Dice related things

[Ork]

Doing it offscreen is lackluster and makes low odds result questioned by others. Yes please

Who cares if they're questioned. It's legitimate roleplay to say X happened when you roll dice off screen. People always have the choice to accept it or reject anything you put out into this world. You don't need a mechanic to do the things you're talking about.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I think the only thing the author of this topic is suggesting is a "dice bag" for characters to IC generate random numbers through dices. Not rolling skills.

I've missed REGULAR dices since the moment i stepped onto this server. Gambling, rolling for loot, chaotic evil characters rolling too see if they should kill someone or not. Chaotic character asking the dice for guidance. Doing it offscreen is lackluster and makes low odds result questioned by others. Yes please.

It's weird how characters can't pick the dices up from a dice table and just take them with you.

Again... REGULAR DICES, zero connection to rolling skills and abilities.

I think the only problem with this, in specific for "rolling for loot", is that it could develop to become some entrenched norm in dungeon-delving. Any sort of reliance on dice can really, really take off and bleed into other areas too.

For your other two examples, I get it, but why about the console command is insufficient? the fact it is not public knowledge?

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

I think the only thing the author of this topic is suggesting is a "dice bag" for characters to IC generate random numbers through dices. Not rolling skills.

I've missed REGULAR dices since the moment i stepped onto this server. Gambling, rolling for loot, chaotic evil characters rolling too see if they should kill someone or not. Chaotic character asking the dice for guidance. Doing it offscreen is lackluster and makes low odds result questioned by others. Yes please.

It's weird how characters can't pick the dices up from a dice table and just take them with you.

Again... REGULAR DICES, zero connection to rolling skills and abilities.

*snip*

For your other two examples, I get it, but why about the console command is insufficient? the fact it is not public knowledge?

Yes. For relevance, the difference can be equated to someone telling you they caught a fish six feet long, and someone showing you a picture of them holding the fish.

No matter how much we want to trust our fellow players, we're going to feel better seeing the 18, 19, and 20 rolled consecutively than we will just being told that's what was rolled.

[Ork]

No matter how much we want to trust our fellow players, we're going to feel better seeing the 18, 19, and 20 rolled consecutively than we will just being told that's what was rolled.

What sort of skill checks are you asking of other players? Player vs. player skill checks are a story-driven tool, not a challenge to be contested. This is my major concern with dice bag supporters. You're really not looking at the big picture here. If I roleplay a persuasion event poorly, but I roll a dice bag natural 20, I have overcome the interaction with a PvP skill challenge even if the stand-alone roleplay did not warrant it. The dice bag becomes a weapon, and I can wield it to effect outcomes that deprive my opponent of agency.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

No matter how much we want to trust our fellow players, we're going to feel better seeing the 18, 19, and 20 rolled consecutively than we will just being told that's what was rolled.

What sort of skill checks are you asking of other players? Player vs. player skill checks are a story-driven tool, not a challenge to be contested. This is my major concern with dice bag supporters. You're really not looking at the big picture here. If I roleplay a persuasion event poorly, but I roll a dice bag natural 20, I have overcome the interaction with a PvP skill challenge even if the stand-alone roleplay did not warrant it. The dice bag becomes a weapon, and I can wield it to effect outcomes that deprive my opponent of agency.

I'm aware of the big picture, and the fact that it's not going to change. What I still can't wrap my head around after five years is this knee-jerk reactive stance that because I (or others) think it's cool to hand the adversity over to the destiny of dice, and would be willing to do so with other players in a more emote-intensive version of hostile RP who are also okay with it, that I must want to weaponize this dice-bag against every player and compel them to do something they don't want to do.

I think there are plenty of instances where players can reasonably look to "the mechanics" of their interaction to write a story together in a compelling and riveting way. Maybe something in the lore says someone with X ranks in Blah-dee-blah-blaah would know about the boop-boop carved into your bleep-bleep. You want to give everyone a fair shot- ostensibly, to reward people who took the suboptimal choice of Blah-dee-blah-blaah(man, I'm really regretting that choice now ) in lieu of more combat-intensive pursuits.

