Our cleric rolls like you do (though I haven’t logged the numbers to back this up.)
He was out sick one session and the entire party rolled like dogshit. You’re not useless. You’re the bad roll sponge for the table lol.
Arrange them outside in a semi-circle and put one particularly bad rolling die in the middle. Take a hammer and show the other ones what happens when one performs poorly.
They'll learn ...
IN A SINGLE GAME I threatened a d6 with “Behave. Low rolling dice get punished” and immediately rolled a 6. I told a pair of d6 to “give me a 6 and a 4” and they did. And I rolled 6 d6 and got 5 results that I needed, then rerolled the 6th die and got the last result I needed.
I am notorious at my D&D table for rolling max damage. I get multiple nat 20s every session and have done so for over four years (it’s an ongoing campaign).
Doesn’t matter what dice I use. Old dice, new dice, mini dice, metal dice, other people’s dice (including dice with a reputation of rolling badly for their owners). Even virtual dice.
I can only apologize to all the people out there who are getting shitty rolls because I have soaked up all the dice luck. 😅
We took mine to the stairs of our nearest protestant church and read some incantations over them. Can't remember exactly what, it's been decades. Anyway, it didn't work.
I’m a bit of a power gamer in a group of people who admittedly can barely follow their own character sheets, so my DM often worries that if they balance towards me that the rest of the party will go down really hard
I often remind my DM that I rolled less than 5 on 10 roll in a row more than once, almost lost a fist fight to a moose I was hunting, and am already the most targeted player in the group by the enemies because I as a player am the loudest and most noticeable and my character is a melee martial, and then they realize there isn’t much point in rebalancing around me since I’ll go down anyways
I’m currently playing a gloomstalker ranger/way of shadows monk duergar brawler style character, so when I decided to go out and punch a moose to vent my frustration with the party not respecting me (the very alcoholic, slightly racist, pathetic excuse for an adventurer), it seemed like the most optimal choice
I’m playing a Fighter and I’ve stopped swinging my weapon at people because I roll so poorly I can never beat their AC, However I have expertise in Athletics and can almost always manage to grapple them so grappling is my life now.
My brother’s last character was a flying tiefling barbarian who used as much grappling as possible, in or out of combat, so it’s not a bad strategy at all
I’m having fun with it, it just wasn’t the direction I expected to take when I started the character. I had never played D&D before (I played 99% Whitewolf growing up) and a spot opened up in my extended friend group’s campaign so I built a lvl 8 Minotaur Rune Knight and jumped in. I’m only 4 sessions in but I’ve been really enjoying it so far. I’ve thrown lots of thugs off of docks to remove them from the fight, and managed to restrain some heavy damage dealers from large chunks of combat.
I can't imagine anyone winning a fistfight to a moose, so not sure that should count towards your bad dice rolls. Some things just can't be fixed with a lucky roll.
My barbarian ended up in death throws trying to catch a goat so. We were level nine and it was supposed to be a silly side quest. I don't quite remember how it went so wrong.
My cleric character also rolls like this. Constantly improbably terrible. I tend to use spells that force saving throws than anything she has to roll for because she fails the most unfailable rolls. I play in 2 other games and my other characters roll great, she's just cursed.
But you also made me realise on the off night where she does roll good the rest of the party has horrid luck. I'll forever think of her as the bad luck sponge now.
Or heat metal, I once had a PVP with another player that went like this:
Me: I cast heat metal on your armour.
Them: Ok, what's the saving roll.
Me: there isn't one.
Them: Oh, can I take it off?
Me: RAW is that takes 10 mins.
Them: Well fuck me I guess.
Me: Yes that's the idea.
My CR9 boss battle for later got brazenly attacked by my level 3 party when it was HEAVILY implied they would die if they fought this guy.
Heat metal basically carried the fight to a win for the party. Every one of my boss's attack at disadvantage, can't hit the druid to break concentration because I'm missing, so much free damage every turn. It was brutal lol
Exactly! "This is your resting position, get comfortable. When you're rolled, try to return to this position."
Getting them used to sitting in the 1 position is crazy. Dice are simple creatures, they don't get bored!
My wife gives her dice pep talks before each session and when they roll low she encourages them to so better next time. One time I was rolling low all game and she told me to be nice to my dice. I jokingly told it I would love it no matter what and that it only has to try. The entire table burst out laughing as I immediately rolled 2 Nat 20s with disadvantage.
I recently started spilling out my bag of dice at the beginning of each session and putting any that rolled a one back in the bag for the rest of the night. Your wife’s approach sounds worthy of trying too!
I do the same method as /u/Arthurius-Denticus with all my dice and I have rolled all 18 characters and multiple instant kills using the 3 nat 20s house rule. Dice do what dice do.
Exactly. Helping them remember. Helping their bowels to set the right way.... or whatever. But maybe it just feels nice to look at all those 10s on my d10s.
No no. The trick is to have a set of dice for the character. It has to represent the character. The vibes have to match. If you're using blue watery dice for your pyromancer, of course you're gonna roll more 1s.
Statistically, with that many rolls, getting an average anywhere outside 8 to 13 is so staggeringly unlikely it's hard to describe. You're saying that **THREE** of the five players had averages outside that range (14, 14, and 6)?
Other people in the comments are saying "that's just random chance," but I don't think they're realizing how astronomically implausible the numbers you're reporting are. To me it makes it sound like something is weird about the methodology.
In another comment you said "Physical dice. And yes, I did write every dice roll down and had a printer scan it and computer do the maths."
Do you have a set of images of the pages, or a spreadsheet of all the numbers, or something that we could see? I would love to do some more stats to see if there are any other anomalies in the data-as-written.
Agreed, this is well into the range on filtering the noise.
Just ran a simulation of 813 rolls with a fair dice a million times, never below 9.5 average.
We might genuinely be looking a very biased dice.
If wwe can get the actual rolls we can look at the distribution and the region the dice are landing.
> You're saying that THREE of the five players had averages outside that range (14, 14, and 6)?
Even the 8 is pretty wild, so 4 of 5 players are having wild outcomes.
And only the Gnome Bard is anywhere near even on 1s vs 20s, and everyone is rolling far far too many 1s and 20s, meaning that they are massively under rolling the rest of the numbers.
Player | Expected | 1s | 20 | Note
---|---|----|----|----
Half-Elf Warlock| 35.65 | 47| 89| Both well above expectation
Human Fighter| 46.75| 82| 53 | Both well above expectation
Gnome Bard| 41.1| 62| 52 | Both well above expectation
Goliath Barbarian| 42.65| 57| 98 | Both well above expectation
Tiefling Rogue | 40.65| 102| 37 | 1s well above expectation
> To me it makes it sound like something is weird about the methodology.
100% agree, something is wrong in the data.
Could be something wrong with how he's tracking dice rolls. Possibly whenever a player rolls with advantage/disadvantage he just takes the result from that and counts it as one d20 roll rather than 2. Like I feel that a barbarian with multiattack attacking recklessly every turn should probably be rolling *significantly* more dice per session than the rest of the party. Also could also explain why his average is so high.
Outside of that these numbers are so radically statistically unlikely that I'd probably just say he's making them up. Unless the dice being used are straight up weighted or he's somehow been using a d12 for the past half a year instead of a d20...
Though it wouldn't explain why the Tiefling got so many Nat 1s though. Unless they had near constant disadvantage and even with that, it seems far too high
Rolling a dice the second time and taking the lower roll doesn't negate the first roll for the purposes of statistical analysis. It only negates the score for gameplay. You should still count both rolls if you're trying to accurately capture statistics.
But if OP only recorded the result and not both dice, that would nicely explain the larger than normal number of 1s and 20s. Other than the tiefling's 1s, they're all less than twice the expected number.
> I'd probably just say he's making them up.
So would I. The numbers are *near* the realm of realistic, but with an exaggeration added.
Shows understanding of DnD, not stats.
Can't believe I had to scroll down so far to find common sense in this post. Two players averaging 14 each on a thousand dice rolls? Somebody is lying or cheating. I know OPs problem, the rest of the table is cheating and they aren't. Ffs. Seriously though, the advantage/disadvantage idea is the only thing that makes sense in lieu of several people lying for months or this post or OP making a big arithmetic mistake. That they are not willing to share the data is conclusive enough for me.
Hold-up. The statistics are screwed up, but I can almost assure you that it's mostly becase of advantage/ disadvantage. Rolling twice but counting once will drastically magnify or depress the apparent average. The data is actually useless without knowing the number of times rolled with add/disadvantages. To verify the dice you would need to know all the rolls raw. The other sources of error are misreporting (accidental or otherwise), data entry to your your, data translations from your sheet, and program error. All this being said, it's still very possible that shoddy dice are responsible for the statistical distortions. These dice aren't being controlled like casino dice.
Yeah, I really do suspect that this is a question of advantage or disadvantage. 14 isn’t an unreasonable average if you’re always flanking, recklessly attacking, etc.
That barbarian is gonna get adv. on DEX saves, initiative, and almost every attack.
The gnome bard gets adv. on every mental save, and if they have the actor feat they’re probably rolling with adv. on every charisma check too.
It's not that far fetched. The average being 11 assumes a perfectly fair die.
We know that some die aren't actually fair, due to manufacturing defects.
That's one of the reasons why a D20 is configured the way it is, and is the source of the arguments of using a standard D20 vs a spin-down die.
A standard D20 has its own sub distribution per face.
Face 20 is connected to 2, 8, 14, which averages to 11.
Face 18 has an average of 7.25.
Face 8 has an average of 13.5
If a die is favoring a corner, then you're still going to get a usable distribution, but it could actually still be worse than a fair die.
Something like a salt water test can reveal the worst defects.
If we could see the actual records, it should also be pretty obvious of the die is significantly imbalanced.
It could be that he started with a conclusion, wanted to tell a story that would get him karma on the internet, and made up all the details to fit his narrative that makes himself look like a victim.
