Author Topic: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app  (Read 12836 times)

General308

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #30 on: 08 July 2018, 11:33:15 »
Something about rolling dice is very satisfying to me personally.  If I am going to use a computer for dice rolls then I would likely just play a computer game.  But that is just me.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #31 on: 08 July 2018, 14:04:47 »
Something about rolling dice is very satisfying to me personally.  If I am going to use a computer for dice rolls then I would likely just play a computer game.  But that is just me.
I totally get it. It's the main reason I was thinking of only using the app for cluster (amount of cluster/locations). So all the to hit rolls would still be die but when you hit with your LB20x you push a button on the app.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #32 on: 08 July 2018, 16:44:31 »
To be honest, I'd just rather not play if I was so worried my opponents were such likely cheaters that I couldn't trust them to use a dice roller app.

General308

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #33 on: 08 July 2018, 16:48:55 »
You know another thing about this is people don't trust computers.   I am going to use the HBS BattleTech  game as an example.  People screamed the AI was cheating on head hits.  A few people decided to track rolls turns out it isn't but when a computer rolls numbers people don't like they blame the computer.  Which is kind of funny because almost nobody uses truly balance dice in gaming.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #34 on: 08 July 2018, 17:01:00 »
I wrote one of those for my calculator about 25 years ago, mostly to deal with massive cluster hits. Everyone I played with was okay with me using it, but one guy absolutely refused to use it himself. Of course, his average roll for 2d6 was somewhere around 10, so I think his issue was more about the fact that the program was too honest.

The very first time I used that program in a game, one of my previously undamaged units got hit with LB-X rounds from multiple Clan 'Mechs. I can't remember how many individual hits there were, but I think four or five were TAC chances. We didn't use a floating crit rule, so both engine and gyro ended up trashed.

I still used it, because that's how random (or pseudorandom) numbers work.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #35 on: 09 July 2018, 01:57:07 »
To be honest, I'd just rather not play if I was so worried my opponents were such likely cheaters that I couldn't trust them to use a dice roller app.

To echo General308, it’s not the player I would be worried about. I instinctively don’t trust computers and the discomfort I’d feel trying to trust the computer would take way from my enjoyment of the game.

I’m not sure why the app is so useful to be honest. We started rocking up to games with multicoloured dice, made rolling for cluster hits far faster.

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« Last Edit: 09 July 2018, 02:00:06 by Challenger »

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #36 on: 09 July 2018, 03:22:32 »
The app also tells you which location got hit and, even when you use multiple dice, as I do myself, it still requires multiple rolls, because no one really has as many dies as he would need to deal with multi LB 20 hits
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #37 on: 09 July 2018, 07:10:09 »
if you're worried about someone fat fingering the app, why not have one person (the GM) make all the app rolls? Hold it up so all players can see the results (or put on a big screen somewhere).
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #38 on: 09 July 2018, 08:37:36 »
I for one would have no problem with someone using an app, as long as all the people involved use the same app on the same device, giving everyone the same odds, no random number generator program is truly random (neither is any means of generating random numbers, including die, specially ones with rounded edges and corners)
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #39 on: 09 July 2018, 09:26:55 »
I would be upset and insist that I be allowed to use my death box, as shown below. It is like an adult rattle.

Hehe... actually that's *my* death box...


But, anything is better than the shake-box. I encountered it for the first time at a local game maybe six months ago, and it was instant Excedrin time.

It still surprises me that the small amount of noise created by one of the boxes compared to the noiselevel in the typical gaming room at a game store bothers people, but we have a local player who is the same way.  If I'm using my box,  I have to shake it under the table when he's playing.
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #40 on: 09 July 2018, 10:56:37 »
As long as everyone is sharing the tablet I see no real problem with it.  Keeps it honest.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #41 on: 09 July 2018, 15:12:38 »
if you're worried about someone fat fingering the app, why not have one person (the GM) make all the app rolls? Hold it up so all players can see the results (or put on a big screen somewhere).

If i was to allow it, that's how i would handle it.  One person does the rolling using the app for everyone.. 
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #42 on: 09 July 2018, 15:38:38 »
The app also tells you which location got hit and, even when you use multiple dice, as I do myself, it still requires multiple rolls, because no one really has as many dies as he would need to deal with multi LB 20 hits

Ok, I can see the value in that, I think it steals half the fun of playing a board game, but each to their own  :thumbsup:

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #43 on: 09 July 2018, 19:56:25 »
It still surprises me that the small amount of noise created by one of the boxes compared to the noiselevel in the typical gaming room at a game store bothers people, but we have a local player who is the same way.  If I'm using my box,  I have to shake it under the table when he's playing.

