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

What to wear:

Have you never thought of the best things to wear while gaming? Well don’t worry, you don’t have to dress up for good luck. In fact, according to traditional stories surrounding the game of Craps, “Dirt brings luck. Put on dirty clothes and you’ll be lucky.” (Hey, that explains that weird smell coming out of my local game store the other day. There must be a lot of REALLY lucky players in there!)

Where to sit:

Well, sitting on a scarf while gambling is supposed to bring luck. (Best not to combine this with the concept “Dirt brings luck”… ewww.)

Straddling your chair is also lucky. (Tilting the chair back isn’t lucky though, especially when we were teenagers and someone’s mom caught us doing it. Ouch.)

Dice storage:

“Never leave a d20 sitting #1 up. He’ll get used to sitting that way and roll 1 more often.” The “scientific” excuse for this belief says that there is “molecular drift” or “dice slippage” 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 all my dice were solid. Check yours now, just to be sure.

On the other hand, “if you leave a d20 with 20 up, he’ll get tired of being like that and rarely roll 20.” Hmm. Also, how do I know which way all those scrambled dice are 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, on the table is fine… but not just any table. Highly polished tables are bad luck…something to do with mirrors turning things upside down, giving you the opposite of what you want, I suppose.

But for the dice to fall from the table to the floor is also bad luck. When you play Craps, the next roll after that is bound to be a 7 (the least desirable number). Also, you may lose the die a) in the cat’s dish, b) down the heating vent, c) among the collection of cheeses, potato chip crumbs, and dust specks under the card table. Any bad luck associated with dice falling off 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 GMs don’t like to get out from behind the screen at all… so if you keep asking them to chase your dice, you might find that luck suddenly gets MUCH worse “Why all the monsters?” seem to be after me tonight?! Oh, would you pick up my d6 again?”

What (not) to say:

Never say “You need anything but a 1” because that ruins the story. This goes hand in hand with the idea that while playing Craps no one should mention the number 7. By mentioning undesirable numbers, you are calling them. So logically (if I can use that word in this context) yelling “Go 20!” he’d be summoning a 20. Someone told me he always says “Hit! You fucking bastard!” as he rolls to hit. (Apparently, drinking beer before exclaiming this is part of the charm.)

injuries:

The Hackmaster Player’s Handbook has a large section in the back of the book on dice rituals and so on. 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 a way of blessing the dice. However, apparently people with red hair do not bring good luck. (I don’t get this at all. Some of my best friends are redheads!)

Cleaning bad luck dice is another method of blessing your dice. This can be done by burying them in salt or washing them in cold water or mineral water. (Holy water might work great, but maybe not for evil characters.) Just don’t use alcohol to remove bad luck from your dice… it can remove ink from numbers too! Of course, housekeeping says that when they have performed well, it would backfire. You’ll just be washing away good luck (and all that “lucky dirt”!).

A “friend of a friend” used to put the dice in his mouth and spit them out on the table, for good luck. No one ever borrowed their dice. Another person used to keep his dice in his 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 cajoled, purified, blessed, or… punished for their misdeeds. Some people will leave the offensive dice at home when they go out to play: “House Arrest.” Some players will bring the dice into the game, but won’t let them out of the dice bag. The bad dice have to sit there listening to their other dice friends having fun and rolling merrily, while 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. Reminds me of gym class in high school, when I waited so often for my turn to never come. Sob. Sob. I’ll be fine in a minute.)

The worst things I’ve ever heard of people giving poor unsuspecting dice are a) putting them down the toilet (but not flushing), b) slinging them into the atmosphere, and c) blow-torching them. . (The latter, as a dice lover, I consider outright murder. “Someone call the police, an innocent dead man is dying!” The dice, in this case, were actually innocent, not “bad dice.” ” not at all. sacrificed to the lucky gods to bring good fortune to a newly created character).

Test dice:

I’m not talking about Chi Squared tests here. That’s for another article.

I mean testing the fairness, balance, and overall luck of the dice through such rigorous methods as “dice stacking.” During a pause in the game, stack your dice on top of each other. If any fall off the stack, he’s obviously not very loyal to you, making you look that foolish… so he doesn’t use them anymore that night.

If any fall off the stack and land in really good numbers, well, that’s different. Maybe they go out of their way to prove how lucky they are, and you should give them another chance. Kindness counts, I guess. (I’m not the murderous type, as you know). Call me soft, if you want, 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, Voz, Ashtal, Kyle, SolomonGrundy, Jangling Jack, Dr. A, Bregh, LurkMonkey, Bagpuss, Keith, Rob, Jason, Kim, Cor, and Lawrence for their contributions to this article.