How Do You Roll Your Dice?

[TaiLiu]

I used to roll using the palms of my hands, but at some point I became (perhaps irrationally) concerned that I was skewing the dice rolls. So I switched to a paper cup, which I shake several times before pouring the dice out. I know someone who uses a dice tower.

How do you roll your dice? Are you ever concerned with the physical dynamics of your roll?

[Pauly]

Our group roll into an open topped box, using casino rules i.e. the dice have to bounce off a wall.

This keeps one space on the table for dice, ensures all results are plainly visible, and guarantees that everyone feels that everyone else’s die rolls are fair. At some point one of our members had a fancy wooden box with felt lining, but we normally use the lid of a game or an amazon box, whatever’s handy.

[Mastikator]

Usually I don't even do that. Just grab em and drop em on the table. The only concern I have is "don't fall of the table"

[Anonymouswizard]

Just grab them in my hand, maybe shakeb it a couple of times, and basically throw it towards the take. I'm not overly worried about bias, my intent less of Dexterity means that I can't intentionally control it and any views not inherent in the die should even out over many rolls. Floor dice and cocked dice are rerolled.

While I like the idea of using a container and casino rules, the issue is that most groups I play with often have a map in the middle even if not using minis, and so either you have to pass the dicefield round the Yankee or one or more players have to get up when it's their turn to roll dice.

Oh, and vaguely related, you should leave dice until the action is resolved. I'd rather just avoid accusations of cheating as much as possible.

[Batcathat]

Just grab them in my hand, maybe shakeb it a couple of times, and basically throw it towards the take. I'm not overly worried about bias, my intent less of Dexterity means that I can't intentionally control it and any views not inherent in the die should even out over many rolls. Floor dice and cocked dice are rerolled.

Yeah, this is pretty much how I do it too.

[Mordante]

Just grab them in my hand, maybe shakeb it a couple of times, and basically throw it towards the take. I'm not overly worried about bias, my intent less of Dexterity means that I can't intentionally control it and any views not inherent in the die should even out over many rolls. Floor dice and cocked dice are rerolled.
.

Indeed floor dice are rerolled. But many of our rolls our private. Not on purpose but often because we don't play on a table. Some use a book on which they roll. Some use a lid of a board game. Rolls are not checked. When we roll for initiave, spot, search, whatever. People just yell out their results.

[Anonymouswizard]

Indeed floor dice are rerolled. But many of our rolls our private. Not on purpose but often because we don't play on a table. Some use a book on which they roll. Some use a lid of a board game. Rolls are not checked. When we roll for initiave, spot, search, whatever. People just yell out their results.

Oh sure, I've also played in a game like that over video chat with the understand that we all understand stats. But I've also played in games with blatant cheaters and nobody edits honestly reporting cares about leaving the die there for thirty seconds.

Begin able to check doesn't mean the die is checked anyway. It's why I don't use a GM's screen, most of the time the players don't watch my rolls anyway.

[Imbalance]

My DM dice are metal, and we play on an heirloom dining table (which I'm struggling to preserve with the same level of frustration with my children as my late mom must've had with me when it was hers). Purpose built dice trays are stupid expensive, so I built my own for $2, felt lined, nothing fancy, but there's ample room for tumble and clack (and I don't have to deal with anyone rolling in their grave). I also made a dice tower, but haven't finished it yet. One of my players also sometimes uses metal dice, and respectfully rolls on a cutting mat. Not one person currently at my table does any fancy gesture or outwardly suscribes to superstition (besides occasionally blowing on them for laughs), just a quick toss and let the bounce and spin do their thing. Rerolls for skewed landings or floor results. My only complaint is how often most of them shout out the number showing instead of the total result after modifiers.

[KorvinStarmast]

I used to roll using the palms of my hands, but at some point I became (perhaps irrationally) concerned that I was skewing the dice rolls. So I switched to a paper cup, which I shake several times before pouring the dice out. I know someone who uses a dice tower.

How do you roll your dice? Are you ever concerned with the physical dynamics of your roll?

1. Often use dice cups. (A habit I got from various dice games in the Navy over the years).
2. A Frisbee, turned upside down, makes for a nice plastic dice tray.
3. The cardboard lid of a game's box makes for a nice dice tray
4. We used felt lined dice towers some years ago, but I don't currently have one.

Item 1 can be used with items 2 & 3
Items 2, 3 & 4 help to prevent dice-fly-off-the-table-and-onto-the-floor-or-under-the-couch events.

[sktarq]

There are usually two boxes around. One for the players and one for me (as the near permaDM)

Mine is pretty small and private since I have a bunch of other stuff in front of me (laptop, usually a couple legal pads, a stack of condensed character sheets, and the inevitable loose papers which I try to keep a minimum, and often a screen) Thus anything (like a cup) would be extra work and I just dump the dice in but because it small I can't be very dramatic or the dice tend to bounce out. At times I will even use the wooden dice box i transport the collection in (it closes) with a shake and open method if we are more cramped for space than normal.
also my rolls tend to be private...in part because I often use a "luck die" of randomly generating "how well does that go" when the players are off in some corner of the sandbox I have never thought about...like "what to they find when the turn down a random street" toss a die to see how good or bad things may go.

The larger dice box is normal a tray, low box usually from a board game lid, at one place it was wooden one with a separate section to keep the dice not currently being used but it normally is just tilt the box and the pile sits in the corner, pick out what you need and roll away from the corner pileup. And as long as it is a roll not a drop nobody cares about your style, in fact being entertaining but not spotlight hogging is a good thing.