They're more than welcome to inform said player they don't care or never act on any said information, or even attempt to get it, however. But when people do, I find there's something rewarding in that moment of fate where you see the person roll a die, and share in the discovery of their unbelievable success or their abysmal failure, and the ensuing narrative.

I'm also cool with regular PvP, and whole-heartedly support that WYSIWYG.


I apologize, though. This is horribly off-topic, as it was pointed out, and I was attempting to be more focused on a broader aspect that was relevant to OP. For that purpose, in the instance of my lore example, wanting everyone to get a fair shot is nice.

But you might eventually feel a little less inclined to do it if you never see these high rolls coming your way, because, as I think the necessity of a three-paragraph premise to get here demonstrates, people are not inclined to assume the best intentions of their neighbors- seeing the dice gives a little thrill of elation for the winner in gambling, and more importantly, something other than the 'winner' to blame.

[The GrumpyCat]

What I still can't wrap my head around after five years is this knee-jerk reactive stance that because I (or others) think it's cool to hand the adversity over to the destiny of dice, and would be willing to do so with other players in a more emote-intensive version of hostile RP who are also okay with it, that I must want to weaponize this dice-bag against every player and compel them to do something they don't want to do.

I'm sure you wouldn't, but there are definatly people who would. And that would lead to a lot of sour words and complaints. It doesn't even involve any particular person being a meany about it. It can happen from simple dissagreements.
E.g.
A halforc guard sees a halfling pickpocketing a person.
To avoid pvp they run up and emote grappling them. They decide to roll Strenght and succeeds.
The halfling thief emotes trying to resist the grapple. He decides Dex is the best call, he rolls that and succeeds, escaping.
The guard player is upset, obviously Strength is the grapple resist stat, not dex.
The halfing respectfully dissagrees. And says it's dex
Both players feel annoyed and hard done by the other.

Now granted there may be rules for that in the actual DND rulebooks, but a) we're not about to demand people go out and buy those to play this game. and b) they still wouoldn't cover the miriad of complex situations wherein dice are neccesary.

No matter how much we want to trust our fellow players, we're going to feel better seeing the 18, 19, and 20 rolled consecutively than we will just being told that's what was rolled.

With all due respect, if you do not trust your fellow players to be honest with their rolls, then how can you trust them to be fair in their roleplay reguarding respecting your rolls?

[Orian_666]

I'm sure you wouldn't, but there are definatly people who would. And that would lead to a lot of sour words and complaints. It doesn't even involve any particular person being a meany about it. It can happen from simple dissagreements.
E.g.
A halforc guard sees a halfling pickpocketing a person.
To avoid pvp they run up and emote grappling them. They decide to roll Strenght and succeeds.
The halfling thief emotes trying to resist the grapple. He decides Dex is the best call, he rolls that and succeeds, escaping.
The guard player is upset, obviously Strength is the grapple resist stat, not dex.
The halfing respectfully dissagrees. And says it's dex
Both players feel annoyed and hard done by the other.

Even though the main focus of this topic should be the IG d6 that can be used just like the dice table (something I can get behind, and has nothing to do with roll checks against other players) I do just want to jump in on this one.

A simple solution to this is that any dice challenge should be consented to, mechanically.
E.G.
Halforc guard spots the pickpocket, wants to roll to grapple him, uses [dice item] on the halfling and a dialogue appears, he types (in a whisper or a tell to himself, like how we deposit money in the banks) "Grapple" and selects [Next].
The Halfling now gets a dialogue option to either accept the roll challenge for the grapple, or reject it and let the RP, or game mechanics i.e. PvP/Haste/Darkness and run, etc etc, decide.
If he accepts then the HOrc now gets to choose if he wants to roll a skill or an attribute, clearly the best option is a Str check so he chooses that from a list, then the Halfling now gets the option to roll a counter to it, Tumble/Str/Dex/Reflex, whatever he decides makes sense for him, and seeing as they both agreed to it in advance they RP the results of said roll. Just like you would in a tabletop game.
If he refuses it then they continue as we would in the current system.
Seems a little "complicated" typed out like this but in reality it's a few simple steps that won't take more than a few seconds to conclude.

