Re: (TFT) I knew this guy

[Martin Gallo <martimer@mindspring.com>]

Speaking of bad dice....

A friend of mine wanted to test my theory that I could not roll dice 
to save my character's life by writing a calculator program to roll 
and track the results. We were playing D&D, so it was just a simple 
random 1-20 random number generator attached to the statistical 
function of his TI. He rigged the system so that only one roll in 
three was truly random, the other two rolls were 11-20, and every so 
often a 20 was forced (based on a random interval) so that I could 
get a critical hit. He set it up so that the average roll should be 
15.

When the evening was done I had more fumbles than criticals and my 
average roll was an 11.5. I was happy because I had actually 
inflicted a critical hit (it had been a few sessions) and I was ahead 
of the average for a change (the average roll on a d20 is 10.5). He 
and his wife (who was in on the gag) were astonished. He tested the 
program several times during the week, and came up with an average of 
about 15.

They offered to let other people roll for me during the next session 
so I had a chance of having a character live. Part of what made this 
group so much fun is that they had been playing together for MANY 
years with the same characters. I am lucky to go three months with 
one, even staying out of the fight. My favorite incident is the 
Illusionist I rolled up before the game who died before the first 
fight. You see, we got ambushed and the DM had us all roll a d20 to 
see who got hit by the first arrow (he determined that the ambushers 
were going to screw up so we had a fighting chance) and I got the 1. 
He rolls to hit, on the table to make it honest, and gets a 20. He 
rolls for the critical hit (he offered to make it a hidden roll so he 
could pull one of his patented 'make it exciting' fudges, I turned 
him down) and gets another 20! We have this house rule that each 
successive 20 again doubles the damage... three twenties and a 
regular hit later and I am taking octuple damage. needless to say 
that arrow penetrated the brain through the soft tissue of the eye 
socket and the character died. But I digress. I declined the offer of 
further dice help, and figured I could have fun with it. I like to 
make jokes. Character deaths and amusing sayings are my forte. I may 
not have been wicked good in a fight, but I could killem with 
laughter.

So I continued to play, and continued to roll up characters and was 
eagerly welcomed by the group for the many amusing characters. A 
great time was had by all.


Interestingly, the most fights and problems I have seen in my gaming 
career come from dice rolling styles, specifically what to do with 
cocked dice. My favorite house rule is 'all dice flat on the table' 
and 'leave them there for others to see if requested' but that does 
not seem to have been considered in my current geographic area.
--


"If you haven't got your health, at least you have something to talk about."

"They say that everything happens for a reason. I am just tired of 
that reason being to make me unhappy or embarrassed."

you can't make a baby in a month using nine women! But it sounds like 
it would be fun to try.  - James Rea, 2003
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