The Dice Thread

A thread for the lifeblood of tabletop gaming-the humble die.

While I use my phone to roll for me nowadays since I'm the DM and have to roll for dozens of people at once, when I'm a player, I prefer smoke colored precison dice. I would also kill for red, pink, or flame colored chessex nebula dice.

I used to be a programmer, so I know how "random" dice rollers work. Hint, they aren't "random." So I don't use them as a matter of principle.

Also, I prefer the activity of rolling dice, especially since I started rolling all my attacks and damage in one big double-handful of dice in 4e, and have carried that back to Pathfinder.

I have a lot of dice.

Really, a lot.

My "gaming" dice fit in a 12x8x1 inch craft case meant to hold sewing supplies. And by "fit" I mean just barely. I have four complete sets of dice of black, white, red and gray. By "complete set of dice" I mean the following:

1 d20
2 d12
6 d10
6 d8
6 d6
4 d4 (I wanted six, but couldn't find enough for all sets)

I also have a bunch of "extra" dice of random colors and sides that I use when I need to roll a bunch of dice. :)

Oh, and I have a pink set of dice I use as my "dice of shame" when someone forgets their own dice and I have to loan them out. They aren't "dice of shame" because they are pink, they just happen to be pink since I prefer the other colors for my own play.

My general dice rolling process is to identify all of my attacks and damage rolls (which can be as many as four attacks for my archer druid) and roll all of them at once, along with all the damage dice. So that is sometimes more than a dozen dice being rolled at one time. They are color coded so I know which damage goes with which d20.

It really speeds up combat and it is really, REALLY satisfying when you look out and see a bunch of high numbers showing up.

At great expense I acquired two sets of dice: silver, and gold-plated silver.

A friend told me about them and said he could get them for me. These were from an online source.

I was really looking forward to using these dice as my actual dice when roll-playing. I was very disappointed when they arrived! Not only were they quite small (which I could forgive), they weren't true! They were mis-shapen, and impoosible to use as dice to generate a random number! When the d20 landed, you couldn't tell which number was on top!

Waste of money!

I used to be a programmer, so I know how "random" dice rollers work. Hint, they aren't "random." So I don't use them as a matter of principle.

Dice aren't all that random, either. Most well-made random number generators are at least as random as dice. If you want true randomness, go to random.org.

I have two sets of dice I used to like: one sort of opalescent dark gray, the other sort of opalescent red. I call them my lava dice. Then, I tallied up the results of their d20 rolls after using them a lot: between 2/3 and 3/4 of the rolls were either 1-5 or 16-20. Essentially every d20 roll was a 50-50 chance, with extra crits and auto-misses.

Distant, don't confuse not being balanced perfectly with not being random.

"Random number generators" are not random AT ALL. They are generated through an algorithm that will generate exactly the same number from the same seed every single time.

And if you get decent dice, they should be pretty balanced. I have way too many dice to test every one of them, but I test a sampling and so far the quality dice I buy have been random enough to satisfy me.

Yeah, there are a few online random number generators that do things like sample background radiation to create a seed, which would seem to be pretty random, but you never really know. Those are random enough for me, but I still like the feel of rolling dice.

I've rolled a real d20 and got three consecutive ones in a single full attack where I was entitled to only three attacks.

I won't repeat my language here, gentle readers, but when I was busy cursing the dice gods at least I trusted that the dice were fair.

If I'd've got the same three ones on an electronic random number generator I wouldn't have trusted it. I'd've thought that it was on the blink and cheating me.

Distant, don't confuse not being balanced perfectly with not being random.

In the context of dice, "random" generally implies "uniform random".

"Random number generators" are not random AT ALL. They are generated through an algorithm that will generate exactly the same number from the same seed every single time.

I know. However, if they're well-made and used properly, especially in the context of dice, they act randomly enough to be indistinguishable. And technically, rolling dice isn't random, because physics isn't random. Unless there's quantum involved.

And if you get decent dice, they should be pretty balanced.

Unfortunately, it's difficult, if not impossible, to tell if dice are "decent" by looking at them. GameScience dice are probably the most random, but otherwise all you can do is hope for the best.

Yeah, there are a few online random number generators that do things like sample background radiation to create a seed, which would seem to be pretty random, but you never really know. Those are random enough for me, but I still like the feel of rolling dice.

I'm not trying to talk you out of using dice. If you're satisfied, great! I'd prefer to roll dice, but I don't trust the randomness of my d20s, or any die that tumbles too easily. But random.org constantly tests their numbers for randomness, so I have great confidence in them.

Scholar, heh your "bona fides" trump mine by a masters and phD in math vs a BS in physics, otherwise our experience seems rather similar. I wrote random number generators for my own computer games because I had run tests on the ones provided by the compilers or machine ROM and always found them lacking. For example, I wrote a graphics program once and needed to create an "airbrush" feature. Just in the interest of pure speed I used the ROM based random number generator to plot x and y coordinates for the pixel that was getting "painted". The airbrush had a size control so you could make it up to 128 pixels in radius. Upon implementing it and using it it became clear that using the airbrush did not create a "random" result. It created very repeatable and obvious patterns in the airbrush results. So to make the brush appear to create a smooth and "random" result, I ended up having to create an array of random numbers that I generated from some "guaranteed random number generator" source (I don't remember what it was now, but it was something one of my programmers knew about from academic use). I could have implemented my own random number algorithm, but doing so would have slowed the brush down to the point of unusability. So I just stored, I think, three different arrays of coordinates, then used a "random" seed to jump to a random location in the array and then cycle through the coordinates from there. That actually sped up the brush considerably anyway since I wrote that whole function in assembler. Anyway, that approach gave a beautifully smooth airbrush result that was blindingly fast when you set it to full speed.

I admit that experience might be one reason I am so suspicious of random number generators. I took that same function to some other computers (I worked in a company that programmed for several PC models at the time) and got the same basic results. The "random" generators all created a noticeable pattern with large airbrush spray.

Anyway, that was over 20 years ago, so I may be allowing early technology limitations color my current actions.

But I still prefer dice when I can roll them.

roll: 3d10 ⇒ (5, 2, 8) = 15