@@jennypan4055 She's right... to a degree. Computers can't really make random numbers. In most cases, we use an algorithm called a pseudorandom number generator. It's a math function. You feed it a seed value and it spits out a sequence of seemingly random numbers. But it's actually deterministic. If you give it the same seed value, it will always produce the same sequence of numbers. Programmers have a few tricks for using seed values that are never likely to overlap, and that is "good enough" for most applications. Certainly it's good enough for producing random numbers for dice rolls. If you need *truly* random numbers you can get hardware devices that use unpredictable physical processes to generate and sample noise. These are often used for high-end cryptography.
@@JordanSugarman Determinism is not actually very meaningful attribute when talking about random number generators. Pseudo or otherwise. One could argue that physical dice operate deterministically too only the calculations involved would require almost infinite amount of measurements and factor in too many things. Better attributes are fairness and predictability. Fair dice/random generator will produce all selection choices with equal probability which can be proven by statistics shoving distribution nearing even when the amount of rolls/data is big enough. On the predictablity attribute the goal is total unpredictability. And btw. modern computers do mix physical events based data like mouse movements and keyboard events to reseed OS pseudorandom generator which improves the unpredictability immensely. (Hypothetically in certain conditions especially when the "attacker" gets to see very long sequences of data generated by a pseudo-random generator the unpredictability may weaken or even break which is the reason why some applications may demand a physics based random generator).
@@daniellins4114 It's used to check dice (usually plastic or resin ones) if they're biased towards rolling a certain number. This never happens on purpose on fair dice, but sometimes defects such as bubbles in the plastic and resin can affect the way a die rolls.
This one is perfect, but there are lots of good debates. There’s one with someone who picked For or Against Powergaming and chose For… forcing Brennan to argue the Against position. His skills were stretched past their limit on that one ^_^
@@mr.fufucudlypoops8207 Idk, there's arguments for both, and both are good. Funnily enough this is what happens almost every contested roll. It might not seem like it but "clicky clacky math rocks go brr" is genuinely an argument you cant beat when it's about a Game for Fun. but also digital has its advantages.
Love how those Contested Rolls highlight the influences of the guests, especially with Brennan mirroring their argumentation styles (not spoiling the Dropout stuff in case they upload it on UA-cam too, but watch out for Jasmine Bhullar's turn on the Contested Roll, it is a doozy): - Matt Mercer heavily used narration to paint a picture that he would shatter with a quick subversion for humor in a similar way to the giants of fantasy literature - Ross' arguments were hammy as hell and used impactful wording that would feel at home in an epic theater play, - Aabria's cinematic style of GMing shines here, with less emphasis on "bigger" and more on intense voice inflections and concise, elegant, hard hitting one liners inside larger monologues. This show is fucking awesome.
This reminds me of the College Humor skit about lying where Brennan says "I'm just a little putty person. You put me on a newspaper and peel me off and I just say whatever it says right back to you." Dude mirros people.
I DM'd my first campaign recently, as a way to introduce some friends to DnD. The level of satisfaction I got when I started rolling dice while describing a scene and one of the players goes "oh that's not good" Is absurd
My group is finally back together recently, playing the Fallout 2d20 system. They had avoided angering a deathclaw earlier, but found a mirelurk lair and said "oh it's just mirelurks (mutated man-sized crabs), we're good to handle that even with two people busy elsewhere". When the Mirelurk Hunter Tyrant popped out from under some broken asphalt and grabbed the ghoul (tank/melee, think a DnD Fighter in armor) with its pincers, his player wasn't worried. I looked down at the 4 damage dice I had handy from their previous skirmishes with some poorly-equipped raiders and said "huh... I need to borrow 9 d6, please. I've only got 4 over here." The player got worried REAL quick. We got to learn about the dying and stabilizing systems that session!
Virtual dice are great but I'll never forget the time we needed one big roll to hit and the dice rolled off the desk, and we all found it at the same time and it was a 17. The cheers, the joy, the static, the suspense. You can get a lot from playing virtually but you can't get that
I believe this discussion isn't about rolling/virtual rolling during an in-person campaign, but rather when playing online. That effect of yours can't exist with offline rolls when playing online, but it sort of exists with virtual rolls.
@@DrZaius3141 it can still exist just not exactly the same, all of you can't go but if you have a camera take that mfer with you when you go search for the dice you threw off the table then the whole group can find out
Some days roll20 decides it hates me, it's not random - there is a goblin inside who just decides they want to fuck with your day. I'd rather roll my own dice and fuck those things up myself thank you very much!
