Bad Dice Rolls, Dead Serious post

[Sanackranib]

Karma

Let me assure you: you are NOT alone. My bad die rolls seem to be a result of my lucky die shattering into 4 pieces, however.

I had a nice red d20 with black lettering (very ominous looking) which I'd usually roll pretty well with when DM'ing. I would refer to it as "my lucky die". On one game day, just before we're about to start I say "One test roll..." and toss it across the floor of the game room in our FLGS. It breaks.

I considered this a bad omen, but nontheless was glad it didn't happen in game. Unfortunately, I rolled quite poorly for all the NPC's in that game. Thinking it was just a one time occurance, I was suprised when I rolled poorly next game. And the game after. I kid you not, ever since I've broken that die I've been rolling the majority of my rolls as 5 or under. I've tried many different d20's but have come up with nothing. Its been nearly a month and a half now and I'm getting a bit worried.

shattering a die is real bad mojo. no if's ands or buts. I cracked a mirror with one of mine once and it actually rolled better for a while (guess I got lucky that the mirror didn't break)

Karma is about positive and negative energy. do good for others build good karma treat them bad or wheel 'um and build bad karma. bad karma builds more quickly. so basically be a good human and you will build better karma (I'm not buddast so my understanding isn't perfect) but I believe its about faith and projection. if you know that your dice will roll well then they do. if you don't then you project that lack of faith and the negative die roll is from your negative energy. in my expirence gamesr are superstitious about their dice or people calling what they will roll and jinxing their dice. sometimes when dice are "cold" you need to roll them around in your hands for a bit and "warm" them up.
you can laugh but it all works for me. (of course it helps when your primary attak die gets a "reputation" people will remeember the 20's more then the 1's. just have fun with it

 

[Paradoxish]

This is totally off-topic, but I thought it'd be an interesting anecdote to add to a thread involving bad luck. A few months ago my group had an "evil" d8. I kid you not. This thing was possessed (or poorly weighted, but I like the possessed theory more). I forget the exact weapon being used at the time, but the player who belonged to this die would have to roll it constantly for damage. It would consistently come up as a four. We could roll it twenty times in a row and without fail it would come up as a four at least three quarters of the time. If someone else rolled it the die would be normal, but as soon as we handed it back to her it would roll fours again. Really freaky stuff.

We eventually decided that the die was either poorly weighted or it was plotting to kill us. Whichever theory happened to be true, the die had to go. First we tried throwing it out, but the player who's die it was kept going back to get it. Since we couldn't get rid of it that way we decided to burn/melt it. It was kind of funny, we walked into the backyard, put the die on a piece of paper and put the paper on a flat rock, and proceeded to set the paper on fire. We literally had to hold this player back (she actually scratched me and drew blood, confirming my theory that the die was evil ) while we melted the die. She still has the half melted die...

Morale of the story? Probability is weird and never seems to be right when it comes to dice rolling. Your luck'll get better sooner or later... ...and if it doesn't you can always burn your dice in a disturbing little ceremony out back.

 

[Arnwyn]

Oh... speaking of d4's... I'm the only person I know who can make d4's spin for a few seconds. First time happened in the late 80's. I was spinning 4 or 5 d6's when one of the other players said "Bah ! What would really impress me is if someone made a d4 spin !". I take a d4, squeeze it by two corners, and sure enough, on my first attempt the thing spins for a few seconds, and most clearly saw it. That shut him up.

Thanks. Now I'll have "Sabre Dance" playing in my head for the rest of the day (and the image of some dude rushing back and forth to keep all these dice spinning).

 

[Sagan Darkside]

But as I said earlier this is actually ruining the game for me

I have the opposite problem- I can not roll above a 5 on the few times I get to play.

I roll on average as a dm.

But- here is something I do you can try:

I will write down the pc's stats(and let them know I do so)- then I will wing combat. I don't keep track of hit points, and I just roll for the sake of appearance behind the screen. I try to make the battles dramatic and when they feel like they should end- they end.

I do keep light track of damage done to the monsters, so it does not appear absurd, but it allows for more cinematic battles: "Wow, you crit against the monsters and it dies." or "You bull rush it, and it falls to its death"

You have to be careful that you are not screwing the players in the deal, but I do it once in a while when I want a battle to be more fun then strategic.

SD

 

[Alaska Roberts]

Evil Little Karmic Nightmares

We have a guy in our group, who always rolls poorly, I mean always. Need to notice someone in a crowd? ::roll::2 Need to roll anything over an 8 to get the answers your looking for? ::Roll:;4

It's actually a little frightning. But I believe that it's a true faith thing. See I believe in Dice Karma, and I roll well on a consistant basis. I have dozens of sets of dice, so thats not it, hell I rarely even use the same set in consectutive games. It's all about the respect for the Dice and Gods of Probabilty.

Things I have done to fix or clense my dice

Oven 250 degrees 10 min
Window sill for a week
On top the TV
Sacrificed a four sider to save the rest of the set from damnation.
Prayed really hard!

But mostly I just treat them with the kindness and respect that the karma stealing little thieves deserve.

Alaska

 

[Eudaimic]

Eh, I've had rather sorry luck for about the past 2 years. Let's just say that the last time I rolled up a character (which is quite often), it took me 8 times to get a character with a stat average of 13. And someone else had to roll for me.

The EXACT same thing happened to me just a week ago ^_^

I'm telling you, the 'fairness' axis of the world is out of tilt! And only a certain group of people are affected by it!

 

[Sanackranib]

dice

one of my old DM's had a d20 I wanted to melt. if he could only roll 1 number to hit me anyone could pick any number and thats what it would roll way too often. stupid possessed die.