Cheater Dice? Why?

[Obryn]

That's the behavior of a random system. "Streaks" of good and bad luck are normal and a well-written random number generator will frequently produce them. I've often seen the same thing happen with real dice (and no, they weren't loaded or cheater dice; players don't generally cheat to give themselves bad rolls).

Going even further, any attempt on a program's part to reduce streakiness also reduces the overall randomness of the result set.

You don't want a lower chance to roll a 10 if you have just rolled a 10, or even if you've just rolled 2 10's in a row. That makes later results dependent on earlier results, which is a statistical no-no.

-O

 

[Dausuul]

Going even further, any attempt on a program's part to reduce streakiness also reduces the overall randomness of the result set.

You don't want a lower chance to roll a 10 if you have just rolled a 10, or even if you've just rolled 2 10's in a row. That makes later results dependent on earlier results, which is a statistical no-no.

Of course, just because it's a statistical no-no doesn't mean it's a bad idea for gaming. I've actually considered trying to come up with some kind of system that reduces streakiness, because few things suck as much as rolling 5 or less on the d20 over and over during a major encounter. Something with cards perhaps...

 

[On Puget Sound]

Make a deck of cards numbered 1 through 20 for each player. Shuffle them before play, and deal one whenever a roll is called for. Shuffle when through for a true "fair" distribution. Or add a 21st card that says "shuffle and draw again" and put it somewhere randomly in the bottom 5 cards, to add just a bit of uncertainty (when you shuffle, pull it out and again insert it somewhere near the bottom of the deck).

End of streakiness. BUT you will find that once the 20 and a few other high numbers are used up, players start making gratuitous skill checks to burn through the cards faster.

 

[Sparr]

What do you do when you discover that dice you have been using for a while are unintentionally weighted?

 

[Akaiku]

One time, my group got the gm to roll a d20 with 1-10 on it twice vs a high ac team. It went on for several sessions.

Also, with bad luck, I've not rolled above a 12 in dnd 4th ed on an attack roll for about 3 months strait. Usually 4-8 on it. I do tend to roll decently on pointless rolls, (Knowledge, initiative for non-rogues, the like.)
Also, I've seen in 3 months of gaming, 3 skill challenges failed by a string of 3 rolls that were 3 or less. Also, I've seen 3 pc's crit a non-minion since 4th ed's came out. Makes those on-crit feats seem much less useful.

 

[RFisher]

What do you do when you discover that dice you have been using for a while are unintentionally weighted?

Buy new dice!

’Cause, is there any problem in life that can’t be solved (or at least soothed) by buying more dice?

 

[Volaran]

My roommate/DM has a set of d20s with no 20s and two 1s on each of them.

I believe he originally bought them quite a while ago for a game where the player characters adventured in the first layer of hell. He made them roll only those d20s.

They now sit in his dice bucket, free to use for anyone who forgets their own dice. Everyone knows what they look like, but it doesn't prevent some people from occasionally picking them up by accident, and cursing their luck for an hour or so until one of us notices and points it out.

We could remove them from the bucket, of course, but people really should remember their own dice.

 

[castro3nw]

One of the guys I game with spent about 3 months failing to threaten a crit on a 15-20, so I picked up a blank d20 and a Drimmel and made him a d20 that was just numbered 16-20 four times. The DM let him use it for one session, but I'm not sure it's seen the light of day since.

 

[RefinedBean]

I just wouldn't feel right using 'em.

And I've been rolling horribly for three months, finally culminating in a favorite character's death last week. Stupid. Stupid. Death saves.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Well there are those people who run games where everybody gets to reroll all their 1's. Those kind of dice would kind of fit that approach.