"Dice - An interesting insight to what we take for granted! " Topic

There are times you discover something by accident that just fills in gaps in your knowledge.

I came across some videos, by a dice maker, from 2008 that explain some of the issues of dice making. The reasons why some dice just appear to be better rollers than others.

Well worth a watch.. ; 28mmheaven.blogspot.com

Been posted I am sure here before. But if you haven't seen them, take a few minutes.

I never reliased quite how much material was removed from dice in the making and how inaccurate it could potentially make them.

Yes saw those a few years ago. Lou was/is a master of the craft of making dice. Thanks for bringing them back up.

You should have cross posted to the dice board as well. Most do not know there are differences between cheap dice and the real thing.

VR
James Mattes

That was real informative.

I wonder how much it would cost to have polyhedral dice machined to 1/10000th of an inch by the manufacturers of casino dice?

It would be interesting to find out wouldnt it?

That bring to mind one occasion I overheard at a game table when one player complained that his opponent was using rounded edge dice. Saying rounded edge dice rolled low numbers more often.

Later he complained that the opponent was again using rounded edge dice and that they rolled high number more often. The opponent replied that it must be the case that rounded edge dice rolled ALL numbers more often.

There are a lot of fun things involving dice. The one that brings a smile to my face is "Natural Selection". Say you play a game that needs you to roll a 20 or punish you for a 1. You, in frustration throw away dice that feel like they roll 1's too often. And then 'reward' dice to roll 20's at all the right times. After a couple of years, you end up with a dice bag full of loaded dice.

Adub, you are probably right. Though I have a bag of dice, that contains lots of dice, I hardly use. I don't know where they all came from and i defintely have more than I need.

All the said, i do have a few i use regularly, and I am now inclined to get a new set, with precision edges, just to see. I have an excuse afterall. My current dice could all be biased ;)

Seriously though I do have a couple of die, that even with the naked eye you can tell are not fully circular as such. They are egg shaped. I should probably get rid, but somehow, disposing of dice just feels wrong!

I have several sleeves of Gamescience dice from the mid-80s. I always noticed the blemish and it is neat to finally find out why they are there!

I prize those dice for their strength and lightness. Because of their precisely angled corners I feel that they don't roll as much, making them ideal for either tight spaces or crowded game surfaces.

[EDIT--I didn't even watch the second one prior to posting and I guess it isn't my feeling alone]

Thanks for bringing those videos to my attention.

You can now buy "gaming dice" from manufactures that machine to the same standards as casinos. Check Thinkgeek dot com. I think they go for something like $29.99 USD

link

Well, we've games with "perfects" or casino dice from my grandfather's casino which he owned in the 30's, 40's and 50's, and they do roll different than regular "dice" that you purchase now. They came packaged in silver foil pouches and were stamped "Guaranteed to within 1/10,000 of an inch" on the packaging. They weren't stamped with any casino logo or any other markings, they are just cubes which are red squares with white dots which are painted on to the faces of the dice. We have several sets of those, together with several sets of marked "Mint Casino" dice which were also used at the craps tables. When they outlawed gambling in Montana, the casnio shut down and everything "disappeared" over night before the tax man could seize the machines and paraphernalia.

I just can't get excited about precision dice. They still roll! You still get a random number.

i meet lou at origins 1986. he had a big jug filled with his dice and for, if i recall, $5 USD, you could stick your hand in and grab a handfull of dice. the "trick" of it was, th ewhole cut in the top was only so big. so it was easy to put your hand n there, but with a fist full of dice, you'd have to let a bunch go!
great guy!

You, in frustration throw away dice that feel like they roll 1's too often. And then 'reward' dice to roll 20's at all the right times. After a couple of years, you end up with a dice bag full of loaded dice.

This is why I prefer rules which in some situations want you to roll 1 instead of 6 (or 20).

"some situations want you to roll 1 instead of 6"

That's one of the general solutions to the problem. But… you end up with the 'hard to use' argument. Which there is some truth to if you consider making a hundred dice rolls per game.

The other solution is to have a pool of dice that both players can use. But some people get funny about their dice. They have special ones that no one is allowed to use. They claim it as superstition but I bet it's that they know in the back of their mind that they're loaded but don't want to admit it.

But what can be especially frustrating if a game that comes with dice have one or two that appear to be a bit off. I had a copy of History of the World that had one that could really throw the game off; like Rome not conquering more that a territory or two.

"You still get a random number."

But not an equally distributed random number. If you have a spare d20, try filing the edge of 20 face just enough to take off the bottom of 2 and 0. Try playing D&D with and impress you're friends with how strong your PC is. Don't have any mathematical evidence but I'd bet it adds a +1 to everything you do.

I have dice which acquired a bit of a reputation for rolling low (or high) at the wrong moments – in fact at least one went out of the first floor window of our GW gaming club (I retrieved it). It wasn't me who tossed it IIRC it was the GM!

Patrick.. lol I think you missed the point.. they may both roll, but one type is more random than another.

Very informative. Every single die owned by our club is going to be carefully inspected within the week!

By far, my brother's favorite memory of D&D in the '70s was watching our friend Trevor make percental rolls. This was back when low-impact dice were all you had, and the 20-siders were chipped to where they were practically round balls.

Trevor would drop them on the 3-ring binder on his lap and then, by carefully adjusting his knees, continue to roll them back and forth and around the flat surface of the notebook until he got a number he wanted.

It really was a thing of beauty, fairness and probability be damned.

