I count 21 nat 20s, and 21 nat 1s. So it seems to pretty fair to me (at least here.)
No, my concerns are with the mouseovers and the manipulation flags, mostly. For instance:
- Nonsensical mouseovers, where you cannot see how a roll was constructed (and instead see some strange, random roll.) - Unwarranted manipulation banners (sometimes combined with triggered rerolls – or worse, rolls that resolve differently to different players), in which the post was never even edited. - Rolls that refuse to resolve ("not available for this section" errors.)
I'm hoping these bugs can be fixed! So many PBP games are being driven to Discord and Avrae, mostly over this one bug.
But my gut tells me the rolls themselves are random and fair and properly distributed.
The fact that I rolled 3 NAT 1's in the same combat on the same day about a week ago, but haven't rolled a NAT 20 in four months ... Seems pretty excessive and not explainable by just "you're having a run of bad luck there." In addition, it had been a couple months, but I just recently rolled my first 19 in a couple months. But hey, maybe I am just insanely unlucky. Still waiting to break the 4 month drought on NAT 20 in campaign. My test roll runs are one thing, but what are the odds that I can roll over 200 times with zero NAT 20's?? That seems to go well beyond "a run of bad luck." That's reality warping terrible luck!
And here's another test run. The dice roller seems to bestow consistently bad luck on the same character. Other characters on the same account have seen fairly average results. My bad luck seems to be "stuck" to my Fighter/Champion who just happens to have two weapons with that all-important "Roll a 20 and something awesome happens" characteristics. So rolling just till I get my first 20 (I'm just putting in a 1 for each roll), we see that I rolled three NAT 1's and two NAT 2's before rolling a single NAT 20.
1 - 111
2 - 11
3 - 11
4 - 1111
5 - 11
6 - 1
7 - 1
8 - 1
9 - 1
10 -
11 -
12 -
13 - 111
14 - 1
15 - 1
16 - 11
17 -
18 - 11
19 -
20 - 1
It took 27 rolls to get there and the results cluster heavily in the "10 or below" area. But I'll keep going.
Okay so I got to 150 rolls and here's what I'm seeing:
1 - 111111111111 = 12
2 - 11111111 = 8
3 - 1111111111= 10
4 - 11111111 = 8
5 - 11111111111111 = 14
6 - 111111111 = 9
7 - 1111111 = 7
8 - 111111 = 6
9 - 1111111 = 7
10 - 11111111 = 8
11 - 1111 = 4
12 - 111111 = 6
13 - 1111111111 = 10
14 - 11111 = 5
15 - 111111 = 6
16 - 11111111 = 8
17 - 111111 = 6
18 - 111111 = 6
19 - 11111 = 6
20 - 1111 = 4
So 12 NAT 1's and 4 NAT 20's, with the NAT 1's outnumbering the NAT 20's by a margin of 3 to 1.
The prediction was that NAT 20 would be the least rolled result. It was actually a tie, with 11 and 20 tied for dead last, but it's rather interesting that I could accurately predict that 20 would come in dead last in a run of 150 dice rolls. I shouldn't be able to reliably predict that.
Results from 1 to 10 were 89. Results from 11 to 20 total 61. So my prediction that rolls would significantly cluster in the lower half also came true. Once again, the odds that I could reliably predict that is rather interesting.
From my character sheet in D&D Beyond. Tried to get a screenshot for you but that appears to be pointlessly complicated for some reason. All I did is kept rolling and keeping track of the results in a Notepad text file. Super low complexity.
Here's today's glitch in the forum's inline roller. No manipulation flag, but the mouseovers give nonsensical results (if they resolve at all.)
The roll was a d20-1, which evidently resulted in a 12. But the mouseover shows a 1d8 roll with a result of 4, which is just plain wrong. (So nobody can see how I constructed my rolls.)
I rolled a 1d8+3 for an (apparent) 10, but the mouseover says it's a 1d4 for a 4, which is just nonsense.
This one's not so much a problem for me - I know what I rolled (not that I can verify!) - but the other players have no idea how my roll was constructed.
And it's especially problematic when this happens to players (as opposed to DMs), as the DM cannot see what players roll. This bug occurs a few times a week for us.
Please look into this regularly-occurring bug in the forum dice roller that is driving so many PBP games (and players) off of D&D Beyond's forum and onto other platforms.
D&D Beyond has already lost a lot of customers over the forum's dice bugs. But I hope D&DB will continue to support us Play-by-Post D&D gamers, and not abandon our community.
