Scratch:Twenty-Sided Die Alternatives

These are alternative ways to generate a random number from 1 to 20, with a similar chance of rolling any number in that range. You can use one of these alternatives instead of rolling a twenty-sided die.

Six-Sided Dice

Roll a six-sided die once to choose the row and once more to choose the column. If your first roll is 2 and your second roll is 6, then you would use the number in the second row and third column, which is 13.

	1	2	3	4	5	6
1	1	2	3	9	5	11
2	2	4	6	8	10	13
3	3	6	7	12	15	18
4	9	8	12	14	20	16
5	5	10	15	20	17	19
6	11	13	18	16	19	1

If you have two six-sided dice, you can roll both of them at the same time, using either die for the row and the other die for the column. The order does not matter. For example, if you roll a 3 and a 5, the number in the third row and fifth column is 15, and so is the number in the fifth row and third column.

A quicker but less precise way to use a six-sided dice is to multiply a single six-sided die roll by 4. Always count six as a zero. If a character rolls 5 (4 × 5 = 20,) he makes a second roll to see whether he is automatically successful. He is only automatically successful if the second roll is 5 (20) or 6 (0.)

A third way to use six-sided dice is to roll two dice, add the results together, counting sixes as zeroes, and double the total. This method is a little bit more precise than the single die method, but it is harder to roll an automatic success (two fives.)

Cards

Assemble a special deck of 40 cards with four suits such as hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs or red, yellow, green and blue. The deck should contain one card of each numbered rank: 1 (ace), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (or 0 which counts as 10.) You can make this special deck from a standard deck of playing cards by removing the face cards and other special cards.

At the beginning of the game, shuffle the deck and place it face-down on the table. This is the stock. Whenever someone needs to roll a twenty-sided die, draw a card from the stock. If the suit of the card is spades, clubs, green or blue, the value of the card is your fake die roll. If the suit is diamonds, hearts, red or yellow, your fake die roll is 10 plus the value of the card. Place the card face up in the discard pile.

	clubs	spades	hearts	diamonds	blue	green	yellow	red
1 (ace)	1	1	11	11	1	1	11	11
2	2	2	12	12	2	2	12	12
3	3	3	13	13	3	3	13	13
4	4	4	14	14	4	4	14	14
5	5	5	15	15	5	5	15	15
6	6	6	16	16	6	6	16	16
7	7	7	17	17	7	7	17	17
8	8	8	18	18	8	8	18	18
9	9	9	19	19	9	9	19	19
10 (or 0)	10	10	20	20	10	10	20	20

You must recombine and shuffle the deck, placing it face-down as the new stock, whenever the discard pile is as big as the stock or contains a card that counts as a fake die roll of 20, such as a 10 of diamonds or a yellow 0.