On Friday we comb through our extensive archives to find an older article that we feel deserves another look. From March 24, 2009, Dungeon’s Master once again presents: Dice Rituals & Superstitions.
If you’re like me, you have a variety of dice in all shapes, sizes and colours. Many people, myself included, are very particular about their dice and have many superstitions about them. Let’s look at a few.
If it’s one things games never have enough of, it’s dice. And with a massive collection of dice comes the inevitable problem of where to store them all. Well, if you’re sick of keeping you dice in a purple, crushed-velvet Crown Royal bag then you should check out Hex Dice Chests.
Quentin and Dan are just a couple of gamers with a passion for woodworking. They’ve got an extremely successful Kickstarter campaign on right now where you can order your own Hex Dice Chest. It’s already 1,000% funded! The Kickstarter runs until the end of day Sunday, November 2. Check it out.
Now if you think these Hex Dice Chests are just the thing for you, but you’re a bit short of funds right now, you’re in luck. Quentin and Dan have graciously donated 4 free Hex Dice Chests to our readers. We’ve decided the fairest way to dole out these prizes is to have a random drawing.
It will happen to you one day and when it does don’t be embarrassed, it happens to all gamers. I’m talking about cold dice. Eventually the dice run cold for all of us. Maybe the d6 keeps coming up 1, the d12 won’t roll higher than 3 or the d20 isn’t cooperating at all and you haven’t hit a monster all fight. Eventually the dice gods will correct the problems and balance the scales, but until then a streak of poor rolls can crush even the most experienced player.
When a player goes through a bought of bad dice karma it can actually have a detrimental effect on the entire group. Even though everyone else rolls as expected and has fun doing so, one player’s poor rolls can effect the overall mood of the entire table. I’ve learned over the years that when this happens (and it will, if it hasn’t already) players and DMs can actually do a lot of things to turn the tide.
Players love to roll dice. This is one of the reasons that strikers are so popular in 4e D&D. Strikers attack more often and always seem to roll more damage dice than classes in the other roles. I must admit that I fall squarely in the “love to roll dice” camp. It’s part of what I find appealing about D&D or any board game for that matter. Quite simply, it’s fun. But for some players rolling dice is where their interest stops.
I’ve had a lot of issues lately with players who don’t pay attention to what’s going on when it’s not their turn. I’ve tried a lot of different things to keep them engaged from rewards to punishment but many simply zone out. I see this a lot during public play like D&D Encounters and LFR. I’d pretty much given up and come to accept that some players are simply there to roll dice and don’t care about what else is going on if it doesn’t directly affect their character. And then I finally came up with a way to solve this problem and the solution involved rolling more dice.
The Dungeon’s Master team took the dice quiz at DicePool.com and learned a lot about the old guard and our latest contributor in the process. Both Ameron and Wimwick came up as the devious d4. Neither the result nor the fact that we scored the same outcome came as a real surprise to us. What did open our eyes was Bauxtehude’s result. It turns out that he’s as loony as a d100.
Welcome to the first article in a series aimed at new player’s who’ve just discovered the great game of Dungeons & Dragons. I remember when I discovered D&D, I was left to my own devices to learn the game beyond the rules. Fortunately we have the Internet today to assist new player’s and answer any questions they might have.
While this series is certainly aimed at new players, seasoned veterans are just as likely to find nuggets of useful information within and I certainly encourage existing players to add their own nuggets of information in the comments section.
If you’re like me, you have a variety of dice in all shapes, sizes and colours. Many people, myself included, are very particular about their dice and have many superstitions about them. Let’s look at a few.