I rolled a 1d8+3 for an (apparent) 10, but the mouseover says it's a 1d4 for a 4, which is just nonsense.
This one's not so much a problem for me - I know what I rolled (not that I can verify!) - but the other players have no idea how my roll was constructed.
I know this doesn't exactly solve the issue of the mouseover, but there is a way to verify how you constructed the roll.
If you go to a person's posts, you see the raw roll, not what it in the post. So while viewing the post in the thread I see the 1d4 for 4, when I look at your profile and go to posts I see the
[roll]1d8+3[/roll]
construction you used instead of the 10 you got as a result. It gets clunky when verifying posts from longer back, but at least it's a semi-solution that can help mitigate the issue while it persists.
I count 21 nat 20s, and 21 nat 1s. So it seems to pretty fair to me (at least here.)
No, my concerns are with the mouseovers and the manipulation flags, mostly. For instance:
- Nonsensical mouseovers, where you cannot see how a roll was constructed (and instead see some strange, random roll.)
- Unwarranted manipulation banners (sometimes combined with triggered rerolls – or worse, rolls that resolve differently to different players), in which the post was never even edited.
- Rolls that refuse to resolve ("not available for this section" errors.)
I'm hoping these bugs can be fixed! So many PBP games are being driven to Discord and Avrae, mostly over this one bug.
But my gut tells me the rolls themselves are random and fair and properly distributed.
The fact that I rolled 3 NAT 1's in the same combat on the same day about a week ago, but haven't rolled a NAT 20 in four months ... Seems pretty excessive and not explainable by just "you're having a run of bad luck there." In addition, it had been a couple months, but I just recently rolled my first 19 in a couple months. But hey, maybe I am just insanely unlucky. Still waiting to break the 4 month drought on NAT 20 in campaign. My test roll runs are one thing, but what are the odds that I can roll over 200 times with zero NAT 20's?? That seems to go well beyond "a run of bad luck." That's reality warping terrible luck!
And here's another test run. The dice roller seems to bestow consistently bad luck on the same character. Other characters on the same account have seen fairly average results. My bad luck seems to be "stuck" to my Fighter/Champion who just happens to have two weapons with that all-important "Roll a 20 and something awesome happens" characteristics. So rolling just till I get my first 20 (I'm just putting in a 1 for each roll), we see that I rolled three NAT 1's and two NAT 2's before rolling a single NAT 20.
It took 27 rolls to get there and the results cluster heavily in the "10 or below" area. But I'll keep going.
Okay so I got to 150 rolls and here's what I'm seeing:
Where are you rolling this? In a forum?
From my character sheet in D&D Beyond. Tried to get a screenshot for you but that appears to be pointlessly complicated for some reason. All I did is kept rolling and keeping track of the results in a Notepad text file. Super low complexity.
Here's today's glitch in the forum's inline roller. No manipulation flag, but the mouseovers give nonsensical results (if they resolve at all.)
The roll was a d20-1, which evidently resulted in a 12. But the mouseover shows a 1d8 roll with a result of 4, which is just plain wrong.
(So nobody can see how I constructed my rolls.)
Here's today's example of the mouseover problem: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/54005-ghosts-of-saltmarsh-cbaer8-campaign-thread?comment=8522
I rolled a 1d8+3 for an (apparent) 10, but the mouseover says it's a 1d4 for a 4, which is just nonsense.
This one's not so much a problem for me - I know what I rolled (not that I can verify!) - but the other players have no idea how my roll was constructed.
And it's especially problematic when this happens to players (as opposed to DMs), as the DM cannot see what players roll. This bug occurs a few times a week for us.
Please look into this regularly-occurring bug in the forum dice roller that is driving so many PBP games (and players) off of D&D Beyond's forum and onto other platforms.
D&D Beyond has already lost a lot of customers over the forum's dice bugs. But I hope D&DB will continue to support us Play-by-Post D&D gamers, and not abandon our community.
I know this doesn't exactly solve the issue of the mouseover, but there is a way to verify how you constructed the roll.
If you go to a person's posts, you see the raw roll, not what it in the post. So while viewing the post in the thread I see the 1d4 for 4, when I look at your profile and go to posts I see the
construction you used instead of the 10 you got as a result. It gets clunky when verifying posts from longer back, but at least it's a semi-solution that can help mitigate the issue while it persists.
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