Jape77, your friends habbit is probably recognised a world over amoungst table toppers. Though high impact dice were around when I started. I still have my first ever poly dice set. Well most of it.lol

A friend still have his original D20, from his D&D first ed set. Its now more ball, than D20 shaped.

A good and familiar topic.

Suggestions:
* Both sides use same dice
* Rules should be designed to spread the best roles, say using both '1' and '6' as a good result
* More sides are better, I never truly trust a traditional D6 cube

But can they be affected by psychic emanation and will-power?

Not sure, but I know they can be effected by sticky pizza cheese oil covered fingers. Or coke spills on the rolling surface!

Or sneaky players with tipping notepads..

billthecat, when I play Risk I always call on the power of my ju-ju to guide the dice for me. I've held a country with one army for several turns against a huge enemy onslaught, so it works (sometimes).

I just can't get excited about precision dice. They still roll! You still get a random number.

How random is it when you can demonstrably manipulate the number distributions?

A friend of mine was the local Clicky-tech sponsor, and he would occasionally tell the story of how bad the dice were in the starter sets. Nobody liked the dice in the starters, so they would always toss them. At a large tournament, one guy just put a box together of all the starter dice that people were tossing. He then rolled those dice and sorted them by typical result. Over the course of a couple hours, it got to the point that he could grab 3 dice, call "3" and roll blinky the three-eyed fish. Or grab another set of dice, call '18' and roll a freight train.

After that demonstration, the starter-box dice were banned in tournaments.

There is a medieval story about a saint (I don't remember his name I have it in some book) who went to an inn and met a man there and agreed to play dice.

The man was the Devil (himself!).

The Devil rolled first, and got a 6. Obviously the saint could not roll higher with a single die.

The saint rolled the die, the die hit the wooden table (in medieval times dice were made of bone), and broke in two parts. One of these parts showed a 2, the other a 5, so the saint had rolled 7 with a single die and he won.

Was it cheating? Anyway he was a saint and it was against the Devil.

I am kinda on PatrickWR side here.

Lou, after all, was a salesman. He was trying to get you to buy his dice.

Now, I understand the physics behind what he is getting at, but I really am having a hard time 'buying into it'.

Its kinda like the car salesman upselling me on the Corinthinan leather.

My two pence.

Me? I love my Dwarven Metal dice. Do they roll high or low? Not that I have noticed. They seem to roll all over the place. Randomly, you might say… And let me tell you, these are NOT 'precision' dice from Lou.

Granted he was a sale man trying to sell his products. But I have to say, I see the full logic of his arguments and from personal experience; I have some dice I know tend to roll either high or low. I knew this, way before finding these videos, but couldn't really work out why. I put it down to the plastic having a greater density in one portion of the dice. But having inspected a couple of my D20s in particular, I can see the same production issues he raised in the video.

As I have a set of casino dice, a friend bought for me in vagas on a holiday trip, ignoring the edges, the one thing you do note straight away, is the faces are perfectly flat. Looking at my cheap Chessex D6, that come in 36?? or so in a clear box, the faces are often dished or proud and they don't stack neatly at all.

The other advantage I never realised with sharp edges, is the dice don't roll as far across the table, before stopping. Given the number of dice that tend to wind up "running" off the table, in games. I am thinking this is another plus.. :)

I've got an old Karrimor 40 liter backpack full to bursting with dice I've collected over the years. I prefer round edged dice, so I'm not going to let this little revelation bother me…..much. I've got examples of both old and new Gamescience dice in there. They certainly are nice to handle.

I got curious eons ago about dice dimensions, and subjected a bunch to both Vernier and Micrometer measurement. After that, I decided, I really didn't want to know……

Duck

"Do they roll high or low? Not that I have noticed. They seem to roll all over the place. Randomly, you might say…"

Non precision dice aren't always loaded or loaded in a meaningful way. If for example, a d20 rolls more 9s than 11s then it doesn't really matter a whole lot. It's just a select few are really bad.

I bought 10 a year ago and handed them out to my D&D buddies. Bought them entertainment in a Myth Busters sort of way. Most of them still use theirs today.

I always thought I was a lucky die roller. Now I realize I've been using crooked dice.

How about bigger dice, I have a few sets of those HUGE dice. I wonder if those edges would have less impact on randomization then the smaller dice.

If everyone uses the same dice, it doesn't really matter.

Play a game and make up two sets of identical dice (identical in terms of how many d6 or whatever numbers you need etc).

The ask your opponent to pick one of the sets to use.

That way, no fiddling, no "oooh these are my 'lucky ' dice" rubbish.

And – if the heart ache of not using the special lime green ones is too much to bare, swap at the end of every turn or something.

Then no one has an unfair advantage.

But the point about sharp cornered dice not rolling as far and flying off the table is a good one.

John T

Not quite Jon,
Dice games rely upon an average distribution to ensure that there is balance and fairness.

Dice that have been rock tumbled and polished multiple times will always have a biase one way or the other. That means, in your example.

One set of dice could average high, one set could average low on rolls. So having two sets does not make it fair.

I watched a game FCW at the club last night and watched more 1s being rolled by one set of blue chessex dice than I have ever seen before, infact in any roll where 3d or more dice were used, in the ten minutes I watched, the one set of dice always produced at least one die showing a 1. I even threw a few from the set a couple of times.

Roleplayers tend to notice it more, as they roll more single die in their games. And us wargamers tend to notice it less as we throw more dice on the whole.

I have a set of dice from Lou that are 20+ years old. They where imported with a game from the US but as they are d20 they have not been used for a few years though I do know they where heavily used during my D&D days.

Looking at the edges they are still sharp!