Have there been any studies done on rolling of physical dice by hand and how well that actually reaches true random? Even with well-balanced dice, people who roll as often as d&d players often get ritualistic about it, holding the dice in a particular way, throwing them in exactly the same way every time, starting with a particular number facing up every time. I suspect this can skew the results away from true random (for good it ill, I doubt people know how to skew it the way they want), but have no proof of it.
Edit: also, most people buy dice for aesthetics alone, not balance, so it's entirely possible everyone's dice are off balance.
Yes actually—several hedge fund interview tests rely on this. Supposedly with enough training, you can accurately predict a coin *that you flip* 51% of the time, which is a huuuge advantage
With practice you can do it 100% of the time. It's just making sure the coin only flips once or twice in the air consistently. The harder part is getting good enough it's not obvious
It will likely bias it (both rolling style and unbalanced dice), but we would be talking moving the average <1, not 4.
To give you an idea of how bad OP is claim they rolled, a dice that the following sides:
```1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,15,16,17,18,19,20```
Would have an equally bad average.
I'd like to throw my own thoughts on this data as well. They use physical dice. Now there are a few factors to consider here.
- the condition of the dice: old dice, or chipped dice can alter the outcome of where it lands.
- weighted dice: this can be both intentional or unintentional. Not every dice is 100% perfect, manufacturing flaws can exist
- surface: how flat of a surface are we talking about? Is it on a dice tray? Does said dice tray have any minute dents or bits of debris that can impact the roll?
Without additional information the data could very well be "corrupted" or, as others have pointed out, inaccurate/false. A truly cursed person would roll poorly in any scenario, including online rolls.
Would the tray surface change the random distribution though?
The dice flaws, of course, as they will always make the dice veer away/towards a certain section of the die, making a few number more likely. But the tray surface would evenly affect all rolls and should balance out.
Oh thank God that I am not the only one wanting to question the voracity of this. As someone who took 2 years of statistics in college I really want to call bullshit on this whole post.
You can't roll a d20 over 100 times without coming up hard against standard deviation; let alone over 500 times.
You have to factor in the classes and system.
The barbarian, he has reckless attack so he probably rolls at advantage a lot. Athletics in rage are also at advantage. Rolls in fights can skew the whole thing in his favour.
The other Player seems to have been lucky or looked for many opportunities for advantage. It's 5e, especially if flanking was used it's easy to sneeze and get advantage by accident.
And our protagonist seems to shave a die that is weighted weirdly or uneven, or a curse placed on them.
From what I understood from the comments, they borrowed a different die ONCE for just one session. They also rolled bad, but as for someone who tailed the statistics, this seems like a big oversight stemming from expectations being that they're just unlucky.
I've seen many people theorising that OP is just making numbers up, and that is possible. If the numbers are actual ones I'm pretty sure they only noted 1 number from every roll at advantage/disadvantage.
Doing some further math makes it make sense, and actually makes me a little suspicious. If you take the average of ALL the rolls together, it's exactly what it should be, 10.5. It's almost a little too neat, honestly.
Unless, as other mentioned, they are only tracking one value from advantage or disadvantage roll.
If there are about the same number of advantage/disadvantage rolls in the game these would even out the "Total" average.
> if you take the average of ALL the rolls together, it’s exactly what it should be, 10.5
Why does this make you suspicious? That’s exact what should happen - the more you roll the more the averages should match what’s expected.
Tbh the fact that putting all the rolls together makes it average out correctly suggests to me that 800 rolls might not be a big enough sample size when rolling a d20
Edit - looks like some other comments did the math and 800 rolls is actually enough so the results are pretty weird. Although I still stand by that averaging all the rolls should hit 10.5, that does make sense.
Very this. When I saw two 14's I thought ah-ha! It's those people who roll as their turn starts to "save time" and magically get lots of good rolls.
But then the 6 came along...
OP is either lying or has no idea how to log advantage and disadvantage. The other players cheating is plausible, but it'd be odd for OP to spend so much time sapping their own rolls.
To be fair, there is the human factor. Even putting aside the occasional fudging that players can do, a human's hands are imperfect at rolling dice.
It's possible that OP would always roll them at certain way, starting with a certain number on top, that would be more likely to result in a nat 1.
Yeah, I don't want to be THAT guy, but the 14/14/6 averages are just impossible to happen with 3/5 players, when we're talking about 800+ rolls each.
Either someone wrote down the numbers wrong, or the dices are not fair (shitty quality / loaded). Period.
The average of all rolls is 10.58. Considering op only gave us full numbers for averages, it is off by some amount but probably close to expected value. So it's just a matter of distribution among players, as op also mentioned in another comment that they shared dice. Wouldn't it be plausible that he simply got more of the low numbers than the others?
It's still probably fake but not impossible to happen, no?
See that'd what I thought after 2 sessions so I bought more and more. And my friends brought sone of theirs from home and we swapped dice and they used mine and I used theirs. I actually remember the fighter had rolled above 15 like.. 5 times in a row, in combat so then when combat happened later in that session we traded dice and I rolled a 1. Then I rolled a 4, a 5, a 1 again, and an 8.
Oh, oh damn, yea, I was gonna say you need new dice, but no that's just the dice gods hate you. Have you considered offering them prayers and a sacrifice? That's about the only thing I can think of that will help you.
Unless the D20 is particularly bad you need along the lines of 10,000 rolls to see any discrepancies and even then the statistical variance is minor.
[https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/d20-dice-randomness-test-chessex-vs-gamescience](https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/d20-dice-randomness-test-chessex-vs-gamescience)
There is no way you could possibly roll this badly. By "average" you mean the the mean of the rolls, correct? If so, there's no way you could roll a mean of 6 on 813 dice.
You must be mis-recording the data, rolling a d12 instead of a d20, have extremely weighted dice, or performed a bad average. So good news -- There's no way that you rolled this badly or could possibly continue to roll this badly!
I wrote some code to test the odds of this (both empirically and analytically) and your total is only 60% of my minimum roll on 1 million attempts. Looking at the distribution, you're over 22 standard deviations below the mean which has odds so low that it looks like zero to double floating point precision (odds significantly lower than 1e-16).
Rolling 1000000 samples
Claimed Roll: 4878
Minimum Roll: 7724
Analytic Mean: 8536.5
Empirical Mean: 8536.459766
Analytic STD: 164.41487159013326
Empirical STD: 164.51412664943166
N STDs from mean: -22.251636756559382
Odds this many STDs off: 0.0000000000000000
If you'd like to check my work, here's the code:
import numpy as np
from scipy.special import erf
# Inputs
# n = number of rolls
# die = sides on a die
# samples = number of samples for empirical test
# total = total claimed result from roll (user stated average roll * number of rolls)
n = 813
die = 20
samples = int(1e6)
total = 6 * n
# Compute analytical mean/standard deviation
mean_single_analytic = (die + 1) / 2
std_single_analytic = np.sqrt(np.sum((np.arange(1, die + 1) - mean_single_analytic)**2)/die)
std_analytic = np.sqrt(n * std_single_analytic**2)
mean_analytic = mean_single_analytic * n
# Check with empirical
print(f"Rolling {samples} samples")
rolls = np.random.randint(1, die+1, (n, samples)).sum(axis=0)
min_emperic = rolls.min()
mean_emperic = rolls.mean()
std_emperic = rolls.std()
# Compare minimum roll to claimed roll
print(f"Claimed Roll: {total}")
print(f"Minimum Roll: {min_emperic}")
# Print out results just to make sure the analytic and empirical mean/std are similar
print(f"\n\nAnalytic Mean: {mean_analytic}")
print(f"Empirical Mean: {mean_emperic}")
print(f"Analytic STD: {std_analytic}")
print(f"Empirical STD: {std_emperic}")
# Check how many standard deviations total is away from the mean
stds_from_mean = (total - mean_analytic) / std_analytic
odds_outside = (1 - erf(np.abs(stds_from_mean) / np.sqrt(2))) / 2
print(f"\n\nN STDs from mean: {stds_from_mean}")
print(f"Odds this many STDs off: {odds_outside:.16f}")
> You must be mis-recording the data, rolling a d12 instead of a d20, have extremely weighted dice, or performed a bad average....
Do also note that the 14s and 8 averages are also wild, just not as wild as the 6.
The implied distribution from the provided 1 and 20 rolls is also wild.
As a table they had 4136 rolls, 8.4% were 1s and 7.9% where 20s; these are miles from expected.
Something has gone fundamentally wrong in data collections or analysis.
What makes this somewhat more skewed, potentially, is that we don't know the occurance of Advantage vs Disadvantage in these situations.
Now looking at the Barbarian we can see quite clearly they have the highest number of 20s, which you'd assume from a class that wants to always be rolling with advantage on attack rolls, but then they also somehow got 57 Nat 1s which is just bizarre.
And would definitely end up skewing the averages juuuust out of a normal range. I'm betting on OP not recording the dice rolls that weren't used, and happening to roll disadvantage more often than the others.
Which as a rogue would be disastrous. If you are attacking at disatvantage you don't even really need to roll the dice, because you can't get sneak attack.
(dis)advantage was my instinct but that means both are being handed out a lot. Ad players can build towards, reckless attack, as you say. But the DM would need to be chucking dis willy nilly to get these numbers.
Those numbers look sus. With rolling 700 d20s, you'd expect an average result between 10.06 and 10.94 about 95% of the time and an average between an average between 9.85 and 11.15 about 99.7% of the time. This is unlikely to be lucky-there are probably biased dice here.
(dis)advantage was my instinct but that means it is being handed out a lot and OP is getting a lot of dis and not much ad and as a rogue I would expect them to overload on ad, if anything.
I'm pretty sure OP has been rolling a d12 by mistake instead of a d20 lol.
His average of 6 makes a lot more sense that way. Although the other player's data is pretty skewed as well, but I'm more inclined to believe that could just be a result of paying less attention to other people's rolls.
Mate, I'm inclined to not believe you.
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=139+coinflips%2C+chances+of+less+than+38+heads](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=139+coinflips%2C+chances+of+less+than+38+heads)
[https://anydice.com/](https://anydice.com/)
The roll a 1 versus roll a 20 coinflip is just incredibly unlikely, but its fine, you might just be the unluckiest dude. I don't personally believe people who don't have evidence saying they 1 in a hundred million'd this easy but it could happen.