My Roll20 rolls are usually okay. But no dice set has ever treated me too kindly. If I rolled nothing but physical dice, my life would be a Wonderland of 8s and 5s. At least Roll20 will throw in some 11s ^_^
Hi. Also very bad at math. Been so for decades. But decided upon joining this little hobby that this is about the lowest stakes way to train my brain to get early grade level practice so that section of my brain doesn’t COMPLETELY atrophy. One more point in physical dice column. =]
If you want pros/cons here’s a list Physical - pretty/shiny/clickety/cool to touch - customized dice for your characters - the impending doom of rolling 8 dice at once for damage - they make glow in the dark ones - knocks over mini figs :( - lands on an angle or rolls off the table so you have to re-roll even if it was really good. - they are a pain to step on - cats choke on them Digital - accessibility (easy to read font) - FREE (people go broke hoarding dice) - communal (everyone can see it) - if you roll the same number twice in a row I always get confused if I clicked or it lagged and have to re-roll which feels like cheating
I love everything Dimension 20 does. But if you put out a subchannel, or a whole show, that was only and entirely Aabria and Brennan… debating, improvising, building a campaign, interviewing each other, switching in and out of one DMing and the other being a character, being the only two characters with a mystery DM, …I dunno, playing pictionary… shut up and take my money.
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but Aabria and Brennan have a podcast they do together with Lou and Erika called Worlds Beyond Number that is the biggest delight! I can’t function when that show is on, I am just in full whimsy mode ^_^
We need a behind the scenes documentary of the existential crisis Aabria just gave Brennan in this moment, including the aftermath of him going home and checking the roll frequency of his entire dice collection to prove that he can still trust them
Physical dice for attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks. Digital dice for damage. Once took 119 rolls to get a Nat 20 on Roll20. I *counted* them. That's worse than Wil Wheaton's luck.
@@myopiczeal 119 was what it took me before the session started. Thought my luck had been bad, so wanted to start off positive. Did not start off positive.
@@myopiczeal Random numbers tend to be a lot less evenly distributed than intuition makes us think. If you flip a bunch of coins in a row there will be a lot more streaks than you expect.
Physical. Gotta love the Beardsley grin and scramble to grab the camera and prove that it’s yet another magical Nat Fuckin 20! Hahaha The energy and enthusiasm is always impossible to replicate with a little digital number.
I like the google dice roller for in person games when rolling for minions. Easy 8 d20s all there and rolled while still talking just pressed a button and kept the roleplay up. Also no sound means no warning when enemies surprise you
I love digital dice. There is something fun about everyone being able to see rolls instantly. I even like rolling publicly as the DM. Like Brennan said at the end there is just something amazing about the group reaction to seeing the roll.
I hate it, i know so many people like that and i dont understand it its that mentality that has allowed these abhorrent practices to become so invasive. it always comes off to me like celebrating giving up your autonomy and becoming a slave. its such a horrible mentality to have if you care about personal sovereignty or your children's future.
It's like the I Ching. No matter the method, no matter the medium, the result you get is the right one for you at this moment in your life. It is the answer you seek to the question you have. And, yes, physical dice all day, every day, for the life of the universe.
I don’t want fair. I want a dice that knows the only way to stay in my good graces is to roll a 15 and up, unless it literal doesn’t matter or I’m rolling for the memes then a nat 1 is appropriate but that is it! It’s called training the dice know what to roll they choose not to out of spite! The only way to keep them in line is fear of being thrown in dice jail or if they roll really bad straight in the trash no matter how much money I spent on them!
indeed. at the end of the day, digital or physical, dice will be dice, and how we react to those numbers is the best part of the game baybeee!! Love Aabria and Brennan so muchy!!
I need the feeling of terror when I am shaking my d20 in my hand for ten seconds, trying to warm it up for a big roll. I love the feeling of power when I critted and can roll a shit ton of dice, I can barely roll at once. I want the little spark of hope when I think I might have just read the number wrong and it's actually a 7, only to come to the crushing realization, that it is indeed a 1 staring back at me. And most importantly, I need the emotional connection to my dice, I need to know that I can take this nat1 personal. I want to decide "ah yes, take the blue one for my fire damage, because this character's fire is blue" and see it _actually working_! Just klicking a button simply doesn't do it for me.
Counterpoint to digital dice: there's nothing in this world that compares to the **feeling** of throwing actual dice. Clicking a button just does not cut it, not in this universe or any other. I don't care if I haven't salt-tested any of my dice, I like them based on feeling, and not even the most perfect or realistic soundpack for digital dice can recreate that feeling of; throwing a dice, not knowing what it'll be, and having real emotion when it finally stops on something that can make or break a game. Digital dice are just; **click** , ok, that's the number. It may also sound like I'm advocating for making things worse, but you also can't fudge digital dice rolls, no special ritual or superstition for how you throw to "get better rolls", no "oh it's cocked, I'll re-roll it". Just cold, hard numbers and facts just takes the fun out of it for me.
I roll nothing but trash with digital. Physical dice make me role the most Alley Beardsley roles. Like.. the most poetic roles ever! I'll stick with Physical.
The response to this from DND Beyond on TikTok was interesting, as they use a physics engine to simulate the tumbling polyhedrons. An interesting way to get around the issues with truly random number generation.
Question: Is "West Marches" named after the West Marches games Steven Lumpkin introduced years and years back on the RollPlay twitch? I absolutely LOVED the setting, way of rotating cast, the lore he built, the deaths and heroic survivors... it was absolutely fantastic entertainment *and* D&D imo. Or is 'West Marches' something that was already done before and I just completely missed out that rotating casts/parties existed before?
