Dice

Skipping over excessive detail about how dice work ...

In D&D, dice exist to resolve any circumstance that might turn out in any number of ways.  For example, reaching out in a split-second to catch a falling object might result in our catching it or missing it.  More importantly, even though we might have caught an object like it in the past, doesn't mean we'll catch this object in this circumstance.  To settle these "maybe" situations, we use dice.

The example I've just given describes a "pass/fail" result; the game is full of them.  However, dice can also be used as a selection device, such as determining randomly which kind of animal appears in our line-of-sight, what sort of weapon a combatant is using or how much of something we find.  In each case, a single dice gives a plain, linear result, with each number on the die having an equal chance of occurring as any other number.

If we use more than one die, we produce what is called a bell curve.  Most people are familiar with rolling 2d6, and recognize that the result of "12" will occur less often than the result of "7."  That's because many combinations of two dice thrown will result in a 7, whereas only one possible combination can result in a 12.  By rolling various combinations of dice, we can produce all sorts of bell curves, which we can assign to either pass/fail or selection results.  Understanding how bell curves work is a deep, profound and interested science, and one that's necessary if attempting to create your own dice charts.

Dice work best when applied to objective circumstances, such as the examples we've given, where no personal biases, emotions or beliefs are part of the determination.  Succeeding or failing at catching a cup is a physical determination, as is the physical animal that has stepped out of the trees, or the physical weapon in an enemy's hand or how many physical objects exist in a treasure chest.  So long as the subject being described is a question of physical success or tactile presence, the use of dice to determine happenstances during the game works quite well.

The failure of dice as a game tool begins when dice are applied to subjective results — such as how the enemy feels about the player characters, or what individuals, specifically non-player characters, value with regards to their choices, goals, interpretations or motivations.  On the surface, it would seem to make sense to determine if a met individual "likes" or "dislikes" the player characters, and roll a die to determine which is so.  However, this grossly simplifies the reality of either of those terms, which drastically reducing everything of nuance in the game to a black-or-white context.  This is bad, since nuance — with its concommitant opportunities for doubt, confusion, trustworthiness, lying and in general the uncertain impressions the players have of things that leads to hope, charity, tension and triumph — is reduced unspectacularly to a coin-flip.  This removes the "guts" of the campaign and ends up sorting important characterisations into toothpicks of varying colour, a quite dull result.

Worse, because subjective rolls are random, they aren't reflective of earlier roles.  In a real conversation, my listener's viewpoint of me is a growing complexity, where each thing heard builds in some complex way upon what was heard before.  If a die roll is used, however, the toothpicks can like, then dislike, then like, then dislike randomly whatever I might happen to say, without any structure.  Someone who was "trustworthy" can, completely randomly, suddenly cease to be trustworthy for no reason except the pips on the dice.  This is worse than making every NPC a sociopath; it makes the world utterly unpredictable, ensuring that the players never trust anyone for any reason — or anything else that's subjective, thus radically limiting the possibilities the game world can deliver.

The dungeon master cannot rely upon dice to determine the predilictions of imagined people, nor of reason, truth or any other thing that does not occur randomly!  Hammers will always fall, unless there is a reason they do not.  It cannot be a die roll!  Dice are a wonderful tool; but they are not a wonderful tool for everything.