Is one of the characters just cursed? (Dice rolls)

[Revolver Oshawott]

Hey!

I do not know how unpopular this topic is, but some background info: I have played multiple TTRPG's since 2004, I know that dice cannot be properly simulated randomly. That being said:

One character, 8/10 times, rolls below 10 on the D20. I am not making this up. We have reached level 11 at this point, and ever since the start, this one character, a fighter, almost always rolls below 10's. Like constantly single digits.

I cannot for the life of me make it up. They fail every death save roll, once every blue moon that character might strike a nat 20, 14, or 16. But, I am dead serious, 8/10 times it is single digits, and it is only that character!

Are we crazy? Is this a glitch? Is my character LEGIT cursed?

[Berserkr]

Here we go again lol
Gets the Popcorn ready

[Dallas S]

https://youtu.be/-1qju6V1jLM

[Grumpy Old Dude]

prove it

[Wantoomany]

OP starts topic at disadvantage.

Rolls dice

Rolls a 19

Rolls a 1

Attempt fails.

[Palor0]

Last night my wizard rolled nat 1's for every spell for 4 rounds. My rogue dropped 3 nat 20's and a 19. RNG is weird.

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Chewbroccoli:

Hey!

I do not know how unpopular this topic is, but some background info: I have played multiple TTRPG's since 2004, I know that dice cannot be properly simulated randomly.

PRNG is plenty good enough for games.

[Nephtem]

Yes. A lot of people know that rng in video game is pseudo rng and not true rng, but somehow this is interpreted as Pseudo RNG (PRNG) being bad and unreliable.
For video game context, you just want players to have fair odds right? You want your 5% chance crit to be really 5% for instance. PRNG achieve that, you won't see the difference between True RNG and PRNG as a player.

The "issues" of PRNG are not really relevant for that usage.

[Aldain]

As a small point of advice, I find if you wind up on a long streak of low rolls saving and restarting the game can sometimes help.

I know that's likely a placebo, but it's worked for me.

[Revolver Oshawott]

Originally posted by Grumpy Old Dude:

prove it

https://i.imgur.com/8GGNWWG.png

[Grumpy Old Dude]

no....prove this; "One character, 8/10 times, rolls below 10 on the D20...."

And not with a series of screen caps. With multiple videos, showing it happen multiple times. (Not two or three times, but repeatedly, as your OP suggests)

See, to roll a 1 3x in a row on a D20; is rare, but it can happen....5% of 5% of 5% of the time, to be statistically precise.

to roll in the lower 50% of the range, 80% of the time, can happen a few times. 50% of 50% of 50% of the time, is a far greater likelihood than 5% of 5% of 5% of the time. But you said 8/10 times. THAT is what I require proof of, before I wont automatically label the allegation...observational bias.

[Zeel Ara]

I love these. Please keep it up :D

[Heu, Iterum Id Feci]

Pseudo rng only gets distinguishable from true rng with extremly high datasets. Ie. for platforms like Roll20 it gets important, because of the sheer number of rolls happening.
For a Game like solasta even with 4 players prng is not distinguishable from true rng. Everything described here happens with true rng, and everything described here happens to people with real dice at the game table. I once had a player who notoriously rolled low, far more than seems plausible with pure rng, and even after changing dice multiple times....It's just how it is.

Edit:
And just because it's kinda fitting here:

Wil is known for having very bad dice rolls, most often rolling natural ones and single digit numbers. He refers to this as the "Wheaton Dice Curse". Of the 54 rolls he performed during his guest appearance, 10 were natural ones. A "fair" dice should have rolled an average of 2.7 natural ones in that scenario

https://criticalrole.fandom.com/wiki/Wil_Wheaton

Edit 2:
And here's someone who made a Python Script testing Pseudo random number generation with a simulated 6 sided die using 600000 rolls:
https://superuser.com/questions/712551/how-are-pseudorandom-and-truly-random-numbers-different-and-why-does-it-matter
The higest variation in his test was 0.15, meaning the rolled number appeared 0.15% more/less often then it was expected.
There wouldn't be much different results in other languages, though obviously the variation can vary based on the algorythm/seed/hardware used.
There's also a good example of one field where true rng matters. In online casinos. As there the matter isn't the distribution but the predictability. Which is a completly different problem of prng, then what we have here.

[Revolver Oshawott]

Originally posted by Grumpy Old Dude:

no....prove this; "One character, 8/10 times, rolls below 10 on the D20...."

And not with a series of screen caps. With multiple videos, showing it happen multiple times. (Not two or three times, but repeatedly, as your OP suggests)

See, to roll a 1 3x in a row on a D20; is rare, but it can happen....5% of 5% of 5% of the time, to be statistically precise.

to roll in the lower 50% of the range, 80% of the time, can happen a few times. 50% of 50% of 50% of the time, is a far greater likelihood than 5% of 5% of 5% of the time. But you said 8/10 times. THAT is what I require proof of, before I wont automatically label the allegation...observational bias.

I will make sure to record next time we play.

I am not kidding when I say it is only this character. This is something that me and my friend have pointed out, and it is ONLY this character that 8/10 times rolls below 10.

[Grumpy Old Dude]

Oh I know it appears to happen. In my 1st CotM play through, which I did record, Peter Paladin couldn't hit the floor. I appeared so bad, that I made frequent comments about it during the recordings. To the point when he drew his bow, I joked about him preparing to "poke holes in the air". Then, then he made 5th level and VIOLA! He became competent. Meanwhile, the Ranger, was the parties killing machine. She engaged it, it died. To the point where when she DID fail to kill, I was genuinely surprised.

But here is the rub....those two characters? Did not always get their attack rolls, in same order in every encounter. Sometimes 1 of them was 1st, sometimes someone else was. Sometimes 1 of them was last, and sometimes it was someone else. so it was "luck of the draw" in that regard. It is just the very nature of random, and frankly, goes to show how well Tactical Adventures DID random.

Playlist if you want confirmation:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm_iFrgsdkTlRSfkUI0BhLxIX8sVKOMGr

As an aside, did this work? (check your browser)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/fPEjtXpeMHVLPdfG9