[Telwar]

My dice get rolled into a jewelry organizer with nice padded floor and walls so they don't make horrible noise and fly everywhere. That also makes a nice side area for "on deck" dice to pull from.

[oxybe]

Grab, shake, roll in box.

If I was worried about dice bias, i wouldn't be buying sets of mass produced dice in tubes/boxes.

[Psyren]

I shake my phone or tap the screen rapidly

[TaiLiu]

Appreciate everyone's answers! Might start trying out some of your methods, just to see how they feel.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Only thing I have to add is a rule I imposed when I was playing with teenagers, who rolled dice as if they were shooting craps (ie chucking them mostly horizontally across the table). And yes, I follow it myself.

Dice that fall off the table are considered the worst possible roll for that die (generally a 1).

[Pauly]

One other method I’ve seen is to get a clear acrylic box about 5cm x 5cm x 5cm and load it with your standard dice (e.g. 1d20 and a d8, 2 x d10, 3 x d6, etc.) then shake the box, place it on the table and read the result. No dice flying around or off the table. No looking for the right dice. If you need a non-standard dice for whatever reason you pick it up and roll as normal.
I know some people object on the grounds that the dice can be hard for others to read, or the possibility that a bad result can be changed with a subtle nudge. My experience is that as long as you firmly place the box in the center of the table and lift your hand off cleanly other players don’t mind. It’s also important if using multiples of the same type of dice to declare the priority of the color sequence before the game (eg red, then green, then yellow).

[Lord Torath]

I've built a couple of dice towers out of foam core. The first has a single angled bounce plate at the bottom, while the second has a couple of baffles. These are primarily used for wargaming.

For RPGs, we re-roll dice that leave the table or land crooked. When rolling, I tend to grab bad dice rolls immediately (reporting them honestly), but leave good dice rolls out for everyone to see.

Currently, though, I'm mostly gaming over Roll20.

[Lemmy]

I click on the virtual die... Because I haven't played in a physical face-to-face game in 2 years.

[Segev]

I usually just pick them up, shake them in my hand loosely a bit, and drop them. If I become concerned that I am not generating sufficiently random results (perhaps too many similar rolls in a row), I pick up a second, easily-distinguished die and roll them together, which I believe creates a little more chaotic interaction so that they aren't as likely to get stuck in a same-y motion.

[Calthropstu]

I perform a back hand flip snap. It tosses the die upwards giving it severe spin. No way to influence it that way. But my last group were ALL cheating so eh?

[EggKookoo]

I used to be a grab-n-tosser, but my brother made spaceship-based dice towers and we use those now.

[False God]

If it's 5 or less dice, with my hands, shake 'em a little and toss them hard enough to make them roll, soft enough not to destroy whatever they're moving towards.

Above 5 dice I prefer to use an app.

[HouseRules]

Casino Rule: dice has to be thrown against the far wall, and it must travel the longer side of the box.

Sometimes a house rule that dice on the floor counts as zero.

[Calthropstu]

If it's 5 or less dice, with my hands, shake 'em a little and toss them hard enough to make them roll, soft enough not to destroy whatever they're moving towards.

Above 5 dice I prefer to use an app.

I once rolled 580 d6. With 580 dice. For shadowrun. The difficulty to succeed was 100.

Good times.

[Telwar]

Back in the last 4e campaign we did (a little after 5e started, so like 6 years ago), I had a turn where my sorcerer got to unleash a disturbing amount of AoE, three times in a turn*, against a mass of caryatid columns, and got to roll 2x and take the best (i.e. 5e advantage, but not called that) for the spell attacks.

What I wound up doing is pairing off dice by color, and rolled them all at once, and let the rough fall of the dice determine which ones were for which target, with some slight adjustment to account for the dice not falling exactly in line as the layout of the targets. Like, one pair for #1, this pair for #2, etc, making sure I wasn't stretching stuff with "oh the poor rolls are paired with good ones, how about that" crap.

This was before the jewelry organizer I use now, but rolled on a book to minimize sound. And I rolled damage with the attacks, both to speed adjudication and to give myself the agony of good damage on a miss.

That nova turn took like 15 minutes to resolve, and then I had to have a lie down. That got all but two of the monsters, and then the invoker got the remainder.

Then their big brother showed up.

* - Strictly speaking, there was a standard action on the bard's turn, then my standard action and an action point on my turn. So it started without the advantage, but second and third attack actions had advantage.

[TaiLiu]

I used to be a grab-n-tosser, but my brother made spaceship-based dice towers and we use those now.

I know what you mean, but I choose to read this as your brother taking apart a spaceship to make dice towers. He's in hiding from NASA.

I once rolled 580 d6. With 580 dice. For shadowrun. The difficulty to succeed was 100.

How long did it take to resolve?

[Segev]

I believe this is the proper way to roll a large number of d6s:

[Calthropstu]

I know what you mean, but I choose to read this as your brother taking apart a spaceship to make dice towers. He's in hiding from NASA.

How long did it take to resolve?

Gathering the dice alone took 20 minutes or so. Everyone pitched in some dice. It was a major campaign ending event. A culmination roll of numerous quest rewards and other stuff we had all pitched in for. We were trying to summon the guardian spirit of a continent to pretty much obliterate the big bad. So we didn't mind the time.

[Christopher K.]

I like to kinda make a scoop with my fingers and do a "come here" gesture so the die rolls up and against my fingers before leaving my hand. I'm making dice trays now for my group for when we resume in person gaming out of some hexagonal picture frames I found at Michael's.

[KineticDiplomat]

With “ !roll XdY” …I’ve played far more online than in person at this point.