Dice Weirdos

This poor forum looked lonely. Anyway, this sorta fits here. This Here Link is to a developer article on the official D&D site. Don't let that put you off, it 's a humorous article about dice rituals, general as well as personal ones from various WotC folk. If you read nothing else, at least scroll to the bottom and read Mike Mearls dice rolling superstitions. Hilarious.

I don't really have any dice superstitions or rituals other than preferring black with white pips/numbers. I do, however, encourage them in my friends. It's funny what otherwise rational people will do when it come to dice.

Over the years I have established some rules convering dice rolling. One that actually sticks to me in every game group I'm in is that if I roll a handfull of dice and even one drops off to the floor a falls on an obstakle so that you would have to call the numer it shows, I will always re-roll the entire batch. Along the way I have scraped some decent throws because of a single missing dice but also have been spared some rather bad ones. As I had this established very early with my friends (actually it might hail even from my times playing BattleTech with old friends some 12-14 years ago!) nobody disputes it anymore.
It's a given. If I unpurposely drop a dice to the floor, Nico re-rolls the batch. And if new players start whining about it, the older ones just say: That's him. He has been doing this like...hmm...yes...ever .)

Back in my days with Tech I had a pair of AstroTech dice (2 D6, one black one white) that came up as two sixes very often. Nobody exept me was to touch these dice. It remains true to this very day:
I still keep 'em savely looked in a transparent platic box with my other dice, but those two are kinda 'holy' ones.

And I tend to remember where I got my favorite dice from, and with what game they came: I remember my first 3 d20s and my first 10-siders coming with MERP.

Ah good times :) Even without followiing your link, which I'll do now. :D

Having read the stuff over at WotC I have to admit I was laughing :D

But the talk about the d20 over there just reminds me of the fact, the very simple fact, why I'll most likely will always stick to games with a d6 engine:

I suck at rolling d20. I do well with d6, can be okay with percentile throws made with two d10s but d20 almost always leave me hanging by a thread.

Another admission I have to make is, that I have done some of the stuff the guys at Wizards told about myself, like preping dice and warming 'em up...

RPGing is so much fun :-)

Quote:

---

Mike Mearls wrote:

(5) If a die is done, do not put in back in your die bag. You got to air it out, let that bad luck dissipate. Try to push unlucky dice as close to the DM as possible.

---

So that's why I always have a pile of dice in front of my GM screen! Sneaky players.

LQ

How ironic that this subject would come up the day John Kovalic posts this Dork Tower strip... :D

Yeah, they are silly, superstitious rituals, but probably no worse than what some of the non gamers do. Professional Sports figures who are on a strek come to mind here.

My favourite part about having the house rule of "Double 1's on 2 d6 is a major f*** up" is that it seems to happen with allarming regularity - just when the player needs to REALLY not fail! :D

Generally the only time I pass a D20 roll is when my sum total modifiers exceed the target number.. of course living that long in the first place is the challenge :D

I never switch dice during a game. No matter how hard they try to kill me, I'll stick with the ones I started with, because if you take the unlucky ones out of play, they will tell the others what you did, and the new dice will stick up for the old ones by trying to kill you.

One of my friends had some lousy rolls from one particular die, so he arranged all the others in a circle around it (so they could watch), then he took a hammer and smashed the offending die as an example of what happens to bad dice.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sarge

One of my friends had some lousy rolls from one particular die, so he arranged all the others in a circle around it (so they could watch), then he took a hammer and smashed the offending die as an example of what happens to bad dice.

---

I once burned a die to a charred lump of red plastic for bad behavior. My other dice seemed to work quite well for at least a month...

I find it funny how people attribute human qualities to pieces of plastic :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phoenix

I find it funny how people attribute human qualities to pieces of plastic :D

---

Pieces of plastic?! What are you talking about. Those things are more than pieces of plastic... :p

I have a fishbowl full of dice I bring out for game sessions. Players use them if they forget to bring dice, want to roll with different dice, mix and match their dice colours, and whatnot. However, my "GM" dice sets never touch the "player's bowl" -- I don't want any of their bad mojo rubbing off on my dice. You just know that a bowl full of dice are plotting against the GM for keeping them all cooped up like that. ;)

LQ

Give us more of your rituals and stories please!

One of my friends had a d20 that came up 20 often enough that for all intents and purposes it could be considered loaded. Naturally, it was fairly popular. People would ask to borrow it a lot. Finally the politicking around this die got so bad that by common agreement they all took it out to the driveway and smashed it with a hammer.

The Dice Gods Must Be Crazy...

I tend to dislike encounters that require a lot of dice rolling. I am just not that lucky with dice, but I don't really have any dice rituals though. I choose my dice for aesthetic appeal rather than an belief that they give me luck. I have friends that use strange rituals though like not wanting anyone to touch their dice or talking to their dice before a roll and such.

"I can't use these dice; they're random!"

I have a set of metal dice that are my "Evil GM Dice" (tm). I often find they roll too well for me when I'm trying not to completely maim the PCs. Too many inopportune crits...a few player knights from our current Pendragon campaign have met grisly fates due to my Evil GM Dice crits. :eek::D