With all due respect, if you do not trust your fellow players to be honest with their rolls, then how can you trust them to be fair in their roleplay reguarding respecting your rolls?

See Above.
If someone isn't happy with the result after they explicitly agreed to do it that way and refuse to RP the results then things will simply play out like they currently do without Dice rolls, but in the future it'll likely become known that that player doesn't respect the rolls even after they had the option to opt out of it and that will likely only negatively effect them and no one else.

I understand that such a system could create confusing situations where people choose attributes or skills that don't make a lot of sense to others when it does to them, but with things like this it'd simply take a little bit of time for a "norm" to be established and for it to get settled in and become a natural part of the gameplay where most people kind of naturally agree to how it should work. Which is already a thing when you look at a lot of the mechanics in the game already.
Also it should be noted that even though i'm in favor of a roll check system I'm well aware that it's already been clearly stated that it's never going to happen, and I accept that but I just wanted to answer the concern with a method that I think could work to avoid rolls being "forced" onto people.

[Ork]

You can do all that above with what we currently have in emotes. PvP skill checks are a bad idea across the board. If you don't play along then they'll certainly be labeled a "bad roleplayer" or "bad form". The reason skill checks and dice rolls work in PnP is because they are being observed by all parties and an arbitrator (DM).

Nothing is stopping you, the player, from augmenting your reactions based on your dice rolls. If you're looking for a D&D PnP experience, find one. Arelith isn't it.

[Durvayas]

Craftable dice tables wouldn't have this downside for me due to the weight- it'd be impractical to carry around all the time, and so it'd pop up in taverns, gambling halls, etc.

*Looks at his pocket-anvil*
Y-yeah, it'd be too heavy to lug around.

I see this so often, thats immediately what I thought of. XD

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

You can do all that above with what we currently have in emotes. PvP skill checks are a bad idea across the board. If you don't play along then they'll certainly be labeled a "bad roleplayer" or "bad form". The reason skill checks and dice rolls work in PnP is because they are being observed by all parties and an arbitrator (DM).

Nothing is stopping you, the player, from augmenting your reactions based on your dice rolls. If you're looking for a D&D PnP experience, find one. Arelith isn't it.

You and your friend could play a game of poker, and never show each other your cards, and just take each other's word at face value. But even between friends, that's not how you play poker, because there's supposed to be an element of randomness and chance (fate, if you will) to it that you concede to.

The analogy applies- except people who want to play poker (roll dice) aren't being told they aren't allowed to play poker with other people that want to play - they're being told they can't even have cards (dice), because someone else might think the clearly labelled cards that say they don't have to participate if they don't want to are mandatory.

I call this Hug-o-nomics. To me, it seems as though people completely uninvolved and uninterested in the predicated thoughts are insisting other people shouldn't have the tools available to participate in a mutual, voluntary thing, because they have this idea that someone could use it to immediately wrong others.

There is zero compelling evidence that if clearly labelled dice existed exclusively for gambling IC it has to become an evil shadow rule that you must roll dice to emote and RP. The people you're worried about "pressuring" others into accepting a die roll are the sort of people that don't care and will likely just kill you for the loot instead if you don't turn it over. Dice don't exacerbate this violation of the Be Nice rule, they actually add an extra alternative to it reaching that conclusion.

[NauVaseline]

You can't force anyone to do anything in this game against their will unless your will is that they die in PvP. Implement dicebags, state a rule 'anyone trying to force someone to do something against their will shall be punished, and dice rolls only matter if both parties mutually consent' in the journal, BAM everyone's happy.

This is a roleplay server, not a rollplay server.

We "rollplay" all the time: it's called PvP. "Rollplay" and "roleplay" are NOT mutually exclusive. This line is tired.

