Tool: Gaming set - Dice. What ability?

[Vintrastorm]

As the topic says. What ability would you use for Gaming set: dice?
Int? Cha? Other?

[Cybren]

As the topic says. What ability would you use for Gaming set: dice?
Int? Cha? Other?
Generally I'd lean towards int, but bluffing games might be cha.

[Cambrian]

Games without skill should just be a random roll.

If there is skill pick the highest applicable attribute.

Chess would be only Int (planning)
Snap would be Dex or Wis (perception or reflexes)
Poker would be Cha or Wis (bluffing or reading people)
etc...

[squashmaster]

Dice? Dex. Or just the prof bonus with no ability mod.

Although, ****, you've got d6s right there, play that game out right there for real.

[Ghost Nappa]

Although, ****, you've got d6s right there, play that game out right there for real.

The only other possible thing I can add is that maybe people who are proficient could add the proficiency bonus to it.

This gets into some problems at high levels (1d6+6 vs. 1d6) but you're really better off just rolling the dice for...rolling the dice.

[Galen]

"Win a game of skill" is listed as an intelligence check (PHB pg 178)

[Shadow]

"Win a game of skill" is listed as an intelligence check (PHB pg 178)

Which part of tossing dice requires any skill?

As for proficiency in a gaming set, personally I think it should vary depending on the set.
Do you need proficiency to roll dice? No. But you might need profciency with a set of weighted dice.
Dice are completely and absolutely a game of luck with zero skill involved. Just simply tossing dice wouldn't get any bonus in my mind. But tossing weighted dice absolutely would. So proficiency in dice mean you can use a weighted set of dice (and possibly spot when one is being used against you).
The check for that would either be Dex (for tossing deftly and getting the dice to land the way that you want) or Cha (for covering up the fact that you just did that).

[Grey Watcher]

Which part of tossing dice requires any skill?

The dice roll may be random (in a properly weighted set), but presumably your ability and proficiency come in when deciding what to do about it: such as how much to bet or many dice to roll this turn, etc. After all, picking up, holding, and putting down cards doesn't require any significant skill, but it takes great skill to make good decisions based on what cards are available.

[Slipperychicken]

The dice roll may be random (in a properly weighted set), but presumably your ability and proficiency come in when deciding what to do about it: such as how much to bet or many dice to roll this turn, etc. After all, picking up, holding, and putting down cards doesn't require any significant skill, but it takes great skill to make good decisions based on what cards are available.

It absolutely does. I'm learning about this stuff right now in a decision-analytics class.


Basically, if you can figure out the probability distributions in a game, you can figure out optimal strategies (like card-counting), subtly stack games in your favor (i.e. challenging the less well-learned players to "heads I win, tails you lose" scenarios), and fleece it for potentially enormous sums of money. It also helps you decide when to get out or keep going. If you don't understand the statistics or have ways to cheat the system (i.e. "hurr durr just roll the dice, 'cuz I have my lucky charms on me"), then gambling is a horrible idea which can take the shirt off your back. On the other hand, if you do know what you're doing, there are great profits to be made.

There's a reason why there are all these stories about math majors walking out of college, beating casinos, and getting filthy rich. Professional gamblers don't win by getting lucky; they sit back, place small bets while observing the probability distributions of each game, use statistical analysis, and then play when the odds are in their favor. They also cheat sometimes, but that's a different story. Still Int-based, though.

[Cambrian]

The dice roll may be random (in a properly weighted set), but presumably your ability and proficiency come in when deciding what to do about it: such as how much to bet or many dice to roll this turn, etc. After all, picking up, holding, and putting down cards doesn't require any significant skill, but it takes great skill to make good decisions based on what cards are available.I'm not familiar with the game "dice", but choosing how much to bet and the like only matters assuming there is information. If the game is like slot machines or snakes and ladders then there is no skill check because there is no skill.

As an side thought: A DM could reasonably allow sleight of hand to substitute for a gaming set skill check. With dice it could be to cheat the roll, with cards to conceal one or stack the deck, etc... obviously failing with it is a lot more risky.

