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Message no. 1
From: Bruce <gyro@********.CO.ZA>
Subject: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 10:48:16 +0200
Don't the imperfections in gaming dice make all of the discussion
about what the die may roll kinda unimportant?

-- BRUCE <gyro@********.co.za>

<hard@****>

Step from my tables as I start to chop
I'm a lumberjack DJ Adrock
If you try to knock me you'll get mocked
I'll stir fry you in my wok

Beastie Boys - Intergalactic
Message no. 2
From: "Ojaste,James [NCR]" <James.Ojaste@**.GC.CA>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 13:57:35 -0500
Bruce wrote:
> Don't the imperfections in gaming dice make all of the discussion
> about what the die may roll kinda unimportant?
>
If your dice are sufficiently unbalanced so as to seriously affect the
statistics involved - check them out! If they roll high, keep them.
If they roll low - give them away!

In either case, you've got loaded dice. :-)

The imperfections in the dice shouldn't be large enough to cause a
noticeable distortion - and if it were, it would take some very
sensitive equipment to determine (trying to determine exactly how
random something is can be a real pain).

James Ojaste
Message no. 3
From: Patrick Goodman <remo@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 16:55:11 -0600
From: Bruce
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 1999 2:48 AM

>Don't the imperfections in gaming dice make all of the discussion
>about what the die may roll kinda unimportant?

Maybe you play with crappy dice, but I've got some high-quality ones I
use in all my games. However, to answer your question: Not really.
Stats are stats, probabilities are probabilities; they're mathematical
formulae, and that's all they are. What happens in the real world is
something else again, of course.

--
(>) Texas 2-Step
El Paso: Never surrender. Never forget. Never forgive.
Message no. 4
From: Robert Watkins <robert.watkins@******.COM>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 09:07:43 +1000
Patrick Goodman writes:
> >Don't the imperfections in gaming dice make all of the discussion
> >about what the die may roll kinda unimportant?
>
> Maybe you play with crappy dice, but I've got some high-quality ones I
> use in all my games. However, to answer your question: Not really.
> Stats are stats, probabilities are probabilities; they're mathematical
> formulae, and that's all they are. What happens in the real world is
> something else again, of course.

More to the point... imperfections in gaming dice will be more or less
equally distributed, so they will not have an unbalancing effect on the
probability.

If you want to check it out, roll each of your dice seperately about a
hundred times (go up to a thousand for greater accuracy, but don't do it
less than 100), and check the results for bias.

--
.sig deleted to conserve electrons. robert.watkins@******.com
Message no. 5
From: Steven McCormick <stardust@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 17:41:06 -0600
At 04:55 PM 1/21/99 -0600, Patrick Goodman wrote:
>Maybe you play with crappy dice, but I've got some high-quality ones I
>use in all my games. However, to answer your question: Not really.
>Stats are stats, probabilities are probabilities; they're mathematical
>formulae, and that's all they are. What happens in the real world is
>something else again, of course.
>
>--
>(>) Texas 2-Step
> El Paso: Never surrender. Never forget. Never forgive.
>
>

Aahhh, so you're using the ol' high quality dice trick on us again, eh,
Patrick?

BlueMule
Message no. 6
From: Patrick Goodman <remo@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 19:56:02 -0600
From: Steven McCormick
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 1999 5:41 PM

>>Maybe you play with crappy dice, but I've got some high-quality
>>ones I use in all my games.
>
>Aahhh, so you're using the ol' high quality dice trick on us again,
>eh, Patrick?

Someone has to do it, Steve. C.J. sure isn't. <g>

--
(>) Texas 2-Step
El Paso: Never surrender. Never forget. Never forgive.
Message no. 7
From: Mongoose <m0ng005e@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 19:34:09 -0600
:Don't the imperfections in gaming dice make all of the discussion
:about what the die may roll kinda unimportant?


Most gaming dice are reasonably fair and true (Chessex claims
something like .1% deviation from true randomness, I think). Sure, they
are not up to Casino standards, but it takes a lot more than
"imperfections" to make a die notably unfair.
OTOH, various posted methods have given widely disparate calculations,
definitely wider than the variance among typical gaming dice.
Granted, the material become pretty esoteric, but it does have some
use, especially if you are interested in modifying the games rules and
want to know what the expected impact would be.

Mongoose
Message no. 8
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 20:57:51 -0500
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At 05:41 PM 1/21/99 -0600, BlueMule wrote:
>At 04:55 PM 1/21/99 -0600, Patrick Goodman wrote:
>>Maybe you play with crappy dice, but I've got some high-quality ones
I
>>use in all my games.

