Cursed dice

[quozaxx]

I would love to hear your cursed dice stories.

 

Now, we've all had games where the dice aren't exactly friendly. Where a roll here or a roll there is needed, but not even close. That's not exactly what I'm talking about.

 

I'd like to hear stories where you're SURE the dice are out to get you. Where it's so bad your friends start suggesting that you roll for the bad guys, so bad that you start asking others to roll for you, so bad that the GM takes pity on you and says you can roll again, so bad...

 

I'll let you finish that statement.

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: Cursed dice

 

One of the players in the group I play with has completely loyal dice. He will role at least one critical a game and most of his damage dice come up 6. One time he lent our unlucky GM his dice for an especially nasty attack. Of the ~12 dice, 5 where ones. One time he tried D&D 4e since our GM couldn't come and literaly half his attacks did max damage (through roling 10 on his longbow or crits) and he never missed a shot (no exageration at all.)

 

Our forementioned GM seems to have lost all his luck to the lucky player. He averages one 18 a game and has had multiple fumbles in a session. 14-17 are very common rolls as well. Unfortunatly, this causes him to escalate the enemies to even the playing field. Mechanon couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn. He roled 18 with a penetrating 8d6 killing attack twice in a row (dealing 5 body because of my un-hardened 20 rPD). When he does get lucky, though, we really feel that 20d6+eb, etc. One player lives in fear of the day that the GM's luck turns arround when we're faced with an enemy far beyond our level.

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: Cursed dice

 

For years, my wife has claimed bad luck with dice.

 

So over a 3 month period (playing at least once a week), we tracked her dice rolls. She would switch dice through sessions sometimes, or borrowing dice from other players - she would make a point of using the same dice for attacks, skill rolls and damage...

 

In this three month stretch her average roll for damage was 3.01. Her average single die roll for all skill checks and attacks was 3.94 (or so I remember i being mid .90s).

 

So we had fairly solid proof with a decent statistical sample, with different dice (so we knew it wasn't a bad die) that she always rolled low on damage, and high on attacks and skills.

 

When she got a Palm, and started using an electronic dice program (with rolls in the open), it went away.

[Pariah]

Re: Cursed dice

 

We have a member of our gaming group whose dice seem to hate him . . . but only for perception rolls. Attack rolls, damage rolls, and skill rolls are all just fine. But when he actually makes a perception roll, it's cause for celebration among the group. And even more strangely, it's only for one character! The player has no such problems with his other characters, just the one in that one campaign. It's got to the point where the GM will say things like, "Timestrike, make a perception roll. Oops, I guess I should say, attempt a perception roll."

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Two different "cursed dice" moments:

 

One was long ago, in a Top Secret game. A team of 3 agents, two were searching in the basement for a stolen nuke, while my character got hired as additional security for somebody bidding on the stolen nuke in an arms merchant's auction. My "client" won, and we were heading downstairs to take possession of his new nuke. I knew my teammates were down there, and was expecting a fight to occur.

 

The elevator opened, and the guards that were supposed to be down there were of course missing (taken out by my teammates) so my "client" sent me and another guy to check out what's going on. We rounded the corner, and there were my teammates, holding assault rifles and ready to rumble. I was in front, so I hit the floor and fired over their heads, just to make it look good.

 

My teammate #1 fired, critical failure (rolled 00 on percentile dice), his rifle jammed.

Teammate #2 fired, another critical failure (another 00), his rifle also jammed.

I thought, *aw crap*, rolled onto my back and pointed my gun at the guy sent with me to check things out. And I also rolled a 00, so my pistol jammed too.

 

Luckily, one of my teammates tossed aside his rifle, drew a pistol, and plugged the guy before he could shoot me. But it was literally a 1 in a million chance that three percentile dice rolls in a row would be 00.

 

- - - - - - - - - - -

 

Moment #2 happened to a friend in a D&D game. He was being attacked in his sleep by an evil sorceress and had to make a series of saving throw rolls. He failed *every single one* of them, despite some of them being relatively easy. To make matters worse, he rolled critical failures on at least three of them. By the time one of us figured out something was wrong, he was bleeding from his pores.

