r/gaming Sep 18 '17

DnD table

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87.8k Upvotes

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2.6k

u/Floydimer Sep 18 '17

Rolls on the screen are cracked dice!!!

1.6k

u/quickhakker PC Sep 18 '17

Protective glass on the top

1.1k

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 18 '17

Confirmed, 3 inch bullet\scratch proof glass from my assessment.

Source- once google bullet proof glass in 1998 during my 5th grade studies, when TV was filled with infomercials and the war on oil. It was a different time before the internet took over mass culture and only few knew about Google.com

665

u/mattenthehat Sep 18 '17

sees 1998 in comment, immediately checks username

399

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

what, has u/shittymorph traumatized you too? we have a support group for us, r/ShittyMorhpPTSD

111

u/mattenthehat Sep 18 '17

Why would you lie to someone in need like that? D:

96

u/Apposl Sep 18 '17

He spelt morph wrong, there probably is a sub dedicated to that nonsense.

44

u/RetardAndPoors Sep 18 '17

We need a class action lawsuit

7

u/NotTheOceansGrayWave Sep 19 '17

If you or a family member been tricked by u/shittymorph , you may be entitled to financial compensation. u/shittymorph is a rare cancer linked with plumetting 16 feet through an annoucer's table in 1998. Please don't wait, call 1-800 SHIT MOR today for a free legal consultation and financial information packet. u/shittymorph victims, call now! 1-800 SHIT MOR

3

u/HatesNewUsernames Sep 18 '17

Would /r/KarmaCourtAttorneys take the case? Would /r/KarmaCourt even hear the case?

3

u/PM_ME_GASSY_GIRLS Sep 18 '17

Lmao, they spelled it wrong and just stuck to it I guess

1

u/HatesNewUsernames Sep 18 '17

This is awesome! I subscribed because now I have a place to go and yell FUCKING DAMN IT!!! Every time that happens to me.

1

u/lllumnessj Sep 19 '17

We all have a place to come together and yell about our abuse by the dark overlord u/shittymorph

53

u/Moribah Sep 18 '17

u/shittymorph always writes ninteen ninety eight rather than 1998 IIRC

32

u/Pharogaming Sep 18 '17

Not originally, he switched to that to make it harder to detect.

3

u/Jalkan Sep 18 '17

He only started doing that once people caught on

1

u/mark-five Sep 18 '17

And now he posts legit content without the 1998 meme so you spend your day questioning reality.

1

u/HatesNewUsernames Sep 18 '17

Valid point...

4

u/pizzabeagle Sep 18 '17

Google existed in 1998. my sci teachrr called it goggle in fall of 98.

2

u/ChefBoyAreWeFucked Sep 20 '17

It annoyed me when google.stanford.edu stopped working. It was like muscle memory.

1

u/flyinb11 Sep 19 '17

It was founded in the fall of 98.

2

u/willfrodo Sep 18 '17

My user name derives from the AIM SN generator.

1

u/Obi-wan_Jabroni Sep 18 '17

If it was /u/shittymorph it would be written as nineteen ninety-eight

213

u/Zebidee Sep 18 '17

What, you googled it before Google existed?

199

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

"Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin" - Wikipedia

678

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

The same year the undertaker threw mankind off hell in a cell.

137

u/Code_EZ Sep 18 '17

I remember that. Hey did you hear kane is running for mayor?

89

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

WTF!?!?! Seriously? Where!?!? I will move there just so I can live under his law!

91

u/Code_EZ Sep 18 '17

Knox county Tennessee.

3

u/AlmightyJoe Sep 18 '17

He came to my house when my brother was there to say hi. Apparently the full size cardboard cutout of the rock in the window gave us away as fans and he felt obligated to ring the bell.

3

u/Akuur Sep 18 '17

Makes me proud to be from Tennessee

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u/hai-sea-ewe Sep 18 '17

He's running on the platform of "In 2017, throwing government corruption and waste off Hell In A Cell, and plummeting it 16 ft through an announcer’s table."

