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So, we gamers are superstitious bastards.

Started by Freeky, May 07, 2011, 06:54:03 AM

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Freeky

Particularly when it comes to dice.  We've all heard the sayings round the table, yes?  "Oh shit, it dropped on the floor, BAD LUCK, toss it!"  "YOU DON'T TOUCH ANOTHER MAN'S DICE!"  "Hah, remember that one guy's d20?  It never rolled above a 5, and then he threw it on top of the book shelf, and three years later he went to roll it and got a 1."

I personally am dice-bit from hell, normally.  I've been trying to rectify this with proper rituals to appease the Dice Gods, but the results are spotty at best.  So I was wondering what do you guys do to realign your dice, without destroying any of them?  I may end up doing this yet, but I'm enough of a hoarder to not want to do it, in case it might someday stop being a jerkface stupid die.

Don Coyote

I don't care what the dice roll. Coincidentally, I tend to get good rolls when I need them and shit rolls when it doesn't matter.

Freeky

Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 06:56:35 AM
I don't care what the dice roll. Coincidentally, I tend to get good rolls when I need them and shit rolls when it doesn't matter.

I have the reverse.  Also you're a bastard (see bold). :argh!:

Don Coyote

Quote from: Jenkem and Tomahawks on May 07, 2011, 06:59:21 AM
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 06:56:35 AM
I don't care what the dice roll. Coincidentally, I tend to get good rolls when I need them and shit rolls when it doesn't matter.

I have the reverse.  Also you're a bastard (see bold). :argh!:

All is Slack. Slack is All.

Buy new dice? Or stuff them some place warm, and not too damp.

Jasper

I tend to get mediocre rolls unless I happen to be pulling some audacious crazy ass vin diesel oceans 11 crap.  Then I roll high for some reason.

Freeky

Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 07:01:20 AM
Quote from: Jenkem and Tomahawks on May 07, 2011, 06:59:21 AM
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 06:56:35 AM
I don't care what the dice roll. Coincidentally, I tend to get good rolls when I need them and shit rolls when it doesn't matter.

I have the reverse.  Also you're a bastard (see bold). :argh!:

All is Slack. Slack is All.

Buy new dice? Or stuff them some place warm, and not too damp.

I stick them in my bra, but like I said, the results are spotty.  AND NEW DICE DOESN'T WORK! WHY NOT (rhetorical)?! :argh!:

Don Coyote

Quote from: Jenkem and Tomahawks on May 07, 2011, 07:03:36 AM
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 07:01:20 AM
Quote from: Jenkem and Tomahawks on May 07, 2011, 06:59:21 AM
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 06:56:35 AM
I don't care what the dice roll. Coincidentally, I tend to get good rolls when I need them and shit rolls when it doesn't matter.

I have the reverse.  Also you're a bastard (see bold). :argh!:

All is Slack. Slack is All.

Buy new dice? Or stuff them some place warm, and not too damp.

I stick them in my bra, but like I said, the results are spotty.  AND NEW DICE DOESN'T WORK! WHY NOT (rhetorical)?! :argh!:

Do fire to them.

Freeky

Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 07:04:03 AM
Quote from: Jenkem and Tomahawks on May 07, 2011, 07:03:36 AM
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 07:01:20 AM
Quote from: Jenkem and Tomahawks on May 07, 2011, 06:59:21 AM
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 06:56:35 AM
I don't care what the dice roll. Coincidentally, I tend to get good rolls when I need them and shit rolls when it doesn't matter.

I have the reverse.  Also you're a bastard (see bold). :argh!:

All is Slack. Slack is All.

Buy new dice? Or stuff them some place warm, and not too damp.

I stick them in my bra, but like I said, the results are spotty.  AND NEW DICE DOESN'T WORK! WHY NOT (rhetorical)?! :argh!:

Do fire to them.

Perhaps monday.  I need them for to play this weekend.  I DM tomorrow! :D

Cardinal Pizza Deliverance.

You could always do a quick pagan-style cleanse to get rid of all the negative energy associated with all the bad rolls.

A quick soak in salt water and then left out in full moon or sunlight . . .

Light a sage bundle and waft the smoke in their direction . . .

Shake them in your hand and imagine all the bad vibes shucking off of them . . .
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"The only way we can ever change anything is to look in the mirror and find no enemy." - Akala  'Find No Enemy'.

Don Coyote

Quote from: Cardinal Pizza Deliverance. on May 07, 2011, 07:22:57 AM
You could always do a quick pagan-style cleanse to get rid of all the negative energy associated with all the bad rolls.

A quick soak in salt water and then left out in full moon or sunlight . . .

Light a sage bundle and waft the smoke in their direction . . .

Shake them in your hand and imagine all the bad vibes shucking off of them . . .
Quote from: Canis latrans securis on May 07, 2011, 07:04:03 AM

Do fire to them.

Telarus

#10
Play Reign/ORE for a few sessions. When your set of three '2's beats everybody at the table and let you go first, it start to wear out our previous pattern matching programs. Similarly, play a game where the numbers are important, but more doesn't = better.