It's likely referencing either the (to my knowledge) original idea by Ben Robbins, back from 2007 - or one of the countless iterations since, of which Steven Lumpkins is a part of. Honestly, it probably existed before that. Ben Robbins and his posts just solidified it for me, same as Steven Lumpkins game did for you. As with so much in the TTRPG space, tracking down the original is an often futile endeavor, with every GM and player that touches something helps give it their own spin.
@@zebraguf ya it predates 07 by quite a bit, goes back to AD&D at least if not before. my friends father who properly introduced me to dnd and DMd my 1st game of 2e ran this style game in the same setting since 1980 or so. I was easily an adult before I found another group that even knew what it was , as teens thats not how anyone(our age) ran games in 3-3.5. I tried a few times but they fell apart horribly but so did most of my other games. IMO its much more suitable for an experienced dm.
I have always had horrible luck with digital dice. I have gotten one Nat 20 in the whole time of digital dice, and only for an initiative roll. I have gotten no less than three Natural 20s on physical dice, and the DM is my partner who is right next to me in person during the game, and they also use physical dice.
I play D&D online and so almost exclusively use digital dice, but that has not stopped me from continuing to purchase shiny little doodads that I can get my little mitts on
One complaint of digital dice rollers is the lack of the three act story structure. Act 1: You pick up the dice, then shake them in your hands as if it matters. Act 2: You throw the dice a bit too hard out of excitement, and it rolls just not off the table. Act 3: The dice slow down to a single result, and the story climax happens. A natural 14. Clicking on a button as a random number generator doesn't have this feeling of excitement at all. It's just click-result. Clicking on a button to roll digital 3d dice that use a physics system is a bit better. Multiple dice may bounce off each other. It's click-hope for a 20-result. Better. Using a gesture that represents throwing dice, such as shaking your finger on a touch screen and then swiping up as if you're playing Wii Sports Bowling, now it comes close to physical dice. Sadly there aren't may dice roller apps that use this system.
I use digital for stats since I don’t want to waste 5 minutes purely rolling dice but for an actual game it’s just so satisfying to roll and watch it spin around the hard wood table till it shows you your doomed fate.
The way the timestamp on the thumbnail for this cut off the title as PHYSICAL DI[4:47] _in no way_ made my brain misread both D words and go 'huh' at the debate topic I very briefly imagined.
See, I’m still new to dnd (like I only recently bought the players handbook) and like, I love using digital dice because I can have an infinite number of dice available to me all on my phone or tablet… which is kind of important to me specifically because I’m disabled & carrying a bunch of unnecessary weight on my person can literally put me out of commission for days 😅 I do have 1 full set of dice though (and once I get more familiar with the rules of dnd I’ll probably invest in a couple more dice sets for when I’m at home)
In case anyone wants to know how the random number generators on digital dice work: multiply two very large numbers together (at least 10 or so digits) and add them to a third similarly large number, and divide the result of all that by another large (but less so by at least 3 or 4 digits) numbers, take the remainder. divide the remainder you just got by the less large number. you now have a random number between 0 and 1! how do you choose the large numbers? the computer has a list that was made randomly stored somewhere in its code. this function is suitably unpredictable, as long as you dont have access to that list. how is the list decided? that's what a random seed is. now say you wanna roll a d20. do this thing i have described. Break the range of 0-1 into 20 chunks each 0.05 in length. the dice roll is determined by which chunk your random value lands in. this has been a quick maths lesson.
Um, actually, while digital dice _could_ use a fair randomness source, it seems way more likely that they will based on what is known as pseudorandom number generators. Pseudorandom number generators take a seed number, and generate a sequence of numbers from that. This means a couple of important things for us: 1. Unlike with real dice, the numbers you get _are_ actually preloaded. If you get a nat-1 on something unimportant, you literally did get that nat-1 out of the way. 2. Outcomes are 100% deterministic, after that initial seed has been chosen (this is usually based on the time the number generator is initialized) 3. Commonly used pseudorandom number generation algorithms, and therefore probably most digital dice, are _very_ biased
Everything just feels so much more personal when you roll your own dice for yourself. Instead of getting mad at a computer for rolling poorly, you are responsible for your own destiny with physical dice. It's one of the reasons I prefer to do in-person sessions. Plus hanging with friends and other people is always more jovial when you're not stuck behind a computer screen. It also makes combat a little more adaptable if your group is slaughtering it and you need to throw in a few "stealthed" creatures that come in from the corners of the room or behind some trees. Encounters set up online are less dynamic than in-person encounters.
I personally prefer and trust physical dice rather then digital dice!!!!! Though honor system is flawed as well, so rather we find a middle ground. You set up a live camera link focused on the dice and that limits the flaws of honor system.