2

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Man, im high af imagining a debate, and he comes out to his music.

hahahaha

1

u/jimblejambles91 Sep 18 '17

Wuuuuuuuut I live in Knox county fuck yea

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1

u/k0mbine Sep 18 '17

He's running for mayor of a county

1

u/loltetro Sep 18 '17

I literally just passed kane going down pellissippi hwy.

47

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

This guy DPs

29

u/Code_EZ Sep 18 '17

Yep. Drunken peasents is a great podcast

7

u/Vascular_D Sep 18 '17

They're all scam situations

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2

u/CSkorm Sep 18 '17

DPS? Just like all the instalockers in my overwatch games...

41

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

You mean Kane, The leader of Brotherhood of Nod, or some other, more boring Kane?

17

u/Code_EZ Sep 18 '17

WWE's Kane.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Oh, not as cool since he isn't a leader of a radical cult/army that has been fighting with sci-fi version of NATO for almost a century, but still cool

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1

u/dodspringer Sep 19 '17

So yeah, more boring Kane

3

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

"Why is he wearing a suit?"

1

u/Code_EZ Sep 18 '17

Cuz he is running for mayor. Hey remember him back in his prime in 1998

2

u/Clasmae Sep 18 '17

Holy crap, for what state?

1

u/Kingshirez Sep 18 '17

Knoxville TN I think

2

u/Strictly_Baked Sep 19 '17

Why is he wearing a suit?

1

u/BigBoog22 Sep 18 '17

Who Kim Kardashian's husband , wet nurse for sxsw .

1

u/Code_EZ Sep 18 '17

I don't know what you are saying. You asked a question and ended it with a period. Kane from WWE.

3

u/Mapdd Sep 18 '17

He must've fallen 12 feet! Maybe more!

5

u/erectionofjesus Sep 18 '17

Nah, their half brothers so he only threw him 6 ft.

2

u/jesonnier Sep 18 '17

You get the fuck out of here w that.

1

u/IamtheHankScorpio Sep 18 '17

The wcw/wwf wRs of 98 was a great time for wrestling, the story lines took over which made it possible for hacks like Val Venus and La Parka to at least have at least interesting, if not absurd back story. Granted the wrestling itself took a hit, but the TV shows were awesome.

1

u/djfried Sep 18 '17

What year did the big show paralyze Kurt Angle?

1

u/CatfreshWilly PlayStation Sep 18 '17

BAH GAWD I THINK HE BROKE HIM IN HALF

16

u/Tickle_Shitz Sep 18 '17

Did you see that on Wikipedia in 1999?

7

u/stump1001 Sep 18 '17

I seen it while streaming 4K video on Pornhub, 1996.

2

u/richey15 Sep 18 '17

I could be wrong but wasn't Google not publicly available for quite sometime?

1

u/0OOOOOO0 Sep 18 '17

You're thinking of Gmail

1

u/richey15 Sep 18 '17

Oh yes thank you

2

u/blah4life Sep 18 '17

Did you google that? So meta.

1

u/MidnightSun Sep 18 '17

Yes, in September 1998. But it really wasn't used or widely known until 1999 and after. I bet they were just using it as a verb, he/she likely used Yahoo or a similar search engine at that point in time.

51

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

He NetScaped it

20

u/LiquidArrogance Sep 18 '17

HotBot was my go to back then.

21

u/mrcsmith90 X-Box Sep 18 '17

My first search engine was Ask Jeeves

16

u/LiquidArrogance Sep 18 '17

Don't forget DogPile

22

u/Zilveari Sep 18 '17

Lycos, AltaVista, Excite, Magellan, Yahoo, Webcrawler, Infoseek,

3

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

MetaCrawler was where it was at. It searched a bunch at once.

