Dice with character...when is using them cheating?

[dragoner]

I'm a sucker for dice, like at gencon one time I bought a giant bag of dice from various booths, and met up with a Traveller crew from the UK, we were laughing about the whole pound of dice thing. I have some dice, special to me, though I often give sets as gifts. They are such a simple, fun thing.

 

[Smackpixi]

Once, my collection was only precision, unused casino dice and painstakingly polished Gamescience dice. But in a world where most folks grab a Chessex or knock-off set, I realised most dice are ultimately "good enough" and the differences are often minor enough to simply not matter in day-to-day gaming.

I certainly wouldn’t bet in a casino not using fresh precision dice, cause they would be scamming, but 30 yr old cat chewed on d6s truely roll just fine for DnD play. It’s all superstition beyond weighted dice. Which are funky in a d20, cause the other high likelihood numbers next to the 20, are not 20, unless you move the numbers around.

 

[ColinChapman]

softness(esses).

Best word in the whole thread. Hands down. Try saying it aloud three times without grinning like a goober.

 

[Umbran]

So, how do you feel about other players using unbalanced dice of character?

I think that, for the most part, unless the dice are deliberately weighted or shaved for cheating, their imbalance isn't actually going to be enough to impact results at the table.

 

[James Gasik]

I actually hate playing on VTT's because (as least on the ones I've used), the results of die rolls are incredibly wonky. Multiple repeated numbers, 8d6 lightning bolts that deal 17 damage, attacks made with advantage that miss multiple times- it's a mess, and the only reason it isn't a complete disaster is that it effects the NPC's as well, lol.

One of my tech-savvy friends claims that it's because generating true random numbers is a hassle and the easier method is just have programs poll the Windows time clock for numbers. I don't know for sure, I just know that I'd rather play with dice than not.

 

[Joshua Randall]

It’s likely that the VTT’s pRNG is more random than your physical dice. The human mind can’t grok true randomness.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I actually hate playing on VTT's because (as least on the ones I've used), the results of die rolls are incredibly wonky. Multiple repeated numbers, 8d6 lightning bolts that deal 17 damage, attacks made with advantage that miss multiple times- it's a mess, and the only reason it isn't a complete disaster is that it effects the NPC's as well, lol.

Yeah I've seen similar, and worse from some apps.

One of my tech-savvy friends claims that it's because generating true random numbers is a hassle and the easier method is just have programs poll the Windows time clock for numbers. I don't know for sure, I just know that I'd rather play with dice than not.

It's true in some cases, at least historically. You couldn't guarantee it was the case for any given VTT or app.

But what is very common is that methods of generating RNG are not very good, not seemingly very well tested, and produce results that aren't always plausible or sometimes even are clearly buggy (like the Mothership app).

Videogames using RNG generally seem to be subjected to more thorough testing and use more complex methods to generate randomness - sometimes they use actual physics sims (I think DNDBeyond might do this as well), and where physics sims are used, I haven't seen any of the same problems I have with the instant RNG of some VTTs and apps.

It’s likely that the VTT’s pRNG is more random than your physical dice. The human mind can’t grok true randomness.

Nah.

A lot of programs that use RNG don't generate it in very good ways, or are just outright buggy. As noted, I've seen physics sim-based dice-rolling and it seems to produce results that make more sense. It's not some Lovecraftian thing man come on!

 

[dragoner]

I saw someone use their dice tray, and a stand with their phone to roll dice real-time on video, that I thought was innovative. I asked her if she had bought it that way, and she said she had made it herself.

 

[el-remmen]

As long as they are legible I don’t give a toot. I have one player who occasionally uses dice that are too hard to read and she struggles. It is not that I don’t trust her (and when we play online I let everyone roll their own dice in person and use the honor system), it is that it takes her too long to read them extending her turn annoyingly.

As for dice with character, a friend had a d6 he inherited not sure where it came from, but the 6 was a “T.” We called it “The T-Die” and it had a tendency to roll 6. We saw that T come up countless times, not always and less than half the time but seemingly significantly more than 1 out of 6. Later, we discovered the die actually came from the licensed board game of a then future president with that initial and suddenly the thumb on the scale made a whole lot of sense to us.

Eventually I’d inherit the die and still break it out as DM when I want to whip my players up into a frenzy.

I also have 4 d20s I refer to as “The PC Killers,” for their penchant to roll above 15. I tend to use them for big battles.

I don’t know for sure if these characteristics are just in my head, but I find that kind of harmless magical thinking fun.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Another vote for the "good enough" camp.