🎲 Dice roller guide

I'm trying to keep this thread clean.

If you want to discuss this guide then please add your comments to this thread.

Contents
* Using the dice roller
* Dice visibility
* Basic dice
* Basic dice tips
* Star Wars FFG
* Fate
* Feng Shui

To add dice rolls to your post, select the dice type and click the Add button.

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The results of roll will be displayed after you post. Because the contents of your post might depend upon the results of your roll, some people add a comment in their post e.g. "UPDATING", submit the post to see the dice results, then edit the post's narrative to reflect the results.

You can also select a roll's visibility during posting. You can also edit the visibility later, e.g. a GM might secretly roll for a monster's stealth, and if it fails, reveal the result to the players.

The person rolling and the GM always see the full dice roll. The main differences lie in what other players see.

Here is how the dice visibility changes what is shown.

Hide Nothing
The reason, the dice rolled, and the result are shown.

What was rolled...


The GM and roller see...


Other see...

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Hide Roll/Result
Others can see the reason for the roll, and what dice were rolled (inc modifiers), but not the result.

What was rolled...


The GM and roller see...


Other see...

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Hide Dice & Roll
Others can see the reason but nothing else.

What was rolled...


The GM and roller see...


Other see...

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Hide Everything
Others can see that there was a roll, but nothing about it.

What was rolled...


The GM and roller see...


Other see...

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Hide Reason
Others can see the dice with modifiers and the result, but not the reason which says "Secret Roll" instead.

What was rolled...


The GM and roller see...


Other see...

Basic dice rolls are the default selection. You add a new roll by selecting "Add".



Reason
The reason is narrative that describes the purpose of your roll. Sometimes the narrative might be used to determine game-specific outcomes based on your game's dice rules.

Roll
Basic dice rolls use the common dice notation syntax, e.g. 4D6+1 means roll four 6-sided dice and add one to the result.



e.g. here the AC is read from the reason to determine if a roll hits.

GMs should see Dice Rules to see how to enable this for their games.

Dice notation
You can roll multiple dice and add or subtract them, and multiple modifiers are supported.
examples:
1d8+1d6+3
1d20-1d4+2
1d20+3+2

highest/lowest
Hn and Ln suffixes can be used to keep the highest and lowest dice. This is case insensitive.

Examples:
4d6h3 means roll 4d6 and keep the highest three.
2d20h1 means roll 2d20 and keep the highest die (e.g. DnD 5e advantage)
2d20L1 means roll 2d20 and keep the lowest die (e.g. DnD 5e disadvantage)

Not supported
Multiplication is not currently supported.

e.g. (1d4)*10

Reroll Aces
Rerolling aces means that if a dice shows its highest value then it is rolled again and the result added. This is commonly used in Savage Worlds. Select the Reroll Aces checkbox to enable this mode.

Comma separating rolls
Rolls can be comma-separated to save space.



The same reason is shown, but the results are shown on new lines.


Integrated character sheets
Many character sheets integrate with the dice roller to allow you to select rolls from your character without entering them manually.

e.g. On a DnD 5e sheet selecting the A button (for advantage) next to a skill adds the roll, the reason, and the dice.

You can select to add Star Wars FFG rolls.



Adding dice
To add a dice, select it by its colour.





Removing dice
Selecting a dice you've already added removes it.

Clicking a ability and difficulty dice changes them: ability (green) to proficiency (yellow), and difficulty (purple) to challenge (red). Clicking them again removes them.

Results
The results are shown using icons, with a summary beneath them.

To add a roll for a Fate game select Fate from


Fate rolls default to rolling 4 dice, with space to add your modifier.



Results
The results are shown as +, -, and blank spaces and totalled.

To add a Feng Shui roll select it from the dropdown.

Is there a way to say, reroll 1's?

If not, might there be in the future? 😁

There isn't at the moment. But you're talking about 'roll a D6 and if it lands on a 1, roll again and take the new result instead', right? If so, you could achieve the same outcome by rolling 1D5+1, though.

1D19+1?

Or just manually roll again if you get a 1, just like you would with real dice on table. :)

I'll go with manual reroll.
a 1d19+1 is 2-20 on all rolls, where most often it is only the first roll that have a reroll on a "1"

I assumed the 2-20 was a joke to avoid ever getting those 1s that need rerolls. :)

It is as good, it just gets to the same outcome a different way

Hmm... They do actually give the exact same outcome. I suppose that makes sense, since a 'reroll 1s' and 'could roll a 20' translates into a 1-in-20 chance of a 1-in-20... which is pretty flat.

https://anydice.com/program/2dac2

But it's not advantage. You don't roll two dice at the same time. You roll 1D20, giving you a (1/20) chance to roll a 20.
Then, if you roll a 1 (1/20 odds), you reroll, giving you another conditional (1/20) chance to roll a twenty. That (1/400) chance is added to your total odds of getting a 20 on this roll.
Then, if you also rolled a 1 on your first reroll, you roll again, giving you another chance for a 20. That (1/8000) chance is also added to your total odds.
If you continue through with this, your total chance of rolling a 20 will add up to (1/19), same as if you simply eliminate the 1 from your pool of options.

That is just different ways to roll feeling different but being mathematically the same. Think of it as taking a cake and cutting it into 20 pieces. Then you take one of those twenty pieces and cut it into twenty pieces as well, adding one of those tiny pieces to each of the other 19 large pieces. (Then in theory, you repeat that process with the remaining twentieth of a twentieth and so on).

Sure, that method gives you two pieces of cake instead of just one if you had cut the cake into 19 slices in the first place. But one of those slices is much, much smaller and if you weighed your two slices, they would weigh the same as the one 1/19 slice.

I don't understand what you mean by that. Both methods give you a 10 out of 19 chance of rolling an 11 or higher

You're thinking about this the wrong way. You can't roll a 1 in the D19+1 method because that doesn't exist. The lowest you can roll is a 2.

Regardless of the method, only one roll that you do matters, the last one.

If you use the 1D19+1 method, that last roll is also the first and it will produce a random number between 2 and 20, with each of them having equal odds of being the result.

If you use the 1D20 reroll 1s method, that last roll can also be the first but isn't necessarily. However, if it isn't the first roll, that first roll has no bearing on the final result. It would have been a 1 but it is not counted and doesn't influence the outcome. That final roll will be a random number between 2 and 20 (because if it was a 1, it wouldn't be the final roll), with each of them having equal odds of being the result.