Burying Bad Dice Alive

[FunGuyfromYuggoth]

I’ve had precisely three sets of dice that rolled oddly. The first was a set of percentile dice back in high school that rolled low. Really low. I bought them for Call of Cthulhu at ConnCon, a little convention in Connecticut, and they turned out to be perfect.

In CoC, the lower the roll, the better. Not only did these babies roll low, they consistently rolled 01-05, which is a critical success in CoC. After the con, I mixed them in with my other dice — biiiig mistake. I’ve never been able to figure out which 2d10 they were again.

http://www.treasuretables.org/2006/07/when-dice-go-bad

[themaninawhitecar]

I myself have been known to put poorly-rolling dice into "time out," meaning I throw them in the corner and shout "bad dice, bad dice," at them.

I should know better, having studied statistics and probability, but I still do it from time to time, just for the emotional outlet it provides.

[Nineteen-Delta]

The biggest trouble is that bad dice can be infectious. If you return poorly rolling ones to the pot and draw fresh dice, the infection can spread to the new set.

-Also it is infectious in players. Once someone rolls badly, sometimes all the rest seem to follow suit.

-oh and cannon fodder NPCs always roll badly about 95% of the time and get impales and critical hits and succeed in their one puny skill the other 5% of the time. This has been documented previously as the red-shirt and/ or stormtrooper effect.

-Still, thats what makes it great!

[trevlix]

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/no...ffn/ffn116.htm

And go for about 5 strips after that one...

[cjbowser]

I met my current gaming group through 'bad dice.'

In the beginning, it was innocuous enough. I'd get up on Tuesday to go to work and find dice, often times percentiles, in my front yard or driveway. The first few times, I thought they were vestiges of previous gamers in residence, but then it kept occurring. Regardless of how many I picked up, they kept appearing. Maybe they didn't appear every Tuesday, but they littered my lawn often enough for me to notice a pattern. If they were going to appear, it would be on a Tuesday morning.

So, one chilly November Monday I came home from work and staked out the area. I sat on my porch and waited as cars slowly prowled up and down the street. They all had other destinations in mind, though. However, about 6:30pm my dinner of stale doughnuts and staler coffee paid off. Cars began gathering across the street and middle aged men began filtering into the house directly opposite mine carrying backpacks or large piles of books. I began to feel like I was onto something, so I raised my newspaper over my eyes and waited a little while longer.

At 9:00pm it happened! Someone emerged onto the porch of the house opposite mine, drew back his arm and let fly. I watched as two small objects arced through the air, riding the curse of "Roll high, will you? F---ing dice!" hit my walkway with a plasticy 'tink!' and bounce into the lawn.

I immediately scooped them up and began walking purposefully toward their launcher, who began to look a little nervous at my determined approach. He knew I knew. I ascended the stairs to his porch two at a time and slowly pulled my hand out of my jacket pocket. I struck up a conversation, returned the dice, and joined the game.

[Gaffer]

Great story, Bowser.

[N-kun]

doesnt matter what you do with dice, its all random their aint no all pervasive law of bad dice so training them, shouting at them, quarentining them or throwing them into the bog of eternal stench will have no effect on the numbers you or i roll.

[Philulhu]

Of course, there are ways around 'bad dice'. One such way is the 'inadvertent' rolling of the 'ones' dice into a 'tens' dice that is showing rather more tens than the roller would like.

As a Keeper I see it as my solemn duty to watch carefully as many of these rolls of the dice as possible to ensure that the laws of probability remain un-tampered with.

The crestfallen look on a player's face when I point out that I'll accept their first roll, despite they fact they managed to alter probability by spanging one dice off another, is just something I have to bear with fortitude

[Helen]

doesnt matter what you do with dice, its all random their aint no all pervasive law of bad dice so training them, shouting at them, quarentining them or throwing them into the bog of eternal stench will have no effect on the numbers you or i roll.

And this is why you've doomed the world on a number of occasions

I'm a big fan of dice training and if a dice rolls persistently badly it'll be punished by placement in a designated 'naughty area'. I also believe that dice will roll well for a while, then bad for a while, which is why you'll sometimes hear me 'rolling out the bad luck' on the Masks audio.

Of course this *is* probably supersistious nonsence, but it seems to work for me!

Cheers,
Helen

[theshoveller]

Didn't the company Gamescience used to do some advertising along the lines that 'bad' dice (i.e. ones that favoured particular numbers) were caused by asymmetric faces and the like.

Essentially: "Your dice always roll x because face y has worn down and prejudiced the result. The solution? Gamescience dice roll evenly for up to twenty years! Compare this twenty-year-old TSR d20 with our patented etc..."

[Mograg]

One of my friends is especially harsh on dice that have let him down.

One set was nuked in the microwave.

Another got thrown six stories out of a window into a canal.

His outbursts are great fun - if you are not one of his dice, that is...

Speaking of really, really bad dice rolling, anyone else listening to Neil's "remarkable luck" with dice in the Masks audio downloads? Man, he must have thrown his dice at some old voodoo priestess or gypsy crone before starting the game...

Cheers,

Brian C. (who gets along with his dice, most of the time...)

[Victimizer]

I don't believe in severe and cruel punishments/mistreatments of any kind to anything, including dice. I treat all my dice equally well, and each and every one of them (newcomers included, they immediatly join in into the healthy environment I've created) rolls consistantly what I want on an unlikely high percentage base.

In competitive games this gives me an adge, in RPG's I do not prefer this too much, and thus am "benefitted" less by high roles (making me enjoy the game more).

That may be kinda silly, but there is a certain, humorous ethical reflection of stuff in dice punishment: If you believe the dice can learn through punishment, then you must also believe that you are being cruel to a semi-sentient being.

...

...uhm...Yeah! Fun fer all! *flaps away*

[Sinister-Ornament]

designated 'naughty area'

Stand in the corner with a dunce's hat on!

[cynick]

http://archive.gamespy.com/comics/do...wcomic&id=1147

[jabonko]

My dice have not yet been charged with enough gaming energies to roll in any specific fashion. I cycle through them quite frequently... if one set/color/size rolls poorly out comes a different set for the session. Next session I'll start with the ones that rolled well, and if they fail me then it's off to another... and so on and so on into the endless abyss of time.

However, I have heard of 'cursed' dice being offered for sale...anyone familiar with that?