New Character, New Dice
This option works best if you generally play long-term campaigns and use the same character a lot. Each and every character you roll up gets his own set of dice. When you’re playing the Fighter you always use the green dice. And when you’re playing the Wizard you always use the blue dice. This can get expensive if you have the habit of getting killed. (If this is the case, check out Avoiding Death: Part 1 and Avoiding Death: Part 2.) However, if you’re willing to have one set of dice for each living character then this is a reasonable dice ritual.
Show Me a 1
There are two variations on this theme. The first take on this ideology (the one that I follow): Any die I plan to use during this gaming session must be left with the 1 facing up when I’m not rolling. My belief is that if it already shows a 1 when I pick it up I’m less likely to roll a 1 again. I don’t know if there’s any merit to this superstition, but I’ve been doing it for 20 years.
The second take on this ideology (which I’ve never done): Roll all your dice until each one actually comes up 1 and then stop rolling until you need that die. After you’re done rolling your attack, damage, save or whatever, you roll those active dice again and again until they come up 1 and then you stop.
Mouth Love
This one isn’t limited to gamers. If you’ve ever been to a casino and walked past the craps table then you’ve see this one: people kissing or blowing on their dice for good luck. I’ll admit I’ve done this on rare occasions, but I’ve never had any noticeable successes. Plus, my dice are probably pretty dirty since I’ve never, ever cleaned them. So the last thing I want to do is put them anywhere near my mouth.
Never Touch Another Man’s Dice
My dice are mine and mine alone. If you need to roll 3d8 and you only have two you cannot use one of mine. Re-roll one of yours and add them up. If anyone but me touches my dice they may curse the dice and wreck my good dice mojo. I may sound crazy, but I know I’m not alone here. Most of the gamers I know are very protective and territorial about their dice. They’re mine, hands off!
The DM’s Dice
I have player dice and DM dice. I swear that when I use my blue dice as a DM I roll more 19s than is statistically probable (much to the dismay of the players). But if I use that same set of dice as a player I never see this same kind of trending. Of course you could argue that as the DM I roll more often and I’m bound to see more of any given number. You call it statistical probability and I call it “The DM’s Lucky Dice.”
Punishing Bad Dice
I may have superstitions about my dice but I don’t believe in punishing them. However, many gamers punish bad dice. If the dice don’t roll what you need as often as you like, they often become the victims of irate gamers. I’ve seen people yell at bad dice, explode dice in the microwave, smash them with a hammer, throw them in the lake or simply toss them in the trash. Gamers can become unforgiving and ridiculous when it comes to the need to punish bad dice. I can’t justify doing any of these things listed above because I’m too cheap (after all, I paid for that die, as crappy as it is).
New Dice
One great thing about dice is that a set of 6 or 7 polyhedron dice generally cost between $5-10. This means that I get dice as gifts all the time. Over the years all those dice start to pile up. I can’t throw them out, that would just be wrong. So what do I do?
This Christmas I had a brainstorm (which I’m particularly proud of). My core gaming group has six regular players. We all have giant bags or boxes of dice. Many of these dice sit in the bottom of the dice bag and aren’t used any more. So we decided to hold our 1st annual dice exchange. Why should we all fork out $10 when we can just trade with other gamers? The results were fantastic. I got rid of a few old sets I never use, I got a few new sets which I’m using all the time, and it didn’t cost me anything.
This is also a great opportunity to unload bad dice. Just because your dice hate you doesn’t mean they have any ill-will towards the other players at your table.
Tell us about your dice rituals or superstitions? Do you punish bad dice, and if so, tell us what crazy things you’ve done?
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1 2 3 4 Next »First thing I have to do is use a dice tower. My tower seems to "normalize" my rolls. If I am using dice I think are not fair, I will start a roll log to see what numbers are coming up percentage wise. I have a set of six siders that came with Duel of Ages that I swear roll better than other set that was included. I just haven't recorded the rolls yet to prove it. Setting the dice "1" side up is just wrong. The last thing you want is the die being used to sitting on the opposite side of the "1".... It thinks that position is normal and desired....