[hfergus]

Re: Cursed dice

 

At least 2-3 times my dice seemed to be temporarily cursed. One night all but three attack and perception rolls were too high. The few times I rolled damage the same dice got nothing but ones and twos - once for 12 dice and another for 10. At least it was both for the bad guys and the good guys as I was GM and playing one hero as well. This went on for all of 7 hours. Both me and the players had this going on.

 

Another night was worse. Heroes attacks were too high and damage too low for both me and the players, but the villians were reversed. I was lucky the villians were not killers and one hero was hard to hit and could get others out in a hurry. This lasted 6 of 8 hours, then went to normal.

 

I've also had blessed dice just about as often. One night the heroes could do no wrong, and the villains were the "gang who couldn't shoot straight". The one time the villains rolled high damage was when he accidently shot his ally (really bad fumble). We almost felt sorry for the guy at this point. Almost.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I was playing a con game with Steve Long as the GM. I was playing Defender, and we were fighting a bunch of VIPER goons. Defender rushes up to the leader of the goons, gets all up in his face, readies an energy blast... and I roll an 18. Steve says, "OK, your blasters short out. You can't use them again until you have a chance to fix them." D'oh!

 

Later in the same game, the VIPERs are getting away. I rush over to the vehicle and attempt to punch out the windshield so I can grab the driver. Worst damage roll ever. I couldn't even break a friggin' glass windshield! So of course, the VIPER thugs get away scot free.

 

Still later in that same game, Defender charges the Nest Leader... who was protected by an invisible Force Wall. He collides into it with his Move Through, fails to do enough damage to shatter it -- but does more than enough to Stun himself. Ripper picked him up and used him as a club.

 

That was about my worst bout of die rolling EVAR.

[Tech]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Howabout one year (okay, it was 11-13 months but still...) of rolling 14's when rolling your attack to hit villains. Of course, my friends and brothers gave me their dice to roll saying something to the effect of 'it's just the dice' or 'you're just keep rolling them wrong'. So, I use their dice and roll a 14. Repeat ad infinitum. Can you imagine a year of this and how you feel when it's your turn. Even the GM started letting me reroll my dice rolls. Eventually, I gave up rolling my attack rolls and let my friends and brothers do it for me.

 

Finally, it relented. I can roll my OWN to-hit rolls now!

 

Woohoo!

 

I'm sooo glad that's over.

[Tech]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Okay, as GM, I seem to be perpetually cursed when rolling the Stun multiplier of Killing Attacks. I'd have to give a conservative 65% of the time I roll a 1 or 2 on the die (I know it's more but I'm being conservative in my guess). Really, I'd say it's about 75-80% of the time. How long? Years. I don't recall because I've given up trying to remember how long it's been.

 

There's a slight flipside to this though. When I eventually do roll a 5 or 6 for the Stun multiplier, it shocks the player.

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: Cursed dice

 

One of the players in the group I play with has completely loyal dice. He will role at least one critical a game and most of his damage dice come up 6. One time he lent our unlucky GM his dice for an especially nasty attack. Of the ~12 dice, 5 where ones. One time he tried D&D 4e since our GM couldn't come and literaly half his attacks did max damage (through roling 10 on his longbow or crits) and he never missed a shot (no exageration at all.)

 

Our forementioned GM seems to have lost all his luck to the lucky player. He averages one 18 a game and has had multiple fumbles in a session. 14-17 are very common rolls as well. Unfortunatly, this causes him to escalate the enemies to even the playing field. Mechanon couldn't hit the broad-side of a barn. He roled 18 with a penetrating 8d6 killing attack twice in a row (dealing 5 body because of my un-hardened 20 rPD). When he does get lucky, though, we really feel that 20d6+eb, etc. One player lives in fear of the day that the GM's luck turns arround when we're faced with an enemy far beyond our level.