I can't quickly find a calculator that can do 800+ rolls, but even at 200 rolls an average of 6 (or 14) is so incredibly off the charts. At an average of 6 you'd expect a total of 1200, but the chart doesn't have a .01 chance until 1854. Basically anything outside of an average of 9-12 is unbelievable at 200 rolls and you have 4/5 of your players doing that (and your counts are much higher than 200 which makes it worse, not better).
This is basically napkin math, but unless you royally fucked up your counting (or everyone is playing with weighted dice) you are just making shit up on the internet. Sidenote, who jots down every roll in a campaign before they know that the luck was going to be one in a trillion luck?
> Mate, I'm inclined to not believe you.
I just had a quick look at OP’s history and they have a few posts where they complain about strange, unlikely things happening in other events and have been called a troll for it. I’m a little suspicious. A fee ‘oh no, look at the terrible drama going on around, whatever shall I do’ posts as well.
- https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1bkbo70/my_sword_randomly_changes_how_much_damage_it_does/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/F1Game/comments/1bchte9/just_had_a_race_robbed_from_me_because_it_wnded_3/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1c1kouq/tifu_by_trying_to_help_my_brother_regain_his/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1cbmen8/my_first_ever_dm_session_ended_with_a_tpk/
Maybe they’re just really really unlucky with everything. Or maybe they’re just looking for attention.
Seconded. I did the math [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1cjpxem/i_tallied_every_dice_roll_i_made_for_an_entire/l2i9asm/). Anything outside 9.5-11.5 (roughly 5 standard deviations) is unreasonable.
To be clear, this is rolling electronically, right? On dndbeyond, or roll20, or something like this? I'm assuming this wasn't with a physical die, right, because you would've had to write down every single roll, which seems impossible.
Did you check if your handwriting is interpreted correctly? Not that your 7's are seen as 1's by the computer or anything? I see some comments saying that these odds are very very unlikely to be as you stated
It is doing science so by that definition yes I'm a scientistm In actuality I'm an autist with teo diploma equivalents in Engineering so make of that what you will
> had a printer scan it
There are only two ways I see that actually working accurately:
* You scanned the paper, and then manually transcribed those numbers into a spreadsheet, i.e. the scan was just so you'd be able to have the handwritten numbers up on the same screen as the spreadsheet. (Even then, high chance of transcription error.)
* You were using a scantron-style form, or something similar to when you buy a lottery ticket, i.e. you have twenty numbered boxes and you fill-in or tick the box corresponding to the number
Otherwise, OCR almost certainly did things like confusing 7s and 1s, 8s and 0s, 8s and 6s, or confusing a double-digit number for two single-digit numbers.
This simply didn’t happen. The likelihood of an average of 6 over 813 rolls is less than one in a trillion. Same with an average of 14 over a similar number. Combined together, this is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
Did you write down all rolls or only used rolls? For stuff like advantage and disadvantage and rerolls, this heavily impacts the data.
If your build gives you advantage often your average is higher, if you often attack at disadvantage maybe due to range restrictions or other things, your rolls will be worse.
Yeah this is what I want to know. Either OPs party is a bunch of cheaters. Or OP is not taking advantage/disadvantage into account. The latter seems more likely.
Yea, just look at the barbarians stats. They probably don't make many ability checks and when they do, its grapple checks with advantage from rage. For attacks they use reckless most of the time so they also have advantage. That's why they have twice the amount of 20s compared to nat 1s.
The bard probably runs warcaster for their high average rolls.
One session, my wife kept rolling really low. Couldn’t hit anything. Failed every check. She was rolling a d12 not a d20. Hope this wasn’t you for an entire campaign, my dude.
I had a ranger that would usually manage to kill individual enemies in a single round if she got the initiative on them, but the minute she got swarmed or had to make a con save or be paralyzed the nat 1s started coming and they didn't stop... it got to the point where I took the DM aside to ask him to stop using ghouls and other paralysis creatures because I would literally have to sit out entire combat encounters due failing the con saves. My character actually was killed by the autocrits from the paralyzed condition twice in the span of 3 game sessions (oddly enough there was a scroll of resurrection in a chest the party looted both times because I think the DM didnt actually want to kill me but he loves using monsters with extra effects like trip or paralyze on hit)
Hey so I wanted to mention something. Over in /r/Pathfinder_RPG I wrote the sorta well-known (there) post about [all the ways I've caught players cheating.](/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/3nvrsw/here_is_jack_skellingtons_full_comprehensive/) Part of the reason *why* I paid so much attention to other players cheating is because **I rolled terribly.** I was so frustrated to get nat 1 after nat 1, and then see everyone else doing well. I swapped dice, tried rolling in a dice tower, etc. Nothing helped.
In fact, to add to the absurdity -- and this might give away my identity to my friends as it's such a unique problem that I think some of my buddies might read this and realize that this is my account -- I got even *worse* with the failed dice rolls when I came over to D&D 5th edition. You see, I was so sick of natural 1s that I took halfling for race and Lucky for my feat, and sorcerer with some kind of rerolling thing as well, all just to stop the natural 1s. Any nat 1, I had a reroll. Well, the running joke became that *my dice knew what I had done,* because they began rolling tons & tons of **nat 2s!** My attempt to get away from being a bad dice roller ended up just making me the brunt of jokes, because I could not escape the problem. When I found a way to reroll nat 1s, the dice just reconfigured themselves to give me the next worst result, constantly.
Anyway, I'm not bitter, it's kinda funny in retrospect.
Having said that, the reason I'm posting today is because I did something about 2 years ago, and it completely changed my luck, and my game. And that is, one day, after being sick of rolling badly, I designed a system to eliminate the worst dice. First, I took all my d20s, which I have a *lot,* and I rolled them all on the table. Then, I removed any dice that rolled a nat 1. With the remaining dice, I rolled again, and again removed the nat 1s. I did this over & over, until I was left with 4 or 5 d20s that seemed to survive the whole test.
I took the batch of "bad dice" -- and there were a lot -- and I repeated this process with them, until I had 1 or 2 dice that I "reclaimed" from the bad pile. My thought was since this is a lot of randomness, I possibly got a few "good" dice mixed in with the bad when they rolled unusually low, so this process should have given them a 2nd chance.
With this set of new dice, at least 5 d20s maybe 6, I then put them in my "actually use these" dice bag, and that's all I would use. The other d20s just sat in a punishment box and were sad. And this is so important to me: I almost immediately lost my reputation as a low roller. The whole feel of the game changed for me. It was fun, I got to see some nat 20s finally. People stopped joking that my dice hated me. In fact, I realized I had done *too good* of a job when I became DM and the players all groaned when they saw me reach for my dice bag.
Importantly, none of the dice show up as weighted. I've done the salt water test and a few others, and they are random and they do not favor a number. But they clearly have *something* about them that makes nat 1s occur less often. Maybe they have a manufacturing defect that is so subtle that it doesn't appear under testing like the salt water thing, but if you make 1000 rolls, there will indeed be less than 50 nat 1s (50 is about how many you'd expect to see if you rolled 1000 times).
Anyway, if you're really upset with your dice performance, it's possible that you are simply rolling honestly and everyone around you is cheating/fibbing about a roll or two (or ten)! OR, like me, you simply bought dice and didn't think about it, and it turns out the dice are pretty unfavorable. Get new ones. It worked for me. Good luck!
Hey OP, can you post your data set? If all the dice are fair this is statistically impossible. Not saying it couldn't happen, especially if the dice or the players are biased, buuuuut it'd be nice to have some proof that you did record something real and aren't making this up for internet clout.
Been there for sure. Spent an entire 8 month campaign with a trait that gave me crit on 19 and never rolled a single 19. I rolled a few nat 20's and, like you said, it was never once meaningful when I did. It felt rouuuuugh.
Not all dice are created equal. That is to say, not all manufacturers make sure all the dice are balanced properly. Maybe a new set of dice is in order?
It's not you, it's your dice. You need to buy some new dice but not only that. You also need to destroy the old ones and set the tone to the new ones right out of the gate. Line up your new dice and show them the offending dice. Explain what they did and why they are going to be destroyed. Then take a hammer and make the new dice watch as you destroy the traitorous ones. Fear is a great motivator.
An average of about 35 rolls per session? You guys aren't playing the same game I play, that's either rolls for trivial interactions or aloooot of fighting.
Only read the top comments so sorry if this has already been recommended but I would see if your dice are balanced. Salt water test has worked for me. If they aren't, then it's time to get New Dice!
You sound really down on yourself and I’m sorry for that. It definitely sucks to feel that way.
But I think it’s important to remember that this is just how you feel. You’re not unlucky, you just feel unlucky. Luck is not a thing, you keeping track of these rolls didn’t prove anything. Focus on the parts of the game you can control and get enjoyment out of those, but you’re just going to get caught in a whirlpool of feeling worse if you get hung up on how the random element shakes out.
Aspects of this aren’t totally out of the realm of human control. It’s possible to design character builds that minimize RNG relative to others. It’s also possible, as a DM, to still provide opportunities to elevate players without needing to rely on the dice to do it. If you’re not actually enjoying playing the game then there’s gotta be something you or the DM can do to help, but random chance isn’t a very fruitful focal point for blame.
Shit happens. I have a player in my group. a paladin and last session in a combat he did his usual 2 attacks. hit both times. and one of the other players jokingly yelled out "Who are you and what have you done to our paladin? he would never hit with both attacks"
It was a joke but the fact none of can hardly remember last time he did hit with both attacks. But we can all remember the many times he MISSED with both attacks. The guy rolls so bad i start to believe he is cursed. statistically a person would be VERY unlikely to roll that bad for that long. It was the same when he played a barbarian last campaign. but with reliable advantage with reckless attack he did hit a little more often as a barbarian.
So it is not just a fluke. It has been consistent for around 2 years by now. Sure someday he do tend to roll better and get some rare crit in now and then.
Another strange thing with that player is the times he rolls well is usually against spider or insect like creature, then he tend to roll really well. He is often referred to as the Exterminator. because the only time he rolls well is against pests. this has also been pretty consistent.