[Shadow]

The above examples all apply very well to practically any card game.
Dice are another matter completely.
Dice rolls are random, and there isn't any "information" to process in your decision making. You can play fairly and leave it to chance, or you can cheat.
There are no games played with dice that I know of which can be classified as games of skill. If you know of one, I'd be intrigued to learn it. They are by definition games of chance rather than skill.

[Cambrian]

Liar's Dice is one.
Yahtzee has room for skill, but also a paper component.

[Shadow]

Liar's Dice is one.
Yahtzee has room for skill, but also a paper component.


Yatzee is not a skill game. Yatzee is a game of chance that has many options. I'll grant you that in the earlier stages of the game choosing which set to roll towards has a tiny little bit of decision making involved, but it's very minor. As the game wears on it becomes even more about chance and less about decision making, which solidifies that it is indeed a game of chance rather than skill.

Liar's Dice isn't a dice game. It's a game about lying. The dice are a secondary component which are only used to test the veracity of the claim. Most rolls are completely irrelevant as the dice are never even seen.
It isn't about the results of the dice rolled. It's about convincing your opponent that he shouldn't look at the dice.
Liar's Dice would be a Cha (deception) check rather than an Int (dice) check.
Liar's Dice is indeed a skill game, but I would argue that it is not, at its core, a dice game.
You can play just as well with the serial numbers on dollar bills.
The point is not to get the best roll. The point is to convince your opponent that you have it. The dice are the medium, not the point of the game.

If you can convince me that Int is a more important stat than Cha for Liar's Dice, then I'll grant that you've found a game of dice where skill is involved. If you can't do that, then you have to conceed that it doesn't fit this particular circumstance.

[Slipperychicken]

The above examples all apply very well to practically any card game.
Dice are another matter completely.
Dice rolls are random, and there isn't any "information" to process in your decision making. You can play fairly and leave it to chance, or you can cheat.
There are no games played with dice that I know of which can be classified as games of skill. If you know of one, I'd be intrigued to learn it. The are by definition games of chance rather than skill.

There is plenty of information, if you understand statistics. It can help you decide whether or not you should play a given game, and what games you can use to trick people (who don't understand stats as well as you do) into effectively giving you their money.


But yeah, here's some information which we have.

A fair die (d6, not loaded) has six outcomes, uniformly distributed (equal chance of happening in a single trial), outputting one of a set of integers numbered 1 through 6.
As the number of dice rolled increases, the more the probability distribution approximates normality. This means aggregate results will tend to cluster around the mean.
A die has a mean and expected value of 3.5. That means, over a large number of rolls, the sum of the rolls will tend to approximate the number of rolls times 3.5.
The chance of rolling a given number on all of a set of N d6s is =(1/6)^N.


Using this in combination with statistical methods and techniques, we can predict the probability of winning or losing a given dice game. This can let us both decide whether a given game is worth our time (and money), and also invent games and wagers to trick other people into betting against the odds, and thereby earning us money (bonus points if it looks to an uneducated observer like the odds are slightly in their favor). It can be easy to design games and wagers wherein the average result earns you more money than you lose over the long run, but doesn't seem obviously biased. It also helps if we can get our fellow players sufficiently inebriated that they will evaluate their chances of success even more poorly than normal.

[Cambrian]

The point is they're dice based games (only dice if you discount score keeping) and reward smart play. For both I'd give a bonus based off an attribute-- for liars dice I'd likely allow whichever mental stat the player wanted (cha for bluffing, wis for reading intent, int for weighing the odds).

In the end unless we know the game that is being played we should probably assume it rewards intelligence.

Dice themselves by definition can't be skill based without a ruleset-- they are by design nothing but a random number generator.

[Shadow]

Using this in combination with statistical methods and techniques, we can predict the probability of winning or losing a given dice game.

Except that you can't. Not at all.
Dice games aren't decided upon after one person has already rolled. If you're in, you ante up or place your bet. Then the dice are rolled and a result is seen.
So yeah, you can predict the probability of winning or losing, but only after your bet is placed, meaning all your stats are useless in determining what to do because you've already decided to do it before that information was available.

