Luck?

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Elitegamer7539
 

Luck?

Unread postby Elitegamer7539 » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:07 am

So, yeah, this seems to keep coming up in my gaming endevours. Seeing as everyone here is likely quite familiar with die casts, perhaps I can get some interesting opinions here.

I have horrible luck in gaming. Be it from card draws or die casts, if there's a way fortune can leave me screwed, it will. Once upon a time was a regular player of Magic: the Gathering. I wasn't bad, though I wasn't ready to enter any major tournaments by any measure. I'd like to think that the decks I built worked rather well most of the time.

At least, when other people played them. I could play the game for hours on end, and a good 80% of the time, I would end up with hands that simply weren't playable. I could pass my deck to someone else and have them play, and it would come around beautifully and consistantly, but in my hands, I could spend a good ten turns with only the lands I draw in my initial hand to work with.

Die casts often turn against me as well. One particular event I remember is a DnD session that lasted the better part of two hours. In that time, I never could roll above a five on a d20, and I used several difference dice. The guy next to me, however, rolled a 20, then another 20, then 19, getting an instant kill on a high-level werewolf that was supposed to be the "epic finale" of our adventure. Our unusual kind DM declared that a headshot, instantly killing our opponent. Earlier that day I had made a critical fumble on a will save that, had I rolled anything but that, I was guaranteed to make the save. It wasn't the first such failure.


GETTING TO THE POINT, do you guys believe in good/bad luck at all? <p>
____<span style="color:fuchsia;font-family:helvetica;font-size:x-large;">t(</span><span style="color:black;font-family:helvetica;font-size:x-large;">'.'</span><span style="color:fuchsia;font-family:helvetica;font-size:x-large;">t)</span>____
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PriamNevhausten
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:58 am

In elementary school, I accurately predicted a coin flip ten times in a row, using a faulty algorithm. It is the only time I have dared to try.

I have predicted die rolls more times than I care to count. I would say that I have roughly a 50% chance of being within 1 of the actual roll result, when a hunch strikes me.

I am known amongst several people here for having an uncanny knack for randomizing devices. I chose the AIM sn "The Dice Gods" for a reason. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

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Nakibe
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby Nakibe » Mon Jan 09, 2006 9:07 am

Whereas for me, I have actually rather good luck when I bother to look at it. I just don't want to rely heavily on it for anything, even in gaming.

When I make a deck in Magic: The Gathering, the VERY first thing I'm going to adjust for is to make sure that the chances of me getting a hand that sucks is VERY VERY LOW. Part of why I play White so much. >.> Most of my cards can be played within 3 turns or so, and my latest deck I adjusted so that the chances of me NOT drawing a land right away are very, VERY low.

Simply put, my luck has never been the type to take any sort of chances on. I rig things. I don't gamble or play the lotto as a result of the fact that I either can't or SHOULDN'T try to fix the odds. >:P When I don't rely on my luck at all, I get excellent rolls, have great hunches, and so on and so forth. When I leave things to chance, I lose. And I don't like to lose.


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PriamNevhausten
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Mon Jan 09, 2006 3:36 pm

It sort of bears mentioning that my personal credo, particularly of late, is "A wise gambler only bets what he is willing to lose." <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

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Besyanteo
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby Besyanteo » Mon Jan 09, 2006 5:02 pm

I have a similar problem, but only with dice.

Where as your rolls sound like they go something like:
"4, 5, 3, 1, 2, 1, 5, 2, 5"

Mine are more like:
"1, 3, 1, 20, 20, 19, 2, 1, 1"

... I suppose it's marginally better. o.o It's hillarious to watch my mage go at it in DnD though.

"Negotiate a peaceful solution."
"They're not cinvinced, you're being attacked!"
"use Burning Hands!"
"They dodge."
"Hit with my staff!"
"Miss. Their caster is casting a spell!"
"Attempt to recognize it!"
"You recognize that he's casting Burning hands! Do you wish to counter it?"
"YES!"
"You succeed. He curses your mother."
"On his next turn, the mage casts a spell!"
"Attempt to recognize!"
"You see he's casting Detect Magic on your cargo!"
"Counter it."
"... He flips you off."
"He casts another spell!"
"Try to recognize."
"You succeed. He's trying to cast read magic on your cargo."
"Counter"
"... The enemy mages begins loudly cursing in a language you don't understand, but you're fairly certain he's talking about your mother again."
"=D I shoot at him with my crossbow! *rolls* ... :{"
"... You shoot your warrior friend. In the ass."


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Re: Luck?

Unread postby FlamingDeth » Mon Jan 09, 2006 5:24 pm

I don't have much experience with games like Magic, but to my understanding, as Shaun said, it has a lot to do with deck makeup. Making it so that you have some powerful cards but won't be screwed in the posterior in the beginning or whatever.

As for luck, I don't have much of that. For instance, about 85% of my poker hands tend to be complete crap. I win about 75% of my poker hands, but that has little to do with luck and more to do with being an emotionless robot who is absolutely unreadable, yet can read others rather well. This is, incidentally, why I think internet poker is retarded.

