Dice

I possess three sets of D&D dice (D4, D6, D8, D10, D10 in multiples of 10, and D20): translucent smoke, translucent green, and opaque blue. The blue and green are alright, but the smoke dice are definitely my favorites- especially the D20, which seems to roll either in the 1-4 range or the 16-20 range with disproportionately little in between. My friends and I have jokingly referred to it as "the D2."

edited 12th May '14 12:58:06 PM by BrainSewage

confessions time: I was sinful enough to experiment with creating loaded dice. I had a think about the principles involved, and how to rig a dice so it wouldn't be externally visible. I wanted something that would subtly bias a dice - one that automatically, for instance, rolled a six EVERY time would be blatant as Hell. Besides, in some gaming systems, sixes aren't always good. it called for something that offset the centre of gravity by just enough to favour one number.

So I took a set of D6 with the dots recessed into the face of the dice. Drilled down through the holes on the opposite side to the number I wanted to favour, and refilled them with a mixture of Millliput (modelling putty) and lead filings. A bit of black paint to refill the dots, a bit of experimenting with a few dice to get the mix right, and I had some suitably bent D6's. Problem was, i didn't think to mark them so they were recognisable... and they got lost in my dice collection... I did find them again, but it took a lot of working out! (the wages of sin...)

edited 6th Jun '14 12:37:17 PM by AgProv

I borrowed a few loaded d6's the other day by accident actually. They were shaved down on some edges that you don't really notice unless you're looking. It's blatantly obvious then, but we didn't notice until we started getting way too many rocks(We were playing settlers of Catan)

I have one set of D&D Polyhedrals, three sets of 10d10 (unfortunately only two complete), and one set of Fantasy Flight Star Wars dice (which I haven't gotten a chance to try out yet). I had more dice, but when I lost a lot of them (some from game play, some from a break up, and some from moving)... I also need to get more d6's as I started playing Iron Kingdoms (the RPG, not the miniatures game) recently, and I've been having to borrow my boyfriend's dice (not that he minds, because they're a bunch of d6's he got from the dollar store)... I keep my dice in plastic sandwich baggies inside a plastic pencil case that clips closed nicely.

I'm do get a little bothered if people use my dice and don't immediately put them back. It's not because they'll get their "cooties" on them or anything, it's just that I've lost a lot of dice and really want to keep those sets together. I don't mind sharing if I have an incomplete set, but since I get a little obsessive about things matching, if I have a complete set, I can get a little twitchy eyed if someone is using my dice. If they don't leave my line of sight, it's probably okay.

As mentioned earlier, if you need cheap multicolored d6's to mark enemies when you're using a grid, you can generally find sets of 6d6 (in three colors) at the dollar store (I forget which dollar store, though) for, well, a dollar. That's where my boyfriend/GM got his 18d6.

edited 30th Apr '15 1:51:29 PM by VerityCandle

Oh, man, I missed this topic...

I'm having issues with what I call my "nostalgia dice." I picked up a set of translucent green polys with white numbering (nice contrast on them, too), because my long-lost very first set was like that (I even still remember where I got them, in a now-closed gaming store by the waterfront in Baltimore). But the d20 and the d8 act a bit weird. The eight-sider is pretty consistent... consistently bad. This is a problem because I'm a healer with a longbow (go elves!), so I'm regularly having to roll it for both damage and healing, and the sheer number of times I roll a one is ridiculous.

The d20 is theoretically even... it's just extremely mood-swingy, where it constantly wants to critical. The problem is that it's equally likely to critically succeed or critically fail. I've rolled the same amount of critical successes and critical failures with the die. It's just I've rolled more of either than everyone else in the group (possibly combined). I don't know... is there such a thing as dice Prozac? Or should I retire it and pull out another set?

I have hoards of dice to the point i will pick up second hand games just to get of their dice which i have placed precariously into a *loot sacks* but with all my dice i prefer simple numbers the D 6 is my favorite

Rolling as many 1's as 20's is normal, though rolling more of them than other numbers isn't. Anyway, to determine whether your dice aren't rolling normally, you should roll them many times (100 times at least) and write down the results (memory is unreliable, because people tend to remember unexpected or dramatic results more than expected or boring results). If you (quite understandably) don't want to roll your dice 100's of times just to determine their fairness, you can always write down the results when you make rolls.

in addition to a dozen standard sets, I have 13 d3's, 7 d5s, a d7, a d9, a d11, and 2 perfectly round d6 that actually work. Only lord knows how many mini-d6 I have.

