[X] My Assistant

[JaronK]

I always store my dice in their container with the 6's up. The last roll I did for shadowrun, I rolled 6 or so dice and got a 26. Rock.

JaronK

[Diesel]

Here's what you do. Freeze the dice. As the saying goes, "cool dice give cool rolls".

Additionally, give them a little bit nicer housing conditions. An ornamental chest or something lined with velvet can be picked up at an artsy store or something for not too much, and the dice will really appreciate the effort. When you store them, store them all with sixes down, so that face yearns to see the sky.

Finally, if abysmal performance continues, gather all your dice around the worst of them, and commence the melting. Make the execution as long as possible, and brutalize the unlucky (literally) die. Make sure the sixes are facing away from this.

If these procedures do not work, your very soul is cursed and you must find a new one. Good luck!

[Plastic Rat]

I'm going with the "little, low-tech pieces of plastic" school of thought here. They have no souls, spirits or inhabiting entities of your choice. Just plastic. I have, once, thrown one across a freeway as a lesson to the others, but I tend to steer away from such superstitious activites.

No, the PDA is starting to sound good. Maybe I'll buy it a nice case... and put a Shadowrun logo on the front...

[Catsnightmare]

Sweet Jesus, Plastic Rat. For the first two paragraphs I thought I had written the post and forgot about it. Misery loves company, and I'm glad I'm not the only one with uber-shitty dice luck.
I've earned several I.C. and O.O.C. nicknames from my horrible dice luck,
Gator Bait, Karma Platinum, (both of those from the same character, spent about 12 or 14 karma over two game sessions to save my character from certain death or severe injury), Fate's Little Bitch, etc. Current physad character has only one init dice and mostly rolls low. Once when the mage cast improved reflexes on me giving me an additional die, I only rolled snake eyes for the enitire combat. The next gaming session the mage player told me if I rolled a 2 he would imediately drop the increased reflexes spell and use it on someone else who would actually benefit from it. And on the first round I roll for initiative and get two 1's. :please:

Even in D&D, I can only roll nat 20's on knowledge skill rolls, and fail 9 out of 10 strike rolls (even as a fighter class), and only 1's damage when I do hit.

[Cursedsoul]

You can try good luck charms. I swear that this little ceramic good luck pig improves my day if I carry it around. Somehow the bad news isn't as bad, the dice are slightly better, things go my way even when they shouldn't.

Superstitious nonsense is the only kind of sense in this world anymore. If an ignorant bigotted texan who can't effectively speak commonplace english can become president of the USA, and pencil neck dick with glasses can become worth billions of dollars by outright bloody theft, then superstition is a viable alternative dag nabbit. :P

Anyways, if you want some real looks of confusion and of "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THIS PERSON!?" bring a bag of assorted dice to your English class and not only explain to them that "d6" IS NOT THE ONLY GOD DAMN BLEEDING DICE IN EXISTENCE but that rolling dice is like living life itself, and you will officially frighten, confuse, and befuddle them.

I think I could have done worse only if I wore a gigantic banana suit, wore a tutu, put on a beret and started screaming how the stinky cheese man was after my prized poodle collection.

[Cain]

Plastic Rat: Can't you get those d6's they use for Mah-Jonng?

[Dax]

Remember people. Dice are living creatures. They have a personality and a karma all of their own. Never underestimate their power.

[Herald of Verjig...]

For a lot of fun, take a few dice to a multiple choice test. A 4, a 6 and a 10 should work for most questions. Roll one before marking an answer. If anyone asks, explain that you trust your dice more than your memory.

[Abstruse]

Easiest way to get your players paranoid as hell is start rolling dice every time they say they do something, then make some notes. VERY effective for Matrix runs. "Analyze Host" is now one of my decker's favorite operations :P

The Abstruse One

[Arethusa]

Actually, on that note, it's worth pointing out that going with digital rolling on a laptop allows you to basically do the same thing, only faster. Your players never know if you're just opening a new document, playing a game, browsing the internet, or loading them full of 8M holes. Uncertainty keeps the game alive.

[Cursedsoul]

Moderation keeps it alive I think. Too much of that and it loses the impact. You'd need to do it at the right moment every so often, otherwise it'll just irritate people I imagine.

I think the sound of dice rolling would be much more effective. For added effect say "mmm that's interesting", "ooh", and of course "oh damn."

[Arethusa]

Actually, the idea is to provide false positives so your players don't know when a roll indicates something is up and when it means nothing. End result is that rolling fades into the background because the players know it means reliably next to nothing.

[Cursedsoul]

Right, I can understand that, but it'd kill it for me. That's something that newbie groups could benefit from I think, but after a while (maybe 2 or 5 game sessions, depending on their length) it just seems like the GM is saying "I can't trust you to roleplay decently" and that'd put me off.

