Dice-rolling tips and tricks

[Jackob]

Hey there,

as we all know, rolling dice is the essence of our beloved hobby. Success or failure hangs in the balance when you send the polyhedrons rolling. A good roll can make you smile, a bad roll make you groan. And while it can be fun to fail once in a while, it is usually best to succeed and roll well.

Therefore, I am asking for your best dice-rolling tips and tricks. No cheating, no loaded dice, nothing like that. Just ways to make the dice rolls better.

Personally, I lay out all the dice I need and place them on their maximum number. Also, both my wife, my brother-in-law and myself have a small plastic dragon that we balance on a die to make it roll better (this, of couse, is best for things like D&D, where one die is important, instead of dice pools). For D&D, my wife has two D20 and she will switch to the other if one starts rolling badly, in order to stress them; they know that if they don't perform, they don't get to roll.

So, anyone have any good techniques for die rolling?

[CPXB]

Any attempt to influence the randomization of the dice is cheating.

[Jackob]

Hmmm, that is, of course, one way of looking at it. However, since these techniques do seem to fail from time to time, I would say that it is within the acceptable realm. I don't mind when I am DM... but then, other may think differently.

[joewolz]

Originally posted by CPXB
Any attempt to influence the randomization of the dice is cheating.

Not necessarily true, Jackob is talking about superstition.

In regard to superstition: I never roll anyone's dice but my own, and when I must lend them, I do so at the other person's own risk. I believe, deep down, that only MY dice will roll well for ME.

Also, I routinely have many dice, and when some roll badly, I switch them out.

It's not cheating at all, it's a ridiculous superstition with no grounding in logic or fact.

[Balbinus]

Originally posted by CPXB
Any attempt to influence the randomization of the dice is cheating.

Quite, tricksy rolling techniques designed to influence the outcome of the roll are as clear a case of cheating as any I've heard of.

The fact not every attempt to cheat succeeds is neither here nor there.

What's the point of placing dice on their maximum number anyway? Surely not so you can lie and say it rolled to that result? Most groups would expel anyone behaving like that.

[Edit: Of course, if it's just superstitions then it's not cheating, just kind of pointless.]

[CPXB]

Originally posted by joewolz
Not necessarily true, Jackob is talking about superstition.


LOL. What if superstition works? :D

[Jackob]

Actually, my post was pretty tongue-in-cheek. I know placing the dice on their maximum number has no effect whatsoever on the outcome and neither has my wife's D20-switching. It's just fun to pretend it has.

[joewolz]

Originally posted by CPXB
LOL. What if superstition works? :D

Oh, it does. It does...at least in my paradigm.

But folk magic isn't cheating, is it?

[Mark Taylor]

Okay what you do is this. You take your dice bag and you soak it in a solution consisting of 43% English mustard, 30% Smirnoff vodka and 27% mixed human bodily fluids and toenail clippings for 7 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes and 49 seconds. Then you take it out, let it dry off for a week or so on the sun-baked sands of the Sahara desert, and then, without moving it from its spot, you sacrifice 13 chickens with a ruby-tipped butter knife in an equidistantly spaced ring around that spot whilst chanting "Oh great spirits of the desert, bless these dice and all who roll them" over and over. Then you game with your dice - which are exactly the same as before except they smell kinda funny.

[Wizdoc]

Slam the dice on the wall with enough force they'll leave holes.

No GM will contest the results.

[Balbinus]

Originally posted by Jackob
Actually, my post was pretty tongue-in-cheek. I know placing the dice on their maximum number has no effect whatsoever on the outcome and neither has my wife's D20-switching. It's just fun to pretend it has.

Training them huh?

Anyway, I dip mine in the blood of goats sacrificed at midnight in the name of the Black Man. I'm not sure if it helps but it doesn't seem to do any harm (save that you need to clean them afterward obviously).