You're really not looking at the big picture here. If I roleplay a persuasion event poorly, but I roll a dice bag natural 20, I have overcome the interaction with a PvP skill challenge even if the stand-alone roleplay did not warrant it. The dice bag becomes a weapon, and I can wield it to effect outcomes that deprive my opponent of agency.

This is the only good point against Dice Bags I've seen in this thread.
Personally, I'd prefer it dice rolls for available for everything but persuasion/bluff/intimidate, specifically because they rely so much on being able to 'sell it'.

[Ork]

The analogy applies

Except this isn't a game of poker, friend. Let's use a better analogy here. You want to play poker while the game is actually bridge. I have as much a stake in the absence of dice bags as you have with dice bags for the reasons I've already mentioned. It would become a weapon, and if you're so insistent that dice bags add to the game, there are other servers that use them.

The people you're worried about "pressuring" others into accepting a die roll are the sort of people that don't care and will likely just kill you for the loot instead if you don't turn it over.

And I'd argue the opposite. Some of the people that care about dice bag skill checks are the people that "RP build" or have little to no skill in the mechanics of this game. But hell, anyone can roll a d20. These individuals still care about winning. Feverishly so. But their ineptitude of the game's mechanics means they'll create sandcastles and social RP their little clique into obscurity.

Crafting dice tables - I'm fine with. Gaining widget dice bags - I'm not.

[Mr_Rieper]

IC dice are fine. OOC dice are not.

By OOC dice I mean that if your character is emoting a dice roll without physically using dice themselves, it's not them rolling dice as a character - it is you as a player. A character cannot read their own sheet. They are not aware of the game's mechanics. It's not something that can be reasonably brought into interactions except as a vague idea. You have a +2 modifier to charisma but a +4 modifier to intelligence? Well, I guess that must mean you're about twice as smart as you are charming. Right?

Well no, not really. Most of the people on the server don't RP exactly what they have on their sheets, they follow a more character-driven approach. And by character, I don't mean their sheet, I mean their personality. But people don't want to rely on persona and portrayal, they want their investments in skills to matter - and they want to prove to people that their characters are skilled. Because portraying it is difficult. It's far simpler and more convenient to simply roll, as we do in tabletop.

Only, this isn't tabletop. We are not seated at a table with friends. There isn't a DM to validate our rolls, or to narrate on our behalf how our character succeeds or fails. In fact, the only checks on Arelith are the ones that have been pre-programmed to do so. Because checks are unnecessary for uninhibited roleplay. Why do you need to use RNG to dictate your RP? Better yet, why do you need RNG to dictate somebody else's RP? Do you feel like they need the hint? Is there no way to convey that in emotes? God-emoting could also be seen as a "suggestion" on what happens next. It doesn't make it any less obnoxious because you rolled and added your +30 modifier to it.

Going to cut this short because this thread will ultimately go nowhere, the DMs and staff of the server already understand the damage that dice rolling widgets can do on a public, permanent RP server. If you want your character to be able to flip a coin or roll a dice, that's fine - but as people have been saying, you can literally do that in the console. The idea of a bunch of worn and weary adventurers rolling on the loot the boss monster just dropped is a bit nauseating, however. Are there really no better ways to deal with it fairly? Have you tried talking? Did the Need Before Greed setting get stuck again? Oh wait. Wrong game.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

The people you're worried about "pressuring" others into accepting a die roll are the sort of people that don't care and will likely just kill you for the loot instead if you don't turn it over.

And I'd argue the opposite. Some of the people that care about dice bag skill checks are the people that "RP build" or have little to no skill in the mechanics of this game. But hell, anyone can roll a d20. These individuals still care about winning. Feverishly so. But their ineptitude of the game's mechanics means they'll create sandcastles and social RP their little clique into obscurity.

I want there to be a flame emoji because this is straight fire and 100% true

[The Kriv]

i had the same misunderstanding as many people who have posted in this thread.

