I have intelligent friends. Really. Quick, witty, smart, learned, all of them. That’s particularly true of my gaming friends. <\/p>\n
And yet, as bad as any gambler who develops elaborate “systems” to beat slot machines, or any athlete who keeps wearing his “lucky shirt” to keep a “winning streak” running, all my friends are nuts about their dice.<\/p>\n
Dice are randomizers. By their nature, they should roll randomly, right?<\/p>\n
So why does one of my friends, who can debate physics and metaphysics, decide which D20 to use by rolling four of them, take the one with the lowest number, on the assumption that it will then roll a high number?<\/p>\n
Why will another person, who is also bright and intelligent, have a conniption when the GM touches her dice?<\/p>\n
Heck, why do I <\/i>decide which D6s to roll by rolling all of them, taking the highest rolling, cull them again one more time that way, and end up with the “best”? Why, when rolling poorly on a D20, will I <\/i>swap it out for another one, hoping it will roll “better”?<\/p>\n
Yeah, I know the answer, about psychological needs to control randomness through quasi-religious development of some artificial “rules” that I can follow to propitiate the Dice Gods, or stuff like that.<\/p>\n
But it’s still weird.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have intelligent friends. Really. Quick, witty, smart, learned, all of them. That’s particularly true of my gaming friends. 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We've actually met over two consecutive weekends, which based on the last year or two is like a long-term campaign for us. System: Dragon Age comes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gaming"","block_context":{"text":"Gaming","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/gaming"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4461,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/08\/27\/thats_mister_me.html","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":1},"title":"That’s MISTER Melkor to you, bub","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Aug-03 10:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"Vin Diesel recently outed himself as a D&D player on Conan O'Brien. 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Then you weight them so they preferentially come up sixes.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12597,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/13\/in_honor_of_both_eliot_sp.html","url_meta":{"origin":1233,"position":3},"title":"In honor of both Eliot Spitzer and Gary Gygax …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 13-Mar-08 10:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"... (and, let's face it, how many times have those two gents appeared in the same sentence?) ...\u00a0 ... the D&D\u00a0Random Harlot Encounter Table. 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