Hey everyone! Adam here, from TFG Radio, to once again impart my pearls of information from the dusty attic that is my mind.
I played in a tournament recently with my Black Legion. The list wasn’t optimal but it is still somewhat competitive. I love Black Legion however, so I didn’t care. At the start of the day I realized that I had forgotten my dice, so I ended up buying some plain white dice from the store to use for the day. During my second game I was actually rolling pretty good with the dice and my opponent was rolling about average. After we had been playing for a while my opponent did what I consider a hate crime: HE PICKED UP MY DICE TO ROLL THEM!!!!!!!
If you’re like me, or any tabletop gamer really, you have certain rituals and items that are sacred to you. For those that have been long time listeners of the show, you know I sprinkle water that has been microwaved onto my chaos models before every tournament. One common idiosyncrasy to gamers seems to be about their dice.
I don’t know what it is about the dice that many of us take it so personal if someone else tries to roll them when playing. I have seen people get physically upset and angry at their opponent before telling them, through gritted teeth, to please not use their dice. I know its actually quicker for both of you to use the same pool of dice. In a recent Bloodbowl league they required us to use the same set of dice for playoff games. My opponent and I “forgot” this when we played.
All of my dice have symbols on the sixes. I love collecting dice with some type of symbol on the sixes. In some cases, the dice that I have are the only ones that were ever made, or they are part of a game that is no longer in print, so are no longer available. I think part of my possessiveness about my dice is this fact. Since a lot of them are basically one of a kind, I don’t want some dirty pleb touching my precious dice. Or it could be some weird mental thing.
It doesn’t just end with dice. Through my years as a judge/TO I’ve seen people be very protective about other gear that are not miniatures. Rulers, tokens, and other small tidbits. This also extends to the way people organize things. I have the belief that dice become “charged” with whatever number is facing up. So if your dice are showing 1s up top, then they will most likely roll a 1. For this reason, when looking over my dice, I tend to make sure that the symbol, that had replaced the 6, is always showing. That way they are “charged” with 6s and will roll 6s whenever I use those dice. I’m sure that is perfectly helpful and sane, right?
Oh, and by the way, after telling my opponent to use his own dice, he bought my set of dice to use for the rest of the tournament. I came out ahead money-wise and he placed very high in the tournament. All in all a good way to end the day!
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YES! I agree with this 100%. You dont touch another man’s dice. I have dice with my army colors and my army symbol for the 6. I dont let anyone use my dice, not even my own brother. If people want to play with a set of communal dice for the sake of speed thats fine. But you dont just grab another gamers dice.
This is a bit extreme isn’t it? I have never heard of anyone being that protective of dice. Models yes but if people have fancy dice most of the time they want to show them off. Indeed it is often easiest just to use one persons dice for the whole battle to stop your sets getting mixed up. It is also a bit off putting to enter into a game and have to be mindful of tiny things like dice.
I agree about turning dice so they show the highest number though. I do this in wargames and RPGs
It may have never come up. I once saw someone give their opponent the death stare when they grabbed his dice, and these were good friends.
This is a bit extreme isn’t it? I have never heard of anyone being that protective of dice. Models yes but if people have fancy dice most of the time they want to show them off. Indeed it is often easiest just to use one persons dice for the whole battle to stop your sets getting mixed up. It is also a bit off putting to enter into a game and have to be mindful of tiny things like dice.
I agree about turning dice so they show the highest number though. I do this in wargames and RPGs
So use the GW dice app and problem solved without having to continually buy dice.
With the amount of dice some people have to roll, that’s becoming a better option. Not sure if I want people touching my ipad
That just odd dude. Using the same set of dice just just makes everything fair and stops something claiming their dice are “broken ”
If some one is rolling really hot and won’t let you near their dice then I would be a bit suspicious.
Everyone has their own type of superstitions and rituals. I’m not worried about how my opponent’s dice roll, for the most part.
It’s not like they got them off of ebay or Amazon and roll lots of 5s all of a sudden, right?
Most of the time I don’t even count if my opponent rolls a bunch of wounds. I just grab the dice on the table and roll them out. It’s so much faster. You need to get over yourself bud.
This smells of pseudoscience and superstition. Next, you’ll be telling us you only play tournaments on certain days due to the positions of some astrological nonsense. Does your madness know no decency Adam? Also, I can’t wait to pick up your dice and roll them when the league starts next week. You never should have told us this 😀
It definitely reeks of witchcraft to me. I say we burn him.
You’re not coming near my dice. I don’t want you gaming salt to affect them
Imma fondle your dice while you’re not looking. 😉
I would like to chime in with an opposing voice here: if you turn your dice so that a particular side is facing up, you don’t “charge” that side, you _exhaust_ it. Everyone knows if you roll a bunch of sixes then your luck will go flat for a while due to the dice being all “used up”; it’s the same principle. You have to let your dice lay naturally, otherwise you disturb the chi energy of their homeopathic orgone ley lines that harmonize the mana of the chakra points.
That sounds plausible, right? Oh, right, and also something about fluoride and GMOs.
My dice tell me you’re crazy and that’s not how it works
You also need to account for the patterning of their morphonumeric field in the Aether.
I assumed that would mostly be countered by the drag from the phlogiston.
If I inflict a lot of wounds on a unit I’ll prefer if my opponent just picks up the pile of wound dice to roll saves than having to count them. It’s just a piece of plastic, don’t really care about dice
That’s why your dice hate you 😉
I don’t have a problem with someone using my dice, but I myself would never grab another players dice without asking.
What does bug me to no end is dice with symbols on one (or more) faces. Some are made with symbols for 6’s others for 1’s. Its very annoying to try and keep track of what the symbols mean, especially if a less than honorable opponent is mixing dice with symbols to muddy the waters on dice rolls. Its not that hard to just use regular dice.
This concept is just so foreign to me. I love my dice, I hand pick my favorites, and collect ones from all my travels from various teams and organizations. Because of that love I encourage my opponent’s to use my dice. Why should I be so selfish? My dice and I have a great relationship, why should I deprive them of showing off their talents to another gamer?
P.S. I am widely considered to be a lucky player by people who play regularly with me.
To take this one step further, I would let an entire tournament use my dice of I could.
I get this.
I have my things, you have yours.
It’s not even a ritual thing, I just respect my opponents space and hope they respect mine. I don’t even touch their models, unless I need to, in which case I ensure I ask first.
I’d just like to throw in my opinion and experience in regards to how 6s are “charged”. Dude everyone knows your 6s aren’t charged until you’ve done a shake over both shoulders, blown on them, shaken on them again, done an Irish dance in a tub of organic honey, and then rolled them into an Aquila-logo’d dice tray.
For me, the origin of my protective feeling about dice started with the scatter die. I was the only one who ever brought it to the store. So everybody would borrow it, not all of them asking before hand. I would have to stop my game to go find it. And I would always have to remain vigilant it didn’t go home with someone else. It was annoying as all hell.
Seems ridiculous to be this anal about dice. Ive got no problem with me or my opponent using any set of dice. Mind you i rarely use my opponents and the couple times i have, i had some concern when certain dice were used for certain rolls (heres my morale dice, my to hit dice, etc).
I’m no germophobe, but maybe if the un-washed/un-hygienic gamer stereotype didn’t have so much truth to it, sadly . . .
The first thing that I’d think is that someone had cheat dice if they flipped out because someone else used their dice.