I don't mind a digital dice system for online play, but I would prefer that the physics of an actual die roll is simulated so you at least get the FEEL of rolling actual dice, even if the result is instantly generated. Would also be nice to have access to custom skins to apply to each die as a whole set, or to each individual die if you prefer color-coding them or whatever
online and offline tabletop games have their own advantages and disadvantages Offline always has the better 'feel'. The social aspect of seeing the fear in someones eyes when they rolled bad and the DM struggling to find enough dice to roll damage and everybody shouting "STOP GRABBING MORE DICE" is an uncontested feeling. However, offline is harder to perceive. The battlemap is sometimes not clear, handouts have to be individually handled, if you missed a lore-piece or tidbit from before you have to stop the role-playing and ask: "Hey what was the thing with the thing again?". It can break a lot of flow. Contrarily, online play is great for overview, history and ease of play. You can just program in a little "roll with advantage" button and then press a "sneak attack damage" button after and hoopa, everything is fair and calculated and combat is smooth and easy. A system has its quirks, and yes, even if rolling dice IRL 'feels' better, theres a lot of other things you are missing out. I think you should accept that online play requires online dice even if the 'dice' aspect of dnd feels lesser when playing online.
I'd say if your playing online over zoom or whatever, aim your webcam at the physical dice or make a separate account for your dice on your phone use that.
In my campaign we use digital dice. It isn't that I don't trust my players, it's that I know I would fudge the rolls constantly if I was a player. To keep myself honest, I insist on using digital dice. For certain scenarios as a DM I will use my physical dice, but that is typically when I am determining which random encounter the party is going to meet.
“The only thing that is fair is math” Aabria went on a whole billionaire villain monologue
Ans the cruelest thing is pure fairness.
was she wrong though? i mean, was she wrong?
@@jennypan4055 She's right... to a degree. Computers can't really make random numbers. In most cases, we use an algorithm called a pseudorandom number generator. It's a math function. You feed it a seed value and it spits out a sequence of seemingly random numbers. But it's actually deterministic. If you give it the same seed value, it will always produce the same sequence of numbers. Programmers have a few tricks for using seed values that are never likely to overlap, and that is "good enough" for most applications. Certainly it's good enough for producing random numbers for dice rolls. If you need *truly* random numbers you can get hardware devices that use unpredictable physical processes to generate and sample noise. These are often used for high-end cryptography.
@@JordanSugarman Determinism is not actually very meaningful attribute when talking about random number generators. Pseudo or otherwise. One could argue that physical dice operate deterministically too only the calculations involved would require almost infinite amount of measurements and factor in too many things. Better attributes are fairness and predictability.
Fair dice/random generator will produce all selection choices with equal probability which can be proven by statistics shoving distribution nearing even when the amount of rolls/data is big enough.
On the predictablity attribute the goal is total unpredictability. And btw. modern computers do mix physical events based data like mouse movements and keyboard events to reseed OS pseudorandom generator which improves the unpredictability immensely. (Hypothetically in certain conditions especially when the "attacker" gets to see very long sequences of data generated by a pseudo-random generator the unpredictability may weaken or even break which is the reason why some applications may demand a physics based random generator).
Unless you are Will Weaton and DEFY MATH
The fear in Brennan's eyes when Aabria asked about salt testing...
I use metal dice, this test does nothing for me lol
What even is salt testing?
@@daniellins4114 suspend your dice in salt water, which makes them float. Then give them a spin and see if the same number keeps coming up
@@daniellins4114 It's used to check dice (usually plastic or resin ones) if they're biased towards rolling a certain number.
This never happens on purpose on fair dice, but sometimes defects such as bubbles in the plastic and resin can affect the way a die rolls.
I got so defensive I actually have salt tested all my dice.
My main take away from this debate is I should be referring to my dice as shiny little doodads, clickety clacks, and math rocks from now on.
Mine is that I now want dice with baby teeth in them.
Hmm, maybe the next time I get a puppy, I could try to save one of those tiny needle canines....
I refer to my dice as math rocks occasionally
You mean you weren't already doing that?
I’ve been referring to my dice as math rocks for ever.
@@JacobMingermath rocks is clearly the superior option...
"I love being taken out fucking context," Aabria Iyengar.
"I love being taken out fucking" - Alex Lange
Well, hang on, I heard her say "I love ... context" -- which is it???
strange.... i was sure i heard
"I love being taken" - Aabria Iyengar
Hahaha u got here before I fucking love ill deffo be useing it hahahahahahaha
@@TycoPazifist Aabria Isengar - Stockholm Syndrome extraordinaire
physical dice activate the crow part of my brain
Want to. Eat them..
Aabria just smashed this. Didn't know anyone could beat Brennan at debate, but she had multiple good lines
This one is perfect, but there are lots of good debates. There’s one with someone who picked For or Against Powergaming and chose For… forcing Brennan to argue the Against position. His skills were stretched past their limit on that one ^_^
Tbf tho, Aabria obviously took the correct answer and Brennan was trying his best to play devil's advocate.
@@mr.fufucudlypoops8207 Idk, there's arguments for both, and both are good. Funnily enough this is what happens almost every contested roll. It might not seem like it but "clicky clacky math rocks go brr" is genuinely an argument you cant beat when it's about a Game for Fun. but also digital has its advantages.