>Aahhh, so you're using the ol' high quality dice trick on us again,
eh,
>Patrick?

What's the high-quality dice trick? Is that where you do statistical
analysis of a large set of dice, and select the ones that have
imperfections that result in higher average dice rolls?

Or is high-quality a code word for one of the subtle dice-loading
tricks? :)

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 9
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 20:52:36 -0500
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 09:07 AM 1/22/99 +1000, Robert Watkins wrote:
>> >Don't the imperfections in gaming dice make all of the discussion
>> >about what the die may roll kinda unimportant?
<<Snip>>
>More to the point... imperfections in gaming dice will be more or
less
>equally distributed, so they will not have an unbalancing effect on
the
>probability.
>
>If you want to check it out, roll each of your dice seperately about
a
>hundred times (go up to a thousand for greater accuracy, but don't do
it
>less than 100), and check the results for bias.

Having done two statistics projects on dice in high school, I have a
large set of data on actual dice rolls. Between my two projects, I
have recorded results for 6,000 d6 rolls, spread across 14 different
dice, from simple board game dice (both plastic and wooden), to dice
from one of the leading RPG Dice manufacturers, GameScience.

An "ideal" six sider (or collection of six siders) should show each
result approximately 16.667% of the time. Here are the percentages
that I actually got from the dice collection:

1 - 16.317% (-0.350 from ideal)
2 - 17.183% (+0.516 from ideal)
3 - 16.700% (+0.033 from ideal)
4 - 16.517% (-0.150 from ideal)
5 - 16.817% (+0.150 from ideal)
6 - 16.467% (-0.200 from ideal)

The variation from ideal here is rather small, an average of a little
less than one-fourth of a percentage point in either direction, and
the largest of the deviations is just a little over half a percentage
point.

Another way to look at this, is to consider the average expected
results. An ideal d6 should provide an average expected result of 3.5.
The average roll from my data was just about 3.497.

Is this close enough to ideal probability for you? :)

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 10
From: Patrick Goodman <remo@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 20:25:36 -0600
From: Paul Gettle
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 1999 7:58 PM

>>Aahhh, so you're using the ol' high quality dice trick on us
>>again, eh, Patrick?
>
>What's the high-quality dice trick?

Oh, sure, try and get me to reveal my secrets.... <g>

>Or is high-quality a code word for one of the subtle dice-loading
>tricks? :)

"High-quality" is my code word for dice that are heavier and more solid
than the candy-ass, lightweight plastic dice that came with just about
every game TSR put out in the 70s and 80s, and that still get sold more
often than not. Dice with real pips, not Arabic numerals shallowly
carved in that you have to hold to the light properly to read.

--
(>) Texas 2-Step
El Paso: Never surrender. Never forget. Never forgive.
Message no. 11
From: Paul Gettle <RunnerPaul@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 21:29:34 -0500
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

At 08:25 PM 1/21/99 -0600, Patrick wrote:
>>Or is high-quality a code word for one of the subtle dice-loading
>>tricks? :)
>
>"High-quality" is my code word for dice that are heavier and more
solid
>than the candy-ass, lightweight plastic dice that came with just
about
>every game TSR put out in the 70s and 80s, and that still get sold
more
>often than not. Dice with real pips, not Arabic numerals shallowly
>carved in that you have to hold to the light properly to read.

Oh! Dice with pips! Say no more. ;)

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--
-- Paul Gettle, #970 of 1000 (RunnerPaul@*****.com)
PGP Fingerprint, Key ID:0x48F3AACD (RSA 1024, created 98/06/26)
C260 94B3 6722 6A25 63F8 0690 9EA2 3344
Message no. 12
From: Patrick Goodman <remo@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Dice Probabilities
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 20:49:56 -0600
From: Paul Gettle
Sent: Thursday, January 21, 1999 8:30 PM

>>>Or is high-quality a code word for one of the subtle dice-
>>>loading tricks? :)
>>
>>"High-quality" is my code word for dice that are heavier and
>>more solid than the candy-ass, lightweight plastic dice that
>>came with just about every game TSR put out in the 70s and 80s,
>>and that still get sold more often than not. Dice with real
>>pips, not Arabic numerals shallowly carved in that you have to
>>hold to the light properly to read.
>
>Oh! Dice with pips! Say no more. ;)

What was John Malkovich's line in DANGEROUS LIAISONS again...? Oh,
yeah, that's it. "You mock me." <g>

I know it sounds like a silly tirade, but over the not quite <shudders>
25 years I've been gaming, cheap dice have been one of my biggest pet
peeves.

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Dice Probabilities, you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!