Even in Craps, which you get to see the intitial roll before deciding to place any extra/secondary bets, still amounts to a completely random game of chance in the end.

[Slipperychicken]

Except that you can't. Not at all.
Dice games aren't decided upon after one person has already rolled. If you're in, you ante up or place your bet. Then the dice are rolled and a result is seen.
So yeah, you can predict the probability of winning or losing, but only after your bet is placed, meaning all your stats are useless in determining what to do because you've already decided to do it before that information was available.


I wasn't clear before. When I say "a given dice game", I mean to refer partly to situations where you have decisions made during the game (where applicable), but mostly to the set of rules which determines your gains and losses from a game.

One way to determine it is to list each possible outcome of the game with its associated cash-flows (i.e. how much would I win or lose?), determine the probability of each outcome, and then set up a weighted average of all the cash-flows (i.e. sum of each cash flow multiplied by the probability associated with it), called an expected value. If this expected value is positive, then playing means you're likely to make money off it over the long run. If the expected value is negative, that means you're more likely to lose money over the long run. If the expected value is zero, then playing is more likely to not gain or lose you money over the long run.


EDIT: Yes, it might be a game of chance with randomized elements, but if you know the rules, you can evaluate your chances and make an informed decision about whether playing is worthwhile for you.

[Shadow]

EDIT: Yes, it might be a game of chance with randomized elements, but if you know the rules, you can evaluate your chances and make an informed decision about whether playing is worthwhile for you.

But it's dice. The chances are baically 50/50 no matter the rules, because as you said it's a game of chance with randomized events. Knowing the rules doesn't change that fact.

Dice games are not skill games, they're games of chance. No amount of statistical knowledge or intellect will change that.
The only skill involved, as declared by either you or anyone else that has attempted to ascribe skill to these games, has been a description of how being smart will help. Without exception, they have all been descriptions of how being decietful would help.

Int is not the appropriate stat for any dice game, because dice games are not games of skill. They are games of chance.
Cheating would involve Dex or Cha. But no dice game takes Int into account in any manner that will help you at all, because it's a game of chance.

[Cybren]

But it's dice. The chances are baically 50/50 no matter the rules, because as you said it's a game of chance with randomized events. Knowing the rules doesn't change that fact.

Dice games are not skill games, they're games of chance. No amount of statistical knowledge or intellect will change that.
The only skill involved, as declared by either you or anyone else that has attempted to ascribe skill to these games, has been a description of how being smart will help. Without exception, they have all been descriptions of how being decietful would help.

Int is not the appropriate stat for any dice game, because dice games are not games of skill. They are games of chance.
Cheating would involve Dex or Cha. But no dice game takes Int into account in any manner that will help you at all, because it's a game of chance.

http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2006-2007/Probability/Yahtzee.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon_opening_theory

[Shadow]

http://www.math.cornell.edu/~mec/2006-2007/Probability/Yahtzee.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backgammon_opening_theory

Once again:

Yatzee is not a skill game. Yatzee is a game of chance that has many options. I'll grant you that in the earlier stages of the game choosing which set to roll towards has a tiny little bit of decision making involved, but it's very minor. As the game wears on it becomes even more about chance and less about decision making, which solidifies that it is indeed a game of chance rather than skill

And Backgammon is a board game, not a dice game.
Similar to Liar's Dice, just because it uses dice doesn't mean that it's a dice game. Unless you want to just lump all board games in here, because basically almost all of them use dice.

[Cybren]

Once again:


And Backgammon is a board game, not a dice game.
Similar to Liar's Dice, just because it uses dice doesn't mean that it's a dice game. Unless you want to just lump all board games in here, because basically almost all of them use dice.

You're defining dice games as games that have no skill component.

[Shadow]

You're defining dice games as games that have no skill component.

