Sunday, September 05, 2010

I think I've played with this guy

Hoggeston (HOG-us-tn) n. The action of overshaking a pair of dice in a cup in the mistaken belief that this will effect the eventual outcome in your favor and not irritate everyone else.
Found in The Deeper Meaning of Liff, a delightful dictionary by Douglas Adams and John Loyd.

6 comments:

  1. Yup. They form from the ether around Yahtzee games and similar such environments. < grin >

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  2. Anonymous2:57 PM

    One of my D&D buddies used to do this, although it was in his hands not a dice cup. It was still annoying, and I would often yell "roll it!" at him when he took too long.

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  3. It's possible to overshake now???

    On the other hand, please don't tell me I'm alone in getting slightly peeved off when a player habitually just picks the dice 2mm of the table and languidly drops it so it seems to roll just a single face over!

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  4. Anonymous3:51 PM

    "Queeg-ing" the dice is fine, but hesitating to roll is just prolonging the inevitable.

    My cure for this was to count to six. If they didn't roll complete rattlin' & rollin', then I would say, "as you hesitate, the (insert creature/horde/etc) makes use of your inaction and strikes again!"

    As for "drop-rollers", I would counter by doing the same with my most loyal 20-sider. It never failed me. One time saying, "I just rolled as you did, right?" woiuld usually get the rest of the group on my side and convince the offendor the error of their ways.

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  5. One of the players in my current group is like this. He has Asperger's Syndrome and he's awesome. He can't decide on what spell he should cast ever, he can't remember which dice to roll every time it's his turn, can't remember which dice is which, and then spends at least one full minute shaking that dice. I bought a little minute hourglass to time him, if the sand runs down before he's done rolling, his turn is over.

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  6. I have that book. Love it.

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