I was playing in an AD&D group last summer full of experienced veterans. I was (and still am due to lack of playtime) a newbie. I had no problems going "okay the DM just rolled something, I wonder what it means" and then immediately putting it out of mind and concentrating on what my character is doing.

I'd much rather get excited when the dice start rolling then stop giving a damn altogether. For a roleplaying intensive game like vampire it might not matter so much, but for games like SR that tend to be roll-happy it'd be a strong negative.

[Arethusa]

It's not about enforcing roleplaying; it's about fostering genuine tension and fear of the unknown among players. A good roleplayer will play his character like that fear is real. A good GM will make sure he doesn't have to.

[Mr. Man]

One of these days I should really pick up some casino-grade d6. I imagine this might help Plastic Rat's rolling, too.

[Cursedsoul]

[Cain]

If I want the players to be more paranoid, I'll just randomly ask them for Perception or Body rolls.

[Abstruse]

I do that all the time. And the point IS to over-saturate them with rolls. If they're rolling perception or see you rolling 30 dice (even if only the green ones count for the host's value) or whatever every 5 or 10 minutes, they won't know the one time in 50 that you actually ARE rolling seriously. And fake the reactions about half the time, and keep your face stone the other half, that way they won't know if your poker face means it's real or your "Aw, crap" face means it's real.

And don't give me that crap about "forcing roleplaying". I don't care how good of a roleplayer you are. You could be a Shakespearean improv actor with 20 years experience, you're STILL going to know, deep down inside, when the GM rolls dice, that's bad and you should be on your guard.

The only downside to this tactic, however, is players tend to keep wanting to roll search checks and perception tests and find paydata tests and analyze host tests. If you get into this, just call out "There's nothing there." before the dice finshing bouncing around the table. That usually gets the hint across.

The Abstruse One

[toturi]

[WinterRat1]

OK dude, first, you gotta pay homage to the dice gods. I personally do this by testing each and every die I buy by testing how it rolls before I buy it. I've done this especially with d20's, and it works spectacularly.

Example. Was GMing for 3e once, 4 players, a ranger, druid, wizard, and warrior-cleric. Against 10 orcs. No sweat, right? I rolled for six of the orcs with personally tested d20s. Result? 17 18 18 19 20 20. Both of which rolled successful critical hits. All the rolls in front of the players. I should add I repeatedly rolled in the high numbers (15 and up) throughout the campaign. They still talk about it.

Moral? As someone said earlier, not all dice are created equal. Test them (thus paying respects to the dice gods by proving your sincerity to find the best dice out there) and after paying your dues in your quest for high dice rolls, you should find the dice that roll the best, and be blessed with good dice rolls to the end of your days.

Seriously, I used to have horrible luck, until I did this, and now I actually am a pretty lucky roller. There are dice gods, they are real, and they can get pretty damn pissed if you don't pay respects. Since you're from Taiwan, just think of it as paying respects to the ancestors. Just little geometrically shaped ones. ;)

And in regards to creating tension among players, I've found one of the best methods is to simply roll major 'make or break' rolls right in the open. Nothing beats having everyone watching 'the money shot' and knowing whatever happens is straight up, no cheating, and crossing their fingers, waiting to see how the roll will turn out. Twice, a player either avoided death or killed a major enemy by the absolute exact margin (in the old school Legend of the Five Rings game, which made the fact that it was an exact margin ridiculously dramatic). We still talk about those rolls years later.

[Ezra]

[Abstruse]

I'm firm yet loving with my dice. When they do well for me, I treat them well, lining them up nicely, petting them, cleaning them often. But when they're bad, I throw them across the room, slam them on the table, etc. I once melted a d20 that rolled 63 rolls in a row under 8, and up to 6 1s in a row in front of all the other dice so they could see what would happen to them if they messed up.

The Abstruse One

[Arethusa]

[Cursedsoul]

No no no, blackmail them with some hot n' juicy that way you're assured of their support. If they start to show signs of making waves, kill them. Also, make liberal use of torture. Physical torture leaves tell-tale signs, but emotional and mental torture can't really be traced.

If you're worried about someone talking cut out their tongue.

[Raife]

There is only one way to deal with bad dice.

You need to get a hammer, and a block of wood. If a dice rolls 1, pick it up, and roll it again. If it rolls a 1 a second time. smash it as an example to the other dice.

Trust me, those little bastards will fall in line. If the hammer doesn't do it, devise new ways to make them pay for their insolence! I have a bunsen burner and paint thinner handy during all my games.

Remember:

There once was a boy with no luck,
His dice just seemed to suck,
He took notes from Himmler,
And became a die Killer,
Now his dice are all fucked.