This is a handy trick to find if you're dice are imbalanced.

edited 27th Nov '15 8:49:55 PM by DrStarky

Forbes did a d20 fairness test a while ago. They found that all d20's regardless of make are biased. While the biases walk a bit depending on who made them, 14 is universally an unlikely result. Oddly, the more "fair" a die seems to get, the less likely 14 is to show up.

Game Science dice only have like a 3% of getting a 14 and around a 6% for 18.

Chessex have about a 4%, which is the same odds as 1, 2, 7, 13, 19, and 20. 3, 6, 10, and 16 on a chessex shows up close to 6% of the time. The rest fall between 4.5% and 5.5%

OK. That's it. The first two D10's I ever bought are outright malicious and refuse to cooperate with my usual character build.

I tried to roll an Agi-heavy Heretek for Black Crusade. I got 19 on a Toughness generation roll, and 3 on Agility generation roll.

With a different pair I managed to roll 8 as the lowest, with half of the rolls going over 15.

I dislike random character generation on principle. Not even letting you assign the rolls as you wish is worse. By the way, Dark Crusade does have a point-buy option for character generation (and it's very slightly better than the average of the random method). So what your dice are telling you is "use the point-buy system".

The decline of random character generation seems like a paradigm shift in gaming to me. In Original D&D, where you rolled 3d6 per characteristic, in order, you were basically rolling an average Joe who wanted to be an Adventurer, and it was somewhat expected that it might take a few tries for you to get a character who could survive through the early levels. Your choice of character class was heavily influenced by what you could roll. For instance, roll a 3 for Strength, and you could only be a Magic-User. Traveller even had characters dying during character generation as a balancing factor (serve more terms and get more skills, but also face more survival rolls).

As gaming went on, there was a shift to characters being hero material from the start, with character deaths expected to be dramatically appropriate in most cases. Random systems of character generation became more and more rare, or more skewed towards creating characters that were all head and shoulders above Joe Average. D&D5 today features the "4d6 drop the low die and assign whatever order you want" as its basic method, but also offers a point-buy system alongside it. The "standard set of scores" option (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) only features 1 average score and 1 below-average. These characters are far from Joe Average.

So which is better? Depends on whether you're creating obvious hero material or Joe Average.

Problem is also how the whole party is created. With 3d6 in order, you can't guarantee having "at least one member of the four basic classes"◊ because you don't actually choose your class, the dice choose for you.

Point Buy is not just spending points for you, it's spending points for the whole party.

edited 14th Mar '16 8:33:20 AM by Medinoc

I think point-buy versus random rolls depends very heavily on several factors, including the tone of the game you want to run, the disparity between the different players' rolls, which players get the outlier characters, how quickly you want to get running, and whether or not everyone at the table can be trusted to not nudge their dice. I lean towards doing point-buy with players I'm not familiar with, but I generally tailor my chosen method for the specific table and game.

Though personally, I kind of prefer doing random rolls for my own characters. I just like throwing dice. I don't have a problem with point buy systems; I just really like rolling.

It's really only the more extreme rolls that chose your class for you. AD&D allowed characters with 9s in their most important scores for Fighters, Clerics, Mages, and Thieves, and you COULD be an effective low-level spell caster with a 9 in your spellcasting attribute, though there were some problems (Clerics with a 9 Wisdom had a 20% spell failure chance, for instance). Chances were that in any group of 6 or so players you would get at least one player with scores that would qualify for each of the four basic classes.

Interestingly, 5 or lower Strength meant a Mage, 5 or lower Intelligence was a Fighter, 5 or lower Wisdom was a Thief, 5 or lower Dexterity was a Cleric, 5 or lower Constitution was an Illusionist, and 5 or lower Charisma was an Assassin. I guess that tells you where the dump stats were for each class.

Personally I like at least some randomness in character creation. Often the dice can serve as inspiration, and being able to deal with the unexpected or not quite-what-you-wanted can be as fun and interesting in character creation as it is in-game.

Traveller's character creation system is practically a game in itself for this reason.

