Tell us about your Dice Rituals & Superstitions!

[DRD1812]

I list mine off in the comic, but if you'd rather save a click:

Tournament of Champions — Gather your candidate dice and roll them before each session. Pick out the low rollers and re-roll the rest. Continue doing so until only the strongest remain.

The Ugly Ones Try Harder — You don’t want stuck-up prima donna dice that look good and then phone it in on the field. You want hard working dice. You want Rudy dice, dice with vomitous speckles and clashing colors, dice that are stoked to see play and want to give it 110%. Also they’re cheaper.

What about the rest of you guys? Do you have any mystical means to ensure good rolls?

[Psyren]

I don't have any as I use digital dice exclusively (generally, the roll20 system roller these days, or the Diceshaker app on my phone if I'm in person.) It gives me peace of mind that I'm not rolling them incorrectly or that I don't have to worry about who's touched my dice etc.

[Bogwoppit]

Being an engineer, of course I spend penitent hours reading probability tomes, prayers are offered to the eyeless god-thing Rha-N'dom, and then - and only then - I buy some good quality dice, and use them.

No - if I actually suspected any die favoured one face over the others, I'd investigate that, and discard it if true.

[DRD1812]

if I actually suspected any die favoured one face over the others, I'd investigate that, and discard it if true.

I suspect that rejecting the gifts of Rha-N'dom is a good way to get smote. Probably by an avalanche of 1-sided dice.

[Potato_Priest]

When mine are sucking terribly, I trade with someone else. Most dice seem to bear grudges only against their owner.

[Koo Rehtorb]

When I failed something that allows a reroll I wait ten seconds before rolling again to let the bad luck get out of the dice.

[GusPorterhouse]

My dice are not allowed to rest on the maximum value. It just feels too much like daring RNGesus to smite me at a critical moment. I've done this since about 1995.

[Anonymouswizard]

Due to my rolling technique I'm certain that a die will tend to land on the face opposite the one it's store on. Therefore it is safer to store all dice with ones facing upwards.

This causes problems, and changes with the size and shape of the dice. d20s should be stored ones up, while d6s can safely be stored sixes up, unless we're playing on a boat and I'm using my metal dice, in which case they will continue to roll 1s and 2s until I switch them out (or 5s and 6s in a game where those are bad).

[ZamielVanWeber]

Normally the usual: dice are kept in a soft visually attractive bag. If things are going bad I will use the most beautiful of my dice to build a shrine with a d20 being honored in the center. First time I ever did that my rolling average went from sub 10 to post 18 and so, like a Roman, I just stick who it.

[Guizonde]

i've got a lot of dice. i blame playing imperial guard for years. whenever i roll up a new character, i'll try all my dice until one set adopts my new character. it's crazy, but i've got dice that are good for medics, snipers, crazy-awesome combattants... and no, they're not interchangeable. it's so on the dot that my team tells me "wrong dice" when i don't use the ones i normally do for the current character (which usually involves me rolling poorly until i pick up the right set). as a rule of thumb, the crazier the character, the more garish the color. (neon sparkle pink and unicorn puke is as garish as i own. a friend owns neon green and yellow).

i had jinxed dice, usually all it took was to give them to a player as a dm. a ritual i picked up years back. "dm dice are luckier for players", i was told. except for one incredibly jinxed set that i suspect are subtly cooked (due to bad storage), it's worked on all my jinxed dice and does wonders for my less fortunate players.

how crazy is the "dice own the character" thing? rolling 17 10's in a row on a critical hit. they'd never done that before, but i asked nicely and my character edward was in need of some serious good juju to survive a firefight against 50 mercs. she survived without a scratch, amazingly.

[NecroDancer]

The dice all need a matching color scheme to work. You are not allowed to mix dice sets no matter what or your will roll "1"s for the rest of the session.

[Drakevarg]

For me, nothing. I have days that trend good and days that trend bad, but at worst I'll just use a different handful of dice if it keeps up for too long.

I have one friend, though, who almost always rolls high. It's so reliable that when he DMs, since his style involves frequently asking us "high or low?" on a d% to determine random outcomes, we can game it to our advantage.

[Pex]

I don't do it anymore, but I used to set my d20s with the 1 on top. I pretend that's what I rolled first. After all, the odds of rolling two 1's in a row is 1 in 400 so I'm good to go. When I did that it bothered me when others placed the 20 on top. It still does sometimes.

[Pugwampy]

When i roll dice i hold the one and twenty between my index and thumb and roll foward.

[Kane0]

I've been known to place bad dice in the microwave in view of the others. They get one such warning, if they continue to perform poorly I turn it on.

My dice are stored in a container separated from each other. It's like a miniature fishing box with five sections so it usually holds four sets of 7-piece dice and a set of either d6s or d10s depending on the system i'm playing at the time.

I also don't allow others to use my dice. I have spare sets for that.

While waiting to be rolled I like to place my dice with highest number up, though that's more an OCD/boredom thing.