I also have another player in a game that has some weird shit going on with his rolls. He usually attack with advantage. 2 weapon fighting so at this level 3 attacks per turn. He VERY rarely misses so he tends to roll good. But he almost NEVER crits.
he got a homebrew magic item that has a special effect on crits, he got that at low level as i figured that for someone that almost always attacking 2 times and soon 3 times per turn and usually with advantage would have use of and enjoying something that makes crits a bit better.
But now several levels later it is almost uncanny how few times he actually had a crit. He very rarely misses but crits seems to be even rarer. even with 3 advantage attacks per turn. statistically he should crit most of all the players. but he does not. no one else has a way to attack 3 times with pretty reliable advantage but still i would say every one else crits more often than him.
This just show that shit happens. and it happens less for others and more for others. For those that say that there is no thing as luck and that on average all roll fairly similar. I say that is a cute thought but it is not true.
Sure if those players would roll like 4 million rolls it would probably even out. but in reality. in the game no.
Overall the five of you had a 8.5% average of bar 1s, with you accounting for roughly 29% of those rolled. If you all kept rolling, and you had stats for say 100000 rolls, that nat 1 chance might be closer to its statistical chance of 5%, and your portion of them might approach 20%.
Likewise your nat 20s as a group wound up being rolled roughly 8% of the time, and you only accounted for 11.2% of the nat 20s rolled.
Just goes to show that even if you roll a d20 10x20^2 you’ll still have non-statistical averages. The sample size has to go up to eventually reach the statistical averages.
I am know for terrible rolls when I'm a player but godlike rolls when I'm a DM (even started rolling infront of my players to prove my rolls were legit). I've had a single session where I was a player and rolled nothing but Nat 1's.
OP, so sorry to see you’re suffering over bad luck.
Maybe get your friends to play Dragonbane, where ones are critical hits and 20s are crit fails. You’ll become a legend.
Have you or your family ever had any contact or relation to Will Wheaton? Maybe you share the curse?
https://espharel.blogspot.com/2020/06/intro-statistics-for-rpgs-wheaton-dice.html?m=1
My men, probably you spending so much time counting 1s and 20s and doing stadistics instead of focusing on the game is what has made an awfull experience of it. Justo forget the dice. Im sure if you just stopped making those empty counts will make your game better.
I have weird rolls, I crit like a demon in every combat slaying elite enemies as if they were fodder. But if I want to do anything to do with the narrative (the part of the game I care most about) I rarely roll higher than 5.
If you were watching my characters from the outside they look like unstoppable forces, but internally they are full of regret at missed opportunities!
One of my players rolls so badly that the other players make him use their dice and tell at him any time he uses his dice, and any die that has been in his container. Obviously it's all fun and games, but he genuinely rolls better whenever he uses someone else's dice lmao.
Many cheap dice are horribly unbalanced. I did experiments with thousands of rolls after having experiences similar to yours, and there are faces that come up only 1.9% of the time rather than the expected 5%. Change your dice, dude.
That's brutal. You have every right to feel crappy after sessions.
(My first thought: "Man, some people's LIVES are that way.")
I agree with others saying to chuck the dice in the trash.
I bet if you recorded a video about the whole thing, showed your data, etc, you could get a nice company like DieHard Dice to send you a set for free.
I'm fact, you might be able to get MULTIPLE companies to send you cool dice. Have a battle royale.
Have you tried new dice?
I'm not superstitious about my dice in any way, but I AM suspicious of the quality control during production. It's totally possible for those little lumps of plastic to be unevenly weighted or rounded off and therefore not roll correctly.
I have dice that I consider "high rollers" and I'm pretty confident in that. I'm a dice goblin so I have many sets but I know people that only ever had a few.
I automatically tally rolls for my campaign since it's virtual, and my favorite is our cleric who has an average of 6 in combat but an average of 15 out of combat, with something like a 14% nat 20 rate on out-of-combat rolls. Even before tallying we would joke about how he can't fight but is good at everything else, but the actual numbers were crazy.
With 326 comments someone has probably already said this. I've been playing and dming for almost 20 years. Every single group I've been a part of had this. Someone has the low rolls. I've even been that someone. Call or superstition, luck, or statistics. But it's true.
Even look at the big famous groups like critical role. Ashley consistently rolls like crap and when she's not there Marisha takes up the role. It can be hard. And even in the games that Matt gets to be a player, he rolls like crap. Will Wheaton has a curse named after him his roles are so bad.
But if you let it get you down it will take the fun out of the game. One thing you can do is start having fun naratively with your misses. Another thing is do is play a caster that uses a lot of save spells. Then the role isn't on you, it's on the dm. Clerics and druids are good for that.
Good luck and keep fighting the good fight.
Do you roll spin downs? If you do that might be your problem. Or you could sacrifice a competition winning goat, maybe trade your firstborn child to a fae.
Cheat, microwave your plastic dice with the 20 on top.
One time i joined a group of players from the ghetto who played dice on the regular. They literally taught themselves how to manipulate a d20 because they had transferable skill in rolling 2d6 their entire lives. It was insane how these guys could roll nat 20s. The DM confiscated their dice thinking their dice was microwaved. They rolled the DM's d20 and kept getting nat 20s. 🤣 Then the DM got mad and forced every person to roll in a cup. That put an end to rolling nat 20s. One session i showed up and the DM was late and every person there was practicing rolling their d20 in a cup trying to roll nat 20s. They couldnt get nat 20s consistently, but they tried to none the less. It was insane how they methodically practiced their cup dice rolls as if it was a skill. They practiced having the same consistent hand movements while shaking their cup.
One day the dm just stop showing up and the group just stopped playing all together bc it was impossoble to roll consistent nat 20s in a cup.
Imagine being a dm and preparing combats where your monsters get nat 20'ed to death. 🤣
Saw a couple comments, but just wanted to echo: those averages are bit out of band. The 14s are way too high, and 6 is way too low.
Your dice and your friends’ dice could be flawed.
I once rolled something like 5 natural 1's out of 7ish rolls. My DM gave me (me, not my character) the Power of One while playing in his campaign, meaning I can make any roll I make a 1, whenever I want. I refrain from using it too much (when I'm dominated, etc) but use it often enough to make some fun moments.
I still roll like that sometimes, entirely unintentionally.
how is advantage/disadvantage recorded here? have you recorded both dice, or just the one that was taken? if the latter, reckless attack alone would explain the barbarian’s luck
Our cleric rolls like you do (though I haven’t logged the numbers to back this up.) He was out sick one session and the entire party rolled like dogshit. You’re not useless. You’re the bad roll sponge for the table lol.
This is the way. They are the force of math that balances the universe
I’m surprised you guys don’t burn these dice - or at least have them blessed at your nearest Catholic Church.
Arrange them outside in a semi-circle and put one particularly bad rolling die in the middle. Take a hammer and show the other ones what happens when one performs poorly. They'll learn ...
I second this.
Dice training at its finest.
Dice oubliette. Get some cage-like candle holder and chuck the offending d20 in there for a few sessions
IN A SINGLE GAME I threatened a d6 with “Behave. Low rolling dice get punished” and immediately rolled a 6. I told a pair of d6 to “give me a 6 and a 4” and they did. And I rolled 6 d6 and got 5 results that I needed, then rerolled the 6th die and got the last result I needed. I am notorious at my D&D table for rolling max damage. I get multiple nat 20s every session and have done so for over four years (it’s an ongoing campaign). Doesn’t matter what dice I use. Old dice, new dice, mini dice, metal dice, other people’s dice (including dice with a reputation of rolling badly for their owners). Even virtual dice. I can only apologize to all the people out there who are getting shitty rolls because I have soaked up all the dice luck. 😅
No. Use a smidgen of thermite and burn/melt the dice in the middle to sludge.
I've tried with multiple sets of dice. The shit follows me everywhere I go
Metal dice break juju.
Take the dice to your friendly neighborhood Tzeentchian Cult.
We took mine to the stairs of our nearest protestant church and read some incantations over them. Can't remember exactly what, it's been decades. Anyway, it didn't work.
Picked the wrong denomination.
Nearest Catholic was a 4 hour drive away, we made do with what we had (but obviously that wasn't enough)
I’m a bit of a power gamer in a group of people who admittedly can barely follow their own character sheets, so my DM often worries that if they balance towards me that the rest of the party will go down really hard I often remind my DM that I rolled less than 5 on 10 roll in a row more than once, almost lost a fist fight to a moose I was hunting, and am already the most targeted player in the group by the enemies because I as a player am the loudest and most noticeable and my character is a melee martial, and then they realize there isn’t much point in rebalancing around me since I’ll go down anyways
>almost lost a fist fight to a moose I was hunting Soooo...I am not an expert...but I think you might be choosing sub-optimal paths to success.
Clearly you're no expert, moose don't have fists! He started a fight the moose wasn't armed for
I’m currently playing a gloomstalker ranger/way of shadows monk duergar brawler style character, so when I decided to go out and punch a moose to vent my frustration with the party not respecting me (the very alcoholic, slightly racist, pathetic excuse for an adventurer), it seemed like the most optimal choice
[удалено]
Shush you don’t know the moose and what it did
I’m playing a Fighter and I’ve stopped swinging my weapon at people because I roll so poorly I can never beat their AC, However I have expertise in Athletics and can almost always manage to grapple them so grappling is my life now.
My brother’s last character was a flying tiefling barbarian who used as much grappling as possible, in or out of combat, so it’s not a bad strategy at all
I’m having fun with it, it just wasn’t the direction I expected to take when I started the character. I had never played D&D before (I played 99% Whitewolf growing up) and a spot opened up in my extended friend group’s campaign so I built a lvl 8 Minotaur Rune Knight and jumped in. I’m only 4 sessions in but I’ve been really enjoying it so far. I’ve thrown lots of thugs off of docks to remove them from the fight, and managed to restrain some heavy damage dealers from large chunks of combat.
I can't imagine anyone winning a fistfight to a moose, so not sure that should count towards your bad dice rolls. Some things just can't be fixed with a lucky roll.
