Multiple Dice Sets Anyone?

[Stormonu]

A lot of cheaper dice have a prediliction to roll certain numbers, so there is some truth to the "lucky dice". Watch the videos about Zochi's Gamescience dice if you want to know more.

At the same time, it can slow a game down with prerolling tests before each roll. I tell my players if they are going to test their dice, do it before the game starts. There are no "test" rolls omce the game is on.

 

[billd91]

You should probably just tell him that his OCD-leaning, good luck ritual is taking too long and annoying too many people. Tell him he's either got to speed it up by doing it during other people's turns so he's ready for a single roll when his turn comes up or get it out of his system at the start of the game as everyone's setting up.

 

[Marius Delphus]

This. I don't know if I'm just lucky, or what, but the players I had with kooky dice rituals knew better than to eat up valuable game time indulging them.

 

[Dannager]

Dice rituals are silly. When they waste everyone else's time, they graduate from silly to stupid. Explain it thusly to him: Either all of his dice are so close to random as to be practically random, in which case he doesn't need to bother with silly rituals, or his dice are not random and actually have predictable lucky/unlucky streaks (they don't, of course, but we're indulging your silly player), in which case his efforts to predict those streaks are violating the entire purpose of rolling dice: to inject a random element into gameplay.

He can't have it both ways.

 

[Holy Bovine]

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...

Letting one player annoy the rest of the group is a surefire way to ensure the group implodes. The other players already, seemingly, resent the dice-rolling player, soon they will resent you for not doing what a DM is supposed to do and stop annoying behaviour. Tell die-rolling man it isn't personal and you just want people to not be rolling dice constantly. Honestly the noise of someone doing that when it was not their turn would drive me batty - same as if I had to wait for a guy to roll multiple dice before actually rolling. First die rolled counts unless it falls off the table or become 'cocked' is my general rule.

 

[Festivus]

I do a roll test at the start of a session but generally put the extra dice away for the game time.

I also pre-roll almost everything for my turn, so if I know I am going to make an attack, I have my attack roll made and added up so I can just announce "Does 25 hit his AC?". Since I already have the damage done too if the DM says "Yes" I can quickly spill out the damage and be done with my turn.

I do this in the interest of time savings, I roll out in the open, note down every die roll and modifier on a sheet, and generally leave the die sitting there with the numbers I rolled face up. I have never been questioned.

Rolling to test your dice every single time you go to roll them would get me to roll my eyes at you.

 

[Super Pony]

I have played with a man (at least I'm assuming he was human) who had three sets of dice that he would rotate through the freezer at his girlfriend's house (who was our GM at the time). He would literally roll, stand up and walk into the kitchen (typically missing descriptions and key development) plop the recently rolled die into an ice cube tray and come sit back down....rinse repeat...all session. So I can feel the frustration of the other players at the OP's table.

I would recommend being adult and forthright with the guy and tell him one-on-one so he doesn't feel put on the spot mid-session.

"Samtodjeff, you are hanging up the action with the multiple die rolls and the other folks are getting chaffed by it. It doesn't particularly bother me, but could I ask you to roll for the lucky set of dice at the beginning of the session and just stick with them? It'll help me focus on dishing out the horrendous monsters and dismal chances of survival you all show up each session for."

If it is more an issue of the other players needing to lay off the whining, just tell the lucky roller to roll his dice and then get up and go put the recently rolled die in an ice-cube tray in the freezer. I'm sure the other players will be begging him to go back to multiple luck dowsing rolls in no time....or they'll lynch him with fig newtons.

 

[Lanefan]

I have played with a man (at least I'm assuming he was human) who had three sets of dice that he would rotate through the freezer at his girlfriend's house (who was our GM at the time). He would literally roll, stand up and walk into the kitchen (typically missing descriptions and key development) plop the recently rolled die into an ice cube tray and come sit back down....rinse repeat...all session.

And it's a true facepalm if the ice-cube tray has water in it, and after the last roll there's a break in the action for a few hours while the party divides treasury or something...

Lan-"all my dice have become sort of 6-sided, and they're very slippery"-efan

 

[delericho]

If he's not clearly indicating when his "test rolls" end and his "real roll" begins (before the "real roll"), then he is flat-out cheating. Whether this is the case or not, by using "test rolls" to select his dice, he's slowing the game down, and clearly annoying other players. That being the case, you really have to do something.

I would rule that whenever he is called on to make a roll (whether it's his turn, or in response to something else), he's expected to immediately pick up the appropriate dice and roll them, once, then and there.

If he wants to do "test rolls", to preselect his die, or any other ritual then that's up to him - but he has to do it before the roll is called for, not after.

As for the question of using multiple sets of dice, or anything else - provided all the dice are fair, and provided they're all suitably legible, I wouldn't care how they are selected, how many sets he uses, or anything like that.

(Personally, my preference is for players to use colour-coded dice, so the d10 is obviously different from the d8 and the d12, but that's mostly because one of my players can't seem to tell them apart by shape alone. In any case, that's just a personal preference, not a ruling I would consider imposing on the table.)

 

[The Human Target]

Any behavior that slows the game down and interrupts fun needs to be curbed.