Biased Dice

[Amaroq]

Our DM runs a 'you roll the monster's attacks against you' mechanic. I'd been using this pretty blue d20 with white lettering, and one day I felt like it was persecuting me, rolling too many 1's. In a fit of pique after a particularly bad fumble, I told it "That's it! From now on, I'm using you only for my enemy's attack rolls!" to the great amusement of my party and my DM.

Ever since then, its been noteworthy when it rolls a '1', which I must say happens frequently: my character is the one in full plate up at the front of the party, drawing as many attacks as I can so that the bad guys aren't swinging at my other party members. Especially against 'fodder-level' creatures, who only hit me on a 20, but give up AoO's on a '1' using our fumble system. My DM's even started making cracks about banning 'that blue die'.

I can't say it rolls a '1' more than 1 time in 20, because I've never run it through Excel as you just did. But... it does sometimes feel like it.

 

[Johnny Angel]

I've never actually done a test on it, but I have claimed for years that the black die that came with my Paranoia boxed set rolled high on average. The legend began almost as soon as it came out of the box, when I rolled my first clone, Trait-R-CME. There were no fewer than three 20's, and only one stat below 16. The GM assured me that I'd have to change the name or he'd die in five minutes no matter how good he was, so I put him away.

Again, I'm not claiming that the die atually rolls higher than any other, but I have built something of a mistique around it by keeping it in a black velvety ring box, and bringing it out ceremoniously when important rolls are about to commence. Players will object if I bring out The Paranoia Die when I am DMing.

 

[Piratecat]

My dice are biased -- against PCs.

 

[Salad Shooter]

I have a set of 6 d6s from an old dice game called "Blisters." There are two blue, two red, and two green. For some odd reason, the blue ones roll sixes fairly consistently. Then there's the decidedly biased die set that has duplicates of the high numbers...haven't used those, yet, though. Maybe one day DMing when I can't hit the PCs...

 

[Yalius]

I have a single d20 I bought about 15 years ago that rolls a 20 more than 15% of the time (averaged out for over 500 rolls one time). When I was DMing for a group in high school, I had to actually stop using that die or they would have died waaaaay more often than they liked. I still loved the looks on players' faces when I'd set that die out in my pile.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I find the white d20's that came with the starter sets of the new plastic minis only roll 1,2,3,18,19,20.

I guess it works out to average in the long run but they can be really deadly...

The ones I've got don't. Heh.

Actually, I've got one d20 that I never let any of my players touch. My black d20 that I got with the Star Wars d20 Introductory Box Set a while back. That thing is murder to PCs. My players have learned to worry about that...especially last session with the Mind Flayers that Cannot Fail Grapple Checks

 

[VoiceOfReason?]

I've seen a few wierd dice. I have a blue and white D20 that was released with a 4th ed. M:tG boxed set as a life counter, with rounded edges instead of sharp corners (theoretically a cosmetic change only). This D20 is always first in my line-up. It is biased toward 20's, 18's, 11's, and 2's, and against 8, 12, and 17 (it rolls a biased number about 35-40% of the time and is the only d20 I've seen roll 5 consecutive 20's).

I also have a percentile that rolls almost exclusively 00, 10, 80 or 90. It's crazy. It's been banned from random item creation tables because the die is unbalancing.

A friend of mine had a green and white pipped d6 that earned the nickname 'Wild Die of DOOM' (for the old d6 star wars system-a wild die is rolled with any skill check, 6=add 6 and reroll the die, 1=subtract your highest roll-usually a 5 or 6-from the check result). The die would go through phases. Sometimes it loved him, sometimes it hated him. We played a bit of a variant in which if the wild die hits on 1, not only do you subtract, but you roll the die again. I watched him roll a 76 on 3d6+the wild die. a few sessions later he rolled dead 0 on 6d6+the wild. He charted his rolls for a month and the breakdown had 6's and 1's in no greater concentrations than the other numbers, the die just liked to roll them in strings.

 

[Cinderfall]

Only as a DM

I wouldn't say I have a specifically biased die or dice. My dice only roll freakishly good when I'm DMing - so naturally it tends to screw my players. Two sessions ago my players told me they don't fear my monsters they fear my dice. It can be really rough on them as I put them up against some serious opposition.

Naturally as a player my dice screw me. Like you would not believe. Some years ago it used to be so bad I pretty much made new character(s) every session. Now it's not as bad, but still it can make a frustrating night. It is one of the reasons I prefer to DM. I don't care if my NPCs die - they aren't the focus of the story and can be replaced.

 

[Imret]

Was going through my dice bag, seeing if anything else jumped out at me, and I remembered the Combo Platter.

It's a collection of the ugliest dice we have; 2 d20's, 2 d12's, and 2 d6's. They're mostly highlighter yellow with black numbers, except the hot pink 6's. Individually, they're nothing remarkable. Rolled as a handful, 20's are ASSURED, the 12's are never under 10, the 6's are never less than 4. It's bizarre...but the PC's run in terror from two orcs with flaming greataxes these days.

 

[Turjan]

100 rolls do not come even near to the statistically necessary amount of rolls to determine whether a d20 is biased or not.

I still remember a session of a board game that uses 2 d6 for most of the die rolls. The game usually takes 3 hours. We all used the same 2 dice. During the first 2 and a half hours of the game, we did not see a single 7! We felt like the dice were cursed .