Here’s a collection of “Dice Tips” for your edification and fun. Do with it what you want. No guarantees. Some of these ideas made sense to me for a while. But then some other completely contradictory instruction comes along and it makes sense, too, in its superstitious way. The whole thing is quite confusing. Read on and you will see what I mean.

What to wear:

Have you ever thought of the best things to wear while playing games? Well, don’t worry, you don’t have to dress well to have good luck. In fact, according to the traditional stories surrounding the game of Craps, “Dirt brings luck. Wear dirty clothes and you’ll be lucky.” (Hey, that explains that weird smell that came out of my local game store the other day. There must have been a lot of REALLY lucky players there!)

Where to sit:

Well, sitting on a kerchief while playing is supposed to be lucky. (It is better not to combine this with the concept of “Dirt brings luck” … ewww.)

Straddling your chair is also lucky. (However, tilting the chair back is not luck, especially when we were teenagers and someone’s mother caught us doing it. Ow.)

Dice storage:

“Never leave a d20 sitting with # 1 facing up. It will get used to sitting that way, and will roll 1 more often.” The “scientific” excuse for this belief is that there is a “molecular drift” or “slip of the dice” due to gravity, causing the die to become heavy on the bottom. This would make more sense if the dice were semi-liquid, but last time I checked that all my dice were solid. Check yours now, just to be sure.

On the other hand, “if you leave a d20 sitting with the 20 facing up, it will tire of being that way and rarely will it get 20.” Hmm. Also, how do I know how all those dice are mixed up in my dice bag all week between games? Oh what anxiety! I think I need a clear dice bag!

Where to roll the dice:

Well, it’s fine at the table … but not just any table. Highly polished tables are bad luck … something to do with mirrors reversing things, giving you the opposite of what you want, I guess.

But having the dice fall from the table to the floor is also bad luck. When playing Craps, the next roll afterwards is likely to be a 7 (the least desirable number). Also, you can lose the dice, a) in the cat’s plate, b) through the heating duct, c) among the collection of cheeses, potato chip crumbs and dust bunnies under the game table. Any bad luck associated with the dice falling from the table can be remedied by having the “Dealer”, or in our case the GM, pick up the errant die and return it to you. Of course, some DJs don’t like to come out from behind the screen for nothing … so if you keep asking them to chase your dice, you might find your luck gets SO much worse all of a sudden. that monsters are chasing me tonight ?! Oh, could you pick up my d6, again? “

What (not) to say:

Never say “You need nothing more than a 1”, because that ruins the roll. This goes hand in hand with the idea that while playing dice no one should mention the number 7. By mentioning undesirable numbers, you are summoning them. So logically (if I can use that word in this context) yelling “Let’s go 20!” would be summoning 20. Someone told me that he always says “Hit! You fucking bastard!” while rolling to hit. (Apparently, having a shot of beer before exclaiming this is part of the charm.)

Blessings:

The Hackmaster player’s manual has a great section at the back of the book on dice rituals, etc. In it they describe a method of blessing a die by rubbing it on a famous player’s signature … complete with diagrams! Make sure to check it out.

Rubbing the dice on someone’s head is one way to bless the dice. However, apparently red-haired people have no good luck. (I don’t understand this at all. Some of my best friends are redheads!)

Cleaning dice from bad luck is another method of blessing your dice. This can be done by burying them in salt or washing them with cold water or mineral water. (Holy water can work very well, but maybe not for evil characters.) Don’t use rubbing alcohol to remove bad luck from your dice … it can remove ink from numbers too! Of course, cleaning the dice when they have worked well would be counterproductive. You will only wash away good luck (and all that “lucky dirt”!).

A “friend of a friend” used to put the dice in his mouth and spit them on the table, for good luck. No one borrowed his dice. Another person used to keep their dice under their bra. “Boobs bring luck!” she keeps.

Punishment:

“Bad dice! Go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.” Uncooperative dice can be persuaded, cleansed, blessed, or … punished for their wrongdoing. Some people will leave the offending dice at home when they go out to play: “House arrest.” Some players will bring the dice into the game, but will not remove them from the dice bag. Bad dice have to sit there listening to their other dice friends having fun and happily rolling, as they sit in the dark. Other bad dice come out of the bag, but they have to sit on the sidelines and WATCH the other dice frolicking. (That’s really too cruel, I think. It reminds me of high school gym class, when I so often waited for my turn it never came. She sobs. She sobs. I’ll be fine in a minute).

The worst things I’ve heard of people doing unsuspecting dice are: a) putting them down the toilet (but not flushing), b) expelling them into the atmosphere with a slingshot, and c) taking them away with a blowtorch. . (The latter, as a dice lover, I consider it a total murder. “Somebody call the police, an innocent dead man is dying!” The dice, in this case, were actually innocent, and they were not “bad dice” not at all. the gods of luck to bring good fortune to a newly created character.)

Dice test:

I am not referring to Chi square tests here. That’s for another article.

I’m talking about testing the loyalty, balance, and overall luck of the dice using such rigorous methods as “dice stacking.” During a break in the game, stack the dice on top of each other. If any fall off the pile, they are obviously not very loyal to you, which makes you look so silly … so don’t use them anymore that night.

If any one falls off the pile and falls in really good numbers, well, that’s different. Maybe they are doing their best to show how lucky they are, and you should give them another chance. Kindness counts, I guess. (I’m not the killer type, as you know.) Call me soft, if you like, but I like my dice, and if I’m nice to them, maybe they’ll give me that natural 20 when I really need it. !!

Thanks to Maddman, Rogan, Voice, Ashtal, Kyle, SolomonGrundy, Jangling Jack, Dr A, Bregh, LurkMonkey, Bagpuss, Keith, Rob, Jason, Kim, Cor, and Lawrence for their contributions to this article.

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