And "playing what you rolled" can have a certain satisfaction.

That said, I can also see the virtue in the point-buy buffet.

To be honest, I only hate the systems that make you roll your stats in order, because you can't really choose what kind of character you'll be playing (and woe betide you if you roll low in the One Stat to Rule Them All - I would never create a character with low CON in D&D, for instance). Rolling a series of values and assigning them isn't so bad. You have to make do with what you roll, but you can still choose what kind of character you're going to end up with. But I still prefer Point Buy, not only because it gives control to the player, but also because it reduces variance across the party (relative standard deviation ^note standard deviation divided by expectation for 4d6 drop lowest is nearly 25%, and nearly 10% for the sum of the 6 rolls, for instance, compared to a bit over 10% for a single roll and less than 4% for the sum in Black Crusade ^note I'm including the base 25, but not anything else).

edited 14th Mar '16 9:46:58 AM by Khudzlin

Realistically, having a point buy system where all your PCs are going to be on an even playing field for their basic stats doesn't really make them even in contribution to the game, because the PCs all have different skill levels and playing styles.

I have a player who likes to play games on his tablet during play, only picking up the dice when it's his turn to roll in combat and leaving chasing the plot points and most of the role-playing to the other players for the most part (I'm exaggerating just a little). Does it really matter whether he used the same number of points as the other players in creating his character's initial stats? He's not going to be as active in the game as other players because of his personal play style, not because of a bad stat roll.

edited 14th Mar '16 9:49:25 AM by Bense

Sure, but I wouldn't like to play with such a player anyway. And luckily for me, I don't have to (the people I play with only use a tablet to look up rules). This is not a problem with the rules, but with the player's attitude. I am the least experienced player in my play group, but I still follow the plot points and participate at all times, not just in combat where my character is most useful (I chose to make a Barbarian to not have to think too much).

I think he would enjoy the game more if he became more engaged, but I'm willing to let him have his own play style as long as the other players aren't too annoyed.

Regardless of the extreme example, I think the point stands that an even playing field isn't really that big a deal because of player variations. As long as the differences in character ability aren't too extreme, having every PC exactly equal in ability is not only impossible, but probably undesirable.

I prefer random rolls over point buy, myself. Especially since dumping a stat can sometimes make a character more interesting to roleplay, if you do it right.

The only real objection I have to true rolls is that I tend to come up with a character concept before I roll. Coming up with something that works with what you have is an interesting exercise, but generally I come up with some concepts that I want to try in the next campaign, and have that going in.

Whereas, point-buy's just kinda boring, personally. I like taking roll sets that are kinda on the weak side, to an extent, although I don't like ones that just hover around average stats.

First, Stormwind fallacy. Second, you can dump a stat in point buy in point buy too.

Uh... Looking up the Stormwind fallacy, it's the idea that optimization and roleplaying are mutually exclusive?

That's... not what I was saying at all; all I said is that a low stat can make a character more interesting to roleplay, sometimes. Since scores reflect (upon) character traits, and all that. Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference, and the exact scenario.

As for point buy- How you can dump depends on the system. In D&D 3.5, for instance, you can roll a three for an ability roll, but in (non-house-ruled) point-buy, the lowest base is eight, so, that point really depends.

But, with those out of the way, what I'd meant by that line was, I like the rolling over point-buy, personally, because I like the randomness; I "especially" feel this way because, one of the major disadvantages to rolling is that you can wind up under curve, but in the right scenario that can be worked into a benefit.

Doesn't have to be taken as a positive, obviously, but uh. I've done so, often? Which is why that was a personal reason, for a personal opinion.

Well that SE post was an interesting read. I'd agree with Stormwind, especially as our most egregious optimizer is often the only guy who bothers giving his characters an actual (usually dark) background and history^example In In Nomine Satanis, his character is the only one that actually had a past before they died and the demon incarnated in their dead body; all other characters, including mine, are just "This character is a demon serving $(Demon Prince), whose cover is a $(Job).".

The game that prompted this "dice vs points" conversation, Black Crusade, allows you to dump more with points than dice: At 25+2D10 your minimum is 27, while points allow you to dump as low as 25. The maxima are identical (45 in both).

edited 18th Mar '16 2:34:42 AM by Medinoc