There’s a certain type of fear that grips you as you rifle through your dice bag on the edge of an anxious moment. Your character has poured everything into this one shot. It feels important and now you’re putting it all up to fate. To let random chance shape your story. But most people throw … Read more

You stand by the table, d100 in hand, waiting for the right moment to roll… one that will alter the course of the scene. Pressure’s on. Situation’s tense. Skill’s only running at 60%. Should you roll? Should you hold out for a better time? Most players just shake the dice because calculating odds in their … Read more

Each percentile roll has its own sort of tension. One number determine whether you succeed or fail, and success hangs upon the position of two dice against that number. Add some mechanics, however, and all goes pear-shaped. Arithmetic replace intuition then. Players intuitively assume their skill percentage as a permanent fact, yet the second you … Read more

For example, tabletop players frequent end up frustrated after rolling dice to find out their chances of success were low, only to discover midway through the game that they weren’t good. Maybe the number was high so you thought you rolled well. But then again maybe not. Because what happens is that your gut doesn’t … Read more

Tabletop games has their own type of die: the eight-sided one. It isn’t the heroic twenty-sider, and it isn’t the boring workhorse known as the six-sided cube. No, d8 hits a sweet spot. It provide a reliable baseline for skill checks or damage rolls but has just enough variance to prevent things from getting stale. … Read more

There’s a moment in Threes that will come for all of us when five dice appear and your brain shuts off. Two ones, a four, two sixes. The number on the screen are high. Your every instinct force you to re-roll. Anything has got to be better then those dang sixes! Except … if you … Read more

Plastic cubes drop into a tray, scattering against each other before settling somewhere unknown. For players, that’s the moment when things get crazy, but if you pay close attention, there’s nothing random happening here; it’s probability in action. In all kinds of table top gaming, seven occupies a special position: it’s the statistical center of … Read more