You did it. You created the perfect character for your playing style, and she’s exactly the type of character you want to play. From attributes to attitude, she’s the perfect incarnation of a character you’ve been dreaming of playing. You bring your new pride and joy to the table, sit down, let the GM have a look at her, and even the GM is impressed. The game starts to unfold; everyone is leaving the shackles of the real world behind them while they get into character for the game session.
Then it’s your turn. It’s your character’s time to shine. The GM practically crafted this situation specifically for you so everyone understands exactly why your character was made and why you wanted to play her. You state your action, everyone is impressed, and you have a huge smile on your face as you pick up your dice and drop them on the table.
Fail. Your dice have betrayed you. The chance of failure was so slim, that it didn’t even enter your mind; you were rolling to see how much you succeeded by. Well, that was disheartening…
…but it doesn’t stop there. Your dice are cold. Every time you need to use your character, every time she needs to be relied on, the dice let you down. It’s not just skill checks. They’re failing you on damage, on healing results, and on every other imaginable level.
You have three choices. You can switch to another set of dice and hope that helps (sometimes the curse of cold dice seems to travel from one set to another), you can keep rolling and think that either the dice will straighten out, or you can change your playing style, if only until your dice are back to rolling at least average.
Changing your role playing style for the character might seem a little meta or OP or whatever you wish to call it. After all, your character has certain attitudes, skills, and gear. But, your character can still have bad days, and changing tactics and approaches shouldn’t be too out of character unless you start switching attitudes and alignments. After all, even a handyman might take a different approach to a project if they screw up using power tools and are having an off day.
Don’t get discouraged! Change things up just enough to keep in character given the results you’ve already gotten, and wait until your dice are rolling better to try the crazy stuff that your character is designed to do!