Dice rolls also do not favour me, except when it serves to make others miserable. <p>
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby Ganonfro » Mon Jan 09, 2006 6:08 pm

Well, when I actually gambled, I very rarely lost out.

When I used to go to casinos last year with friends from college, I netted like... 250 from Black Jack. From my experience, it's all on the feel of the game. If it feels good at the table, I'll try it out. If it feels off and I can't concentrate, I lose the money I started with and wait for my friends to stop playing... Which usually is quite a while.

But during the times I was cool with gambling, I went with 40 and came back with 220. The next day I went with 20 and left with 135ish. This is the reason I love Black Jack. I kick it's ass.

With M:tG, Priam could probably tell you luck has nothing to do with it, it's just how awesome your deck is. And since Priam and I are totally oldschool players, it was fairly predictable when we played.

Dice and other random number generation is fairly fun with me. On a site that played with it to search for "psychic abilities" I tended to score in the top 10 of the day. I guess my mind thinks randomly. No real luck involved, in my eyes.


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BrainWalker
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby BrainWalker » Mon Jan 09, 2006 11:51 pm

Generally, luck shouldn't factor in too much to a well-constructed MTG deck, but if your first hand was crap, so you mulliganed, and then ended up with nothing but lands, well, then luck is a factor. This happened to me twice.

Anyway, as much as I bitch about having the worst luck ever when it comes to games, it's more acccurate to say I have something like Besyanteo's luck. The majority of the time it is somewhere between sub-par and crap, but every now and then I pull something fucking insane out of my ass that shouldn't be possible. In videogaming, this often translates to constantly fucking up really simple things, and then nailing something really complex. And then screwing up something simple again immediately afterwards. This makes for rather frustrating gaming sessions, but this frustration can lead to greater joy when something actually does go my way. Unless of course I'm so pissed off by the time that something works out that it can't hope to counteract the bad karma.

Dice just taunt me. Last time I RPed, I couldn't do jack shit in combat, but I rolled three 20s while doing non-combat things. Not that doing things outside of combat isn't important, but when things are in your face and trying to kill you, it is useful to be able to defend yourself, you know? <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

Elitegamer7539
 

Re: Luck?

Unread postby Elitegamer7539 » Tue Jan 10, 2006 1:46 am

With regards to all the references to Magic, note that I said that I was pretty good, and that my decks tended to work in the hands of others. No matter how well constructed your deck is, there are very few decks that can withstand going more than five turns with two lands. I had to do that fairly often. Either that or I would draw nothing but lands for just as long.

Meanwhile, if I passed said deck to someone else, they would end up doing quite well. Most who would see my decks would agree that they were fairly well constructed and that I shouldn't be having such trouble. <p>
____<span style="color:fuchsia;font-family:helvetica;font-size:x-large;">t(</span><span style="color:black;font-family:helvetica;font-size:x-large;">'.'</span><span style="color:fuchsia;font-family:helvetica;font-size:x-large;">t)</span>____
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BrainWalker
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby BrainWalker » Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:28 pm

Oh yea, being mana-screwed doesn't help either. <p><div style="text-align:center">Image</div></p>

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PriamNevhausten
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby PriamNevhausten » Tue Jan 10, 2006 3:04 pm

Y'all should allow Paris Mulligans. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

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Spleen
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Re: Luck?

Unread postby Spleen » Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:26 am

Oh, god. Dice luck. My RL D&D group is so into this it's kind of scary.

Brandon's Swashbuckler is designed to do two things: Get critical hits and succeed at Tumble and Jump checks. I have never seen him roll a 20 on an attack roll (fortunately, he's a rapier user, so he threatens on a 15). Three times he jumped down trees and made Tumble checks to lessen the fall. All three times he rolled a natural 1 and I declared that he botched it, even though he had a Tumble modifier of +god. Thank god for him his Swashbuckler got Acrobatic Skill Mastery, or he'd be screwed. Then again, of course, he's only been anything but first in initiative order, like, once or twice (unless the fight involves something with an insane Dex bonus and Improved Initiative, like a couple of Darkknight's characters), usually by a margin of about 7. He doesn't have Improved Initiative, and his Dex is around 24 or something, but he's constantly breaking laws of probability during initiative checks. It's also good for him that he's smart, because he knows to save his Lucky ability for when it's really critical that he make a roll.

Joe, Darkknight here on the board, has (or had, at least) a lucky d20. He used to roll very well and usually succeed, despite rather shoddily-made characters (HAHA). Whenever he wasn't around and a new player would need a die, I'd hand them Joe's lucky d20 and they'd fail every roll. Then, of course, when I lost one of the dice out of my rather sizable collection, guess what? It turned out to be Joe's lucky die. We've still never found it.

I, personally, tend to roll mediocre (which is pretty good as a Dungeon Master), unless I'm rolling an NPC's attacks against someone who needs to not be hit, at which time I roll critical or near-critical. When I play my own characters, I actually have pretty neutral luck. I roll a 20 in about one in twenty rolls, and a 1 about the same. <p>-_-___-___-___-_-

"The universe is all in the mind that perceives it, and sensation is the first and only reality. If a tree falls in the forest with no creature to hear it, then there is no tree."
-Dungeons and Dragons: Complete Arcane, page 167

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