Hey, that moose kept my duergar well fed for some time after that fight, and my axe had nearly nothing to do with it!
My barbarian ended up in death throws trying to catch a goat so. We were level nine and it was supposed to be a silly side quest. I don't quite remember how it went so wrong.
My cleric character also rolls like this. Constantly improbably terrible. I tend to use spells that force saving throws than anything she has to roll for because she fails the most unfailable rolls. I play in 2 other games and my other characters roll great, she's just cursed. But you also made me realise on the off night where she does roll good the rest of the party has horrid luck. I'll forever think of her as the bad luck sponge now.
OP is the ladybug! Every table needs one
Ha, ha! The sacrificial anode for bad luck.
Time to play a divination wizard. Weaponize those low rolls for your portents.
I chronically roll low as well, so divination wizard could be fun. Plus some spells will at least give you something even if you fail.
And there's also things like Magic Missile which don't need a d20 roll to be effective!
Or heat metal, I once had a PVP with another player that went like this: Me: I cast heat metal on your armour. Them: Ok, what's the saving roll. Me: there isn't one. Them: Oh, can I take it off? Me: RAW is that takes 10 mins. Them: Well fuck me I guess. Me: Yes that's the idea.
My CR9 boss battle for later got brazenly attacked by my level 3 party when it was HEAVILY implied they would die if they fought this guy. Heat metal basically carried the fight to a win for the party. Every one of my boss's attack at disadvantage, can't hit the druid to break concentration because I'm missing, so much free damage every turn. It was brutal lol
Heat metal is complete bullshit, I love it
COOK AND BOOK!!
Plus with save spells, you don't have to roll anything
Low-rolling Divination wizard here. My portent rolls are almost ALWAYS 6 or under. Sucks for the bad guys, lol.
Eloquence Bard Halfling with Lucky feat that dips into Divination Wizard for Portent.
You gotta put the die with the 1 facing up so the dice get's bored of being that way up and you will roll fewer ones. It's just science.
lol I do the opposite, to teach them where to sit
Exactly! "This is your resting position, get comfortable. When you're rolled, try to return to this position." Getting them used to sitting in the 1 position is crazy. Dice are simple creatures, they don't get bored!
You guys are crazy. Dice are notoriously capricious.
My wife gives her dice pep talks before each session and when they roll low she encourages them to so better next time. One time I was rolling low all game and she told me to be nice to my dice. I jokingly told it I would love it no matter what and that it only has to try. The entire table burst out laughing as I immediately rolled 2 Nat 20s with disadvantage.
I recently started spilling out my bag of dice at the beginning of each session and putting any that rolled a one back in the bag for the rest of the night. Your wife’s approach sounds worthy of trying too!
This entire thread is just irrational rubbish. Don't you know it's bad luck to be superstitious?
:)
Right? I just roll them a few times, observe what they do, and get the vibe for the session
"Good luck, bad luck, I don't want any of it!" — the true neutral
May I present the words of a [noted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87F-Ind9BaQ) [expert?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNGa-ydu7z4)
I do the same method as /u/Arthurius-Denticus with all my dice and I have rolled all 18 characters and multiple instant kills using the 3 nat 20s house rule. Dice do what dice do.
Yeah gotta keep the 20s on the top so all the weight settles to the bottom
Exactly. Helping them remember. Helping their bowels to set the right way.... or whatever. But maybe it just feels nice to look at all those 10s on my d10s.
No! Then all the luck leaks out
No no. The trick is to have a set of dice for the character. It has to represent the character. The vibes have to match. If you're using blue watery dice for your pyromancer, of course you're gonna roll more 1s.
It can go the other way too. Sometimes I love a set of dice and build a character to match.
I think dice are more like super-liquids: leave them 20-side up for long enough, and they become Weighted to land that way more often.
Yeah, all the molecules settle towards to the bottom, weighting them to roll 20s more often.
No! 20 facing up so gravity pulls the molecules down!
Real Emily Axford energy there. She lets her dice soak in the moonlight. Or maybe pickles them. It's hard to keep up.
This is what I do, because I know the dice gods are against me. If I make them think that’s their natural state, they won’t land there.
I do this too! I swear I must roll them weird because it tends to end on a face near the opposite of what it was when I was holding it.
No, no, no. You gotta spin the dice 5 times before play so they go in dizzy, makes it harder for them to make decisions and gives you a true roll
Statistically, with that many rolls, getting an average anywhere outside 8 to 13 is so staggeringly unlikely it's hard to describe. You're saying that **THREE** of the five players had averages outside that range (14, 14, and 6)? Other people in the comments are saying "that's just random chance," but I don't think they're realizing how astronomically implausible the numbers you're reporting are. To me it makes it sound like something is weird about the methodology. In another comment you said "Physical dice. And yes, I did write every dice roll down and had a printer scan it and computer do the maths." Do you have a set of images of the pages, or a spreadsheet of all the numbers, or something that we could see? I would love to do some more stats to see if there are any other anomalies in the data-as-written.
Agreed, this is well into the range on filtering the noise. Just ran a simulation of 813 rolls with a fair dice a million times, never below 9.5 average. We might genuinely be looking a very biased dice. If wwe can get the actual rolls we can look at the distribution and the region the dice are landing. > You're saying that THREE of the five players had averages outside that range (14, 14, and 6)? Even the 8 is pretty wild, so 4 of 5 players are having wild outcomes. And only the Gnome Bard is anywhere near even on 1s vs 20s, and everyone is rolling far far too many 1s and 20s, meaning that they are massively under rolling the rest of the numbers. Player | Expected | 1s | 20 | Note ---|---|----|----|---- Half-Elf Warlock| 35.65 | 47| 89| Both well above expectation Human Fighter| 46.75| 82| 53 | Both well above expectation Gnome Bard| 41.1| 62| 52 | Both well above expectation Goliath Barbarian| 42.65| 57| 98 | Both well above expectation Tiefling Rogue | 40.65| 102| 37 | 1s well above expectation > To me it makes it sound like something is weird about the methodology. 100% agree, something is wrong in the data.
Could be something wrong with how he's tracking dice rolls. Possibly whenever a player rolls with advantage/disadvantage he just takes the result from that and counts it as one d20 roll rather than 2. Like I feel that a barbarian with multiattack attacking recklessly every turn should probably be rolling *significantly* more dice per session than the rest of the party. Also could also explain why his average is so high. Outside of that these numbers are so radically statistically unlikely that I'd probably just say he's making them up. Unless the dice being used are straight up weighted or he's somehow been using a d12 for the past half a year instead of a d20...
Though it wouldn't explain why the Tiefling got so many Nat 1s though. Unless they had near constant disadvantage and even with that, it seems far too high
Maybe OP pushes the boundaries of the DM a lot, so they get a lot of disadvantage rolls
Its possible the dice are weighted
Rolling a dice the second time and taking the lower roll doesn't negate the first roll for the purposes of statistical analysis. It only negates the score for gameplay. You should still count both rolls if you're trying to accurately capture statistics.
But if OP only recorded the result and not both dice, that would nicely explain the larger than normal number of 1s and 20s. Other than the tiefling's 1s, they're all less than twice the expected number.
> I'd probably just say he's making them up. So would I. The numbers are *near* the realm of realistic, but with an exaggeration added. Shows understanding of DnD, not stats.
Can't believe I had to scroll down so far to find common sense in this post. Two players averaging 14 each on a thousand dice rolls? Somebody is lying or cheating. I know OPs problem, the rest of the table is cheating and they aren't. Ffs. Seriously though, the advantage/disadvantage idea is the only thing that makes sense in lieu of several people lying for months or this post or OP making a big arithmetic mistake. That they are not willing to share the data is conclusive enough for me.
Hold-up. The statistics are screwed up, but I can almost assure you that it's mostly becase of advantage/ disadvantage. Rolling twice but counting once will drastically magnify or depress the apparent average. The data is actually useless without knowing the number of times rolled with add/disadvantages. To verify the dice you would need to know all the rolls raw. The other sources of error are misreporting (accidental or otherwise), data entry to your your, data translations from your sheet, and program error. All this being said, it's still very possible that shoddy dice are responsible for the statistical distortions. These dice aren't being controlled like casino dice.
Yeah, I really do suspect that this is a question of advantage or disadvantage. 14 isn’t an unreasonable average if you’re always flanking, recklessly attacking, etc. That barbarian is gonna get adv. on DEX saves, initiative, and almost every attack. The gnome bard gets adv. on every mental save, and if they have the actor feat they’re probably rolling with adv. on every charisma check too.
I mean getting an average of 8 is also wildly unlikely. As is an average of 6. I don't think the fighter is cheating by rolling low.
It's not that far fetched. The average being 11 assumes a perfectly fair die. We know that some die aren't actually fair, due to manufacturing defects. That's one of the reasons why a D20 is configured the way it is, and is the source of the arguments of using a standard D20 vs a spin-down die. A standard D20 has its own sub distribution per face. Face 20 is connected to 2, 8, 14, which averages to 11. Face 18 has an average of 7.25. Face 8 has an average of 13.5 If a die is favoring a corner, then you're still going to get a usable distribution, but it could actually still be worse than a fair die. Something like a salt water test can reveal the worst defects. If we could see the actual records, it should also be pretty obvious of the die is significantly imbalanced.
It could be that he started with a conclusion, wanted to tell a story that would get him karma on the internet, and made up all the details to fit his narrative that makes himself look like a victim.
Have there been any studies done on rolling of physical dice by hand and how well that actually reaches true random? Even with well-balanced dice, people who roll as often as d&d players often get ritualistic about it, holding the dice in a particular way, throwing them in exactly the same way every time, starting with a particular number facing up every time. I suspect this can skew the results away from true random (for good it ill, I doubt people know how to skew it the way they want), but have no proof of it. Edit: also, most people buy dice for aesthetics alone, not balance, so it's entirely possible everyone's dice are off balance.
