Random Number Table poll

[CharlesX]

Am I alone in not thinking the world of the random number table? It feels more RPG like to use one, but I throw a die instead, because it's hard to randomize the way I put a pencil down, and dice and number generators work just as well.
   Voting closes Friday 1st October 4:30 P.M. Feel free to vote more than once if you use different methods.

[sylas]

I really don't like Random Number Tables.

[kieran]

Cheating is too tempting with the random number table - "I'll just randomly hold my pencil over the 0... hey, look where it landed!" Then again, given the absurd difficulty of some Lone Wolf books, maybe that was intentional on Dever's part.

[Peter]

Absolutely. When I first got the books and saw the number table, I remember thinking "What? That doesn't seem like a smart way to play. I'm not stabbing the book and leaving marks all over it. And how can you keep it random? Even subconsciously I would be manipulating outcomes."

I liked using a d10. It made the books seem more "serious", as I was discarding the standard dice and using a specialist D&D one instead.

[CharlesX]

Hmm this seems to have ended a few hours before I thought it was due to, must've forgot about the hours. Well, it's clear we aren't huge fans of the Random Number Table, though the fact some of Dever's difficulty compares with Livingstone at his worst can't help.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Sept 24, 2021 22:57:09 GMT kieran said:

Cheating is too tempting with the random number table - "I'll just randomly hold my pencil over the 0... hey, look where it landed!" 

My ritual was more elaborate. In order to create the effect of 'randomness' I would swizzle the pencil in my hand round in a circle like waving a magic wand before darting it down at the random number table.
This was meant to be done with the eyes closed throughout until the pencil hit the page, but more often than not the eyes would only be closed just before impact. And I may also have previously identified a favourable area of the table where 0s and 9s were thicker on the ground...

I never used the business-end of the pencil, always the blunt (eraser) end. This might lead to uncertainty as to where exactly the pencil had hit because two or three numbers might be covered ... but for some reason it always worked out that it was the number most favourable to me that was the one it hit. Lucky that. 

It's interesting what you can justify to yourself isn't it?

Oct 1, 2021 12:00:04 GMT CharlesX said:

Well, it's clear we aren't huge fans of the Random Number Table

I did like the table but was happier to move to a d10. 
Joe D probably thought that he liked the d10 as a random number generator rather than 2d6 but that since most people won't have had a 10 sided dice in the house, he provided one for you with his table.

[aggsol]

I bought a d10 the moment I saw the random table in Lonwe Wolf. I also tend to buy a new one with every book I buy :-)

[CharlesX]

Apr 9, 2022 9:07:17 GMT aggsol said:

I bought a d10 the moment I saw the random table in Lonwe Wolf. I also tend to buy a new one with every book I buy :-)

Isn't one D10 enough for all Lone Wolf's if you dislike the random number table (as most do?). Even if you lose a D10 all the time, that seems excessive. After all, they aren't like those gamebooks with the plastic cases and pieces of plastic where the die has to be different for each one (Famous 5, Football, Stephen Thraves, Asterix etc.).

[terrysalt]

I never got all that into Lone Wolf as a series but I use random.org any time I need random numbers or die rolls. So unless I was playing on an app that provided its own random number generation, that's what I'd use. Were I playing them back in the 80's or 90's before I had easy internet access, I'd just have used the table in the book (and hated it) since I didn't own any 10-sided dice back then.

[aggsol]

Apr 9, 2022 9:15:12 GMT CharlesX said:

Apr 9, 2022 9:07:17 GMT aggsol said:

I bought a d10 the moment I saw the random table in Lonwe Wolf. I also tend to buy a new one with every book I buy :-)

Isn't one D10 enough for all Lone Wolf's if you dislike the random number table (as most do?). Even if you lose a D10 all the time, that seems excessive. After all, they aren't like those gamebooks with the plastic cases and pieces of plastic where the die has to be different for each one (Famous 5, Football, Stephen Thraves, Asterix etc.).

I like buying dice :-) If often buy matching colors for the theme/location of the book. I also often buy new dice for Fighting Fantasy books with an individual pair for me and the enemies. Gamebooks are a table top RPG experience/replacement for me...