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View Full Version : Article about the randomness in dice.



valadil
2008-07-22, 11:35 AM
Normally I wouldn't post a link to an article here, but I've seen this topic come up several times. Dice aren't all that random because of the holes drilled into their different faces. We all intuited that the missing mass on certain faces affected the outcome of the roll, but this guy actually studied it.

http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_10_26_98.html

Arros Winhadren
2008-07-22, 03:41 PM
That's pretty cool. Time to start working on my dice-rolling skills!

Swordguy
2008-07-22, 03:47 PM
Gamers have an uncanny ability to influence dice.


Really? Cause, I'd love to figure that out.

Rolled 5 individual d6 1,000 times each. Average result? 2.1. Want's me some dice luck...

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-07-22, 03:51 PM
Really? Cause, I'd love to figure that out.

Rolled 5 individual d6 1,000 times each. Average result? 2.1. Want's me some dice luck...

I think it's time for a new set of dice.

Crow
2008-07-22, 03:55 PM
I think it's time for a new set of dice.

No, no. That just means his luck is about to change...[/Gambler's Fallacy]

Fenix_of_Doom
2008-07-22, 03:59 PM
A that's it, he rolled the ones out of it (http://www.darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0099.html)!

WalkingTarget
2008-07-22, 04:07 PM
I've never personally purchased anything from the man, but this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Zocchi) guy's spiel at GenCon is usually entertaining. He makes a point that his dice always have clean, sharp edges to try to avoid some of the problems that article talks about.

Tsotha-lanti
2008-07-22, 05:31 PM
If you roll dice 10,000 times, you will not end up with equal results for each face anyway. That's not how things work. (For one thing, 10,000 / 6 = 1666.666...) However, a variation of 25 (i.e. 1/400th) occurrences between the most and least common results appears entirely insignificant. You're going to get bigger variation by pure chance, more likely than not.

Worrying about this makes about much sense as worrying about randomly being hit by a freefalling elephant.

Waspinator
2008-07-22, 05:39 PM
Part of the reason why I like dice with the numbers printed on the sides instead of drilled holes is that I suspect that they're more fairly random due to not having each side have different indentations.

valadil
2008-07-22, 08:25 PM
Worrying about this makes about much sense as worrying about randomly being hit by a freefalling elephant.

Now that we know how much the dice vary I'll agree with that. Before reading the article I had no idea how big the deviation would be.