[OusterX]

Originally posted by Jackob
Hey there,

as we all know, rolling dice is the essence of our beloved hobby. Success or failure hangs in the balance when you send the polyhedrons rolling. A good roll can make you smile, a bad roll make you groan. And while it can be fun to fail once in a while, it is usually best to succeed and roll well.




You need to check out the HackMaster Players Handbook. It has an entire appendix dedicated to dice rolling techniques, including how to 'charge' your dice up, how to buy dice, how to prevent unlucky dice from 'tainting' lucky dice, etc.

It is kinda funny...

[Pseudo Nymh]

I find using a small box about an inch or two high to roll in helps prevent scattered dice syndrome.

Why, oh why, do so many people feel the need to hurl their dice as far as possible? You had the whole table, and you missed! :mad:

No advice on influencing rolls, however.

[Garris]

I've discovered that my dice prefer two-handed rolling. I've come to the conclusion they think I'm being careless if only one hand is being used to roll them. Like they don't really matter all that much. Then they get mad and beat me about the face with bad, bad rolls.

In dice-pool games, I'm also discovering that all my dice love to be rolled together. If all 12 D10s do not hit the table, their individual performance decreases. Thankfully, Exalted gives me plenty of opportunity to throw down 12 dice.

[Garris]

They also don't seem to roll ANY critical failures for me after I've just run a game of Nobilis. I think they're scared I'll forsake them, so they remind me of the good times (and not the botches/fumbles/crit. fails).

[Deathlok]

One of my d20s rolled a "1" on an important Hide check in a WoT game. So I borrowed a lighter from a friend, took my dice out to the sidewalk (I don't have very many; maybe 15 or so), arranged them in a ring, put the offending d20 in the middle, and set it on fire.

I blew it out after a couple minutes, so it's just badly scorched instead of melted. I still carry that die around in my dicebag as a warning to the others.

[mathey]

I shake my dice really hard if I'm hoping for a good roll.

'cuz, if I shake 'em hard, they roll more. Which means a better chance that I'll...get...uh, a good number. Thing.

[Stoerm]

With a d10, I'm not sure that the "setting the dice to the highest number" prior to rolling is completely inefficacious in yielding higher rolls. While I haven't done any hard experimentin', I have found that it ~seems~ like it works with d10s to some extent when coupled with a certain "let the dice flop down" rolling style.

My players have enough certainty that this will influence the dice as to demand that the one player who would cheat if he could get away with it either use a d20 instead of a d10 or give the dice a really good shakin' every time he rolls. I always preferred the d20s labeled 1-10 twice anyhow.

Of course, it could be a nonsensical inference, but I do believe that the right combination of circumstances can definitely influence the outcome of dice. If so, doing so must be cheating.

Superstition is not only not cheating, but it is highly entertaining. Long live dice voodoo.

[TrumpetDC]

Originally posted by CPXB
Any attempt to influence the randomization of the dice is cheating.

Cheating, and just plain rediculous!!!!

I was a clerk at a gaming store when I was 18. We used to have these kids come in and want to buy dice. But before they would buy them, they would expect to roll every die we had as if they would be able to tell which one "rolled better." After about 10 minutes of hearing little pieces of plastic bounce up and down on glass, I would come close to nerdicide.

Oh my god!!!!!!

It's random! You can't change it! There is no fate! There is no destiny! It's just a die roll!

[pawsplay]

Not necessarily true, Jackob is talking about superstition.


Whether you use loaded dice, trick throwing, Jedi powers, or good old black magic, attempting to influence the dice is cheating.

[Jaydee]

If dice rolling superstitions were considered cheating then there would a hell of a lot of craps players banned from casinos :D .

Some of those people have superstitions that put us to shame!

[Deathlok]

Originally posted by pawsplay
Whether you use loaded dice, trick throwing, Jedi powers, or good old black magic, attempting to influence the dice is cheating.

