DiceRoller in Roll20 Often quite..Brutal.

In a few campaigns amongst my core group of table-topping friends, I have noticed that the Dice seem to pick on 2-3 players at a time, while often being kindly to one player (Or in the latest case, the DM) over the others. I was wondering if there were any precautions that my group and I could take to prevent this from happening? In the most recent Case, for instance, the DM, who was running a few lowly NPCs, Critically hit 4-5 times, meanwhile another player managed to crit fail twice. So we ended up with the Grappler spec'd Character Rolling and the DM rolling really high, and everyone else failing to hit until the DM Nerfed the Armor Class of the Enemies. Unfortunately by that time it was too late and we TPK'd. If anyone has any suggestions, please respond, as Playing in person is not possible and half the players do not have dice of their own. Further, is there by any chance a way for the Dice to be re-jiggered so that they aren't so polar?

No. Random is random and this topic has been talked about to death already. If the random number generator was tweaked to avoid streaks like that, it wouldn't be a real random number generator. Streaks like that happen. You just have to deal with it.

It's not particularly Random if it's a persistent Streak across 3 campaigns, that hits the same people, plus it's either COMPLETE Failure or COMPLETE success.

You just dont see it working in your favor being you are not fixated on that. You are fixated on the im getting my butt kicked aspect. I have played im assuming way more games than you on here, i have over 200 hours of gameplay. There are times where i wont miss one thing the entire night and the DM misses almost every critical aspect that he needs to roll on. Then there are those nights where everything is mediocre and its about even to low and high rolls. Then theres nights where we cant get a single thing to happen. Its just the luck of the rolls. If you think you are having that problem go into the room alone and roll the dice one thousand times. Record the rolls and do the data yourself. I bet the data you get would be interesting on how even the rolls are. That it is 1 out of 20 times you will roll a certain number on average. You dont really realize this since there are tons of dice being thrown each night that you just harp on the 1s and 20s all night.

Alternatively, use a different sites dice roller. D20srd.org has one. Pseudorandom generators are never perfect though. You have to remember that it is all an emulation of randomness done with lots of computer calculations. Computers cant actually roll dice. Also, your DM should make his rolls private, and then, in my personal opinion, ignore excessive crits. When that third crit comes up he shouldve said, "whoops. A miss" and since he made the roll privately, nobody is the wiser and the game stays fun. Even the most brutal of games shouldnt tpk on bad rolls alone.

One additional note: If you expect RNGs to roll like real dice, they wont. Real dice are *usually* very bad at rolling random numbers. Unless you get precision dice most are lopsided. Many of the lopsided ones are short on the 10-11 axis and long on the 1-20 axis. This produces a greater distribution in the middle and fewer 1 and 20 rolls. You can test this with a micrometer.   - Gauss

there was a thread down in the suggestion or off topic boards that was all about dice rolling and the randomization of the rolls. There was links and everything in it.

Meta-game Warning.... Delay to just before the GM goes :-)

My players jokingly refer to the "GM hack" whenever they get a string of bad rolls or I get a string of good ones. Honestly, I think part of the reason why it feels like the RNG is wonky that is that everyone sees everyone else's rolls and they're all neatly color coded and listed in order. At a tabletop most players won't look at other's players dice rolls unless it's one that's especially exciting, instead you hear lines like "I roll a 23" or "I miss". They certainly won't keep track of their past five rolls unless they had a spectacularly good (or bad) series of rolls.

I have the same theory Eivind. If you played at a table and wrote down on a big whiteboard the result of every roll for the night you'd probably chuck your dice out the window. In person you don't have that roll history right in front of you to explicitly remind you how your rolls have gone.

I usually average 1 each series of bad and good rolls per session. It's just human nature to remember the bad ones more vividly. (especially when a character gets killed) DMS have various terms to refere to this phenomenon, none of them flattering to players. ;)

Works fine for me and my group. We have the usual streaks and I've got one player who rolls a natural 20 to start almost every combat and then sucks for the rest of it. It's funny at times and seems as though there's something non-random about it but it is 100%, totally, completely random.

You have to understand that with a RNG you may be due for a streak every now and again. But you have to find ways of managing the dice whether its a real die or a RNG. Fact of the matter is, streaks can throw off game balance. While its okay to let the rogue shoot out the Minotaur's eyeball cause he just got lucky, or for the Minotaur to kick the rogues ass because the rogue can't shoot for crap today, you shouldn't let the Minotaur suddenly be godly and get 4 successes on his vorpal longsword (though in my personaly opinion, if a player gets that lucky, you roll with it).