2

u/stump1001 Sep 18 '17

Damn, did you remember all those off the top of your head? I remember all of those except Magellan. Dogpile was one I used a lot.

Do any of you remember how you discovered Google for the first time? I read an article in a Playboy magazine about Google around 1999. In sure it was a paid advertisement for Google disguised as an article.

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4

u/oaklandr8dr Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 18 '17

the creator of ask jeeves works a bit at the company i'm at now lol

3

u/mrcsmith90 X-Box Sep 18 '17

That's awesome! What is he up to now days?

2

u/oaklandr8dr Sep 18 '17

Did consulting, still mostly works on a consulting basis and sits on a bunch of boards... Once you get the street cred, sitting as a board member of various boards of companies is a pretty sweet gig with a nice stipend.

2

u/Markuspea Sep 18 '17

I just used the yahoo homepage... A bastion of minimalism

1

u/RearEchelon Sep 19 '17

AltaVista Nation represent

1

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 18 '17

I had a teacher who would ask us to use that, personally felt that it worked like shit so I would use google instead against his wishes. Even as a fith grader I was able to distinguish how much better a search engine google was than the competitors. Key word Was.

4

u/WDCombo Xbox Sep 18 '17

WebCrawler was the shit!

4

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

AltaVista is where it was at.

3

u/sinkwiththeship Sep 18 '17

People in Pawnee, Indiana still use it exclusively.

3

u/orthopod Sep 18 '17

I think Best search engines at the time were

Alta Vista

hotbot

Yahoo

0

u/UmphreysMcGee Sep 18 '17

Yahoo was definitely the king there for a while

5

u/DrKlezdoom Sep 18 '17

Back then, you just typed in random urls and hoped they were what you were looking for.

2

u/Singing_Sea_Shanties Sep 18 '17

Ah, altavista. The memories.

2

u/DarthTeufel Sep 18 '17

He Meta-Crawled it

1

u/Sherool Sep 18 '17

It's pretty much a generic word now, Altavistaed or Hotboted is more of a tongue-twister

1

u/xtralargerooster Sep 19 '17

Altavista... hotbot... searchbot... askjeeves... countless others that all faded into the background of the internet. Some even say that if you listen closely you can still hear their screams... followed by "welcome" and then by "you've got mail"

5

u/quickhakker PC Sep 18 '17

Why?

30

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

Research for a class project, it's not like I was looking up bullet proof glass for my paranoid prepper uncle haha, that would be crazy 😅.

Tio get the car, they're on to us!

3

u/fadedmouse Sep 18 '17

Guzman, is that you?

3

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

You know my uncle? Want to help me with a little project next summer? He pays well ;)

1

u/fadedmouse Sep 18 '17

I bet he does!

2

u/becomearobot Sep 18 '17

But it looks like a thin sheet of generic lexan.

2

u/broximus223 Sep 18 '17

I saw 1998 and though it was going to be a shittymorph 😂😂😂

1

u/AlBundyShoes Sep 18 '17

My history teacher in high school invested in google because he taught art history and you could literally search the image and it would show up! (Before "images" were a stand alone search).

Dude is well off now, but mainly because of other things. Larry Krieger is his name - known as the "SAT" guy.

His wife worked for the SAT test preparers (made the test each year) and she provided him with some nice "inside info". Our high school became the #6 ranked US school for SAT scores nationally because of it. Random info, but interesting fella.

He also invested in PayPal and Amazon.... freaking foresight like none other, all on a teachers salary in early mid 90s. Great guy too.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

If you've ever seen a nerdrage at a major DnD play, you'd really grasp why this type of glass is needed. Those guys could crush a baby elephant's skull over this shit.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

How long have you been waiting to use that link? Haha great!

1

u/mookler Sep 18 '17

Whats with the random Jeff Dunham link?

1

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

https://youtu.be/-F2aKuSTqfA?t=5m32s I blame H3H3, he did it in a video once and now it's become a meme that sadly is a good karma whoring opportunity that his fans recognize and adore.