The OP was not suggesting a OOC dice-bag that determines skill rolls. I misunderstood this myself, hence the 'removed' post of mine above, I took away when it was explained to me the original topic posed for discussion was not the comparative skills-rolls.


this would be the scenario:

A halforc guard sees a halfling pickpocketing a person.
The halforc runs up the to halfling and confronts him.
The halfling denies the accusation
the halforc produces a cube-shaped object and says, "let's let the dice decide. Evens, you go free and I forget I saw anything, odds, I take you in and you admit full guilt."
Behing a follower of Tymora, the halfling gladly agrees.
By now a crowd of a few bystanders has gathered.
One bystandard leans over to another and whispers, "hundred gold says the halfling goes free."
The 2nd bystander aggrees, whispering back, "You're on."
The player of the halforc activates his "craftable dice bag" and selects "d6x1"
Announced to all characters within listening range, the results of the roll: "2"
The halforc grumbles, while the halfling cheers, and runs away happily.
The 2nd bystander sneers as he hands 100 gold pieces to the 1st bystander, who smiles at his good luck.

--as I understand it, THIS was the sort of thing that was proposed, NOT the opposed skills-checks thing.

[Orian_666]

Yea, that's what was proposed, The Kriv. Something I think most people here are okay with.

A few folk seem to think it'd create a sort of "Need or Greed" MMO style looting system when it comes to chest loot in dungeon runs but I honestly can't see that being an issue, i've often used the Dice Table in Inns to determine who gets an item when more than 1 person wants something that was found. Anything else that no one wants is usually just sold and the money added to the purse to be split, and the dice table is a nice fun and RP way to solve the matter of who gets the shiny object (I've won two Lantanese Rings this way )

An item like you, and the OP, described opens up a lot of potential RP options, even entire character concepts, and many more. So long as it's all IC I see no reason why such an item couldn't exist, like I already posted in this thread people carrying Die in a comparable to real world timeframe was fairly commonplace, and an easy item to get or make.

[R0GUE]

If you make the die a d6 rather than a d20, likely no one will bother using it for any skill checks. It would just be a RP tool.

[Ork]

We have the tools to do that in game currently.

[Orian_666]

ROGUE, So long as it's clearly an in game game of chance then no matter what die is rolled it will never be for skill checks, only ever for a game of chance, gambling, or leaving decisions up to "fate".

Ork, the only thing IG to do that at the moment is the dice table, which granted are handy and I know i've used them quite a bit, but not portable. And I think the portable factor here is what's being discussed.
Unless you're talking about the console commands then no, that doesn't count. What's being described here is the exact same thing as the Die Table (maybe being able to choose how many d6 to roll instead of always two), but portable.

[Ascheriit]

i had the same misunderstanding as many people who have posted in this thread.

The OP was not suggesting a OOC dice-bag that determines skill rolls. I misunderstood this myself, hence the 'removed' post of mine above, I took away when it was explained to me the original topic posed for discussion was not the comparative skills-rolls.


this would be the scenario:

A halforc guard sees a halfling pickpocketing a person.
The halforc runs up the to halfling and confronts him.
The halfling denies the accusation
the halforc produces a cube-shaped object and says, "let's let the dice decide. Evens, you go free and I forget I saw anything, odds, I take you in and you admit full guilt."
Behing a follower of Tymora, the halfling gladly agrees.
By now a crowd of a few bystanders has gathered.
One bystandard leans over to another and whispers, "hundred gold says the halfling goes free."
The 2nd bystander aggrees, whispering back, "You're on."
The player of the halforc activates his "craftable dice bag" and selects "d6x1"
Announced to all characters within listening range, the results of the roll: "2"
The halforc grumbles, while the halfling cheers, and runs away happily.
The 2nd bystander sneers as he hands 100 gold pieces to the 1st bystander, who smiles at his good luck.

--as I understand it, THIS was the sort of thing that was proposed, NOT the opposed skills-checks thing.

Thank you for going back and actually reading what was mentioned rather than just jumping to conclusions. It seems others still believe it to be the other thing which it is not.