D&D Urban Legends: I new this guy who...

[jmucchiello]

If Torm is able to roll the dice this consistantly, he needs to take a week off from gaming and head to Vegas.

In Vegas, you throw the dice against a vertical wall before they land. That is HARD to consistantly roll. Doing it with dice on table is easy. A friend of mine can manipulate d6s well enough to fix any game of backgammon he plays. I've tried my hand at doing it and it is possible with a little practice to get the smaller dice to roll what you want. d20s are hard to manipulate but I'm sure if you spent enough time on it, you could do it.

There's no question that dice aren't entirely random. In fact, they're not random at all. It is ALWAYS the physics that determines the outcome. But I think that (particularly for a d20) that it is nearly impossible for a player to exert fine enough control over his die roll to predetermine the outcome with any accuracy worth mentioning.

I disagree. You aren't manipulating the physics, you are minimizing it. The objective to "fixing" a die roll is to control the number of rotations of the die between hand and table. Once you can do this (without obvious exertion) you can get good at picking the outcome of a die roll. After that do it with multiple dice is just the next level of difficulty.

As I said, I've tried this. I think I was able to do it. When I played with the d20, I rolled a lot of 20s (and 2s and 8s and ...) but I generally could get close to the 20 face.

 

[Cassander]

Here's a story that I know is true cause it happened to my Dad back during an RPGA Living City adventure in the 90s. I was at another table, but he told me about it later.

My dad's character was a fighter/priest of tempus (FR god of war). During a combat, he rolled a 1 on an attack roll. Then he did it again. And again. And again. And again! I believe he rolled a 1 FIVE times in a row, though it may have been just four. The DM (er "judge") decided to punish him again by saying that Tempus cursed him by taking away all his spells for the day due to his lameness in combat.

Sure, it's not exactly an urban legend, but it is true!

 

[Saeviomagy]

If Torm is able to roll the dice this consistantly, he needs to take a week off from gaming and head to Vegas.

Where they'll promptly kick him out of every casino for cheating.

People can do it. They do do it. They do get caught.

Casino's make their money by kicking out everyone who can actually play their games and leaving the suckers to throw away their cash.

 

[DiFier]

My problem with this story is that they are playing at a gaming store he could just buy another die. he doesn't need to borrow one. and even if he is really poor dice aren't that expensive.

The Accused D20

The story goes - A gaming group is playing out of a gaming store which has a area for playing. For a number of weeks, one of the players is having uncommonly bad luck with a particular D20, in fact, the only D20 he owns. The dice rolls a seeming abnormal number of 1s.

According to the story, the others, being somewhat superstitious, will not loan him any of their D20s for fear that his use will 'jinx' their dice.

Finally after weeks of bad luck, the player's character dies after rolling a 1 on the saving throw, the last of a series of 1s rolled by that character that night.

Now at the breaking point, the player heads out back of the store and gets a golf club from the golf bag in his car's trunk. The others follow to see what is happening.

The angry gamer throws the offending D20 to the ground and with a wild swing overpowered by rage, drives the dice skyward with the golf club. By happenstance, the force of the blow shatters the dice into pieces. Only one piece of the dice remains at his feet. The player looks down....

and stares at a 1, the topmost number of the remaining piece of the dice sitting undamage side up.

Apparently a true story, but as I stated, cannot be verified or validated as to it truthfulness.

 

[MDSnowman]

My mother has been a teacher for years and she went to a conference where she met another woman, they got to talking, and eventually she let it out that I played D&D and the woman's response...

"...You let your son play D&D? You really must stop him, my son used to play and it made him manic depressive!!!"

My response when I heard that at the age of 16 was a hearty

 

[shadow]

One of my friends who I game with was once told by a lady in his church that D&D was evil. She told him that her nephew got possessed by a demon by playing D&D and was "foaming at the mouth"!

 

[Daedrova]

good die; bad die

Concerning dice, I am privy to another story that is so unlikely it could very well have been a sort of urban legend- Confirmed true since I was actually part of the event.

This event happened during the first D&D campaign my gaming group played using the 3rd edition rules. Just because of the circumstances surrounding the event- I must give a little back story.

Being that the three Core books for 3E had just come out, and the MM gave "CR adjustments" for monster/template entries, a couple of us were interested in playing with these new options... we used those CR numbers in a similar fashion to current ECL adjustment- The party ended up being Dwarven fighter, a human Monk, a werewolf/human Cleric, and I played a half-celestial Paladin. It became quite obvious to us, after the first few sessions, that the characters were unbalanced- the stat adjustments and bonuses for half-celestial synergize very, very well with the paladin class.