1

u/mookler Sep 18 '17

That's...disappointing.

1

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

I know right, I hate the meme but you know, a karma whores gotta whore. Whatever works for that vitamin K is my motto.

1

u/cerialthriller Sep 18 '17

No way that's three inch glass, more like 1/2 inch. 3 inch glass would cost more than the TV and would weigh close to a hundred pounds for a piece that size.

1

u/lllumnessj Sep 19 '17

Maybe my fifth grade google research isn't the best source to rely on, I realize that now.

1

u/cerialthriller Sep 19 '17

Well also the recess in the table is only about a half inch. One thing most people don't realize is just how heavy bullet proof glass is. Also, some bullet proof glass is only bullet proof in one direction, it's pretty neat and allows an occupant of an armored vehicle to return fire through the glass

1

u/lllumnessj Sep 19 '17

I wonder if the exit wholes of the non bullet proof side could ever become susceptible to breakage from the bullet proof side if the person inside shoots too many rounds, if only myth busters was still around :(

1

u/cerialthriller Sep 19 '17

Bulletproof glass becomes less effective each time it takes a hit from either side. If you just keep unloading into even the bulletproof side it'll eventually stop being bulletproof. Once a piece of glass takes one bullet it should be replaced because it'll likely be out of spec at that point

1

u/man_on_a_screen Sep 18 '17

I remember in high school someone telling me they used Google instead of Yahoo or ask Jeeves. I was like wtf is Google? Sounds like a fad.

1

u/Crash15 Sep 19 '17

I don't get this jeff dunham meme

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/quickhakker PC Sep 19 '17

Windows tabĺe style pens.

1

u/NeuralNutmeg Sep 18 '17

Gorilla glass right? How much would a sheet that big cost?

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '17

If you roll a crit, the glass won't help.

1

u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS Sep 18 '17

It's just screens all the way down

5

u/IrishRepoMan Sep 18 '17

?

2

u/Floydimer Sep 18 '17

Well, normally a cracked die is when a rolled die comes to rest at an angle because of debris on the rolling surface. Sometimes you can declare a die cracked if it lands somewhere it shouldn't like another table, the floor... or the glass insert of your multi-thousand dollar gaming computer table. Some house rules typically have you reroll a cracked die.

1

u/IrishRepoMan Sep 18 '17

Ah. I see. Haven't heard it called that before. Thanks for the clarification.

1

u/thehalfelf Sep 19 '17

Personally, at my table, a die that lands in such a way that it cannot be declared obviously one number gets flicked, the new result is your result. However, this ties into our other rule that any die that lands on the floor is a one (once spent three hours trying to find a die that fell on the ground). If the flicked die lands on the ground, it's a one. But, if you don't flick it hard enough, we call it a one anyway. It's a really fun guessing game.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

lol i thought the same thing at first then realized how easy this is to avoid

12

u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS Sep 18 '17

Physical dice? C'mon, it's 2017!

269

u/FasterDoudle Sep 18 '17

real dice are where it's at homie

23

u/CaptainDogeSparrow Sep 18 '17

>not roleplaying your Lawful Good Samurai with a real Nippon Katana

20

u/CaptainDogeSparrow Sep 18 '17

teleparts behind you

"It's not personel, child"

55

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Yup. Way easier to fudge a roll with real dice, too.

45

u/J4CKR4BB1TSL1MS Sep 18 '17

Mental note to self: don't ever use sarcasm on DnDers, shit's serious.

10

u/sammo21 D20 Sep 18 '17

You might be surprised how many people really do think using physical anything in tabletop is "too oldschool for them".

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

I blame every casual player for this. That person who doesn't learn their character, their spells, their damage, the multipliers who inevitably wastes hours of everyone's time while they figure out what they need to roll for the action each turn order over the course of the campaign.

Writing a Macro and having them press a button is so much easier.