And you're trying to call any game that uses dice in any way a dice game in order to prove me wrong for the sake of being right.
You have to take this in context.
No rogue/bard/whatever that takes proficiency in Gaming Set: Dice is doing it so he can play Yatzee like a champ. He's taking it to gamble so he can make money with it.
Yatzee is not an appropriate example to use because it will *never* be used to fleece people, and because it is still a game of chance with a slight and very minor strategic aspect at the very early game, which disappears completely as the game progresses, as I have already stated. It's still a game of chance rather than a game of skill.
Backgammon is not an appropriate example no matter how you look at it because it is not a dice game, it is a board game.

Edit:
And yes, I absolutely am defining dice games as games that have no skill component.

[Steel Mirror]

I would change the ability that is used based on how the player is saying he approaches the game.

If he tries to cheat or trick or otherwise give the dice a 'nudge' to help out his chances, I'd make it a dex check. If he lost by a lot or rolled a nat 1, there might be consequences...

If he tries to play the odds, bet aggressively when he has the edge and use math to figure out when his opponents are overextending themselves, I'd call for an Int based check.

If he tries to read other player' strategies and expressions and use that to determine when and how to bet, I'd call for a Wis check.

If he bluffs or tries to psyche out his opponents or generally tries to play the players instead of the game, I'd call for Cha.

I might even (only if this was part of a big enough bit of the game to make it worth while) have each strategy be a 'counter' to one of the others. I.e., if you try to play by the numbers, you can be beaten by someone who reads your emotions. If you play by reading emotions, someone who is getting through the game by bluffing and throwing out false emotions has the edge against you. If you are playing by bluffing, you can get beat by a cheater because you are too busy trying to mess with other people to see what is happening with the dice.

Dex>Int>Wis>Cha>Dex, and whoever is on the winning side of that inequality gets advantage when rolling against its matched set.

Or at least, that sounds like it could be a fun gambling encounter to me. :smallbiggrin: It might seem a bit unnecessarily complex if it's just a single throwaway roll as the party spends a night in a tavern, though.

EDIT: this of course assumes a dice game that has both skill components and luck components, and also involves some variable betting. Not because I think that all dice games are like this or something, but because I think those dice games are the most interesting to simulate, because it leads to the most interesting gambling scenes. Again, if all you want is to make a throwaway roll and move on, I'm sure you'll come up with a different way to handle it.

[MeeposFire]

Except that you can't. Not at all.
Dice games aren't decided upon after one person has already rolled. If you're in, you ante up or place your bet. Then the dice are rolled and a result is seen.
So yeah, you can predict the probability of winning or losing, but only after your bet is placed, meaning all your stats are useless in determining what to do because you've already decided to do it before that information was available.

Even in Craps, which you get to see the intitial roll before deciding to place any extra/secondary bets, still amounts to a completely random game of chance in the end.

Actually that is not strictly true. There are people that specialize in beating the odds in craps via how they roll the dice. There are people out there that can win disproportionally at craps due to how they throw the dice. IT is not absolute but the skill of the roller greatly influences your chances and that is with standard (non-rigged) dice. It is a dirty not so secret secret in the gambling world.

[Shadow]

Actually that is not true. There are people that specialize in beating the odds in craps via how they roll the dice. There are people out there that can win disproportionally at craps due to how they throw the dice. IT is not absolute but the skill of the roller greatly influences your chances and that is with standard (non-rigged) dice. It is a dirty not so secret secret in the gambling world.

Yes, it's about playing the odds properly and making the correct bets.
You know what that does? It minimizes the house advatage to within 0.1%. That basically makes it an even 50/50 shot.
Even if you play Don't Pass/Come and maximize your money on the table once the odds are in your favor, the odds bet pays out at even-odds (4-to-7 instead of 7-to-4, for example), so it's still a wash overall.
There is no mathematical way to put the advantage in the player's favor, as you suggest, or the game wouldn't be on the casino floor any longer.