Yeah this is one of the few that is legit a “either or”
So you missed the part where Brennan convinced her to change her mind. Understood.
Love how those Contested Rolls highlight the influences of the guests, especially with Brennan mirroring their argumentation styles (not spoiling the Dropout stuff in case they upload it on UA-cam too, but watch out for Jasmine Bhullar's turn on the Contested Roll, it is a doozy):
- Matt Mercer heavily used narration to paint a picture that he would shatter with a quick subversion for humor in a similar way to the giants of fantasy literature
- Ross' arguments were hammy as hell and used impactful wording that would feel at home in an epic theater play,
- Aabria's cinematic style of GMing shines here, with less emphasis on "bigger" and more on intense voice inflections and concise, elegant, hard hitting one liners inside larger monologues.
This show is fucking awesome.
This reminds me of the College Humor skit about lying where Brennan says "I'm just a little putty person. You put me on a newspaper and peel me off and I just say whatever it says right back to you." Dude mirros people.
There is something truly terrifying about seeing a DM grab like 8 dice as their villain prepares an attack
I DM'd my first campaign recently, as a way to introduce some friends to DnD.
The level of satisfaction I got when I started rolling dice while describing a scene and one of the players goes "oh that's not good"
Is absurd
Or you fall into lava, and the DM has to empty his entire dice bag to roll the damage. 😳
There's nothing like the terror when your DM starts asking to borrow _your fucking dice_ to have enough dice to roll the attack.
@@dposcuro"can i borrow some d8s?" "Why?!"
My group is finally back together recently, playing the Fallout 2d20 system. They had avoided angering a deathclaw earlier, but found a mirelurk lair and said "oh it's just mirelurks (mutated man-sized crabs), we're good to handle that even with two people busy elsewhere". When the Mirelurk Hunter Tyrant popped out from under some broken asphalt and grabbed the ghoul (tank/melee, think a DnD Fighter in armor) with its pincers, his player wasn't worried.
I looked down at the 4 damage dice I had handy from their previous skirmishes with some poorly-equipped raiders and said "huh... I need to borrow 9 d6, please. I've only got 4 over here." The player got worried REAL quick. We got to learn about the dying and stabilizing systems that session!
Virtual dice are great but I'll never forget the time we needed one big roll to hit and the dice rolled off the desk, and we all found it at the same time and it was a 17. The cheers, the joy, the static, the suspense. You can get a lot from playing virtually but you can't get that
I believe this discussion isn't about rolling/virtual rolling during an in-person campaign, but rather when playing online. That effect of yours can't exist with offline rolls when playing online, but it sort of exists with virtual rolls.
@@DrZaius3141 it can still exist just not exactly the same, all of you can't go but if you have a camera take that mfer with you when you go search for the dice you threw off the table then the whole group can find out
"Your dice aren't fair."
Well they better not be. Why do you think I paid so much money for them?
Loving the fact after this aired dnd beyond and roll20 came up with receipts
Some days roll20 decides it hates me, it's not random - there is a goblin inside who just decides they want to fuck with your day. I'd rather roll my own dice and fuck those things up myself thank you very much!
My Roll20 rolls are usually okay. But no dice set has ever treated me too kindly. If I rolled nothing but physical dice, my life would be a Wonderland of 8s and 5s. At least Roll20 will throw in some 11s ^_^
I was once rolling wisdom saves, I rolled five. 4 of them were threes
Digital dice. I am..... bad at math and clicking one button that does everything for me is very nice.
Hi. Also very bad at math. Been so for decades. But decided upon joining this little hobby that this is about the lowest stakes way to train my brain to get early grade level practice so that section of my brain doesn’t COMPLETELY atrophy.
One more point in physical dice column. =]
Aabria has a wonderful talent to make basically anything she says sound delightful
If you want pros/cons here’s a list
Physical
- pretty/shiny/clickety/cool to touch
- customized dice for your characters
- the impending doom of rolling 8 dice at once for damage
- they make glow in the dark ones
- knocks over mini figs :(
- lands on an angle or rolls off the table so you have to re-roll even if it was really good.
- they are a pain to step on
- cats choke on them
Digital
- accessibility (easy to read font)
- FREE (people go broke hoarding dice)
- communal (everyone can see it)
- if you roll the same number twice in a row I always get confused if I clicked or it lagged and have to re-roll which feels like cheating
Get you a Box Of Doom. Your friends will never question your irl dice rolls again.
I love everything Dimension 20 does. But if you put out a subchannel, or a whole show, that was only and entirely Aabria and Brennan… debating, improvising, building a campaign, interviewing each other, switching in and out of one DMing and the other being a character, being the only two characters with a mystery DM, …I dunno, playing pictionary… shut up and take my money.
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but Aabria and Brennan have a podcast they do together with Lou and Erika called Worlds Beyond Number that is the biggest delight! I can’t function when that show is on, I am just in full whimsy mode ^_^
We need a behind the scenes documentary of the existential crisis Aabria just gave Brennan in this moment, including the aftermath of him going home and checking the roll frequency of his entire dice collection to prove that he can still trust them
You salt your dice to make sure they are fair.
