it for wear and tear.

I'm just annoyed my Gamescience d20 turned out to be a 20 sided D10. I need to color half the numbers somehow without making it hard to read (black translucent die, white painted numbers).

In general usage it doesn't really matter unless you happen to notice which of your dice are "lucky." Since the weighting from tumbling is random, if you randomly select the die, there you go.

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who'd honestly consider doing a 300 roll T-test to see if my dice were reasonably fair, but I'm odd that way.

[Badgerish]

Never seen loaded dice in play, but have seen a person with a rolling technique that produced better than average numbers (thus, he had to roll in a tupperware box).

testing dice:
roll them into a bucket of water and observe the results. If they are loaded via weight-distribution it should have clear results in 10 throws.

The greater fall-time in water (as opposed to air) means the weighted effect has much more time to have an effect

[Chilingsworth]

afiak, I've never encountered loaded dice in play. One of my DM's has a die that seems to roll both 1's and 20's more often than usual, though.

Also, I think I got a pair of loaded craps-style dice as a gag christmas present when I was a kid, once. No clue what happened to them, though.

[Jay R]

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who'd honestly consider doing a 300 roll T-test to see if my dice were reasonably fair, but I'm odd that way.

That actually calls for a chi-squared test.

[Greenish]

untumbled d4, anyone?

Also known as the gamer's caltrops.

I used to have a cheap gag-store loaded d6, though it was so obviously weighted you couldn't miss it (the weigh inside would rattle as you shook it). But, if the best balanced dice are d6's, there's a variant rule for using them in place of a d20 in 3.5, which could probably be ported over to other d20 games.

[scurv]

I was in a game once with a DM that had loaded dice. One of the players got cursed by a powerful devil with bad luck. Until the player cured it he was forced to use a loaded set of dice (d20, d6, and a few d10s) the DM had cooked in the oven to roll low. I thought it was pretty cool.

Not sure what to say about players using loaded dice other than I think its by definition being a munchkin. To combat it though I'd just use that persons dice when making attack or damage rolls against him. "If you can use the dice to attack enemies, then I can use them to attack you" I think that will prevent it pretty easily.

I'm going to steal this idea!

[AttilaTheGeek]

untumbled d4, anyone?

Actually, this set of untumbled gaming dice has truncated points on the d4, and I quote, "for the safety of your bare feet"

[SowZ]

Yeah, basically as you roll it, over time, the edges wear down (depending on material, quality of die, etc, the old ODnD dice allegedly go nigh spherical by now).

For prepainted dice, unless it's hand painted, they're generally tumbled to remove the paint outside the recessed number. This "pre-rolls" the die a lot when it comes to wear and tear. In fact, they're often over-tumbled.

Now, *what* number the dice are weighted towards will be fairly random, but you do get d20s looking distinctly more egg shaped out of the box than they should.

With a decent quality die you'd need to be really abusing it for the edges to wear noticeably in play, even over a decade or so. So general wear and tear isn't usually an issue. Or just put a bunch of them in a rock polisher for hours, that'd do it for wear and tear.

I'm just annoyed my Gamescience d20 turned out to be a 20 sided D10. I need to color half the numbers somehow without making it hard to read (black translucent die, white painted numbers).

In general usage it doesn't really matter unless you happen to notice which of your dice are "lucky." Since the weighting from tumbling is random, if you randomly select the die, there you go.

Personally, I'm the sort of guy who'd honestly consider doing a 300 roll T-test to see if my dice were reasonably fair, but I'm odd that way.

My d20 has super sharp edges and has that really obvious blemish. And I also need to do something about the numbers. The numbers aren't painted a different color than the faces. I wonder if that is a thing with some gamescience dice?

[TheThan]

I knew someone who had dice that were warped badly enough they rolled 6s (D6s here) 66% of the time. They actually graphed it to see if that was truly the case. And yeah, they were just badly made dice (or well made dice depending on your perspective). He didn’t use them that much, just when he was getting mad at rolling badly a lot (hey bad streaks happen).

I’ve seen people use certain dice to attain certain results in miniatures games; Such as having to roll leadership (read low rolls) in warhammer 40k/fantasy. They would use casino dice for every roll but those, there they would break out some other dice they had on hand. It really turns me off, if you’re going to go through the trouble of buying casino quality dice you should be using them for the whole game, not just for attack/damage rolls. They’re trying to play the probability game (warhammer 40K and fantasy are based around the number 7), which stinks of poor sportsmanship to me.