[UA] "Real-World" Syncronicity

[Eves, Eric D.]

-----Original Message-----
From: Liam Routt [mailto:liam at routt.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 12:21 AM
To: ua at lists.uchicago.edu
Subject: Re: [UA] "Real-World" Syncronicity


Doug Stalker wrote:
> 
> HAs anyone noticed OACOWA/BOHICAs come up more often than 2% of the
> time?

Actually, we've played a bunch of sessions now, as well as two of the
One-Shots, and I think we have had a total of two, perhaps three,
matches (or whatever they are called, where the two dice read the same
number). We had or first in a long time this week and the realization
really struck me.
>

Oh yeah.  Dice *like* things like that.  

I have a pair of dice that in one situation rolled >95% 7 times out of
eleven, and which had an unnerving tendency to roll either critical
successes or critical failures far more likely that would be warranted by
the laws of probability.  They did this a *lot*.  They were mostly retired
after a player as a joke tried a Divine Intervention Manuver (absurdly hard)
and called down the wrath of whatever dieties may be listening on a fellow
party member, and rolled a 96, a 98, and an 86.  The character was smitten
by the Wrath of Bob the Demigod, and the Dice of Bob were mainly retired.  I
still keep them around, and my players got edgy whenever I decide to take
them out of retirement for a few crucial rolls.

Thing is, when we once rolled them out of game a lot of times and recorded
the results to see if there was a flaw in the casting that made some numbers
come up too frequently, they acted normally, but in game they loved to
thwart the plot and roll either really high or really low, and they
sometimes act oddly when I take them out to show someone.

Let's take them out and roll a few times.

I just rolled them 11 times and got two 06's, one 66, one 69 one 93, a 27, a
04, a 40, another 66, and two 03's.  Decidedly wierd.  I'm pretty sure that
those rolls are rather out of the ordinary, with 5/11 being under 10, 3
pairs of duplicates, and two 66's which are unusual failures in Rolemaster,
the game they "trained" on.

Now, I don't really believe in luck or haunted dice, but after some sessions
with those things I didn't especially not believe it either, if you know
what I mean.  I feel like a guy who absolutely doesn't believe in ghosts,
but who has a camera that sometimes seems to take pictures of people who
aren't there when he snaps the photos. 

Anyone got a UA explanation for these perverse pieces of plastic?

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