Variant: Re-Roll That!
Image via shooptc.com
The re-roll. Whether you are board gaming, RPGing, or otherwise using dice, there comes a time when a re-roll may be needed. But with the inclusion of a re-roll, there is the potential for gaming the system: for using it to get multiple chances for a roll. A common one is if a player is rolling multiple dice and one pops out early. That player might say, “I’ll keep it” and roll the rest if it was a good number. But if a poor number showed up, they’d pop it back into their hand and roll it with its dicey brothers.
I’ve seen some heated exchanges between players (friends and strangers alike) over re-rolls and when to do it. Because it can lead to the suspicion of cheating your way to an unfair advantage, it’s something that gets taken seriously. For that reason, I think most groups should have an understanding about re-rolls. In Las Vegas, for example, if either die goes off the craps table it’s no roll. And if at least one die doesn’t hit the backstop, it’s no roll. That way, everyone is on the same page and there are no shooters who pitch a fit about keeping illegitimately rolled numbers.
Over the years, my group has made it come down to intent. If you meant to roll the dice, you keep the roll. So, if a die pops out early, it gets re-rolled no matter what. Good or bad, it gets put back in. We are also pretty strict about cocked dice. Some players will always re-roll a crooked die no matter how mildly crooked. That seems overkill to me. Instead, if we can tell what the die is (or what the die would be) if we quickly removed whatever the die was resting on, then we use that result. Only in the rare case that the die is cocked completely evenly do we give it a re-roll. And even then it is generally by consensus.
What about you? Does your group have a re-roll rule?
Yeah, playing with kids, this is actually important because they can game the quirky rolls like that – so our rule is up front so there are no questions and no whining. We roll in box tops, so there is no rolling off the table and no cocked dice. If one or more bounce out, that/those must be re-rolled and we shove the ones already in the box top over so they are not hit and knocked to a different number. And if one obviously pops out of hand early, it is a no-roll and must be put back in hand to roll with the rest.
Isn’t it amazing (and maybe sad) had the littlest and silliest things can cause such a problem?!