Now, as a DM you've got some awesome options. Make low rolls mean something. Avoid the *whiff* factor by having enemies actually change the current setup of the conflict, even on failed rolls. This means BONUSES to the player's follow-up actions (the usual route with enemy botches, but make it explicit with some game numbers/temp modifiers), or it could mean an enemy SPECTACULARLY succeeding only to have that success snatched away at the last moment by chance/the Environment/Eris rolling a 20 on the Happy Dice. Example: Fighting horde of Goblins, goblins all fail their attacks. Goblins swarm the lead party member and knock him/her over, all you can see are flailing green limbs and frothing spillte. *Entire party GASPS* Suddenly, the knocked down PC jumps back to his feet easily, throwing a couple of gobs off. The goblins all look at each other and *GASP*.

I would even offer the player the option of a bonus to any social/intimidation rolls towards the goblins at that point. Or, if the PC chose combat, a few "free" attacks as he/she flung goblins all over the scenery.

It's as simple as changing "He misses you." to "He misses you AND his axe gets stuck in the table. Free AOO (or whatever your system has, or a simple +1 to attack or -1 to NPCs defense or something)."

The flip side of this, of course, is that you're allowed to do the same when PCs botch (or you could encourage them to narrate their own hilarious failures, but not a lot of people are comfortable doing this right off the bat).

Oh, and and telling your Dice to behave like ACTUAL RANDOM NUMBER GENERATORS OR THEY'LL BE TALKING TO BIG MAMA UPSTAIRS is always good to.

If you want to go with the Sage and Candles while you lay the mob-style shamanism down, it's your call.

(As a practicing Erisian Minister, I find threatening inanimate objects and abstract entities with bringing them to HER attention if they misbehave to work quite well. Bonus of having a functional Pineal Gland, Mr "i'm-just-an-anthropomorphized-meme-collective".)
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Freeky

 :lulz:  I'll probably do a pep talk, followed by threats during a smoke break if they don't behave.

We have crit and fumble decks, so we don't have to actually narrate the pain.  They also have some SICK fumbles and crits. :fap:

Triple Zero

The best way, I believe, is to apply the Law of Fives in your favour.

Change your focus. Draw attention to the good rolls, pause for a bit, savour those moments. And just neutrally deal with, quickly handle and accept the bad ones, then quickly move on with the rest of the game. And even disregarding the Law of Fives, changing up the time spent with good rolls versus bad rolls alone will change your game. After all, during your gaming hours you're now literally spending more time enjoying good rolls than bad rolls. Even if the amounts of them didn't change.

In my old gaming group, one guy was always doing the massive damage and seemingly rolling higher when it really counted. Another guy was always shitty on his luck, failing in ways that would often disable him early on in combat.
Even though dice are supposed to be perfect uniform random number generators, the effect was real. They, as well as the rest of the group, experienced a game in which one guy "always" had great luck, and another guy "always" had bad luck.

Now the only rational explanation I can give for this phenomenon is this. The "great luck guy" is a really outgoing social guy who enjoyed exclaiming his successes, cheering on himself and his dice (in a fun way), while quickly moving past fumbles and bad dice rolls. Actually, now that I remember, he could be kind of childish about it, he really didn't like to lose, he'd get a bit annoyed about it sometimes, and this might have subconsciously caused the entire group to not dwell too long on his bad rolls, just apply the game mechanics and move on.
The other guy, who's also a really great guy, my best friend actually, he's very rational, atheist, doesn't believe in superstition, is a physicist that knows how dice work, damnit. So he didn't particularly spend more time on one result or the other. But he also doesn't really deal well with failure, especially when it's caused by that stupid randomness, which he doesn't have any control over. But his reaction to failure was projected inwards, he'd curse, and sulk, and get anxious which would cause him to make bad decisions the next round, which would infuriate him even more because it was a failure he did have control over, and then the bad decision would cause another dice roll, he'd roll a great score but he'd grumble it off because he had really failed already, he just got off lucky / alternatively he'd roll a bad score and his mood would sink even further. <-- as you can see, that's a lose/lose scenario. This also had an effect on the group, see we didn't want our friend and partymember to fail, but it seemed like he did all the time, so maybe he shouldn't take his risks that way, or something (not really a rational reasoning), and the seemingly constant failure annoyed us, which in turn made him more anxious.

Okay I probably exaggerated the above story somewhat, our gameplay wasn't that skewed, but you get the general idea.

So, focus and cheer on the good rolls, and quickly handle the bad rolls then move on.

And remember to fake it till you make it. If you think it's not working, immediately dump that line of thought and cheering the good rolls and not paying too much attention and game-time to the bad results. Make sure your cheering and positive attitude are infectious, so the group will pick it up, too. After all, they also want their party member to succeed. OK, maybe they also want to laugh at fumbling characters, that's fair, that's in the game too. But make them want to cheer your successes more.
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e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.

Luna

Never, ever say, "how bad could it be?" or "what could possibly happen" while rolling.  EVAR.  My gnome has not recovered.

I find threatening the dice useful.  In your case... tell them that if they don't straighten up, you'll ask TGRR to do something Horrible to them.  :wink:
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Quote from: The Payne on November 16, 2011, 07:08:55 PM
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Quote from: Nigel on March 24, 2011, 01:54:48 AM
I like the Luna one. She is a good one.

Quote
"Stop talking to yourself.  You don't like you any better than anyone else who knows you."

Triple Zero

Show your dice that picture of the plastic doll in the "Tools for Tools" thread ...
Ex-Soviet Bloc Sexual Attack Swede of Tomorrow™
e-prime disclaimer: let it seem fairly unclear I understand the apparent subjectivity of the above statements. maybe.

INFORMATION SO POWERFUL, YOU ACTUALLY NEED LESS.