 

Another story about the player with magically loyal dice involves a champions game in which he plays a high pre, negitive comliness slime/skeletal trickster named Grey Ghost. As a joke, he bought suduction knowing that he would critical on a check at an oportune moment. During a battle with Sagitarius (psychotic member of the Zodiac with an anger management problem and a long standing vendetta against Grey Ghost), the GM accidentally reminded the player about his skill. Knowing that only a critical 3 would work (and anything less would set off an enraged) the dice were thrown. Sagitarius kissed Ghost's slime-covered skull, causing all her near-by teammates to make con checks or throw up. A very confused Sagitarius fled immediately and her return is still eagerly awaited.

[mwiggins]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I was playing RIFTS one night and didn't hit any higher than a 10 on a D20 all night.

Then I discovered that they used to use D20's that were numbered 1 to 10 twice That's what I got for using borrowed dice

[Greywind]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I was playing a con game with Steve Long as the GM. I was playing Defender, and we were fighting a bunch of VIPER goons. Defender rushes up to the leader of the goons, gets all up in his face, readies an energy blast... and I roll an 18. Steve says, "OK, your blasters short out. You can't use them again until you have a chance to fix them." D'oh!

 

Later in the same game, the VIPERs are getting away. I rush over to the vehicle and attempt to punch out the windshield so I can grab the driver. Worst damage roll ever. I couldn't even break a friggin' glass windshield! So of course, the VIPER thugs get away scot free.

 

Still later in that same game, Defender charges the Nest Leader... who was protected by an invisible Force Wall. He collides into it with his Move Through, fails to do enough damage to shatter it -- but does more than enough to Stun himself. Ripper picked him up and used him as a club.

 

That was about my worst bout of die rolling EVAR.

Sounds like you had a lot of fun.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Cursed dice

 

My problem is, back in the die, I couldn't make a too hit roll if I had to not roll a 1 (back in the d20 era). Then, my friend Beau brought The Pack back from a con. The Pack are three gray dice, with Wolves for 1s.

 

My players dread my die rolls. I do not fudge. I do not hesitate. I do not miss.

 

I do not deal damage. No, seriously. Characters with DCV 12 against an OCV 6, and I rocked his funny little world for... 3 BODY, 12 STUN. This happens CONSTANTLY. The problem then isn't hittin' 'em, it's hurtin' 'em. There's an upside, though.

 

When I hit? Party members drop. I tagged the party Paladin with Black Dragon spit. 3 dice killing that came up on 16 Energy Damage and a full blow 5x STUN.

[A_Pail_Rider]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I once bought some black die with red spots. I thought they looked "KEWLL!"

 

I couldn't hit a barn with 'em.

 

So I used other dice of mine to hit with, and tried the "KEWLL!" dice for damage. I'd hit OK, and then do sod all damage.

 

So I stop using the "KEWLL!" dice. They got revenge; I hit near nothing, did zip damage when I hit.

 

I finally had to get rid of the "KEWLL!" dice---they'd jinxed ALL my dice!

[Querysphinx]

Re: Cursed dice

 

We used to have what we called the Sphinx effect. There was one character The Sphinx (not to be confused with query) who had a 3D6 HKA. Up to 5D6 with STR. Up to 6 if she pushed. The more dice she rolled, the less damage she did... every single time. 6D6 HKA =10 BDY and 10 STN consistently.

 

Then there was the Donald effect. No matter what Donald was playing, his character had habit of going from fully recovered to GM's option on the very first attack of any given combat.

[Korvar]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I had a werewolf, from the White Wolf game of the same name. Ahroun (warrior caste), not quite maxed out strength, but close. Rolling 10 dice of damage routinely.

 

I almost always did 2 damage.

[Greywind]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I once bought some black die with red spots. I thought they looked "KEWLL!"

 

I couldn't hit a barn with 'em.

 

So I used other dice of mine to hit with, and tried the "KEWLL!" dice for damage. I'd hit OK, and then do sod all damage.

 

So I stop using the "KEWLL!" dice. They got revenge; I hit near nothing, did zip damage when I hit.

 

I finally had to get rid of the "KEWLL!" dice---they'd jinxed ALL my dice!

Line all your dice up where they can watch, and then put the offending dice in the microwave and nuke them. You'll never have that problem again.

