How much do you care about "balanced" dice?

doctorbadwolf · Apr 17, 2019

The idea of the DM "allowing" me to buy dice from wherever I want is laughably foreign to me.

If a DM told me they had "rules" about what dice are allowed, excepting an AL table where the DM had had to deal with dice cheaters recently, I'd laugh and say no. I'm going to use the dice I like to use to play DnD.

As for how much I personally care about balance in my personal dice (the only context in which I believe I have any voice, much less vote, in dice selection), I'm not terribly worried about it. If I were to notice that a single die tends to have a die result grouping that seems too far out of norm to not weird the game results, I'd probably retire that die. Otherwise, I don't think I could ever possibly care.

This holds for when I'm playing, or running games. Any normal dice will result in throws that are withing a reasonable band of results over any normal number of rolls. As Umbran said, we aren't likely to see any actual difference in play, so I just don't ever think about it.

uzirath · Apr 17, 2019

My brother and I are both fairly aggressive rationalists, yet we both have rituals around dice that date from our childhood D&D games. He always blows on his dice before rolling them. I like to set my dice on the table with the numbers up that I'm hoping for. So in a D&D game I might intentionally set the d20 so that the 20 is on top. In my current GURPS and DFRPG games, I set my skill dice with the single pips up (roll low is the goal) and my damage dice with the sixes up.

I am fully aware that the atoms aren't slowly descending to weight the other side of my dice and that my ritual has zero bearing on the odds, but it still gives me comfort.

Nytmare · Apr 17, 2019

uzirath said:
I am fully aware that the atoms aren't slowly descending to weight the other side of my dice and that my ritual has zero bearing on the odds, but it still gives me comfort.

A guy I went to college with had a shelf he'd set his army of dice up on between game sessions. His ritual was that he'd place them with the numbers he wanted to roll facing down because his grasp of statistics was more mysticism than math and he thought that keeping other numbers face up influenced the chances of them coming up later in the future.

MNblockhead · Apr 17, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
The idea of the DM "allowing" me to buy dice from wherever I want is laughably foreign to me.

If a DM told me they had "rules" about what dice are allowed, excepting an AL table where the DM had had to deal with dice cheaters recently, I'd laugh and say no. I'm going to use the dice I like to use to play DnD.

As for how much I personally care about balance in my personal dice (the only context in which I believe I have any voice, much less vote, in dice selection), I'm not terribly worried about it. If I were to notice that a single die tends to have a die result grouping that seems too far out of norm to not weird the game results, I'd probably retire that die. Otherwise, I don't think I could ever possibly care.

This holds for when I'm playing, or running games. Any normal dice will result in throws that are withing a reasonable band of results over any normal number of rolls. As Umbran said, we aren't likely to see any actual difference in play, so I just don't ever think about it.

Well, right, you can buy dice from where ever you choose. But you can not use just any dice at my table. This was actually pushed by my players. We decided that we would all use dice that any of our aging eyes could see from across the table. We are clear about our table rules before a new player joins. I've not yet had someone decide not to play with us because of this rule. On the other hand we've been playing together for five years now. There isn't much churn.

doctorbadwolf · Apr 17, 2019

MNblockhead said:
Well, right, you can buy dice from where ever you choose. But you can use just any dice at my table. This was actually pushed by my players. We decided that we would all use dice that any of our aging eyes could see from across the table. We are clear about our table rules before a new player joins. I've not yet had someone decide not to play with us because of this rule. On the other hand we've been playing together for five years now. There isn't much churn.

A group agreement is totally different from a DM “rule”, to be fair. Still, if seeing other player’s dice rolls is part of the fun for you guys, fair enough.

I might feel differently about the idea if it was part of the fun for me, but I’ve never really had a group where I could reliably see anyone’s dice clearly enough to know the result before they announce it, and part of the fun for us seems to be getting to announce to the table what we rolled, good or bad.

MNblockhead · Apr 18, 2019

[MENTION=6704184]doctorbadwolf[/MENTION] Well, yes, with age reading dice from afar can be a challenge. But I think I've found the answer:

ccs · Apr 18, 2019

Umbran said:
No, they have a die they *think* rolls high.

I've been using my original little pale grey d20 for nearly 39 years now. I'm certain it rolls higher than average.
Oh it rolls every other # as well. But in general, if you wanted to improve your odds of rolling high, that's the one you should pick out of my dice bag.
It knows it's job is to kill monsters & make Saves.

Likewise I've got this crappy orange d20 that rolls so poorly people have actually checked to make sure it's got all 20 #s on it....

Immortal Sun · Apr 18, 2019

I do want my players to roll in the open, but I generally assume whatever dice they're using are made properly.

I tried to make loaded dice once, didn't work and made my house stink too.

Dannyalcatraz · Apr 18, 2019

Beyond the obviously loaded or damaged died out there, I don’t much care. I have a Bucket O’ Dice* to maintain!

* Which doesn’t include my “personal” stash.

Immortal Sun · Apr 18, 2019

Dannyalcatraz said:
Beyond the obviously loaded or damaged died out there, I don’t much care. I have a Bucket O’ Dice* to maintain!
* Which doesn’t include my “personal” stash.

I'm even fine if my players want to use the dreaded "spindown" lifecounter dice you get from games like MTG. Heck, I have one guy who spins a "disc" and then just slaps his finger down on a number. I'd suspect cheating if he didn't roll so poorly!

I only require my players to roll out in the open, that's good enough for me. Dropping is also acceptable provided it bounces around a little.

How much do you care about "balanced" dice?

doctorbadwolf

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MNblockhead

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doctorbadwolf

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