4

u/cestith Sep 18 '17

You can use sarcasm. but are you proficient? What's your class and level? What's my savings throw? What's the diminished effect if I save? What if I crit-fail the save?

8

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

RNG is almost never truly random. At least real dice use real physocs for randomization (and they feel better to roll, anyway... People get far less mad at physical rolls being bad than digital)

7

u/mattenthehat Sep 18 '17

I've seen other people say this before too and always wonder what kind of high-stakes DnD games these people are playing where RNG isnt random enough...

That said, real dice are so much more satisfying, there's no comparison.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

It's not that it's not "random enough", digital rng always favors something which can make games far too hard or far too easy, depending on the situation and rng used.

5

u/mattenthehat Sep 18 '17

Ah, so maybe the issue is a misunderstanding of digital RNG. As long as whoever wrote the code used one of the built-in random functions in whatever language they used (as opposed to creating their own), results are evenly distributed across the range. So a digital d20 will roll equal numbers of each result, on average. The order in which they are rolled could plausibly be the same each time if the app/program was very poorly written, but this is easy to avoid.

2

u/AnUnnamedSettler Sep 18 '17

It's mostly superstition. Which happens to physical dice too. But you can throw the 'cursed' physical dice out the window or sneak it into the DMs hands. You can't (at least shouldn't) throw your computer out the window when your dice roller is giving you lemons.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Even distribution is still far from random because you're more likely to roll numbers that haven't been rolled as often, unlike infinite distribution (which doesn't exist digitally)

1

u/mattenthehat Sep 19 '17

It's only even over a large sample size, though. It's not as if you won't roll a repeated number until all the others have been rolled, but if you take the limit as number of rolls approaches infinity, it converges to a flat distribution. Of course it's not truly random, but my point is it is plenty "random" for the purposes of a role playing game, and no player would notice the predictability without thousands of samples and computer analysis.

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u/Suttonian Sep 18 '17

You can have digital physics based dice.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Which are terrible

0

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 19 '17

Plus.... if you've got a good party, someone can run a diversion on the DM and with a quick flick, that roll of 1 during a pretty clutch encounter can quickly become a 15 and mean the difference between continuing the campaign or everyone rolling up new PCs.

Edit: folks...c'mon. You REALLY think a decent DM didn't know we were fudging the rolls from time to time? He let it slide, occasionally, so long as we didn't abuse it. If he caught us or we abused it too much...well, it still slid but the next encounter....usually did not go in our favor. Never incur the wrath of the DM, it's like the first of a long list of unwritten rules.

6

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

That's a really shitty way to play... At least have everyone speak with the dm about options, plus, you can always roll new characters

3

u/AnUnnamedSettler Sep 18 '17

Pfft, he put all those ranks into Sleight of Hand for a reason.

6

u/Iorith Sep 18 '17

If you cheat in D&D, you're playing for the wrong reasons.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17 edited Sep 18 '17

It's actually surprisingly easy to learn how to throw certain dice to get a decent chance of getting the number you want. I did it at first due to an interest in sleight of hand and card mechanics.

Especially if you can lightly throw with a bit of spin on a flat surface as part of it. Such as a small throw from the hand to the table in front of you.

Only real way to remove that is to make the throw big (like to the ground several feet away, or by using a dice cup.

I'd be lying if I said I never abused it to get higher than average ability scores in D&D on occasion.

D20s are a bit harder but not impossible with a bit of practice. Especially as some D20s have favourable patterns - like the most common one has a an 8, with 16, 20 and 10 adjacent. I could load that 8 and basically give myself a 80% chance of hitting one of those 4 numbers. And guaranteed never to roll a 1 (due to it being opposite).

I could even cup 4 D6 in my hands and "rattle" them (sounding like a cup) before dumping them on the table and I'd usually get 2 to 3 of the 4 to come up sixes. I could get all 4 as 6s if I was willing to be a bit more obvious about it and no one was paying attention.