I salt my dice to ensure they favor me.
We are not the same.
I love how both of them were correct about everything
"The only thing that is fair... is math." Fuckin Two-Face over here.
Physical dice for attack rolls, saving throws, and skill checks.
Digital dice for damage.
Once took 119 rolls to get a Nat 20 on Roll20. I *counted* them. That's worse than Wil Wheaton's luck.
@@myopiczeal 119 was what it took me before the session started. Thought my luck had been bad, so wanted to start off positive. Did not start off positive.
Rng algorithm can't roll multiple nat 20s
My last npc got a double Nat 20
@@myopiczeal Random numbers tend to be a lot less evenly distributed than intuition makes us think. If you flip a bunch of coins in a row there will be a lot more streaks than you expect.
@@damienthetexasian6827 Yes it can. It's just very unlikely. A player rolled three or four nat 20s in a row in one of my Roll20 sessions.
“I love being taken out of context.” -Aabria Iyengar
Daddy, I love being taken - aabria Iyengar
Physical.
Gotta love the Beardsley grin and scramble to grab the camera and prove that it’s yet another magical Nat Fuckin 20! Hahaha
The energy and enthusiasm is always impossible to replicate with a little digital number.
I do love that even in their remote season, Beardsley still impossible crit. Even the digital dice recognize their power ^_^
@@Nortarachanges Yep, that's how you know that they are the true emissary of the dice gods
I like the google dice roller for in person games when rolling for minions. Easy 8 d20s all there and rolled while still talking just pressed a button and kept the roleplay up. Also no sound means no warning when enemies surprise you
The ultimate debate! Finally!
CONGRATS ON THE MARRIAGE BRENNAN! Best wishes tou you and Izzy, you are awesome together
I love digital dice. There is something fun about everyone being able to see rolls instantly. I even like rolling publicly as the DM. Like Brennan said at the end there is just something amazing about the group reaction to seeing the roll.
Thank you for confirming dice do indeed get weighted in the making and not all dice have even odds.
@2:36 that face reaction is just one of the many reasons Brennan is a masterful actor
brennan staring directly into my soul as he describes my magpie instincts
Physical dice all the way
Contested roll!!!! Their best segment!!!
Like Brennan says at the end, it's all about seeing the rolls for the group, it's what's fun.
I love that they both said "Let me be clear"
I 100% agree that no dice is perfectly fair. Therefore i must have very many of them to roll so it evens out
1:47 - *inhale* "I'm gonna be very clear..." -- ohhh okay so it's gonna be one of *those* videos 😆😆
"privacy dead systems gotta trust em" i love this
I hate it, i know so many people like that and i dont understand it its that mentality that has allowed these abhorrent practices to become so invasive. it always comes off to me like celebrating giving up your autonomy and becoming a slave. its such a horrible mentality to have if you care about personal sovereignty or your children's future.
Do you ever feel like the first 10 seconds of grandstanding when Brennan monologues is him coming up with the rest of the speech
My caveman brain says: "Me want roll klicky-klacky math rocks."
I suck at typing dice roll commands in discord so I got to say real dice is better because it streamlines my turns and interactions.
This is a great improv skit. I don’t know that I could come up with such passionate debates on the spot
Aabria: I choose virtual dice over physical.
Laura Bailey: Then you have chosen death...
I like the digital dice because I use Sophie's Dice and have different dice I've designed for different damage types
I would one-hundred percent have a beer and tacos with Aabria to talk tomes, bones and gnomes.
Aabria just went villain mode in this debate
Im surprised he didn’t contest having snacks or no snacks at the game table. I believe Brennan is a fan of snacking.
I have heard that he is a little podling!
Physical Dice for In-Person play. Digital dice, for digital play.
This is the way.
It's like the I Ching. No matter the method, no matter the medium, the result you get is the right one for you at this moment in your life. It is the answer you seek to the question you have.
And, yes, physical dice all day, every day, for the life of the universe.
But Brennan, the squishy flesh se of the sanguine dice is the best part 😂
Honestly, between these 2 and game changer I'm about 2 paychecks away from subscribing to dropout
Brennan: I'm gonna be very clear, From time immemorial...
Me: Oh boy! *pulls out the popcorn and soda* this gonna be gud
I don’t want fair. I want a dice that knows the only way to stay in my good graces is to roll a 15 and up, unless it literal doesn’t matter or I’m rolling for the memes then a nat 1 is appropriate but that is it! It’s called training the dice know what to roll they choose not to out of spite! The only way to keep them in line is fear of being thrown in dice jail or if they roll really bad straight in the trash no matter how much money I spent on them!
I'm about to dm a group of 7 or more for the first time and just had this conversation with a fellow dm
God damn, I think I just fell in love with Aabria Iyengar.
My favorite thing to come of this is being able to say "don't be mad because my math rocks say I win"
"I love being taken out of contest" "Were in the matrix!"
indeed. at the end of the day, digital or physical, dice will be dice, and how we react to those numbers is the best part of the game baybeee!! Love Aabria and Brennan so muchy!!