Yes actually—several hedge fund interview tests rely on this. Supposedly with enough training, you can accurately predict a coin *that you flip* 51% of the time, which is a huuuge advantage
With practice you can do it 100% of the time. It's just making sure the coin only flips once or twice in the air consistently. The harder part is getting good enough it's not obvious
It will likely bias it (both rolling style and unbalanced dice), but we would be talking moving the average <1, not 4. To give you an idea of how bad OP is claim they rolled, a dice that the following sides: ```1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,15,16,17,18,19,20``` Would have an equally bad average.
Thanks. Reading OP's post, I was thinking this is evidence of bad dice rather than bad luck. Good news is that bad dice can be fixed.
I'm in the "this is a complete fabrication" camp. A dice this bad would be very obvious and all 5 players are rolling weirdly.
Maybe using those MTG health dice that are weighted bad. Forget what they’re called but I think they roll lower on average
Are we sure those aren't the results after advantage/disadvantage and rerolls. That might account for the extra nat 1s and 20s
It's even wilder then since a rogue should be seeking advantage significantly more than any other class to enable sneak attack
I'd like to throw my own thoughts on this data as well. They use physical dice. Now there are a few factors to consider here. - the condition of the dice: old dice, or chipped dice can alter the outcome of where it lands. - weighted dice: this can be both intentional or unintentional. Not every dice is 100% perfect, manufacturing flaws can exist - surface: how flat of a surface are we talking about? Is it on a dice tray? Does said dice tray have any minute dents or bits of debris that can impact the roll? Without additional information the data could very well be "corrupted" or, as others have pointed out, inaccurate/false. A truly cursed person would roll poorly in any scenario, including online rolls.
Would the tray surface change the random distribution though? The dice flaws, of course, as they will always make the dice veer away/towards a certain section of the die, making a few number more likely. But the tray surface would evenly affect all rolls and should balance out.
Oh thank God that I am not the only one wanting to question the voracity of this. As someone who took 2 years of statistics in college I really want to call bullshit on this whole post. You can't roll a d20 over 100 times without coming up hard against standard deviation; let alone over 500 times.
I thought you have to roll at least 1,000 times before it looks close to a normal distribution?
Agreed. The chances of this are so astronomical. There are either bad dice, human error or inaccurate data.
You have to factor in the classes and system. The barbarian, he has reckless attack so he probably rolls at advantage a lot. Athletics in rage are also at advantage. Rolls in fights can skew the whole thing in his favour. The other Player seems to have been lucky or looked for many opportunities for advantage. It's 5e, especially if flanking was used it's easy to sneeze and get advantage by accident. And our protagonist seems to shave a die that is weighted weirdly or uneven, or a curse placed on them. From what I understood from the comments, they borrowed a different die ONCE for just one session. They also rolled bad, but as for someone who tailed the statistics, this seems like a big oversight stemming from expectations being that they're just unlucky. I've seen many people theorising that OP is just making numbers up, and that is possible. If the numbers are actual ones I'm pretty sure they only noted 1 number from every roll at advantage/disadvantage.
Doing some further math makes it make sense, and actually makes me a little suspicious. If you take the average of ALL the rolls together, it's exactly what it should be, 10.5. It's almost a little too neat, honestly.
Unless, as other mentioned, they are only tracking one value from advantage or disadvantage roll. If there are about the same number of advantage/disadvantage rolls in the game these would even out the "Total" average.
> if you take the average of ALL the rolls together, it’s exactly what it should be, 10.5 Why does this make you suspicious? That’s exact what should happen - the more you roll the more the averages should match what’s expected. Tbh the fact that putting all the rolls together makes it average out correctly suggests to me that 800 rolls might not be a big enough sample size when rolling a d20 Edit - looks like some other comments did the math and 800 rolls is actually enough so the results are pretty weird. Although I still stand by that averaging all the rolls should hit 10.5, that does make sense.
Very this. When I saw two 14's I thought ah-ha! It's those people who roll as their turn starts to "save time" and magically get lots of good rolls. But then the 6 came along...
OP is either lying or has no idea how to log advantage and disadvantage. The other players cheating is plausible, but it'd be odd for OP to spend so much time sapping their own rolls.
To be fair, there is the human factor. Even putting aside the occasional fudging that players can do, a human's hands are imperfect at rolling dice. It's possible that OP would always roll them at certain way, starting with a certain number on top, that would be more likely to result in a nat 1.
Yeah, I don't want to be THAT guy, but the 14/14/6 averages are just impossible to happen with 3/5 players, when we're talking about 800+ rolls each. Either someone wrote down the numbers wrong, or the dices are not fair (shitty quality / loaded). Period.
The average of all rolls is 10.58. Considering op only gave us full numbers for averages, it is off by some amount but probably close to expected value. So it's just a matter of distribution among players, as op also mentioned in another comment that they shared dice. Wouldn't it be plausible that he simply got more of the low numbers than the others? It's still probably fake but not impossible to happen, no?
If it was always the same d20, it could —legitimately—be as simple as an uneven weight distribution, with more weight towards the 20 face.
See that'd what I thought after 2 sessions so I bought more and more. And my friends brought sone of theirs from home and we swapped dice and they used mine and I used theirs. I actually remember the fighter had rolled above 15 like.. 5 times in a row, in combat so then when combat happened later in that session we traded dice and I rolled a 1. Then I rolled a 4, a 5, a 1 again, and an 8.
Yup, that’s just random chance. If it were the same d20, then you’d have proof, however slight.
Once I rolled four 20s in a row. Haven't rolled one in the last 5 sessions. It happens.
1 in 160,000 chance, nice
It was a couple of skill checks, an initiative and my only hit in the ensuing combat. XD
Oh, oh damn, yea, I was gonna say you need new dice, but no that's just the dice gods hate you. Have you considered offering them prayers and a sacrifice? That's about the only thing I can think of that will help you.
Unless the D20 is particularly bad you need along the lines of 10,000 rolls to see any discrepancies and even then the statistical variance is minor. [https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/d20-dice-randomness-test-chessex-vs-gamescience](https://www.awesomedice.com/blogs/news/d20-dice-randomness-test-chessex-vs-gamescience)
this uhhhh reminds me of a player i was at a table with for a long time, who had lost his d20 and was using his d12 by mistake for *ages*
it's kinda crazy how no one noticed the discrepancy
The excitement everytime you cry out Nat 12! keeps me coming back to the game!
OMG that's hilarious
*Oh*. Oh dear.
There is no way you could possibly roll this badly. By "average" you mean the the mean of the rolls, correct? If so, there's no way you could roll a mean of 6 on 813 dice. You must be mis-recording the data, rolling a d12 instead of a d20, have extremely weighted dice, or performed a bad average. So good news -- There's no way that you rolled this badly or could possibly continue to roll this badly! I wrote some code to test the odds of this (both empirically and analytically) and your total is only 60% of my minimum roll on 1 million attempts. Looking at the distribution, you're over 22 standard deviations below the mean which has odds so low that it looks like zero to double floating point precision (odds significantly lower than 1e-16). Rolling 1000000 samples Claimed Roll: 4878 Minimum Roll: 7724 Analytic Mean: 8536.5 Empirical Mean: 8536.459766 Analytic STD: 164.41487159013326 Empirical STD: 164.51412664943166 N STDs from mean: -22.251636756559382 Odds this many STDs off: 0.0000000000000000 If you'd like to check my work, here's the code: import numpy as np from scipy.special import erf # Inputs # n = number of rolls # die = sides on a die # samples = number of samples for empirical test # total = total claimed result from roll (user stated average roll * number of rolls) n = 813 die = 20 samples = int(1e6) total = 6 * n # Compute analytical mean/standard deviation mean_single_analytic = (die + 1) / 2 std_single_analytic = np.sqrt(np.sum((np.arange(1, die + 1) - mean_single_analytic)**2)/die) std_analytic = np.sqrt(n * std_single_analytic**2) mean_analytic = mean_single_analytic * n # Check with empirical print(f"Rolling {samples} samples") rolls = np.random.randint(1, die+1, (n, samples)).sum(axis=0) min_emperic = rolls.min() mean_emperic = rolls.mean() std_emperic = rolls.std() # Compare minimum roll to claimed roll print(f"Claimed Roll: {total}") print(f"Minimum Roll: {min_emperic}") # Print out results just to make sure the analytic and empirical mean/std are similar print(f"\n\nAnalytic Mean: {mean_analytic}") print(f"Empirical Mean: {mean_emperic}") print(f"Analytic STD: {std_analytic}") print(f"Empirical STD: {std_emperic}") # Check how many standard deviations total is away from the mean stds_from_mean = (total - mean_analytic) / std_analytic odds_outside = (1 - erf(np.abs(stds_from_mean) / np.sqrt(2))) / 2 print(f"\n\nN STDs from mean: {stds_from_mean}") print(f"Odds this many STDs off: {odds_outside:.16f}")
> You must be mis-recording the data, rolling a d12 instead of a d20, have extremely weighted dice, or performed a bad average.... Do also note that the 14s and 8 averages are also wild, just not as wild as the 6. The implied distribution from the provided 1 and 20 rolls is also wild. As a table they had 4136 rolls, 8.4% were 1s and 7.9% where 20s; these are miles from expected. Something has gone fundamentally wrong in data collections or analysis.
What makes this somewhat more skewed, potentially, is that we don't know the occurance of Advantage vs Disadvantage in these situations. Now looking at the Barbarian we can see quite clearly they have the highest number of 20s, which you'd assume from a class that wants to always be rolling with advantage on attack rolls, but then they also somehow got 57 Nat 1s which is just bizarre.
Is OP not recording both dice in an Advantage/Disadvantage situation? Because that would mess things up for sure.
And would definitely end up skewing the averages juuuust out of a normal range. I'm betting on OP not recording the dice rolls that weren't used, and happening to roll disadvantage more often than the others.
Which as a rogue would be disastrous. If you are attacking at disatvantage you don't even really need to roll the dice, because you can't get sneak attack.
(dis)advantage was my instinct but that means both are being handed out a lot. Ad players can build towards, reckless attack, as you say. But the DM would need to be chucking dis willy nilly to get these numbers.
