As the moon slips behind a patch of clouds, the Sprite thief prepares his ascent. He probes the stonework and estimates the distance from the ground to the tower's window. A huge treasure waits just thirty short feet away and the Sprite's eyes sparkle with greed at the thought of the loot.

"All right, Scott, your Character must make three successful Climbing rolls to reach the window. The surface is ordinary stone so there are no modifiers to your roll," I say to Scott as he peruses his notes. "Make your rolls, but remember, if you fail you will fall and take damage."

Scott glances at his Character sheet and examines his Character's 51% chance of success in the Climbing skill. For a moment he contemplates his Character's action. "Come on", the other Players prod insistently. "You can do it. And think of the money we'll get." Scott picks up his trusty percentile dice. He shakes them gently in his hand. Glancing up at me for advice, I only stare back blankly in my unbiased role.

44. The first roll is successful and the Characters break out into shouts of glee. "Two thousand gold coins divided by five.", Loraine smiles, "We're going to be rich". "I'm gonna buy some Chain Mail for my Berserker war machine", Mike laughs. "Yeah", beams Paul, "I can't wait to get that kick-butt spell component. Then watch my Elementalist dish out some damage."

22. Again the yellow and blue dice display dual numbers. Again the attempt is successful. I smile and pick up the calculator so I can divide the loot. Meanwhile the Characters are eagerly looking over the supply charts. "I want about a dozen healing roots.", someone laughs. "Put me down for a dozen too. Oh, and don't forget the armor repair kits for my Chain Mail."

After marking his two successful rolls, Scott picks up the percentile dice. He looks around at his friends for support, but their attentions are buried in their supply lists and charts. A bead of sweat drips down his brow. His hand shakes as he tosses the colored dice. They spin for a moment and stop: 52.

"Sorry man. The Sprite's hands slip on a loose stone and he falls backward flailing. You're Character takes 7 points of actual damage." Mike, Paul, and Loraine groan as they start to erase their goodies. "Dumb Sprite", someone hisses. "You should have been a Dwarf named Clumsy", another one says in disgust.

"But why?", Scott questions with a smile. "That was a 25. I was successful. You know Mark, the "tens" dice is always blue." Suddenly the Player's eyes turn toward me in anticipation.

As a Referee, I have encountered this quite often. In fact, I have met many Players with some strange dice-rolling quirks. For instance, some people don't count the roll if it falls off the their notebook. Others will roll their attack over again if the die bumps into a pencil, bag, or soda can. I have even seen people argue over a die roll that fell out of the Player's "personal rolling area". I don't have a problem with these idiosyncrasies providing they hold true whether the person rolls a "1" or a "20" on their attack die. I must admit the people in my group are mostly fair (I say mostly only because I have never been able to catch them cheating), and so, I allowed Scott's thief to climb in the window and get the treasure. But I made a note of his dice rolling and I am waiting until that fateful day when he says "But the tens die is always yellow!". After all, what's fair is fair.

Written by Mark Kibbe of Basement Games, Co-Creator of the Forge: Out of Chaos RPG and World of Juravia, http://www.basementgames.com