To what degree do you like die rolls to affect your game? Let me lead off with a particularly striking example.

In the 3e game I'm playing in, the GM came up with a simple twist for the critical hit mechanic.

If you roll two natural 20s for the attack and the threat confirmation, you get to roll a third time, if the third roll is another 20 or beats the target's AC, the target dies, no exceptions. Over the past 12 months of pretty regular Saturday-night play, it has killed 3 of our PCs and around 6 or 7 monsters, culminating last night where a 6th level cleric knocked out the avatar of a god by rolling 3 20s in a row. An avatar who the prior round killed the top level member of our team (23rd level monk), and would have gone on to kill the rest of us.

For me that's what makes rolling the dice fun. I can see where people seek out consistency and reasonable probabilities from their RPGs, but I like that thrill of letting the dice fall where they may, even if that creates moments where all logic goes flying out the window.

I am of a mixed stance on such issues - sometimes I love randomness, sometimes I don't.

What you describe is why I love Warhammer 1e - we have a houserule that you reroll 6 for bonus damage on ranged weaponry too (if you pass the additional BS check). It caused some hilarious moments, when Chaos Lords were killed with 1 arrow, Skeleton Champions hit for 40 damage, and so on.

I have Rincewind's opinion on this.  Sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't.  Just like an Almond Joy.

I am all about the crazy dice.

I use "exploding 6s" in Tunnels & Trolls and its awesome. It leads to really epic moments of bloodsplatter.

Quote from: Marleycat;526123I have Rincewind's opinion on this.  Sometimes I feel like a nut, sometimes I don't.  

I agree with the young cat and Rince on this one, but when I do feel like a nut...

Quote from: Spinachcat;526187I use "exploding 6s" in Tunnels & Trolls and its awesome. It leads to really epic moments of bloodsplatter.

...I love these moments.

In a d6 Star Wars game from years ago, the wild die kept coming up 6 (which means roll again and add to your total). On a blaster rifle shot against an incoming TIE fighter. With a final skill roll of 57 (the PC had 6D+1 skill) - I judged that the shot had pierced the cockpit glass, killed the TIE pilot, and its ricochet caused the TIE fighter's landing sequence to activate allowing it to land nearby so that the PCs could capture it.

I was kinda expecting an easy consensus on this. It's not always appropriate for all games. But if you haven't for a while, I suggest finding a way to do it again. Indulge the monkey part of your brain!

Rolling those dice around in your hand, knowing, just knowing, that this will be the toss that set off that chain reaction. Our table turned into an explosion of laughs and high-fives when that avatar go laid out. Closest thing I could imagine to getting that hot streak at the craps table.

As someone else said, the dice create a story that neither the players nor the DM were expecting.  So, a lot.

i love those exploding dice, open-ended possibilities.  generally it's not something that would consistently break a session, and the WOW factor (and resulting memorable tales it brings forth) is totally worth it.

I'm a big fan of letting the dice fall where they may and dealing with it- sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad.

Rolling three '20's in a row for an instant-kill on the Boss is priceless bragging rights for decades to come!

I'm all for the crazy dice.

Melan has the same rule in his game, and so far it has provided us with two highly memorable deaths - one a PC's (slain by a giant crab), one a roc's that got one-shotted, almost certainly preventing PC death and possibly a TPK.

I don't care on what rule we settle on concerning the dice, as long as we know up front. We play a lot of Shadowrun, specifically 4e right now. So it has exploding dice. We've played a low powered game for a while now-and we've seen how one die roll can change things; and pretty soon we're ramping up to play a pretty high powered game. We'll see how it changes the dynamic.

Back in the day, I drank up all the terrible AD&D 2e and oWoD advice, and fudged the dice fairly often.

Nowadays I've since come to appreciate that, as delver pointed out, the dice often have a better sense of drama than anyone at the table; and to particularly enjoy the "gambling" aspect of certain dice-roll based operations (e.g. character generation).

plus dice rolls in the open by the gm adds to the sense of gambling--the players don't know the modifiers, sure.  but when they roll high or low, or roll the minimum or max out, everyone gets the excitement.

Quote from: The Butcher;526676Back in the day, I drank up all the terrible AD&D 2e and oWoD advice, and fudged the dice fairly often.

Nowadays I've since come to appreciate that, as delver pointed out, the dice often have a better sense of drama than anyone at the table; and to particularly enjoy the "gambling" aspect of certain dice-roll based operations (e.g. character generation).

I roll in the open... unless I'm playing with people under the age of 12, in which case I freely admit to fudging a bit here and there. Although with my sons this is becoming progressively less necessary.