This needs to be top comment. Did what I thought about but cba to do lmao
Quality post. I had the same instinct and ran some code and got ```P-value: 6.033254047611778e-86``` which would be a 1 in 1.66*10^85 chance.
*Glances at Will Wheaton* Unlikely. Never impossible.
Those numbers look sus. With rolling 700 d20s, you'd expect an average result between 10.06 and 10.94 about 95% of the time and an average between an average between 9.85 and 11.15 about 99.7% of the time. This is unlikely to be lucky-there are probably biased dice here.
Add in that the table is rolling crits (either type) 1.64x more than they should.
Might not be registering (dis)advantage correctly? Or just faulty dice all around.
(dis)advantage was my instinct but that means it is being handed out a lot and OP is getting a lot of dis and not much ad and as a rogue I would expect them to overload on ad, if anything.
There’s a lot of comments spewing math on this post, but this is the one that clicks with me. Thanks for the simplification
I'm pretty sure OP has been rolling a d12 by mistake instead of a d20 lol. His average of 6 makes a lot more sense that way. Although the other player's data is pretty skewed as well, but I'm more inclined to believe that could just be a result of paying less attention to other people's rolls.
Mate, I'm inclined to not believe you. [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=139+coinflips%2C+chances+of+less+than+38+heads](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=139+coinflips%2C+chances+of+less+than+38+heads) [https://anydice.com/](https://anydice.com/) The roll a 1 versus roll a 20 coinflip is just incredibly unlikely, but its fine, you might just be the unluckiest dude. I don't personally believe people who don't have evidence saying they 1 in a hundred million'd this easy but it could happen. I can't quickly find a calculator that can do 800+ rolls, but even at 200 rolls an average of 6 (or 14) is so incredibly off the charts. At an average of 6 you'd expect a total of 1200, but the chart doesn't have a .01 chance until 1854. Basically anything outside of an average of 9-12 is unbelievable at 200 rolls and you have 4/5 of your players doing that (and your counts are much higher than 200 which makes it worse, not better). This is basically napkin math, but unless you royally fucked up your counting (or everyone is playing with weighted dice) you are just making shit up on the internet. Sidenote, who jots down every roll in a campaign before they know that the luck was going to be one in a trillion luck?
> Mate, I'm inclined to not believe you. I just had a quick look at OP’s history and they have a few posts where they complain about strange, unlikely things happening in other events and have been called a troll for it. I’m a little suspicious. A fee ‘oh no, look at the terrible drama going on around, whatever shall I do’ posts as well. - https://www.reddit.com/r/Eldenring/comments/1bkbo70/my_sword_randomly_changes_how_much_damage_it_does/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/F1Game/comments/1bchte9/just_had_a_race_robbed_from_me_because_it_wnded_3/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1c1kouq/tifu_by_trying_to_help_my_brother_regain_his/ - https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1cbmen8/my_first_ever_dm_session_ended_with_a_tpk/ Maybe they’re just really really unlucky with everything. Or maybe they’re just looking for attention.
Yeah definitely just bullshitting about something along the way then. Very odd.
Seconded. I did the math [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1cjpxem/i_tallied_every_dice_roll_i_made_for_an_entire/l2i9asm/). Anything outside 9.5-11.5 (roughly 5 standard deviations) is unreasonable.
Thank god someone said this already. As a stats major I saw this and prayed people in the comments knew it’s bullshit.
To be clear, this is rolling electronically, right? On dndbeyond, or roll20, or something like this? I'm assuming this wasn't with a physical die, right, because you would've had to write down every single roll, which seems impossible.
Physical dice. And yes, I did write every dice roll down and had a printer scan it and computer do the maths.
Did you check if your handwriting is interpreted correctly? Not that your 7's are seen as 1's by the computer or anything? I see some comments saying that these odds are very very unlikely to be as you stated
Are you a scientist by any chance? To write down any variable so meticulously pretty much sounds like doing science.
It is doing science so by that definition yes I'm a scientistm In actuality I'm an autist with teo diploma equivalents in Engineering so make of that what you will
Im saying this as a joke and not to be an asshat… but with these typos, it might explain the data variance :)
> had a printer scan it There are only two ways I see that actually working accurately: * You scanned the paper, and then manually transcribed those numbers into a spreadsheet, i.e. the scan was just so you'd be able to have the handwritten numbers up on the same screen as the spreadsheet. (Even then, high chance of transcription error.) * You were using a scantron-style form, or something similar to when you buy a lottery ticket, i.e. you have twenty numbered boxes and you fill-in or tick the box corresponding to the number Otherwise, OCR almost certainly did things like confusing 7s and 1s, 8s and 0s, 8s and 6s, or confusing a double-digit number for two single-digit numbers.
I recommend playing a Caster next campaign. Focus on forcing enemies to make saves. That way, it's rarely you rolling the dice
This simply didn’t happen. The likelihood of an average of 6 over 813 rolls is less than one in a trillion. Same with an average of 14 over a similar number. Combined together, this is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
Did you write down all rolls or only used rolls? For stuff like advantage and disadvantage and rerolls, this heavily impacts the data. If your build gives you advantage often your average is higher, if you often attack at disadvantage maybe due to range restrictions or other things, your rolls will be worse.
Yeah this is what I want to know. Either OPs party is a bunch of cheaters. Or OP is not taking advantage/disadvantage into account. The latter seems more likely.
Yea, just look at the barbarians stats. They probably don't make many ability checks and when they do, its grapple checks with advantage from rage. For attacks they use reckless most of the time so they also have advantage. That's why they have twice the amount of 20s compared to nat 1s. The bard probably runs warcaster for their high average rolls.
One session, my wife kept rolling really low. Couldn’t hit anything. Failed every check. She was rolling a d12 not a d20. Hope this wasn’t you for an entire campaign, my dude.
Just the karmic rules of the multi-verse. For example, any paladin I run will commonly roll 1's on DEX saves. And it's been true for decades now.
I had a ranger that would usually manage to kill individual enemies in a single round if she got the initiative on them, but the minute she got swarmed or had to make a con save or be paralyzed the nat 1s started coming and they didn't stop... it got to the point where I took the DM aside to ask him to stop using ghouls and other paralysis creatures because I would literally have to sit out entire combat encounters due failing the con saves. My character actually was killed by the autocrits from the paralyzed condition twice in the span of 3 game sessions (oddly enough there was a scroll of resurrection in a chest the party looted both times because I think the DM didnt actually want to kill me but he loves using monsters with extra effects like trip or paralyze on hit)
Can you share the raw dice roll data somewhere? The distributions might make for more interesting viewing than just the averages you've given.
Hey so I wanted to mention something. Over in /r/Pathfinder_RPG I wrote the sorta well-known (there) post about [all the ways I've caught players cheating.](/r/Pathfinder_RPG/comments/3nvrsw/here_is_jack_skellingtons_full_comprehensive/) Part of the reason *why* I paid so much attention to other players cheating is because **I rolled terribly.** I was so frustrated to get nat 1 after nat 1, and then see everyone else doing well. I swapped dice, tried rolling in a dice tower, etc. Nothing helped. In fact, to add to the absurdity -- and this might give away my identity to my friends as it's such a unique problem that I think some of my buddies might read this and realize that this is my account -- I got even *worse* with the failed dice rolls when I came over to D&D 5th edition. You see, I was so sick of natural 1s that I took halfling for race and Lucky for my feat, and sorcerer with some kind of rerolling thing as well, all just to stop the natural 1s. Any nat 1, I had a reroll. Well, the running joke became that *my dice knew what I had done,* because they began rolling tons & tons of **nat 2s!** My attempt to get away from being a bad dice roller ended up just making me the brunt of jokes, because I could not escape the problem. When I found a way to reroll nat 1s, the dice just reconfigured themselves to give me the next worst result, constantly. Anyway, I'm not bitter, it's kinda funny in retrospect. Having said that, the reason I'm posting today is because I did something about 2 years ago, and it completely changed my luck, and my game. And that is, one day, after being sick of rolling badly, I designed a system to eliminate the worst dice. First, I took all my d20s, which I have a *lot,* and I rolled them all on the table. Then, I removed any dice that rolled a nat 1. With the remaining dice, I rolled again, and again removed the nat 1s. I did this over & over, until I was left with 4 or 5 d20s that seemed to survive the whole test. I took the batch of "bad dice" -- and there were a lot -- and I repeated this process with them, until I had 1 or 2 dice that I "reclaimed" from the bad pile. My thought was since this is a lot of randomness, I possibly got a few "good" dice mixed in with the bad when they rolled unusually low, so this process should have given them a 2nd chance. With this set of new dice, at least 5 d20s maybe 6, I then put them in my "actually use these" dice bag, and that's all I would use. The other d20s just sat in a punishment box and were sad. And this is so important to me: I almost immediately lost my reputation as a low roller. The whole feel of the game changed for me. It was fun, I got to see some nat 20s finally. People stopped joking that my dice hated me. In fact, I realized I had done *too good* of a job when I became DM and the players all groaned when they saw me reach for my dice bag. Importantly, none of the dice show up as weighted. I've done the salt water test and a few others, and they are random and they do not favor a number. But they clearly have *something* about them that makes nat 1s occur less often. Maybe they have a manufacturing defect that is so subtle that it doesn't appear under testing like the salt water thing, but if you make 1000 rolls, there will indeed be less than 50 nat 1s (50 is about how many you'd expect to see if you rolled 1000 times). Anyway, if you're really upset with your dice performance, it's possible that you are simply rolling honestly and everyone around you is cheating/fibbing about a roll or two (or ten)! OR, like me, you simply bought dice and didn't think about it, and it turns out the dice are pretty unfavorable. Get new ones. It worked for me. Good luck!
Hey OP, can you post your data set? If all the dice are fair this is statistically impossible. Not saying it couldn't happen, especially if the dice or the players are biased, buuuuut it'd be nice to have some proof that you did record something real and aren't making this up for internet clout.
Been there for sure. Spent an entire 8 month campaign with a trait that gave me crit on 19 and never rolled a single 19. I rolled a few nat 20's and, like you said, it was never once meaningful when I did. It felt rouuuuugh.