[Tigereye]

Re: Cursed dice

 

My best friend rolls legendarily bad dice- he had a character in my old Star Trek game with a Luck stat of 99 (and for those of you who are not familiar with the old FASA system, it was percentage-based and he was therefore very lucky).

 

Well, he rolled double-ought twice. In one game session. With major injury on the line the second time around. The probability of that is one in ten-thousand. His crew had to drag his unconscious body off the planet (and he was fortunate for the wonders of 23rd century medical technology, or they'd be transporting his dead body off!)

 

Ever since then, whenever we get into a unlucky streak with our dice, we hand the dice to him for a few rolls to "Degauss" them- remove the unlucky magnetic flux, because clearly they can't be more unlucky than when he rolls them... and it works. The losing streak usually stops cold in its tracks.

 

Our little in-joke (for those of you who are Roman history buffs) is that he used to torture deer in a previous life...

[Cybertooth]

Re: Cursed dice

 

There was this one player who seemed to be very unlucky with dice. It didn't matter the game or the die, but we was terrible.

 

I recall during a game of Gamma World we were attacked and surrounded by a large group of creatures. This guy's character, who had the mutation Enhanced Speed (or something like that, basically it gave him 2 attacks per round) would consistently miss everytime he tried to roll to hit, both times! Finally, after the others had dispatched their enemies (we had paired off a couple per player) we had to go over and finish his off as well.

 

It got so bad that no one would even let him "touch" their dice. I don't think the dice were cursed, but he surely was.

[A_Pail_Rider]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Line all your dice up where they can watch' date=' and then put the offending dice in the microwave and nuke them. You'll never have that problem again.[/quote']

 

Asplody dice?!

 

Just make sure to line up all the "2"'s facing the micorwave. So they can see.

 

 

 

You did know dice see thru the 2 eyes, right?

[teh bunneh]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Not my story, but I was witness to it.

 

One evening, my buddy's dice were just killing him. He couldn't roll well to save his life, and he just got more and more frustrated. Eventually, he wandered into my kitchen. He came back a few minutes later and we resumed gaming.

 

The next morning, I got up and was getting my breakfast ready. I opened up the microwave, and there in the center were my buddy's dice. He didn't nuke them or anything; he just put them in there and forgot about them.

 

They seem to roll OK for me.

[Darclight]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Our Champions group has a couple people that seem to have strange dice karma. Rapier always seems to roll well when it really counts. Spunky Kiki on the other hand seems to roll really badly a lot. When rolling for the stun multiplier everyone in the group seems to roll an inordinate amount of 1's and 2's.

 

Many years ago in an AD&D event at a con I was playing a dwarven fighter and did not make a single to hit roll during the 4 hour slot.

 

Finally in a Risk game many years ago I was attacking a guys last army with something like 15 armies. He proceeded to roll 13 6's in a row. Great for him. Not so great for me.

[Greywind]

Re: Cursed dice

 

Must have been the Swiss...

[D. Guss Tibus]

Re: Cursed dice

 

d8s. I hate d8s. They always roll low for me.

 

I once sat down with a guy and used my d8 and both his and rolled for 5 minutes. Never got above 4 on any die. Few 4s. NO 3S!

 

Guy thought his d8s were cursed. Picked up and rolled---5 rolls/10 'dice'---4 8s, 3 7s. Not cursed.

 

Its just me.

[The Weapon]

Re: Cursed dice

 

I would love to hear your cursed dice stories.

 

Now, we've all had games where the dice aren't exactly friendly. Where a roll here or a roll there is needed, but not even close. That's not exactly what I'm talking about.

 

I'd like to hear stories where you're SURE the dice are out to get you. Where it's so bad your friends start suggesting that you roll for the bad guys, so bad that you start asking others to roll for you, so bad that the GM takes pity on you and says you can roll again, so bad...

 

I'll let you finish that statement.

 

I recently forgot my dice bag and borrowed dice for a Fading Suns campaign. I rolled consistently badly with a friends dice, particularly one black d20. Some of the dice continued to roll bad after I gave them back. He refused to take back the d20 now it's mine. Yay?