I have failed every math class i have ever been in COMPUTER DO IT FOR ME!!!
I love their energy together but im on the side of physical dice the drama of rolling is so much better
When playing online I like to use a tool that lets everyone see the digital dice roll so you still get the group reactions
Digital game, digital dice. Physical game, physical dice.
I need the feeling of terror when I am shaking my d20 in my hand for ten seconds, trying to warm it up for a big roll. I love the feeling of power when I critted and can roll a shit ton of dice, I can barely roll at once. I want the little spark of hope when I think I might have just read the number wrong and it's actually a 7, only to come to the crushing realization, that it is indeed a 1 staring back at me. And most importantly, I need the emotional connection to my dice, I need to know that I can take this nat1 personal. I want to decide "ah yes, take the blue one for my fire damage, because this character's fire is blue" and see it _actually working_!
Just klicking a button simply doesn't do it for me.
I ain’t never table-topped in my life, but this woman could probably put me in a chair.
Counterpoint to digital dice: there's nothing in this world that compares to the **feeling** of throwing actual dice. Clicking a button just does not cut it, not in this universe or any other.
I don't care if I haven't salt-tested any of my dice, I like them based on feeling, and not even the most perfect or realistic soundpack for digital dice can recreate that feeling of; throwing a dice, not knowing what it'll be, and having real emotion when it finally stops on something that can make or break a game.
Digital dice are just; **click** , ok, that's the number.
It may also sound like I'm advocating for making things worse, but you also can't fudge digital dice rolls, no special ritual or superstition for how you throw to "get better rolls", no "oh it's cocked, I'll re-roll it". Just cold, hard numbers and facts just takes the fun out of it for me.
I roll nothing but trash with digital. Physical dice make me role the most Alley Beardsley roles. Like.. the most poetic roles ever! I'll stick with Physical.
The response to this from DND Beyond on TikTok was interesting, as they use a physics engine to simulate the tumbling polyhedrons. An interesting way to get around the issues with truly random number generation.
i like digital and all but nothings better hearing the roll of the dice from your hands .
i need more of this. just this but more of it
2:29 Only once the dice have been baptized in salt, may the dice gods accept its ruling.
I'd like to see physical dice that send the value of your roll to roll20 or sends them to an app on your phone after tallying the numbers.
I adore these humans
A friend rolled 3 Nat 20s and then 3 Nat 1s back to back on Roll20
But you gotta mention the main draw of digital dice for me....MONEY. I DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO BE A DICE GOBLIN.
"quote tweet me daddy, i love being taken outta fuggin contexxxtt"
Roll20 actually generates real random numbers from quantum shot noise :-)
When I play online I have a dice cam, solves both the trust problem and the group reaction
Question: Is "West Marches" named after the West Marches games Steven Lumpkin introduced years and years back on the RollPlay twitch? I absolutely LOVED the setting, way of rotating cast, the lore he built, the deaths and heroic survivors... it was absolutely fantastic entertainment *and* D&D imo.
Or is 'West Marches' something that was already done before and I just completely missed out that rotating casts/parties existed before?
It's likely referencing either the (to my knowledge) original idea by Ben Robbins, back from 2007 - or one of the countless iterations since, of which Steven Lumpkins is a part of.
Honestly, it probably existed before that. Ben Robbins and his posts just solidified it for me, same as Steven Lumpkins game did for you. As with so much in the TTRPG space, tracking down the original is an often futile endeavor, with every GM and player that touches something helps give it their own spin.
@@zebraguf ya it predates 07 by quite a bit, goes back to AD&D at least if not before. my friends father who properly introduced me to dnd and DMd my 1st game of 2e ran this style game in the same setting since 1980 or so. I was easily an adult before I found another group that even knew what it was , as teens thats not how anyone(our age) ran games in 3-3.5. I tried a few times but they fell apart horribly but so did most of my other games. IMO its much more suitable for an experienced dm.
I have always had horrible luck with digital dice. I have gotten one Nat 20 in the whole time of digital dice, and only for an initiative roll. I have gotten no less than three Natural 20s on physical dice, and the DM is my partner who is right next to me in person during the game, and they also use physical dice.
I like my dice because they're sweet little dudes that highly favor me.
I play D&D online and so almost exclusively use digital dice, but that has not stopped me from continuing to purchase shiny little doodads that I can get my little mitts on
One complaint of digital dice rollers is the lack of the three act story structure.
Act 1: You pick up the dice, then shake them in your hands as if it matters.
Act 2: You throw the dice a bit too hard out of excitement, and it rolls just not off the table.
Act 3: The dice slow down to a single result, and the story climax happens. A natural 14.
Clicking on a button as a random number generator doesn't have this feeling of excitement at all. It's just click-result.
Clicking on a button to roll digital 3d dice that use a physics system is a bit better. Multiple dice may bounce off each other. It's click-hope for a 20-result. Better.