Edit: And any time a d100 is rolled (and only d100 rolls) I will always attempt to call the number. Yes I have a 1% chance of success. Yes I have called it right more than 1% of the time.

[weckar]

Tournament of Champions — Gather your candidate dice and roll them before each session. Pick out the low rollers and re-roll the rest. Continue doing so until only the strongest remain.

I do the opposite: I roll the 1s out before the game. Dice that have already rolled their allotted 1s get to stay.

With digital dice; if I a dice color refuses to peak above a 10 I'm changing colors.

[Twizzly513]

All of my dice are kept on the highest number up - then the weight will settle at the bottom and I will roll high.

If a d20 ever rolls under a 5 I give it encouragement. Be nice to the dice and they will return the favor. Although if it rolls badly continually, I will switch and put it in "timeout."

You cannot exhaust your luck with dice, otherwise their luck will deplete forever. You need to switch out which you use every hour or so.

I have a lucky die. It is speckled white with black numbers. Not very special. Very good die. Rolls 20s for me with surprising accuracy. No one touches my lucky die.

I have an unlucky die. It is a special expensive red one. A thing happened once in D&D where I had to roll a skill check three times and take the best roll. I rolled a 1. Then another 1. Then another 1. For those who don't know the probability of that off the top of your head, it's one in eight thousand. Very bad die. I almost melted it. It's still in timeout.

You cannot lend your dice to others. They are your children. Lending them is betraying them. Stay loyal to your dice.

Special dice are for special rolls. Let the normal dice to grunt work.

My best friend has another thing with dice: He has a specific d20 for every kind of roll: attack, skill, saving throws, etc. He only uses them for that kind.

[JAL_1138]

I never use d6es with drilled pips and rounded corners for rolls that matter, unless I need a better chance to roll low. This is less due to superstition and more due to a tested proclivity of rounded-corner, drilled-pip dice like those made by Chessex and Games Workshop to roll a higher percentage of 1s than a fair die should.. Since casino-grade dice are expensive, large, heavy, can damage a gaming table, and can be somewhat fragile over time (in casinos they're replaced daily to ensure compliance with federal gambling regulations), I use the next-best thing and have a gross of Gamescience sharp-edged d6es with numerals filled in with grease-pencil and the sprue-marks cut or filed down with an X-acto knife or emory board. (That took forever to do, and I need to do a bit of maintenance on the numbers regularly where bits of the grease-pencil wax flake out).

[weckar]

Casino dice CAN actually come cheap if you get them used -- and Casinos get rid of a lot of perfectly good dice.

[JAL_1138]

Casino dice CAN actually come cheap if you get them used -- and Casinos get rid of a lot of perfectly good dice.

Generally they drill a hole through them before they get rid of them/sell them as souvenirs, called "canceling" the die. Those dice that have been drilled through no longer produce fair rolls because the hole drilled through them changes the balance substantially.

If the particular casino uses a "canceling" method that just marks the surface without removing material or creating a raised or indented section or otherwise alters the rolling characteristics, that would be good.

But they still have the issues of size, weight, table surface damage, and to an extent fragility (they're changed every day or even more frequently, and not meant to be rolled on hard surfaces--they're intended for felt-lined craps tables with rubberlike backstops). Gamescience dice don't have anywhere near the precise tolerances of machine-milled casino dice (and I should add that GS overstates how precise their dice actually are compared to other modern manufacturers in promotional material; compared to TSR dice and others from the '80s they're fantastic, but Koplow and Chessex have gotten quite good...except with pipped d6es). But they do avert those issues that even new, unused casino dice have, since the Gamescience d6es are small, light weight, and quite durable. You can roll a big fistful of the little things quite easily, and they don't really have the heft to hurt a wooden gaming table (unless you fling them crazy-hard or something), and they hold up better when kept in a dice bag of dozens of dice sets for years.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly, most of my groups aren't overly bothered about fair dice, with the idea you'll have a bunch of whatever type you need in front of you or in your dice bag and dice weighted unfairly will generally balance each other out.

Although I do have a set of d6s fairer than most of mine. They are pipped and rounded cornered, but are also metal and seem to have been cast relatively well (in that in generally when I've rolled them they've strayed close to the statistical average when added together rather than varying high or low). I might get some better dice at some point, but I don't have the free money yet.

[Faily]

I have a d20 I *always* use. I simply will not use any of the others I have, it will just be wrong. I have used this die for years after I lost my first lucky d20, and have trained it to be my die companion. When not in use during a game, it rests with the 20-side up, priming it for a nat 20.

For online dicerollers, we tend to use Orokos for our pbp-games. I never test-roll, because test-rolls will always have stupid high success-rate, and especially important rolls require the removal of a garment. Preferably pants. It's been a running gag for over 5 years now.

[Tanarii]

My ritual to get a fair roll, not biased by the previous outcome shown on the die, is to light incense for the goddess Tyche before the game starts, and sprinkle the dice with Holy Water to remove demonic possession. When rolling I mutter a Ni if it's an attack, a brief rememberance for Tim if it's a save, and remind the GM I'm not a witch if it's a skill check.