Good point. If asking your dice to roll a '20' was 100% effective, how would that be any less cheaty than using a weighted die that always came up '20'?

I guess if you really don't believe that your superstitions are effective, there's no issue (F'rex: I don't really believe that the burned die affects the other dice: it's just a good story :) )

[Eilonwy]

I tend to run through a song/hum it softly while I'm shaking the dice for important rolls -- different sets of my dice have different tastes in music, usually affected by their color (usually it's a song with that color in it -- "Black" by Pearl Jam, or "Silver and Gold" by U2). Gawd, I am such a dork.

Anyways, there's a guy in my D&D game who won't buy his own d20, because at the first game he borrowed one of my husband's and rolled 4 crits on it. Every subsequent game he's had at least 2 natch 20s (and we don't roll ALL that often.) I was kind of suspicious (once a gaming store accidentally sold my husband a d20 with no 1 and 2 20s -- they had accidentally put it in the general dice bin) especially because it's a lucky green color* but my husband can roll and roll on it and not get above 13. It just likes the one guy.

*A friend of mine, who is mostly Irish in heritage, went to a gaming con on St. Patrick's Day once wearing a shirt that said, "Kiss me, I'm Irish" and played in a con game (forget the system, but all d6s) using green d6s with shamrocks instead of 6s. They were totally fair dice, but he rolled so many sixes they made him put them away. Ever since then, green dice look lucky to me :p

Edited for clarity

[Tait Ransom]

I have about four sets of dice, including a set of Dwarven Stones. While playing, I keep all of my dice on a page from Jolly Blackburn's sketchbook. I have the d20s together with the 20 facing up.

My main die, a red d20 with white lettering, earned the name "Critical Sally" (after one of Bob Herzog's dice) when she threw 4 crits in a row one night and saved the day. However, she can get overconfident. When she starts rolling badly, I let her sit with a borrowed d20 in plain view. That seems to make her jealous and she rolls well again after that.

Or maybe I'm just superstitious. All I know is that after the night I rolled 4 crits, the rest of the group I gamed with would ask me to charge their dice on occasion.

[Coriander]

I've got about 20 d20s so before a game of d20 I always audition all my dice to see which one is currently hot. Usually I set out a randomly drawn knockout contest whereby the winner of a roll-off (best of 3 usually but sometimes best of 5) will progress to the next round to play another winner. I also sometimes use an informal seeding system whereby my favourite dice, ones that have done me well in the past, get a bye into the 2nd round. This makes it harder for previously low-performing dice to get into the final and maybe become my chosen dice for the session, but I feel it is fairer this way and takes into account past performance and 'tradition' in a small way.

Sometimes if I have time I have a more complicated round robin tournament where all the dice play each other and I can construct a league table to find the most coinsistent dice. This method has the advantage of allowing a dice to overcome a freakish low roll that would have got it eliminated from the knockout format.

I arrange similar competitions depending on the system we'll be playing. For a dice pool I will keep the best perfroming dice in order on the table, so the larger the pool, the lower into my top performing pool of dice I'll be selecting.

Sometimes for a crucial roll, if I feel my nominated dice has not been pulling its weight during the session I substitute it for an old reliable dice waiting on the sidelines, kinda pinch-rolling.

Also, I like to warn my dice this might happen, or threaten to remove them from the game completely, and this sometimes helps it buck its ideas up. What I have found, though, is that if you do threaten to remove a dice from the game, and it continues to under achieve, then you must go through with your threat, however painful it might be, otherwise the dice will never know where they stand, and morale can suffer.

[Ace]

Originally posted by CPXB
Any attempt to influence the randomization of the dice is cheating.

