Forums » Help » Is there a way to see dice results without posting

Can you roll dice, then see what you got without submitting the post? If not, why?

There isn't a way, I'm afraid! You have to make the actual post.

I have a whole bunch of theories on why you can't get a dice result without requiring to post, but those are my views, so Kim might have other reasons.

The way programming on RPR works, you will have to click a button and refresh the page to see a dice roll occur to begin with - that means the result will have to be stored and displayed either way you wring it, so the most logical place is for them to go where they are used the most, which would be (roleplaying) posts.

I also don't really know what benefit there would be in a temporary dice roll that will be displayed once but never again and only to one person, when the primary dice usage on the site occurs between two or more people. In most cases the results need to be stored and attached to a specific post in order to make sense and be reliable. (We can't edit, remove or add rolls to existing posts for reliability reasons for example.) Having temporary dice rolls that aren't attached to posts could probably be considered a feature of its own, coding wise, but how does that benefit the community and roleplaying in general?

If you need a dice roll for personal/non-RP decisions, you can PM yourself (maybe even make a folder and place that thread in that folder for easy reference later) and post as many rolls as needed. Alternatively, there are applications on the web coded specifically for off-site usage where dice rolls aren't tied to a site.

I'm curious, why would this be necessary for you?

Because dice are commonly used as a way to make things fair in large groups of players and to eliminate cheating. If you could see what you would roll without posting, you could just abandon the post you were about to make and try again with a new roll, effectively eliminating all of the fairness benefits of dice.

As it stands, if you make a post with a die roll in it, all players involved have the confidence of knowing that

• You didn't get to preview a bunch of rolls and then pick the one you wanted; you got what you got
• The roll occurred on our server, so there was no way it could have been manipulated in your browser before sending (such as by opening the developer tools and editing the values of a hidden field)
• The post cannot be deleted, so you definitely didn't roll, delete, then repost in hopes of a better roll
• No amount of editing your post can alter the actual dice roll in any way.

If you're using dice for randomness, not fairness, and don't need anyone else to verify the results of your roll, you may want to consider one of the many random number generators out there such as https://www.random.org/dice/

Or, you could use actual dice. They're pretty.

Oh I know it wouldn't be fair if I could roll again. It would be useful if you could click the preview button and see the result, and then write your post accordingly. I had to make two posts, one before the dice and one after. It just seems clunky to me.

I'm not asking to be able to roll the dice again, just see it before the post is finished.

If you could see it before the post was finished, you could choose not to make the post, or start a new post to try and get a better roll.

Typically, the way this is done is to roll, then edit that post to add any post-roll details.

Okay. I don't seem to be able to do that in groups though...

What can't you do in groups? Roll a die or edit your posts? Both options should be in the same places as on the public forums.

Edit posts after rolling a die. The edit button wasn't there, or maybe I just wasn't looking hard enough.

If you go back and it's still not there, please submit a bug report with details. It will be along the top of the post.

I know it's there now, I saw it. But if it happens again I will.

Hurrah! Glad you found it.