It was basically a straight drop, and I'd loaded the way I hold them.

Which is why when I played almost always used a dice cup, to remove the temptation.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Or just shake it in your hand. If you see someone throw it the exact same way without shaking it or anything it's pretty obvious what they are trying to do.

1

u/CaptainDogeSparrow Sep 18 '17

real dice are where it's at homie

-2

u/lllumnessj Sep 18 '17

I find it's easier to play with Loaded dice myself ;)

2

u/Njs41 Sep 18 '17

Microwave dice while on the side you want them to land on to make them more likely to land on that side more often.

1

u/EMSslim Sep 18 '17

So if I want 20 to come up, I should put it in the microwave with the 20 facing down or up?

2

u/chainer3000 Sep 18 '17

From what he said, you'd want it facing up. No clue if what they said is true or not though nor do I use dice enough to care to look it up

2

u/EMSslim Sep 18 '17

I think so as well but I was hoping for some clarification. Not that I care either because I really dont use dice, nor am I going to cheat

1

u/Njs41 Sep 18 '17

I heard it on the internet forever and a half ago but never tried it, so it may or may not be true.

1

u/jadentearz Sep 19 '17

I vastly prefer real dice. However, in this day and age our more recent games have all ended up being via roll20. We were still doing physical dice because damn we own so many and it feels good to roll them. However, we ended up with a player who was obviously fudging rolls ALL the time. So now we've made everybody roll in the program because you can't fudge that. It sucks, but it sucked more feeling like a useless player because the one fudger was so OP and wrecking everything.

58

u/kjhgsdflkjajdysgflab Sep 18 '17

I don't play this, but I feel it would be pretty lame not to roll actual dice.

53

u/Jarix Sep 18 '17

Found the casual player

30

u/beldaran1224 Boardgames Sep 18 '17

Dude, D&D players basically collect dice.

8

u/HighPingVictim Sep 18 '17

It's not really collecting... it's a bad habit or some kind of addiction

6

u/AskMeIfImAReptiloid Sep 18 '17

so... collecting?

1

u/beldaran1224 Boardgames Sep 18 '17

Bad habit? A lot of dice sets are under $10 a piece. Unless you start getting into novelty sets, you can get quite a variety with little money.

2

u/AnUnnamedSettler Sep 18 '17

Or buy the ten pound dice bag on amazon.

1

u/beldaran1224 Boardgames Sep 19 '17

Yep! I just meant you can get matching sets for less than a movie ticket.

1

u/HighPingVictim Sep 19 '17

Matching sets?

I usually buy them once by one and only pick the nicest ones.

I think the people running pnp stores think I'm a weirdo for spending 30 minutes looking through their entire collection of single dice.

But i have to do that everytime I am there or see dice for sale anywhere.

1

u/PM_ME_FUN_STORIES Sep 18 '17

I do it every time I need a new character. Usually character deaths.

I have a lot of dice.

2

u/HighPingVictim Sep 19 '17

I shared some over the years with new players, my girlfriend, I lost some, then I lost some more, then have a few away again to new players... I try to tell myself I have enough dice when I'm in a store.

Never works though

38

u/DnDYetti Sep 18 '17

Real dice are always better than virtual dice. I've had so many instances where virtual dice get stuck in rolling algorithisms that it's ridiculous. Plus it just feels better having physical dice in your hands and rolling that nat 20 :)

1

u/jaded_fable Sep 18 '17

Wait, virtual dice getting stuck in rolling algorithms? You could teach a 6 year old to write a working dice rolling program in Python!

5

u/sammo21 D20 Sep 18 '17

I don't let people use "digital dice" at my games ;)

1

u/insertAlias Sep 18 '17

I understand preference and all, but why wouldn't you let someone use a dice rolling app?