Seriously though, I pick up the dice and shake well. If I'm doing something really important (rolling characters) I put them in a cup first to make sure they shake well. About as ritual as I get is for a single die, I usually give serious spin while tossing up slightly, especially d4s and d8s.

[Psyren]

Generally they drill a hole through them before they get rid of them/sell them as souvenirs, called "canceling" the die. Those dice that have been drilled through no longer produce fair rolls because the hole drilled through them changes the balance substantially.

If the particular casino uses a "canceling" method that just marks the surface without removing material or creating a raised or indented section or otherwise alters the rolling characteristics, that would be good.

But they still have the issues of size, weight, table surface damage, and to an extent fragility (they're changed every day or even more frequently, and not meant to be rolled on hard surfaces--they're intended for felt-lined craps tables with rubberlike backstops). Gamescience dice don't have anywhere near the precise tolerances of machine-milled casino dice (and I should add that GS overstates how precise their dice actually are compared to other modern manufacturers in promotional material; compared to TSR dice and others from the '80s they're fantastic, but Koplow and Chessex have gotten quite good...except with pipped d6es). But they do avert those issues that even new, unused casino dice have, since the Gamescience d6es are small, light weight, and quite durable. You can roll a big fistful of the little things quite easily, and they don't really have the heft to hurt a wooden gaming table (unless you fling them crazy-hard or something), and they hold up better when kept in a dice bag of dozens of dice sets for years.

This just reeks of waste and excess to me. One more reason for me not to use physical dice of any kind (and avoid casinos like the plague.)

[JAL_1138]

Casinos have to get rid of used dice to ensure they comply with federal gambling regulations which require extremely strict tolerances for any dice used when gambling. 1/5000th of an inch is the maximum allowed deviation for any edge or face of the die from another. If a die wears down and is no longer compliant, they face steep fines. So they change them out. Used dice are canceled to ensure no one tries to load them and reuse them, and so that the casino itself doesn't inadvertently reuse them and risk running afoul of the gaming laws.

As far as buying a bucketload of dice myself, is it a waste or excess? I dunno if it's a waste, since I like collecting dice and it brings me enjoyment. But it's excess for sure. It takes a decent-sized backpack to hold all my dice bags, and the bags themselves are all Crown Royal bags that don't add much to the bulk. There's absolutely no need whatsoever to have that many.

[JBPuffin]

I do set my dice on their highest numbers while resting. I also try to stick to my yellow translucent set, along with completely random dice as "accents" for things like sneak attack, advantage, et cetera (this is for Vish, at least; most other campaigns have involved using a random group of dice each game, leading to some strange luck shifts for my characters...).

[Anonymouswizard]

As far as buying a bucketload of dice myself, is it a waste or excess? I dunno if it's a waste, since I like collecting dice and it brings me enjoyment. But it's excess for sure. It takes a decent-sized backpack to hold all my dice bags, and the bags themselves are all Crown Royal bags that don't add much to the bulk. There's absolutely no need whatsoever to have that many.

I'm glad I'm not the only dice collector out there. I don't have that many myself, and I'm missing some of the extended polyhedral set (no d14 or d30), only about half a large homemade dice bag, but that's slowly growing. I like dice, and I find most people rarely have enough, so being able to fill a large dice bag with whatever die or dice the system uses is incredibly useful. Anything above that in my collection is just for the enjoyment, or because my family didn't know I had them already (but there's nothing wrong with owning 24dF).

Call of Cthulhu? Keltia? World of Darkness? I've got over 40 d10s of various colours, including a couple of tens dice (I like the two colour method myself). Mutants and Masterminds? I have enough fairish d20s for an entire group (and two or three that I don't trust because they're for life in Magic). Shadowrun? I have literally over 40 d6s in my primary dice set. Savage Worlds? I carry at least three each for d4s to d12s. It's even more useful when running systems, being able to designated colours to NPCs and rolling several checks at once can really speed a game up.

Ideally my next addition to the collection would be a solid white with black numbers polyhedral set and solid black with white numbers polyhedral set. As I've said, I don't care too much about fairness so I'm not going to shell out for GameScience, but having a 'light' set and a 'shadow' set will help for a dungeonpunk game I'm planning.

But ah, the memories of remembering when people were going to visit my room in an hour, and moving my dice collection from the shelves to my bag. I used to be so foolish about such things.

[Lord Torath]

"That's na' a collection. That's a collection!

I keep my favorite dice in a Dewalt Safety Glasses bag. The rest go into a small cardboard box, and are used by my children.

[Anonymouswizard]

"That's na' a collection. That's a collection!

I keep my favorite dice in a Dewalt Safety Glasses bag. The rest go into a small cardboard box, and are used by my children.

I've been collecting for a very short time, and have a lack of disposable income. I'll catch up eventually.

[Jay R]

We use dice to provide a random result., The purpose is to have a random result. Using dice that won't produce a random result is deliberate cheating.

That's why there is so much interest in believing that dice don't produce a random result.

My ritual? I pick up one of my dice and roll it.