If you're instead refering to a specific way that the dice are held and thrown to gain the desired result.... well that's a myth and I find it funny that anyone believes it.
The dice have to travel the length of the table and then make contact with the far wall before coming to rest. The far wall (and the sides as well) are uneven, with little pyramid foam covering all over it. Any itsy bitsy tiny microscopic chance that you had to control the dice disappear the moment they touch that wall.
And if they don't touch that wall, it's a No-Roll.

[MeeposFire]

Yes, it's about playing the odds properly and making the correct bets.
You know what that does? It minimizes the house advatage to within 0.1%. That basically makes it an even 50/50 shot.
Even if you play Don't Pass/Come and maximize your money on the table once the odds are in your favor, the odds bet pays out at even-odds (4-to-7 instead of 7-to-4, for example), so it's still a wash overall.
There is no mathematical way to put the advantage in the player's favor, as you suggest, or the game wouldn't be on the casino floor any longer.

Actually it is called dice control and Casinos do fear it which is why many force you to hit the far wall when trowing dice to make this more difficult to do. However some expert dice throwers say they can still control their trows well enough (typically by having the dice just barely tap the far wall for better control) that they can pull the odds into their favor (normally the house is favored). mathematically it is plausible though clearly difficult to pull off from a physical point of view. The limited studies on this (such as they are) are at this time inconclusive though there are people with disproportionate results at craps (even more than just the betting should be giving) who claim it is the dice rolling skills they developed that won them the money. Some people have written books about it and there have been documentaries about it though of course you can choose not to believe it. In one documentary the presenter was pressured to leave a Vegas casino because he was winning more than they thought should be possible. I say pressured because they decided they should not throw him out because they could find no actual evidence of cheating (and boy did they try to find it) so they just made him really uncomfortable so that he decided to leave on his own.

Long story short it is possible to do this without hitting the back wall so they put that as an obstacle to make it harder. So the question is whether that is too hard of an obstacle to overcome with the technique of dice control? Some expert dice rollers say it can be done and the casinos hope that at the very least the typical person cannot do it and currently believe that forcing to hit the back wall is sufficient to stop dice control.

[Shadow]

I responded to the expected dice control issue in an edit, apparently while you were typing this.
Long story short, it's a myth. I used to be legit.... somewhat.... which is now why you have to hit the foam covered far wall.
Now it's a myth.

[MeeposFire]

I responded to the expected dice control issue in an edit, apparently while you were typing this.
Long story short, it's a myth. I used to be legit.... somewhat.... which is now why you have to hit the foam covered far wall.
Now it's a myth.

So are you saying that these rules are going to be in play in a medieval fantasy setting especially since craps has been here for how long and it only just recently has been "fixed" (and if you seriously think that is going to hold forever I bet that was what they thought when they came up with the other crazy batch of laundry list of things you have to do in order to not win at craps and yet all of those were not enough)?

I wonder how many tables in D&D are going to have foam pyramids on them?

[Shadow]

So are you saying that these rules are going to be in play in a medieval fantasy setting especially since craps has been here for how long and it only just recently has been "fixed" (and if you seriously think that is going to hold forever I bet that was what they thought when they came up with the other crazy batch of laundry list of things you have to do in order to not win at craps and yet all of those were not enough)?

I wonder how many tables in D&D are going to have foam pyramids on them?

Your entire argument is irrelevant.
The method described would amount to cheating with the use of Dexterity, not planning with the use of Intelligence.

[MeeposFire]

Your entire argument is irrelevant.
The method described would amount to cheating with the use of Dexterity, not planning with the use of Intelligence.

It is not cheating if there is no rule against it. before there was a rule about hitting the back wall it was 100% legit. If you believe those master dice throwers that they can still do it while still hitting the back wall it is also 100% not cheating so long as they hit the back wall. Unless there is a rule against it then it is no different than using your knowledge and skill in knowing odds in order to win more often except that for once you get to improve your odds with manual dexterity.