Rather than changing numbers or levels, our DM decided to make a NPC he was planning to by my Nemesis. A female half-fiend Blackguard. She looked statistically identical to my Paladin in nearly every way (I found out soon enough).

As the plot advanced we came to hear of a powerful sword that could be used to greatly advance the purpose of this evil Blackguard(ess). As events culminated, it came to a climax of sorts as I led the party into the tower that was home of the weapon, racing (I believe her name was Illiara) the half-fiend and her dark servants to the weapon.

Upon reaching the room, the DM had us all roll initiative. Coincidently my Paladin and my Illiara were ahead in initiative, on the same count with the same Dex modifiers. Both of our actions were obvious, and the DM decided that this would come down to an opposed attack roll as we both grabbed for the sword.

This is where this most peculiar even occurred (on a side note- this DM was in the practice of rolling the dice out from behind the screen where everyone could see the results- no fudged rolls for help or hindrance)
Knowing I had the same attack bonus she did, I was disappointed when my dice came up showing a 6, but much to my relief, her dice showed the same number. The rest of it goes something like this

"What do we do on a tied opposed attack roll" I said.

The DM replied "it would make sense to just roll the dice again.

We preceded to pick up our dice simultaneously, looking each other in the eyes, a slight smirk upon or faces. We both let our dice go, then glanced down just before they came to a stop.

"Nineteen, YES.." and my excitement dropped as I looked over to see my DM's die showing the same result.

"Wow, you have to be kidding me", and he continued "well, lets just roll them again. That is just too unlikely to happen again."

But, as you could have guessed, it did. Not only that time, but we rolled those D20's 6 times, rolling the SAME number as the other each time.

"What the ..." he had a slightly concerned but bemused look on his face.
By that time we started to get some guests at our gaming table, as we were making a bit of a fuss there at the gaming store*. "Ok, enough with these dice... pick up your D12. I don't know what is up with these."

And we proceeded to roll them... both of us coming up with 8.

I picked the die up again to roll, but was stopped by my DM-
"No, were not doing this with these dice too. D8's"

Again, the same number for each of us. And so I looked at him, not sure of what he would decide on next.

"Ok, D6's"

Resolute, the DM decided that we would not change dice untill these came up with different numbers. Fortunatly, we only had to roll these twice before the numbers came up 5 vs. 2- Good being the victor as it should be after a long hard fought battle with evil. To this day that remains one of my most favorable gaming memories.
My friend/the DM did go home and work out just how statistically improbable that was. Later, he did mention that we could have won the State lottery maybe 3 times. I am curious though- would anyone be able to figure out the exact probability of what occurred there? I myself have no experience with statistical numbers/probability type equations.

*(Star Gaming here in Akron, OH- not long afterward it moved. Unfortunately it is now shut down, despite my attempts to keep it going by buying nearly every D&D book put out.)

 

[Havlo]

Dice Obedience School

If you lay a sledge hammer on a dice it will roll better.

We had jokingly said that the implied threat would make the dice toe the line so we decided to put it to a test.

Maybe it was coincidence but we did roll better after that. Soon the table was arguing over who got to use the sledge hammer next.

Nothing scarier then a group of gamers wielding a 6 lbs sledge.

Send all your dice to Dice Obedience School!

http://www.gamegrene.com/game_material/dice_obedience_school.shtml

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Casino's make their money by kicking out everyone who can actually play their games and leaving the suckers to throw away their cash.

Orrrrrrrrrr... It could just be the fact that no game in the house offers 50/50 odds. Those "who can actually play their games" can only get close to 50/50. The more you know, the closer you can get to 50/50.

Casinos just don't need to cheat the game and they don't have to rely on "suckers." The odds favor the house, and the sheer amount of money moving through the casino means they'll make money, no matter what.

Fairly.

Honestly.

Sorry about your run of bad luck, but there's no reason to take it out on the casino.

/hijack


Wulf

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

Two things...

Most people that I know that have done the microwave dice thing have "cheesed" them-- sprinkled cheese on the dice and then microwaves them for a number of seconds equal to the number they want to roll on that die..

Second, every youth pastor that I had in middle and high school either played or DMed Dungeons and Dragons... I heard my fair share of "D&D is evil" BS... but, I couldn't be brought to believe it (and neither could my parents) because Pastor John played WITH us.

It was excellent.

(okay... three things..)

BLACK LEAF!! NOOOOOOOOOOO!