Using a gesture that represents throwing dice, such as shaking your finger on a touch screen and then swiping up as if you're playing Wii Sports Bowling, now it comes close to physical dice. Sadly there aren't may dice roller apps that use this system.
Saw the official dnd beyond response before I saw this clip
"Have you salt tested your dice?"
Me: "Have you tested the algorithms?"
I did, but they all short circuited, I guess they didn't pass.
I use digital for stats since I don’t want to waste 5 minutes purely rolling dice but for an actual game it’s just so satisfying to roll and watch it spin around the hard wood table till it shows you your doomed fate.
The way the timestamp on the thumbnail for this cut off the title as PHYSICAL DI[4:47] _in no way_ made my brain misread both D words and go 'huh' at the debate topic I very briefly imagined.
See, I’m still new to dnd (like I only recently bought the players handbook) and like, I love using digital dice because I can have an infinite number of dice available to me all on my phone or tablet… which is kind of important to me specifically because I’m disabled & carrying a bunch of unnecessary weight on my person can literally put me out of commission for days 😅
I do have 1 full set of dice though (and once I get more familiar with the rules of dnd I’ll probably invest in a couple more dice sets for when I’m at home)
In case anyone wants to know how the random number generators on digital dice work: multiply two very large numbers together (at least 10 or so digits) and add them to a third similarly large number, and divide the result of all that by another large (but less so by at least 3 or 4 digits) numbers, take the remainder. divide the remainder you just got by the less large number. you now have a random number between 0 and 1! how do you choose the large numbers? the computer has a list that was made randomly stored somewhere in its code. this function is suitably unpredictable, as long as you dont have access to that list. how is the list decided? that's what a random seed is. now say you wanna roll a d20. do this thing i have described. Break the range of 0-1 into 20 chunks each 0.05 in length. the dice roll is determined by which chunk your random value lands in. this has been a quick maths lesson.
RNG from a computer is much worse then that of physical dice, choose whichever one ails you the worst!
Um, actually, while digital dice _could_ use a fair randomness source, it seems way more likely that they will based on what is known as pseudorandom number generators. Pseudorandom number generators take a seed number, and generate a sequence of numbers from that.
This means a couple of important things for us:
1. Unlike with real dice, the numbers you get _are_ actually preloaded. If you get a nat-1 on something unimportant, you literally did get that nat-1 out of the way.
2. Outcomes are 100% deterministic, after that initial seed has been chosen (this is usually based on the time the number generator is initialized)
3. Commonly used pseudorandom number generation algorithms, and therefore probably most digital dice, are _very_ biased
Everything just feels so much more personal when you roll your own dice for yourself. Instead of getting mad at a computer for rolling poorly, you are responsible for your own destiny with physical dice. It's one of the reasons I prefer to do in-person sessions. Plus hanging with friends and other people is always more jovial when you're not stuck behind a computer screen. It also makes combat a little more adaptable if your group is slaughtering it and you need to throw in a few "stealthed" creatures that come in from the corners of the room or behind some trees. Encounters set up online are less dynamic than in-person encounters.
I personally prefer and trust physical dice rather then digital dice!!!!! Though honor system is flawed as well, so rather we find a middle ground.
You set up a live camera link focused on the dice and that limits the flaws of honor system.
Aabria looks great 👍🏾
I don't mind a digital dice system for online play, but I would prefer that the physics of an actual die roll is simulated so you at least get the FEEL of rolling actual dice, even if the result is instantly generated. Would also be nice to have access to custom skins to apply to each die as a whole set, or to each individual die if you prefer color-coding them or whatever
Honestly I feel like I need to salt test my plain ass dice now.
online and offline tabletop games have their own advantages and disadvantages
Offline always has the better 'feel'. The social aspect of seeing the fear in someones eyes when they rolled bad and the DM struggling to find enough dice to roll damage and everybody shouting "STOP GRABBING MORE DICE" is an uncontested feeling. However, offline is harder to perceive. The battlemap is sometimes not clear, handouts have to be individually handled, if you missed a lore-piece or tidbit from before you have to stop the role-playing and ask: "Hey what was the thing with the thing again?". It can break a lot of flow.
Contrarily, online play is great for overview, history and ease of play. You can just program in a little "roll with advantage" button and then press a "sneak attack damage" button after and hoopa, everything is fair and calculated and combat is smooth and easy.
A system has its quirks, and yes, even if rolling dice IRL 'feels' better, theres a lot of other things you are missing out. I think you should accept that online play requires online dice even if the 'dice' aspect of dnd feels lesser when playing online.
I'd say if your playing online over zoom or whatever, aim your webcam at the physical dice or make a separate account for your dice on your phone use that.
"I'm gonna be honest, I changed the sound effect on my D&DBeyond account to the squishy fall, and I don't know how to change it back."
🤣😂
How many digital D4s have you stepped on?
The end.
In my campaign we use digital dice. It isn't that I don't trust my players, it's that I know I would fudge the rolls constantly if I was a player. To keep myself honest, I insist on using digital dice. For certain scenarios as a DM I will use my physical dice, but that is typically when I am determining which random encounter the party is going to meet.