Multiple Dice Sets Anyone?

[xipetotec]

So one of my players called shenanigans on another yesterday. I have a player who has a couple of sets of dice with him. He likes to roll from each set, decide which he feels is "luckiest" then do a final roll. The other player feels not only does this add unneeded time to the game, but they feel he is using that as a reason to "roll again". He has been doing this for a while, but in the interest of general harmony at the table, I've had to houserule ONLY ONE SET PER PLAYER.

He insists he doesn't re-roll, it's his "good luck' ritual to pick the "best" dice and do a final roll with it. I wouldn't say he's cheating either as I've watched before and he's the only one of my players to have DIED so far...
Does anyone else do this? Or have a player who does something similar?

He was quite upset by the new rule, which he said was never a rule before. I'm not a super experienced GM, how would others dealt with this?

 

[Stumblewyk]

It is time-consuming. And while I agree that he's not explicitly going for a re-roll as he still has to roll that lucky die and it still come up with a 1, it's slowing the game down, and the other players at the table don't particularly enjoy it.

In my own gaming, I often have multiple sets of dice out, but I'm only using one set at a time - if one d20 goes into a cold streak, I'll often change. Yes, percentage freaks, I know that I'm not actually increasing my odds for getting a better roll by switching dice. I just feel better about doing it. But I don't test my dice out ever time a roll comes up.

In your case, I'd say you tell him he can multiple sets out, but he can't do his test rolls. He's got to pick a set of dice, and stick with it unless he feels he wants to switch. And only because the rest of the group feels it's slowing down gameplay.

 

[ThatGuyThere]

Does anyone else do this? Or have a player who does something similar?

Does he "test roll" for every roll, at the start of the session, or only for life-or-death rolls?

At the start of the session? Well, no biggie. I've had dozens of players do that, or a variation thereof.

For life-or-death rolls? I'd probably be fine with that (have been in the past, actually), as long as there's a clear line between "I'm about to make a test roll" and "this roll's the real thing". It gives the player a better sense of control, and statisically makes no (or little) difference. But I'd say, "One test" (of however many dice), "then the real roll".

And finally, if it's for every roll, that's nuts. That would add a huge amount of time, so I'd nip that in the bud.

 

[Zhaleskra]

For me, it depends on when he's doing this. Before the game even starts? No problem. During the game? Potential problem.

When I'm playing, if a die keeps consistently rolling poorly (somewhere around 10-20 bad rolls of the same die), I trade it out for a die of the same shape for the rest of the session. I have absolutely no guarantee the new die is going to do any better. All I know is that it hasn't established a track record this session. But this is die by die not set by set.

So it looks like I'm pretty much in agreement with ThatGuyThere.

 

[xipetotec]

Does he "test roll" for every roll, at the start of the session, or only for life-or-death rolls?

At the start of the session? Well, no biggie. I've had dozens of players do that, or a variation thereof.

For life-or-death rolls? I'd probably be fine with that (have been in the past, actually), as long as there's a clear line between "I'm about to make a test roll" and "this roll's the real thing". It gives the player a better sense of control, and statisically makes no (or little) difference. But I'd say, "One test" (of however many dice), "then the real roll".

And finally, if it's for every roll, that's nuts. That would add a huge amount of time, so I'd nip that in the bud.

Well I'm not sure I would say he does it for *every* roll... but he does it often enough. He does mostly define a clear line between his test rolls and the "final" roll... I think it's more of an issue with it rubbing other players the wrong way more than anything else...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well I'm not sure I would say he does it for *every* roll... but he does it often enough. He does mostly define a clear line between his test rolls and the "final" roll... I think it's more of an issue with it rubbing other players the wrong way more than anything else...

And that's good enough reason to nix it. Whether they realize it or not, part of every DM's job is just keeping peace among the players.

 

[Asmor]

I think it's not that uncommon, although to the degree he does it perhaps it is...

Tell him to pick his dice when it's not his turn. Alternatively, tell him regardless of when or why he rolls them, he gets the worst result among all dice he rolls on his turn.

There's nothing wrong or even unusual with having kooky dice rituals. There is something wrong with making other people wait.

 

[Umbran]

Here's the real question - does he decide whether the roll is "real" before he sees the result? If so, then this is merely a bit of time consumption. If he chooses if it was the real roll after he sees the result, it is more like cheating. If you fear he's trying to cheat, make him announce which is the real roll before he rolls the dice. All others rolls are practice.

If cheating isn't going on, the issue at hand isn't the number of sets of dice, but how many rolls/time he takes. So, make the limit of one roll per roll, so to speak. If he needs to pick his lucky dice, he can do that when it isn't his turn to resolve actions.

 

[triqui]

So one of my players called shenanigans on another yesterday. I have a player who has a couple of sets of dice with him. He likes to roll from each set, decide which he feels is "luckiest" then do a final roll. The other player feels not only does this add unneeded time to the game, but they feel he is using that as a reason to "roll again". He has been doing this for a while, but in the interest of general harmony at the table, I've had to houserule ONLY ONE SET PER PLAYER.

It is time consuming, and actually just a superstition. He's not cheating, unless he is using it as a cheap way to reroll sometimes (so I roll the white dice. If it's a 19, I just shut up and say "I hit". If it's a 3, then I proceed to take the blue dice to see which one is "luckier". If he's doing this, then he's cheating)

Fun part is that the guy who is complaining IS superstitious too. Mechanically it's the same if he rolls the dice once, or twenty times before he anounce "this is the right one". It's just time consuming.

The number of dice sets is not relevant however. I have seen players with only 1 dice set, rolling over and over again, until they get a low score, and then rolling "the real one" becouse "you don't get two low rolls on a row" (which is the Montecarlo's fallacy or Gambler's fallacy: Gambler's fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

I would use a different approach. Give everyplayer same amount of time to solve his turn. Let's say one minute. Then each player can use that time as they see fit. You can use your time to think tactics, to look for powers, calculate average damage, or "warm up dice". So this player can use his time to fuel up his stupid superstition, while not using more time than everybody else

 

[Wednesday Boy]

There's nothing wrong or even unusual with having kooky dice rituals. There is something wrong with making other people wait.

Yup.

If he needs to pick his lucky dice, he can do that when it isn't his turn to resolve actions.

That's what I would say. You should be ready to roll when it's called for. If he can't get his dice ready when it isn't his turn, I'd ask him to pick his lucky dice before the session and have only those on the table at a time.

I would use a different approach. Give everyplayer same amount of time to solve his turn. Let's say one minute. Then each player can use that time as they see fit.

That does make it fair across the board (which is good) but it would still irk me to know that each of John's turn would be take the full minute because of his dice rituals.