Also the main crux of this discussion is whether or not you can leverage skill into throwing dice because you said that "Dice are completely and absolutely a game of luck with zero skill involved" which now you have conceded is not true ( "I used to be legit.... somewhat.... which is now why you have to hit the foam covered far wall.
Now it's a myth" which means you concede that it used to be true until they made a rule to try to stop it) and in order to try to prevent skill from influencing the game casinos have tried various ways to make leveraging that skill more difficult (whether or not they have currently succeeded is moot for this discussion since by having to do this in the first place you have to concede that it is possible to apply skill to rolling the dice which means it is not a game of 100% luck and no skill involved especially since the dice games that a character plays in D&D could easily be missing all the rules that try to prevent things like dice control considering that craps has been around hundreds of years and they still have to make new rules to try to prevent things like this to this day).

So yes you can use skill to influence dice though how much may depend on how many and what type of rules you are having to follow (which can be shown by increasing the DC or by advantage and disadvantage).

[Shadow]

Also the main crux of this discussion is whether or not you can leverage skill into throwing dice

Actually, if you follow this back to the beginning instead of choosing an arbitrary point which supports your argument to start, the main crux of this is whether using Int is appropriate for Gaming Set: Dice.
I think we can both agree that either Dex or Cha is more appropriate, depending on your goal at the time.
Int has yet to be proven to be appropriate by anyone as far as I'm concerned.

We're back to people taking things out of context in order to "win" a debate, even though the thing they're debating has deviated from the original debate.
Question: Is Int appropriate?
Answer: No.

[Cybren]

Actually, if you follow this back to the beginning instead of choosing an arbitrary point which supports your argument to start, the main crux of this is whether using Int is appropriate for Gaming Set: Dice.
I think we can both agree that either Dex or Cha is more appropriate, depending on your goal at the time.
Int has yet to be proven to be appropriate by anyone as far as I'm concerned.

We're back to people taking things out of context in order to "win" a debate, even though the thing they're debating has deviated from the original debate.
Question: Is Int appropriate?
Answer: No.
Actually you just obstinately defined "Dice games" as "games without skill" when dozens of dice games exist that have a skill component. You then No-True-Scotsman'd and said they don't count just 'cuz.
Now you're further shifting the goal posts and saying that dice games are dex or cha based.

they clearly intended dice games to be games of skill. Elsewise they wouldn't allow you to have proficiency in the first place. They're int or possibly cha if your DM is being generous.

[Shadow]

They're int or possibly cha if your DM is being generous.

Nope. They're Dex or Cha unless your DM is an idiot.
As far as the crux goes.... what's the damned thread title?
Dice are the unnamed exception to the Int for games standard guideline. All it takes to see that is a little common sense.

[Steel Mirror]

Nope. They're Dex or Cha unless your DM is an idiot.I'd be happy to let my players roll with Wis or Int. Guess that makes me an idiot! :smalltongue:

[Dark Tira]

Nope. They're Dex or Cha unless your DM is an idiot.
As far as the crux goes.... what's the damned thread title?
Dice are the unnamed exception to the Int for games standard guideline. All it takes to see that is a little common sense.

Wow, this is an interesting thing to reverse your "rulings not rules" approach to the game. Common sense should be applied, but the stat used should be dependent on what dice game the character is actually playing. If for example a character wanted to play something like say D&D, INT would seem much more appropriate than dex.

[Shadow]

Wow, this is an interesting thing to reverse your "rulings not rules" approach to the game.

Actually, it follows that perfectly.
The "rule" states that Int should be applied, but that's nonsense for dice. The ruling should be for Dex or Cha, depending on the nature of the game and your intentions at the time.

[Suichimo]

I've known a couple of people who could toss a sixer and usually call it correctly. Certainly manual dexterity could be involved.

[brocadecity]

Just a thought, when playing a game where bluffing is likely, it seems to be the case that whatever skill the bluffer is using would be opposed by an intuition check

[Logosloki]

dex/wis/cha depending on how the player wants to play out the game/con. Int is an edge case for when you know who the mark/player is or are investigating via rumors (playing a dice game with some commoners while conversing with them for information as an example).

Dex is knowing the dice, Wis is perceiving the players and Cha is playing the players rather than the dice.