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An abundance of bad rolls - RNG problem?

1606116725

Edited 1606116784
Since the lockdown is in effect, I've been playing almost daily on Roll20. And roughly since last weekend, I've noticed that dice rolls have dropped considerably. Not only for me, but for everyone I played with. I had not one, but multiple sessions crippled by everyone rolling shit.  RNG sometimed can be weird. Whether it is one session of abysmal rolls or a string of nat 20s, it can happen. But on that scale it is happening now, I rather suspect that something is broken with Roll20's RNG - maybe it has to do with the implementation/release of Tasha's Cauldron?
1606118384
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
The Quantum Roller has nothing to do with any content created on Roll20. There have been many, many challenges to the randomness, but it all boils down to just getting bad rolls. Random doesn't mean even distribution, and your group has just been on the bad end of the curve. If you are curious about it, you can read more about QuantumRoll here .
1606118552

Edited 1606118660
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
I feel your pain. This has come up A LOT... I'll leave this here; ;-) Andreas J.  said: No, the dice rolls are not broken Human intuition on randomness is flawed, and here is an attempt to explain why Roll20 has a page to show how random the rolls are.  The thing about randomness that people don't often get, is that streaks" of "good or "bad" luck is to be expected. Truly random doesn't feel random. But there is something bugged about the way the rolls are distributed over a short period, like 200 rolls That is unlikely, but expected to happen to someone, at times, given the large number of rolls made on Roll20. You know how there exist people who have got hit by lightning more than once, or have won the lottery more than once? It's unlikely to happen to any given person, but the chance of it happening to  someone , given large enough pool of samples, is extremely large. The chance of something happening even at small scale is something we don't have an accurate intuition about, for example the  Birthday paradox , which is the statistical oddity that with a random group of 23 people, it's a 50% chance at last two people share a birthday. Math & Science behind randomness Gambler's Fallacy  - wikipedia Law of Truly Large Numbers  - wikipedia -  "With a large enough number of samples, any outrageous (i.e. unlikely in any single sample) thing is likely to be observed." Independence of Events Probability, Random Events, and the Mathematics of Gambling  - 20 pages Then there is also the fact that when the results are given instantly, it feels less random than if we see numbers flutter a bit before they appear. Slot machines and gambling games likely uses this trick of slowly showing the result to feel more random and increase the anticipation for the result Psychology behind randomness (and why we're bad at perceiving it) Randomness is Random  Numberphile video on how humans think randomness looks like Reddit thread discussing Apple making their playlist shuffle less random so it would feel more random Why random hero selection doesn't feel random  - LoL wikia rambling Humans have hard time with randomness  - Daily Mail article The Near Miss Effect  - Wired - why seeing near misses feels better(and why physical dice might feel more random) If you watch the "Randomness is Random" video, it demonstrate quite well how we think streaks of "good" or "bad" luck are longer and more prevalent than if we'd try to make a random sequence of numbers ourselves. That's why some random shuffle features on music playlists aren't always completely random, as they might prevent longer streaks of songs from appearing in their original order, or bias the system to try not to have too many songs from the same artist/album to play back to back. Previous Forum Threads on the topic This come up every now and then, and is repeatedly explained every single time. Here is a fairly long comprehensive list of previous discussions on the topic: Random Rolling numbers maybe not so random? Roll20 Dice are not True random  (Pro forums) How random is quantum roll random number generator Dice results broken? Spring Update: Meh  (users comments how pseudorandom where good enough even before Quantum Roll, and think it's overkill) Multi-dice rolls averaging out? Three Critical Failures In A Row! Dice Rolls - Come in Three's fix die roller Questions about Quantum Roll "Quantum" rolls aren't. Dice roll randomizer  (6 years ago, from before Quantum Roll feature, but explain why normally created randomness is already pretty good) Random dice roller  (6 years ago, same as above) TL;DR:  Humans have a bad intuition on what is or isn't random, and this have been debunked every time it's been discussed here.
1606120835

Edited 1606121169
I know about that, I've studied computer science :) I am posting here because it is happening on such a large scale - it is not just one or two sessiona of bad rolls, and not just a string of nat 20s or nat 1s - that I believe that something is broken with Roll20's RNG. We are talking here about almost 2 weeks of sessions with consistent, well below-average rolls from all players, across multiple groups, with no exception (except for occasional high rolls here and there). So a lot more than just 200 rolls. If it doesn't get better, I'll suggest to my groups that we go back to physical dice or try out some discord bot that does not use Roll20''s RNG.
1606124015
Sr. K
Pro
Sheet Author
Hello from the other side, I'm the one getting all the natural 20s. My players don´t like to see me rolling dice, that's why every session we play they kill or destroy anything threatening (furniture mostly). I feel your pain in a different way, but large scale means astronomically large. You can pray for mercy to the Dice Gods like I do.
1606125227
Oosh
Sheet Author
API Scripter
Try this: /r 1000d20/1000 If you report back with a number well into the single digits, I'll believe there's something wrong with your game. Semako said: I know about that, I've studied computer science :) I am posting here because it is happening on such a large scale - it is not just one or two sessiona of bad rolls, and not just a string of nat 20s or nat 1s - that I believe that something is broken with Roll20's RNG. We are talking here about almost 2 weeks of sessions with consistent, well below-average rolls from all players, across multiple groups, with no exception (except for occasional high rolls here and there). So a lot more than just 200 rolls. If it doesn't get better, I'll suggest to my groups that we go back to physical dice or try out some discord bot that does not use Roll20''s RNG.
1606142672
Gold
Forum Champion
It hasn't happened on a large scale though, you know that. 2 weeks of rolling from multiple groups on Roll20 is not a large sample size. Here is a more substantial sample size: <a href="https://app.roll20.net/home/quantum" rel="nofollow">https://app.roll20.net/home/quantum</a> &nbsp; 614,531 Rolls Average Roll: 10.4917 since 01:00PM UTC, based on d20 rolls only. Semako said: I know about that, I've studied computer science :) I am posting here because it is happening on such a large scale
As humans we remember very good and very bad things, and tend to forget/gloss over the average/medium/ho-hum things. Your impression is you are getting consistent low rolls. To back up your claim, you need to track every roll made in the sessions. Then you can see if you really are getting results outside the norm, or just a memorable string of bad luck.
1606158990
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
Semako said: I know about that, I've studied computer science :) Vince was posting Andreas's one-size-fits-all post regarding RNG. I'm sure no slight was meant. :)
1606173473
vÍnce
Pro
Sheet Author
keithcurtis said: Semako said: I know about that, I've studied computer science :) Vince was posting Andreas's one-size-fits-all post regarding RNG. I'm sure no slight was meant. :) Absolutely.