Not in my game-- If any player can manipulate the dice through any paranormal ability it is allowed- mojo, tk whatever- not that it ever happens at least AFAIK

I am not smart enough to detect Sleight of Hand tricks though
I have one player I suspect may use sleight of hand or something on very rare occasions (he once pulled a 3 on 3d6 at a suspious time) but it has never done anything but improve the game so I don't mind

If I suspect you of base cheating (tipping the dice is the usual method) then I require you to use a cup in the center of the table --

I haven't had to do this yet-

As far as my own dice-- If a particular die is performing poorly I just replace it with a different one from my pile

A new die generally clears up the problem

[pawsplay]

Some of those people have superstitions that put us to shame!


The casinos certainly won't discourage it. They make millions every year off superstitious gamblers.

[oldladynevermore]

I spin them like tops repeatedly...most people get fairly impressed when they see a d4 spinning on its tip.

[ParadoxDruid]

In regards to picking the best set at a store:

A lot of the dice sold in FLGS are cheap plastic, and there are imbalances and defects. I know there are some dice in my set, unmodified by me, that come up high more often, or low more often. Those are the "cursed dice", which no one in my gaming group wants to use-- we like actually randomized dice. :) So there IS a point to rolling them to test them out.

In regards to superstitions:

Oh man. We have some doozies.

*One player (a graduate student in Math, no less) switches out to a new set of dice whenever he gets a critical failure.

*One player keeps the dice sitting on the worst result, to get it out of their system.

*I bought a set of green jade ten-siders, and soaked them in rosemary essential oil to get them charged up.

*One player keeps a large number of dice out, and randomly selects from them for every roll... I think the theory is to keep the dices on their toes, or somesuch.

Dice superstitions are great fun!

[Matthew Gabbert]

Most of the players I've encountered have various degrees of superstition about their dice, but one thing we can all agree on is:

NEVER BORROW/USE THE GM'S DICE!!! :eek:

-- Matthew Gabbert

[Forseti]

I always shake 'em pretty thoroughly, all the while imagining how I want them to land. That never works though, so lately I've started to apply reverse psychology, and instead imagine how I don't want them to land. It makes little to no difference. I know if I just put my mind to it, they will one day bend to my will. Just you wait!

[Dr.Merkwürdig]

Hackmaster is the only game I know of that actually has an appendix dedicated to this very topic - dice rolling techniques, how to find lucky/cursed dice and so on. My favorite trick from this appendix is the "Fame Rub": You rub your dice about ten times over the signature of a famous game designer (one Origins award minimum) to load it up with luck. Printed signatures do work, but they are far less effective.

[kreegan]

Always buy hideously ugly dice, then roll the ugliest of the ugly. Ugly things know they have to work extra hard to please.

Rich;)

[RSC]

Originally posted by Jackob
Hmmm, that is, of course, one way of looking at it. However, since these techniques do seem to fail from time to time, I would say that it is within the acceptable realm. I don't mind when I am DM... but then, other may think differently.

Of course they fail, as they have absolutely no effect whatsoever. You're still trying to cheat, just failing miserably at it.

[Garris]

How does Hackmaster put it?

As an RPer, you're something like a professional athlete. (justification for why alternative stat-generating methods should not be used. Exactly like performance-enhanching drugs for the aforementioned athletes.)

A roleplayer, rather than running or lifting things, rolls dice. A roleplayer rolls FAIR dice, but rolls them with as much SKILL and PREPARATION and PSYCHING UP as absolutely possible. Because all professionals have to try their best to measure up. It's not cheating to roll well just because you roll well.

[Chocobo]

I have a player who uses magic and/or telekinesis to influence his dice on a regular basis. It's really annoying. We watch him roll, we know he's not cheating, he just happens to roll in the top 10% about 30% of the time. With any dice. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing I can do as a GM to provide a challenge to him. Luckily I can compensate with a lot of social/investigation stuff that we generally don't resolve with dice.

He also likes random stat rolls (go figure) and gets annoyed when I want to use a point system to get something a little more fair. D&D characters he rolls always have at least one 18, and no stat under 12. Quote: "How can you roll under 10 on 4 dice?" Yeah, he really said that. Occasionally I'll give in to the players demands and let him roll everyone's stats.