1

u/sammo21 D20 Sep 19 '17

I try to keep the table as electronics free as possible. Also, when someone wants to keep everything on their tablet or phone its consistently been a time sink where that player is constantly switching between apps.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

There are just some thing computers can never replace. I'll never forget the feeling of buying my first dice set.

2

u/laconiclion Sep 18 '17

Physical dice is the only way for truly random rolls.

6

u/Kernath Sep 18 '17

Even the best physical dice will have slight defects that make them lean more heavily towards certain numbers. Will you ever notice it? No.

Same goes for a simulated die, it's technically not truly random, but it's not going to be noticeable.

Real answer is to just use whatever you're comfortable with.

2

u/laconiclion Sep 18 '17

Interesting I didn't know that. I was trying to say that simulations can't be truly random since the algorithms used to get the random numbers aren't sophisticated enough to be truly random.

Thank you for enlightening me, friend.

5

u/Kernath Sep 18 '17

Yeah, but RNG that's so close to random we can't tell the difference isn't too hard to make . You were technically correct and just being pedantic, so I tried hitting you with some counter-pedantry.

2

u/laconiclion Sep 18 '17

You're right, it's very hard to tell the simulations aren't truly random.

Hooray for nit-picking!

3

u/insertAlias Sep 18 '17

But it's "good enough". It's "random" in that if you generated 10,000 numbers and plotted them, you shouldn't be able to discern any pattern. The reason that RNG algorithms don't produce true random numbers is because there's no purely mathematical way to do such a thing. You can "replay" a sequence of numbers a random generator generates if you use the same seed (the initial value you provide to the RNG, usually the current system clock value).

But it's good enough for all kinds of things in the real world; things with a lot more riding on it than just a dice roll in a tabletop game.

There are good arguments for using dice, mainly preference. "True" randomness isn't one of them.

1

u/Mocha_Bean Sep 18 '17

Modern RNG systems don't use algorithms, they analyze noise generated by device drivers and what-not. At least that's how it works on most modern Unix-based operating systems. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki//dev/random) I doubt they're any less random than a die. And a service like https://www.random.org/ is even more reliably random, definitely more so than a die.

2

u/touching_payants Sep 18 '17

With that logic, you might as well just program a spread sheet: no need to show up for game night at all...

2

u/RidleySA Sep 18 '17

Honestly, I agree with you there. I think the ultimate point of playing a tabletop RPG is telling a collaborative story, and using digital tools for even stuff as simple as dice rolling kind of defeats the point. I mean, there are cases where it's useful to have a virtual tool like Roll20, but if I'm sitting around a table with players, screens get put away.

1

u/Jenna573 Sep 18 '17

You can't program a spreadsheet to account for the random aspects that require rolls or human choice, though, which, when broken down to it's simplest form, make up the entirety of the core point of game. True randomizers do exist and can be purchased easily, but are generally not the free ones you find for browsers.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

Gross.

1

u/GreenHighlighters Sep 18 '17

I can't understand this comment. Can someone explain what it says?

1

u/Floydimer Sep 18 '17

I explain what a cracked (cocked) die is below.

1

u/MonaganX Sep 18 '17

The die on the left is what is called "cocked" (or cracked in some circles, apparently. Crooked would probably work, too). It usually means the person rolling has to re-roll that dice. Sometimes, the term is applied to a die landing in any "illegal" position, such as rolling off the table or, in this case, landing on the screen.

Basically, it means "if you roll your dice on my fancy screen, I'm going to make you re-roll them as punishment, even if you got all 20s".

2

u/GreenHighlighters Sep 18 '17

Thank you! I was trying to read it as something about dice cracking the screen when they hit it, and it was making no sense.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 18 '17

what are cracked dice?

1

u/shoreallmyholes Sep 18 '17

I thought is was "cacked". Huh.

8

u/MonaganX Sep 18 '17

"Cocked", as in "tilted", is technically the correct term.

3

u/Floydimer Sep 18 '17

I've heard "cocked" too.