@John
Thanks for sharing your dice rituals. The dice tower was popular with a guy I used to play with in high school. I’ve also seen a few players over the years record their rolls and determine which dice are rolling best. In the end, do whatever works for you.
I'll try setting the 1s face down, rather than face up and see if that makes a difference. I've been rolling so poorly the last few weeks I'll try anything. I'm even planning on buying new dice if my luck doesn't change.
In regards to "Never Touch Another Man’s Dice", I'm kinda like that. If someone needs to borrow more dice from me, I'll let them (reluctantly), but then I'm very anxious about getting all of them back asap. Is that some kind of a disorder?
We had a player, Terril, who had a bright orange d20 that rolled VERY well for her, but she quit playing and the legend of the Terril Mojo was born. Since then, everyone in the group is constantly trying to steal that d20 from whoever currently has it. It’s crazy!
@Rook
I'm just like you when I have to lend dice. At the start of the game if someone needs dice I'll gladly dig out a set from the bottom of my dice bag. But once play begins, my dice are mine. In those situations where I buckle and lend a die or two I must get them back immediately. In fact, when I'm next in the initiative order I often pick up my d20 and hold it. That way the die clearly realizes that it's going to be called upon soon.
I don't have a lot of dice rituals myself, however I'd like to add another dice quirk Ameron has.
Ameron hates pips on d6's.
They are generally banned from his table. I guess he figures all the other dice have numbers, so having pips on d6's throws off the flow.
@Sterling
When you're playing D&D all the dice should have numbers, not pips and that includes the d6. Pips on a d6 are only acceptable when you're playing Monopoly, Risk, Clue, Yahtzee or a traditional board game. The only times I'd allow a d6 with pips at my table are a) you need to roll 20d6 damage (yes, it happens), or b) you're playing D&D and no one at the table has any d6s and you have to dig one out of the aforementioned board games. Otherwise, leave those d6s with pips in the dice bag.
Awww no wait a minute! Don't have so much hate for the pipped d6. Not so long ago I picked up one of those bag-o-Dice deals from Chessex for our game club and picked for myself three bright fuchsia translucent "sixers" with white pips. You see I have this particular fondness for dice that are too sissy-girly for any self-respecting male member of the group to be tempted to permanently borrow.
So I decided to try them out for the first time during character generation. Bear in mind I play old-school, a style that really makes it hard to survive first level, and there's no "dump the lowest of four" option in our game. Lemme tell ya'! I hit the boxcar jackpot. I now have a half-orc thief with bonuses in every trait..no min-maxing, no points-buy..just sheer pink-dice power.
Suddenly I"ve got guys..self-proclaimed totally butch macho tough-guys saying "Gimme the pinks." whenever a d6 is called for.
Heck, I think I'll start charging rent by the roll. :D
@Spike the Ubiquitous
Sounds like you've got some pretty lucky dice in your collection. My dislike of dice with pips can certainly be overlooked if you've got a personal attachment or affinity for a specific set... And I think in this circumstance pink dice are non-traditional enough that I'd be willing to overlook my prejudice. If you ever play at my table, I’ll allow you to keep rolling the pink dice. Thanks for your comment.
So, then, my smaller, older bag would be used to hold my currently used dice and my newer, larger dice bag would hold the spare dice? I have to say, though, that all but one of my complete sets are already in the old dice bag. Maybe I could merge this time and then take your suggestion next time I face this problem. I'm not sure I'm ready for the "leave some of your dice at home" step in my maturing process...
@Roger (aka Squirrely)
Baby steps, Roger. Baby steps.
Roger's comments are in response to my suggestioin that he stop buying new dice and just exchange the sets he already has as mentioined above. See his post on Merging Dice Bags.