And he's vehemently opposed to diceless roleplaying. But he'll play Magic the Gathering, and gets really pissed when he gets an unlucky hand. He has no power over cards! Quite fun to watch.

He doesn't seem to use any special dice superstitions, aside from not using "ugly dice" (an example of which would be the dice that came with D&D basic set).

[Jeph]

Very few dice are actually perfectly random. So roll each of your dice 1,000 times and record the mean results. Separate into "For Roll Under" and "For Roll Over" piles accordingly.

--Jeff

[Malenfant]

I find that when I say "watch me roll a 1" in a d20 game, I usually do. Often, when I just think it while rolling a d20 or watching someone roll it, it'll be a 1.

Of course, the damn thing doesn't work the other way when I want to get a 20... :(

[Coriander]

Originally posted by Jeph
Very few dice are actually perfectly random. So roll each of your dice 1,000 times and record the mean results. Separate into "For Roll Under" and "For Roll Over" piles accordingly.


But don't do it in the shop before you buy.

[rex monday]

After reading this I feel weird for NOT having any dice superstitions. I just pick the prettiest ones/easiest to read/whichever I can find that night. Or borrow someone else's.

[t@nya]

When rolling multiple numbers of dice (say 3d6) roll each individual die separately, making sure to give it a good shake. Also, make sure to make meaningless rolls of your dice to get the bad rolls out. If you have a long string of bad luck with one particular die (such as a d20), swap it for another.

[Jeph]

Originally posted by t@nn
When rolling multiple numbers of dice (say 3d6) roll each individual die separately, making sure to give it a good shake.

HELL NO.

I hate hate hate hate HATE players that do this. It turns a 3-second mechanic into a 3-minute *ing religious service.

--Jeff

[t@nya]

Originally posted by Jeph
HELL NO.

I hate hate hate hate HATE players that do this. It turns a 3-second mechanic into a 3-minute *ing religious service.

--Jeff

It's not so bad when there's only a few dice (three at the most). When you've got a whole load (such as in Star Wars d6) it's best to roll them altogether if you don't want to be physically attacked by the other players.

Alright, I admit, it's a bad habit. I can't get the idea out of my mind that I roll higher when I do this.

[cj.23]

I actually did a lot of work with dice testing for micro-PK. If one allows for the possibility, and bearing in mind the evidence for psi is weak, (http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/publist.html) is probably the best current research, then maybe it might be worth considering testing your psi ability to alter dice... :)


A lay article on dice and micro-PK can be found here
http://www.psiexplorer.com/pk3.htm

More fun is this!
http://paranormal.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://home.conceptsfa.nl/%7Erdwinter/index.html

EDIT: For some reason this post seemed to kill the trhead for a while... :(

cj x

[Mark Taylor]

Originally posted by t@nn
When rolling multiple numbers of dice (say 3d6) roll each individual die separately, making sure to give it a good shake. Also, make sure to make meaningless rolls of your dice to get the bad rolls out. If you have a long string of bad luck with one particular die (such as a d20), swap it for another.

If my players mess around wasting time by rolling dice individually I'd kick their ass.

[DrStalker]

Originally posted by Coriander
I've got about 20 d20s so before a game of d20 I always audition all my dice to see which one is currently hot. Usually I set out a randomly drawn knockout contest whereby the winner of a roll-off (best of 3 usually but sometimes best of 5) will progress to the next round to play another winner.

Fool! You'll use up all the luck in the dice! You should roll the dice a few times, and take the ones that show the lowest numbers. After a good run in-game, you should swap them out for rested dice. Make sure you have plenty of backup dice.

[DrStalker]

Originally posted by rex monday
After reading this I feel weird for NOT having any dice superstitions. I just pick the prettiest ones/easiest to read/whichever I can find that night. Or borrow someone else's.

Freak!