wizo We have all have cursed dice in D&D. There are dice that roll statistically impossible numbers and we hate them for it.
Cursed dice in D&D are real. Not every di is made equally and I will help you understand why, and how to spot a cursed di before it causes too much pain.
The hardest part is identifying a cursed di. Luckily, there are a few ways to tell.
Identifying a cursed di
We remember those dice that betray us and roll absolute garbage. These dice cause us to curse our luck in a play session and can ruin the game if they are bad enough.
Many of us have developed superstitions about how bad dice work. Their proximity, being touched by an unlucky person, how they are treated, destroy a bad di in front of the others so they can watch and learn, all rediculous superstitions that many of us do.
Dice are based on probability. Probability is not a science and often turns into luck which is an irrational and superstitious concept that leads to superstitions. Now, you might think that this article is going to be about how you are wrong and your dice are fine but that is not the case.
Your dice can be bad dice.
They can be ‘cursed.’
There are also lucky dice. These dice don’t roll below a 16 and somehow keep that streak up when rolling in front of everyone for 30 times in a row. It doesn’t make statistical or logical sense, but there is a reason behind it.
Do you get your dice in bulk? I know that when you go to some conventions they let you grab a cup or pitcher full of dice for a small fee compared to buying dice normally.
These dice are tainted!
Defects
Your dice rolls are not just based on probability. If you input your roll into a mathematical machine there shouldn’t be any problem. Everything goes by probability and there are no other factors involved.
Unfortunately, there are some problems that influence our physical dice. This is how cursed dice in D&D exist, and how we get our ‘lucky dice.’
If a di is not translucent (see-through) it most likely has defects that cause it to roll poorly. The di itself is not made correctly and this causes it to be imbalanced and have a more common number.
If you have a lucky or unlucky di, watch this video. It explains how to test for a bad di without rolling it 200 times.
Now that you know a simple trick to test if your di is imbalanced and has a favorite cursed or lucky number, what can you do about cursed dice in D&D?
How to uncurse your dice
Many people have various rituals about how to uncurse your dice. Some fun ones are:
-Keep it away from its brethren lest the plague spread!
-Bleed on the dice in order to make them a part of you (small cuts only.)
-Blow on the dice before rolling.
-Don’t use up all of the bad rolls before the game starts.
-Have a dice jail to keep the bad dice away and uncurse your normal ones.
Those methods are fun to try out and have made a whole set of superstitious rituals that do nothing. If you want to actually do something about your dice, you need to get better dice.
Translucent dice can be better, but even then they might have imperfections. You can see this by looking at the di and seeing ‘bubbles.’ These are air pockets or imperfections. My DM dice has these imperfections and generally rolls either a natural 20 or a nat 1 50% of the time. It makes the game fun and interesting, but it isn’t a good di.
Even translucent dice have problems.
The only way to really get good dice is to pay for them. You get what you pay for after all. That is why I get my dice from Dice envy. If you click the link it will take you to a store that has high-quality dice which roll normally and look pretty cool.
I have personally tested these dice out and while seemingly rolling a little high they don’t have favorite numbers. It makes a more fair game for my players and you might want to check them out.
You can continue to roll with your cursed dice or get real ones. The choice is yours.
For those of you rolling with lucky dice now you know why. It is technically a form of cheating since you know it isn’t real probability. If you want to keep rolling with these dice the choice is yours but I highly suggest rolling with quality dice.
We should all roll with quality dice in order to make the game more fun. Random chance is something that we enjoy so why not keep it as random as possible?
Conclusion
We all have to deal with cursed dice in D&D because dice are not made equally. In an ideal world, we would have random probability affect all our dice. Sadly, the real world makes random probability not work as it should.
There are imperfections in most dice and the only way to solve this is by getting quality dice.
I have given you a way to test if your dice are cursed, malformed, or lucky. I hope that you test those lucky/cursed dice and get them out of your game.
If you want quality dice I highly suggest going to Dice envy from this link and getting quality dice for yourself.
Lastly, if you have a player using a di that was tested and still is rolling too well, check out our article on problem players here.
What are the worst dice that you have ever had? I would love to hear about them in the comments below.
This has been Wizo and keep rolling!
