"Are Your Dice Balanced?" Topic

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I hope not, or I will have spent hundreds of dollars for nothing.

I want the opaque chessix die!

Dice bias only really slews the results a few points after 10,000 according to the math. Do you think you will roll you dice 10,000 times?

The problem isn't "balance". The problem is that the rounded-edged pre-inked dice are made by casting sharp-edged dice, dropping them in paint, letting them dry, then tossing them in a rock tumbler with an abrasive powder and running it until all the excess paint is removed. There is no way this can polish all sides equally. I have seen dice for sale with some faces obviously smaller than others, and even with faces almost missing.

Gamescience dice--no question there.

For conventions I use poker dice, easy to see and nice weight in the hand as well as no bias.

For the club I have a bucket load of game science dice.

I have a couple of casino dice – they're very good.
Unfortunately, Vegas is a bit D6-oriented.
Despite 'Caesar's Palace' sounding like the title of a 2nd Ed. Module, you cant get a set of polyhedrals there!

No they're not. I can never get one to stand on one corner, they always fall flat onto one of the faces.

I can demonstrate a significant bias effect from dice in just 30 rolls. I did that last year and created a kernel density estimate of the results. Interestingly, the number with the highest bias was 5. One was the lowest. I did several trials.

The video is interesting and shows that density bias can have a major impact as well.

Dice bias bah! The mere act of rolling them overwhelms any bias based on the dice themselves – barring purpose made cheating dice or ones so badly warped you can see it (like some old D&D dice I still own)

Dice bias only really slews the results a few points after 10,000 according to the math.

That's the difference between probability as a paper math exercise and probability as an actual physics exercise. :)

Are my dice balanced? You bet they are! They ALL roll equally bad when I need them to roll the opposite numbers!

Hahah +1 Tom

Don't care really.

My dice are gaming dice to play a wargame. No money is involved, so I don't see the need to have casino-type dice.

Sure, perhaps a few dice roll some number more frequently than another number. But from a large pool of dice, these slight biases cancel each other out over the course of a game. It's not as if all my dice suddenly start rolling 6's more often than 1's. One die might favour 6 a bit more, another the 3, yet another the 1. I don't know what dice in my pool do that (if they do) and frankly, I don't want to know.

The only thing I do is buy new sets of dice now and then, but that's mostly for fun and esthetic reasons rather than any worries about dice balance.

Since the people I game with (when I can find the time) play "table dice" it doesn't matter – the off dice will end being rolled by everyone.

Interesting video, however there are many other external forces at work when rolling dice in a game. One of our club members almost had a ruler thrust through his hand for his habit of "dropping" his dice. A good choice for an equalizer is a dice tower. Drop'em in the top and they all tumble out the bottom. Multiple dice thrown together removes any bias of an individual die. Also when both sides use the same collection of dice (a recommended rule for any game) any plus or minus will be applied equally. When throwing a single die, select it from a group on the table and don't allow a player to keep his "lucky" die. Sacrifice a goat before the game instead, works for me!

"Dice bias only really slews the results a few points after 10,000 according to the math."

If your dice are really biased then it will show up before then. I tried it with some GW dice (as I had been told that GW dice were biased). Threw the GW dice a thousand times (whilst watching a film). Tabulated the result and 1's were coming up about twice as often as one would expect.

I go with Gamescience dice as good dice for gamers.

No they're not. I can never get one to stand on one corner, they always fall flat onto one of the faces.

Really! I have seen four dice end a roll on a point; sorry you have not seen that.

Are my dice balanced? Nope. They are ruddy psychotic.