Not all dice are created equal. That is to say, not all manufacturers make sure all the dice are balanced properly. Maybe a new set of dice is in order?
be a halfling, my friend. You could reroll all those 102 nat 1s and be the first to reach 1.000 rolls.
It's not you, it's your dice. You need to buy some new dice but not only that. You also need to destroy the old ones and set the tone to the new ones right out of the gate. Line up your new dice and show them the offending dice. Explain what they did and why they are going to be destroyed. Then take a hammer and make the new dice watch as you destroy the traitorous ones. Fear is a great motivator.
This is why you need multiple sets of dice and a “dice jail” to send the ones that misbehave. You are not training your dice properly!
An average of about 35 rolls per session? You guys aren't playing the same game I play, that's either rolls for trivial interactions or aloooot of fighting.
Polterdice
This is what reliable talent is for, I hope your rogue was over level 11!
Do you still have the numbers? Would love to crunch them myself if you can share
Well fuck the uniform distribution I guess
Hey Will Wheaton, hows it going
Change your dice
Have you accidentally been in near proximity to Will Wheaton. Cus his curse might have rubbed off on you
Only read the top comments so sorry if this has already been recommended but I would see if your dice are balanced. Salt water test has worked for me. If they aren't, then it's time to get New Dice!
Oof i feel you on this one. I moved to a 3d6 system for similar reasons since the distribution there is on a bell curve and feels much better
Those numbers suggest you play with cheaters or at least players who know their die is unfair.
You sound really down on yourself and I’m sorry for that. It definitely sucks to feel that way. But I think it’s important to remember that this is just how you feel. You’re not unlucky, you just feel unlucky. Luck is not a thing, you keeping track of these rolls didn’t prove anything. Focus on the parts of the game you can control and get enjoyment out of those, but you’re just going to get caught in a whirlpool of feeling worse if you get hung up on how the random element shakes out. Aspects of this aren’t totally out of the realm of human control. It’s possible to design character builds that minimize RNG relative to others. It’s also possible, as a DM, to still provide opportunities to elevate players without needing to rely on the dice to do it. If you’re not actually enjoying playing the game then there’s gotta be something you or the DM can do to help, but random chance isn’t a very fruitful focal point for blame.
How did you count/write down rolls with dis/advantage? Did you write down both numbers or only the outcome?
Shit happens. I have a player in my group. a paladin and last session in a combat he did his usual 2 attacks. hit both times. and one of the other players jokingly yelled out "Who are you and what have you done to our paladin? he would never hit with both attacks" It was a joke but the fact none of can hardly remember last time he did hit with both attacks. But we can all remember the many times he MISSED with both attacks. The guy rolls so bad i start to believe he is cursed. statistically a person would be VERY unlikely to roll that bad for that long. It was the same when he played a barbarian last campaign. but with reliable advantage with reckless attack he did hit a little more often as a barbarian. So it is not just a fluke. It has been consistent for around 2 years by now. Sure someday he do tend to roll better and get some rare crit in now and then. Another strange thing with that player is the times he rolls well is usually against spider or insect like creature, then he tend to roll really well. He is often referred to as the Exterminator. because the only time he rolls well is against pests. this has also been pretty consistent. I also have another player in a game that has some weird shit going on with his rolls. He usually attack with advantage. 2 weapon fighting so at this level 3 attacks per turn. He VERY rarely misses so he tends to roll good. But he almost NEVER crits. he got a homebrew magic item that has a special effect on crits, he got that at low level as i figured that for someone that almost always attacking 2 times and soon 3 times per turn and usually with advantage would have use of and enjoying something that makes crits a bit better. But now several levels later it is almost uncanny how few times he actually had a crit. He very rarely misses but crits seems to be even rarer. even with 3 advantage attacks per turn. statistically he should crit most of all the players. but he does not. no one else has a way to attack 3 times with pretty reliable advantage but still i would say every one else crits more often than him. This just show that shit happens. and it happens less for others and more for others. For those that say that there is no thing as luck and that on average all roll fairly similar. I say that is a cute thought but it is not true. Sure if those players would roll like 4 million rolls it would probably even out. but in reality. in the game no.
Overall the five of you had a 8.5% average of bar 1s, with you accounting for roughly 29% of those rolled. If you all kept rolling, and you had stats for say 100000 rolls, that nat 1 chance might be closer to its statistical chance of 5%, and your portion of them might approach 20%. Likewise your nat 20s as a group wound up being rolled roughly 8% of the time, and you only accounted for 11.2% of the nat 20s rolled. Just goes to show that even if you roll a d20 10x20^2 you’ll still have non-statistical averages. The sample size has to go up to eventually reach the statistical averages.
I am know for terrible rolls when I'm a player but godlike rolls when I'm a DM (even started rolling infront of my players to prove my rolls were legit). I've had a single session where I was a player and rolled nothing but Nat 1's.
OP, so sorry to see you’re suffering over bad luck. Maybe get your friends to play Dragonbane, where ones are critical hits and 20s are crit fails. You’ll become a legend.
Have you or your family ever had any contact or relation to Will Wheaton? Maybe you share the curse? https://espharel.blogspot.com/2020/06/intro-statistics-for-rpgs-wheaton-dice.html?m=1
My men, probably you spending so much time counting 1s and 20s and doing stadistics instead of focusing on the game is what has made an awfull experience of it. Justo forget the dice. Im sure if you just stopped making those empty counts will make your game better.
I have weird rolls, I crit like a demon in every combat slaying elite enemies as if they were fodder. But if I want to do anything to do with the narrative (the part of the game I care most about) I rarely roll higher than 5. If you were watching my characters from the outside they look like unstoppable forces, but internally they are full of regret at missed opportunities!
Easy solution start playing DSA there getting a 1 is great.
You need the lucky feat
One of my players rolls so badly that the other players make him use their dice and tell at him any time he uses his dice, and any die that has been in his container. Obviously it's all fun and games, but he genuinely rolls better whenever he uses someone else's dice lmao.
Many cheap dice are horribly unbalanced. I did experiments with thousands of rolls after having experiences similar to yours, and there are faces that come up only 1.9% of the time rather than the expected 5%. Change your dice, dude.
Purge your dice!! Remeber out and away!!
Do you kiss them before rolling? If you don't love them, they won't love you back.
Call it quantum shenanigans, luck, god(s), or whatever you want, but I’ve been around dice too much in my life to still believe in randomness
That's brutal. You have every right to feel crappy after sessions. (My first thought: "Man, some people's LIVES are that way.") I agree with others saying to chuck the dice in the trash. I bet if you recorded a video about the whole thing, showed your data, etc, you could get a nice company like DieHard Dice to send you a set for free. I'm fact, you might be able to get MULTIPLE companies to send you cool dice. Have a battle royale.
Have you tried new dice? I'm not superstitious about my dice in any way, but I AM suspicious of the quality control during production. It's totally possible for those little lumps of plastic to be unevenly weighted or rounded off and therefore not roll correctly. I have dice that I consider "high rollers" and I'm pretty confident in that. I'm a dice goblin so I have many sets but I know people that only ever had a few.
I automatically tally rolls for my campaign since it's virtual, and my favorite is our cleric who has an average of 6 in combat but an average of 15 out of combat, with something like a 14% nat 20 rate on out-of-combat rolls. Even before tallying we would joke about how he can't fight but is good at everything else, but the actual numbers were crazy.
With 326 comments someone has probably already said this. I've been playing and dming for almost 20 years. Every single group I've been a part of had this. Someone has the low rolls. I've even been that someone. Call or superstition, luck, or statistics. But it's true. Even look at the big famous groups like critical role. Ashley consistently rolls like crap and when she's not there Marisha takes up the role. It can be hard. And even in the games that Matt gets to be a player, he rolls like crap. Will Wheaton has a curse named after him his roles are so bad. But if you let it get you down it will take the fun out of the game. One thing you can do is start having fun naratively with your misses. Another thing is do is play a caster that uses a lot of save spells. Then the role isn't on you, it's on the dm. Clerics and druids are good for that. Good luck and keep fighting the good fight.
Get new dice. Yours are probably unbalanced.
Since you're paying a rogue, you might greatly benefit from throwing your d12 in the garbage.
Why did the warlock roll a hundred times fewer than everyone else?
Do you roll spin downs? If you do that might be your problem. Or you could sacrifice a competition winning goat, maybe trade your firstborn child to a fae.
Legitimately might wanna do a balance test on your dice , might be a defect that causes a small amount of weight imbalance
Cheat, microwave your plastic dice with the 20 on top. One time i joined a group of players from the ghetto who played dice on the regular. They literally taught themselves how to manipulate a d20 because they had transferable skill in rolling 2d6 their entire lives. It was insane how these guys could roll nat 20s. The DM confiscated their dice thinking their dice was microwaved. They rolled the DM's d20 and kept getting nat 20s. 🤣 Then the DM got mad and forced every person to roll in a cup. That put an end to rolling nat 20s. One session i showed up and the DM was late and every person there was practicing rolling their d20 in a cup trying to roll nat 20s. They couldnt get nat 20s consistently, but they tried to none the less. It was insane how they methodically practiced their cup dice rolls as if it was a skill. They practiced having the same consistent hand movements while shaking their cup. One day the dm just stop showing up and the group just stopped playing all together bc it was impossoble to roll consistent nat 20s in a cup. Imagine being a dm and preparing combats where your monsters get nat 20'ed to death. 🤣
Saw a couple comments, but just wanted to echo: those averages are bit out of band. The 14s are way too high, and 6 is way too low. Your dice and your friends’ dice could be flawed.
I once rolled something like 5 natural 1's out of 7ish rolls. My DM gave me (me, not my character) the Power of One while playing in his campaign, meaning I can make any roll I make a 1, whenever I want. I refrain from using it too much (when I'm dominated, etc) but use it often enough to make some fun moments. I still roll like that sometimes, entirely unintentionally.
how is advantage/disadvantage recorded here? have you recorded both dice, or just the one that was taken? if the latter, reckless attack alone would explain the barbarian’s luck