Oh, there was an aggression of shaking at play--this wasn't me being triggered by nails on a chalkboard, this was X-Wing players from across the busy, noisy game room looking up like, "...the heck...?"
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #44 on: 10 July 2018, 02:54:32 »
Ok, I can see the value in that, I think it steals half the fun of playing a board game, but each to their own  :thumbsup:

Challenger

Great way to speed things up and just adding an app to a game seems to get more people interested nowadays. ;)
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #45 on: 10 July 2018, 06:07:35 »
It still surprises me that the small amount of noise created by one of the boxes compared to the noiselevel in the typical gaming room at a game store bothers people, but we have a local player who is the same way.  If I'm using my box,  I have to shake it under the table when he's playing.

Maybe line the compartments with some of that press on felt you can get at craft stores. That would dampen the sound.
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #46 on: 10 July 2018, 07:03:44 »
Maybe line the compartments with some of that press on felt you can get at craft stores. That would dampen the sound.

That, and NOT using it like maracas in a heavy metal band.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #47 on: 10 July 2018, 12:24:40 »
It still surprises me that the small amount of noise created by one of the boxes compared to the noiselevel in the typical gaming room at a game store bothers people, but we have a local player who is the same way.  If I'm using my box,  I have to shake it under the table when he's playing.

Actually had a similar situation a couple of month go, a player at the next table politely ask us to stop using the dice box when it start triggering headache. Guess it's not the noise level as much as the type of noise it make that just triggers some people inner ear.   
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General308

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #48 on: 15 July 2018, 15:36:26 »
Actually had a similar situation a couple of month go, a player at the next table politely ask us to stop using the dice box when it start triggering headache. Guess it's not the noise level as much as the type of noise it make that just triggers some people inner ear.

If dice noise bothers someone maybe they have the wrong hobby?

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #49 on: 15 July 2018, 18:37:13 »
If dice noise bothers someone maybe they have the wrong hobby?

Have you heard someone aggressively use one of those boxes with >12 pairs of dice in it? And I mean, aggressively use it, not a reasonable shake to generate random numbers?

I had to fight down the instinctual toddler-parent reaction to take it away and put it on top of the fridge and tell them we're going to play with a different toy now.
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #50 on: 16 July 2018, 07:15:43 »
Have you heard someone aggressively use one of those boxes with >12 pairs of dice in it? And I mean, aggressively use it, not a reasonable shake to generate random numbers?

I had to fight down the instinctual toddler-parent reaction to take it away and put it on top of the fridge and tell them we're going to play with a different toy now.

Are you saying the box of doom is the BattleTech version of the vuvuzela?
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #51 on: 16 July 2018, 07:45:14 »
Are you saying the box of doom is the BattleTech version of the vuvuzela?

Basically accurate.
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #52 on: 16 July 2018, 08:21:23 »
Have you heard someone aggressively use one of those boxes with >12 pairs of dice in it? And I mean, aggressively use it, not a reasonable shake to generate random numbers?

I had to fight down the instinctual toddler-parent reaction to take it away and put it on top of the fridge and tell them we're going to play with a different toy now.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #53 on: 16 July 2018, 09:32:25 »
Roll the BONES! We do it old school!  :D
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #54 on: 18 July 2018, 01:23:04 »
I've traditionally gone the small-dice-in-the-clear-plastic-compartment-box route for when I've had to do lots of rolling at once, but I wouldn't be entirely against someone wanting to use that app. At the very least we don't need to worry about dice rolling off the table.

...but then again, I've not until living in Japan bothered with getting a smart phone. Data prices are bat-turd crazy in the oligarchic mobile market of Ottawa.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #55 on: 18 July 2018, 07:52:57 »
I normally use both. My Steiner dice for init and individual rolls (PSR, single attacks, etc) and my phone app for cluster attacks.
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #56 on: 06 June 2023, 07:01:28 »
Well, I see nothing wrong with using that dice roller. But it's just my opinion. Just wanted to share it here, guys, sorry for bumping the thread.

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #57 on: 06 June 2023, 18:40:40 »
Oh, there was an aggression of shaking at play--this wasn't me being triggered by nails on a chalkboard, this was X-Wing players from across the busy, noisy game room looking up like, "...the heck...?"

not quite BT level of cluster hits, but my love of Yahtzee and shaking dice died sometime in my late teens.  7-12 me? loved that loud plastic on plastic on shaking. (now it causes eye twitches)
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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #58 on: 07 June 2023, 01:22:33 »
not quite BT level of cluster hits, but my love of Yahtzee and shaking dice died sometime in my late teens.  7-12 me? loved that loud plastic on plastic on shaking. (now it causes eye twitches)

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Re: How do you feel about players using the BT dice roller app
« Reply #59 on: 08 June 2023, 01:58:44 »
I saw this thread was bumped and wanted to share my 2 cents too. So, about the BT dice roller app - I think it's pretty cool. It's a great option for folks who prefer digital dice rolling, especially for online games. I don't see any issue with using it, as long as everyone playing is cool with it. And hey, if anyone's interested, I found this other dice roller website called flipsimu.com that's got some pretty interesting features. Just a thought.
« Last Edit: 09 June 2023, 08:10:57 by LenaMcfarland »