Chief Technical Officer
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My whole group has commented on how brutally bad they roll. It is pretty bad. In the last 13 rolls, only 2 have been above a 10. I know that much of it is perception, yadda yadda yadda.
Just need to blow off steam I guess :-)
There is no truth to the rumor that if you just purchase a Pathfinder Modules sub to go along with your other subs, the die roller will bring you better results. But you know, much of it is perception!
The entire casino industry is built on the fact that our brains are pattern-matching engines, and so truly random numbers are our bane.
Evolution is unforgiving of casual dismissal of coincidences, since there are generally reasons for patterns in the material world -- like why villagers keep on disappearing if they go down a certain path. There's a reason. Don't go there.
Now go look at the annual profits of the casino industry. That's a good measure of *exactly* how bad we are at dealing with truly random numbers.
So no, it's not just you. It's perfectly natural to read things into dice rolls that aren't there. And that's okay, so long as we understand, it's just our brains tricking us.
I sometimes feel like the dice roller hates me. I managed to roll two 1s in a row out of three dice altogether...
As much as I'd like to blame the die roller for some recent events in the PBP I'm playing in, I'm pretty sure that's just my luck and not the roller's fault.
Someone did roll a huge sample of numbers and it was about as random as a program could get.
There's an online dice roller?
Ultradan
There is no truth to the rumor that if you just purchase a Pathfinder Modules sub to go along with your other subs, the die roller will bring you better results. But you know, much of it is perception!
LOL
Someone did roll a huge sample of numbers and it was about as random as a program could get.
You mean this one?
(I often feel that dice, both real and virtual, hate me. I especially feel that way when a lot of bad rolls for PCs, combined with a lot of good rolls for the bad guys, result in a TPK. It's happened on more than one occasion. But I'm sure that there must have been plenty of times when the reverse happened. I simply don't remember those times, since the PCs usually win.)
In the last 13 rolls, only 2 have been above a 10.
I'll probably botch this completely, but I believe the probability of having at least 11 out of 13 rolls be below average is:
13!/11!/2! * (1/2)^11 * (1)^2 = 3.81%
So it's unlikely, but not astronomically so.
In the last 13 rolls, only 2 have been above a 10.I'll probably botch this completely, but I believe the probability of this is:
13!/11!/2! * (1/2)^11 * (1)^2 = 3.81%
So it's unlikely, but not astronomically so.
It should be 13!/(11!*2!) * (1/2)^13 = 0.952%
But, of course, that's the probability of getting *exactly* two rolls over a 10. I'm sure the original poster would have thought that getting less than that also noteworthy, so we should really be calculating the probability of *at most* two rolls above a 10 which is:
0.00952 + 13*(1/2)^13 + (1/2)^13 = 1.123%
You're point stands, however. It's not terribly likely, but within the realm of possibility. After all, it would be highly unlikely if unlikely events did not occur. :)
|
The entire casino industry is built on the fact that our brains are pattern-matching engines, and so truly random numbers are our bane.
Evolution is unforgiving of casual dismissal of coincidences, since there are generally reasons for patterns in the material world -- like why villagers keep on disappearing if they go down a certain path. There's a reason. Don't go there.
Now go look at the annual profits of the casino industry. That's a good measure of *exactly* how bad we are at dealing with truly random numbers.
So no, it's not just you. It's perfectly natural to read things into dice rolls that aren't there. And that's okay, so long as we understand, it's just our brains tricking us.
Actualy, there is no such thing as a "truly random" result using a computer program... after all there has to be an algorithem behind it... however, the Paizo dice roller is, as someone proved above me with a link, good enough.
just a nitpick.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Actualy, there is no such thing as a "truly random" result using a computer program... after all there has to be an algorithem behind it... however, the Paizo dice roller is, as someone proved above me with a link, good enough.
just a nitpick.
To be even more of a nitpicker...
Most computer algorithms used to generate random numbers are *far* closer to being truly random than any die you'd use at the table.
Would you believe I have a graduate degree in mathematics? :-/
Would you believe I have a graduate degree in mathematics? :-/
Just maybe not stats? Besides, it looks like you only made a typo (1) instead of (1/2) for the last term. I'm actually a mathematician so I really should be able to catch any mistakes!
|
There is no truth to the rumor that if you just purchase a Pathfinder Modules sub to go along with your other subs, the die roller will bring you better results. But you know, much of it is perception!My whole group has commented on how brutally bad they roll. It is pretty bad. In the last 13 rolls, only 2 have been above a 10. I know that much of it is perception, yadda yadda yadda.
Just need to blow off steam I guess :-)
There's no way that the comestic tranquility would survive another Paizo subscription....especially after I just bought the super-fire hot wings version of the RotRL release!
I know it's perception (As a behavior specialist I know well the pitfalls of human observation.) It just feels good to vent.
Actualy, there is no such thing as a "truly random" result using a computer program... after all there has to be an algorithem behind it... however, the Paizo dice roller is, as someone proved above me with a link, good enough.
just a nitpick.
I was going to edit my post to something like "really random"; and then I thought, "Naw, no one would nitpick that!" I should know better by now. :p
FWIW, I never actually said that dice (physical or virtual) are truly random. I just didn't bother to dispel the implication -- an omission that I balanced by not bothering to explain the difference either. ;)
Would you believe I have a graduate degree in mathematics? :-/Just maybe not stats?
No comment. ;-)