Blessing of the Dice Gods
“Good shot, MacReady!”
So about a million years ago I’m running a Star Frontiers game. It’s D&D in space, about an inch away from listening at doors. The PCs uncover a spy in the computer center, but before they can grab him he dashes into the maze of computer terminals, needler in hand. Two characters catch up with him and pile on, but they can’t take him out. This is not their fault, since in Star Frontiers it takes about 18-25 unarmed hits to drop a normal person. Knocking someone out is even harder — roll a 01-02 on percentile. 2% chance. If you are using a blunt weapon and you get a roll ending in 0 that also hits, that also counts. So if you need a 45 or less to hit, you have a 6% chance of a knock-out instead of 2%. Woo hoo.
A few embarrassing rounds go by before John’s character strolls up to the pig pile. John is the epitome of cool. He looks down on his fellow PCs rolling around on the floor.
“I got him,” John says casually, and then announces he will cold-cock the spy with his rifle butt.
02. Unconscious, one hit.
Is it lucky because the gods love it or do the gods love it because it’s lucky?
Coming up with cool ideas that lead to a good scene is great, but nothing makes gamers cheer like when those good ideas are blessed by the Dice Gods. You pull a slick move and then roll a 20 (or 3, or 00, or a collection of successes, whatever). It’s as though even though everyone at the table agrees the idea was great, stylish, climactic, etc., we wait for that die roll to validate it. As though some unseen observer is the real final judge of what’s cool. We want fate to smile on the table and approve.
By the same token the only thing worse than a good idea getting a bad roll is a good idea getting a moderate roll. A terrible roll is a definite No vote from the Dice Gods. You immediately interpret it as meaning there was some fatal flaw in the plan or a stroke of horrible luck. But a mediocre roll, the roll that just says nothing, that’s the roll that leaves the table just sitting and waiting. Waiting for something definitive.
Players take the opinion of the Dice Gods very personally. I have never seen a player roll consistently badly and not get depressed or mad, as though they had done something wrong or something had been done to them, even if the results of the rolls didn’t have a major effect. Missing rats all night is depressing even if the rats still lose horribly. Consciously we know that dice are random, but we still think that if we roll badly, it underscores something about _us_.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising that gambling is so popular, with everyone believing at some level that their rolls are influenced by how much the universe loves them.
Anyone who doesn’t believe should just ask whether players mind having someone else roll for them. It should still be the same random results. It’s not like you personally are influencing the dice right?
Right?
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I have other people roll for me all the time, because my luck is just. that. bad. It doesn’t help much – somehow, the dice *know*… :p
My favorite was in a MERP game where I played a wizard. For some reason the players were all playing it just like old school D&D and they wanted me to be a portable sleep spell gun, but I was playing a Wizard in Middle-Earth. I only used magic when it really mattered! So once we were attacked and I was up against the wall trying to rescue the other players. All I had was my trusty dagger and of course it criticaled (MERP of course) and took out the bad guy without having to cast a single spell. This happened a couple of times, but the players never did get how to role play…
This has inspired me to try something wacky. Everyone rolls for the player to their right, see what happens.
Call of Cthulhu: The Masks of Nyarlathotep…
The party has encountered the Black Sphinx of Nyarlathotep, and the GM is ready to kill us all… He grins and rolls… a 96. Fumble. He rolls a clarification roll–the house rule is that when a fumble is rolled, a second roll determines how bad the fumble is–a second 95-100 indicates one’s attack hits oneself…
GM’s next attack… 97. Fumble. Clarification roll, 100. Strike self.
GM changes dice.
Fumble. Strike Self.
GM changes dice again.
Fumble. Strike self.
This continues for awhile. The GM changes dice, and the creature fumbles every attack and hits itself every time, beating itself to death…
Nyarlathotep arrives, and, in a stunning display of the GM altering fate to avoid the dice, resurrects the Sphinx, which, promptly beats itself to death again.
I don’t remember exactly how many rolls this involved, but I know over 20 attacks were involved. Plus a clarification roll. This is like rolling over 40 natural 20’s in a row for you D&D and d20 players.
I doubt I will ever see rolling like that again. 1/((1/400)^20) is a damn big number.
This happened to me in a game once. I had my pet do a full attack. “My pet lunges at the thief and wraps its jaws around its head while slashing at his chest. The force of the blow is strong enough to rip his head off.” Rolled three dice, one for each claw and one for his mouth. All 20’s :)
My favourite “dice” moment involved a giant snake.
We were playing DnD and I had just rolled a critical hit on the giant snake. I rolled to confirm and my confirmation roll was a 20. I asked the DM what to do. Some groups have an instant-kill rule in situations like this. The GM vetoed that idea and suggested increasing the multiplier from 2x to 3x, if I made another roll to confirm. Well, the next confirmation roll was also a critical. So, the DM increased the multiplier again and made me roll another confirmation roll. It got up to x6 before I finally didn’t roll a critical on the confirmation roll.
It wasn’t technically at instant-kill, but it was effectively. I knocked the snake down to -30something HP. The GM said I decapitated it.
[…] random old blog posts in cool sounding blogs” thing today and came upon this post titled, Blessing of the Dice Gods. In it, the author notes the effects upon players when cool dice rolls happen at cool […]
“Is that the same snake?”
Sometimes it is more than lucky or unlucky die rolls. Sometimes randomness seems to work into our actions as well. The above quote came out of no where in a Fantasy Hero game I was in also very long ago. I wasn’t thinking of anything to justify the question, I didn’t know where I was going with it (consciously at least). But the revelation that it was NOT the same snake, basically set the wheels in motion that resulted in our party solving one of Kareem’s impossible mysteries. It was an awesome adventure, but that is all I remember.
And how many times do the players almost ask that question, but choose not to, or almost try their rarely used backupon the villain (or monster), but opt for their old reliable attack instead?
So relatedly.. how do you manage the situation so as to promote the good luck, and banish the bad luck… Now I don’t let people touch my dice, and that works pretty well. But it is entirely irrational.
As a GM and a Player I die a little whenever a GM (me included) seeing things going in the wrong direction…says something like “Make a Notice check. You see there that their armor is not A I R tight.”
Oh I’ll use my gas attack on him. Surprise it works!
One nice thing about M&M with GM Fiat and Hero Points is that you can moderate the effects of luck. You can still let miraculous good luck be miraculous good luck. But you can make bad luck less painful.. and likley to continue.
Any other methods?