"The D30" Topic

Back in the late 90s, the wargaming magazines were excited about "…that wonder of random number generators, the thirty sided dice…"

Why didn't the D30 catch on with miniature wargamers?

Because it's not needed?

I got one, used it to generate birthdays for D&D characters. Never found another use.

Agreed. Got one as a browsing buy, never did find a use for it.

The d20 goes up in 5% increments.
The d30 goes up in 3 1/3 % increments, with a little left over.

No one has figured out how to determine if it's a hit or miss with a little left over.

Supposedly it gives game designers more flexibility, right?

I thought D30's where an Urban Legend, I've never seen one. If you keep adding sides to a dice at what point does it become a ball?

Twilight Samurai – around a D100.

I have a d30 that I bought a very long time ago. I don't believe that I've ever used it for anything.

Because it wasn't a d60.

Several cultures started with a sexagesimal number system. It's the lowest base that is evenly divisible by one, two, three, four, and five which is fairly useful (also 6, 10, 12, 15, 30, and 60 – other than 10 for 10 fingers, the rest are not as interesting).

A d30 doesn't have evenly divisible groups of four.

I had one but it's gone missing, favorite use for it was save vs pregnancy for players who decided on employing the seduction skill. "Your fertile 7 days a month roll this."

Robert

Very useful for determining the day of the month, if desired – not perfect, but it works for many/most of them, on average.

I use a D30 for working out which figure is hit in my 30 man Zulu units!

I have both a D30 and D100 (actual 100 sided die). They are novelties- nothing more.

I have a d100 and rolled it once. Still rolling to this day.

Well, all the reasons given are good, and boil down to "not especially useful and rolls perhaps too well." But I think really it's the absence of an otherwise very attractive game which requires a D30. Without that, we don't buy, stores don't stock, and designers know requiring one makes their game unplayable. There's a reason GW sticks to D6's.

Personally, I think we've already got one type too many. You can't do anything with a D4 you can't do with a D8, and a D8 actually rolls and can be read easily.

The D100 was very close to rolling a golf ball.

You can't do anything with a D4 you can't do with a D8, and a D8 actually rolls and can be read easily.

I have some d8 marked 1-4 black and 1-4 red. I used it to serve as a d4 and d2.

So … d60 = d2, d3, d4, d5, d6, d10, d12, d15, d20, d30, and d60! :)

The D100 was very close to rolling a golf ball.

If that works anything like me putting, the d100 can't go more than 3-5 cm at a time.

Now … where's my d7 and my d23?

etotheipi, it's been obvious for years that we keep dice in bondage. They get even with us by going wrong side up on critical casts, and every time we roll a bunch of dice at least one of them makes a break for it.

Picture a YouTube video of rolling 12 D6's in a game of Lion Rampant. Three of them are cocked, three leap off the table and one of those three tries to hide behind a bookcase. The music is the theme from "The Great Escape."

My reaction was "Isn't that cute?"
That's it. Saw no reason for it.

And I forgot the three who hide under terrain features--woods and bridges normally. That's D6's. Roll a dozen D30's, and you'll never catch them all.

Great Scott!

I have at least FOUR of them--in different colors, no less.

AND the D-100 originally produced, if I recall, by Lou Zocchi games.

I also used them for random dates in a month, but now they lay in hard bondage with the couple of hundred other dice I have stored in a pair of Crown Royal bags (subdivided by type in ziplock bags).

Please remember to spell my name "Oh-See-Dee."

TVAG

If you want a d30 result, roll a d20. If you roll a 20, roll it again. On 1-10, add the result to 20 for a result of 21-30. Otherwise, the result is 20. I'm sure that's not the same level of probability, but it's close enough for any reason you might need a 21-30 result. As I never had such a need, I never even looked for a d30, though I knew they existed.

If you want a d20, roll a d3 and a d10. Just like a pair of d10 for percentile.

If you want days in a month, write a little random number program. Otherwise, roll your d100 for leap years, then a d12, then either your d30, d31, d28, or d29. Unless you're rolling on one of the different calendars, then modify as appropriate.

Mine don't get used as often as the D16s or D24s

Never used one.

I've got one, but I've never used in a game. If I were playing a game requiring one, I'd probably do as etitheipi says and use a d3 and a d10.

I've seen a couple RPG rules that called for their use, but I haven't played thm.

I have used the 30-sided die in Formula Dé, but that's not a d30 in the sense of a die numbered 1-30.

If you play MERP or use that game's critical hit and fumble tables for D&D, you'll notice the results go up to 120. So you can use a d4 and a d30 to get the desired results.

I had one. It was too big and horrible to roll. I think when it came out someone made tables to use the d30. Not sure who (maybe the Armory)?

Sort of a solution looking for a problem.

You can make a type of 'Average' D10 with a blank D30 numbered:

1
22
333
4444
55555
66666
7777
888
99
0

Or you could roll 3d10 and discard the high and low. Different distribution, but the same concept.

Minimum of two (or three), Maximum of two (or three) and Median of three are good concepts to use "regular" dice to represent useful distributions. Roll 2 (or 3) and choose is also an interesting performance space.

Indeed, a simple and rather under-used mechanism.