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Okay, so I recently saw a video on facebook featuring a test for your dice to see if it is actually cursed. You make a solution of salt water in a container and let your d20 float in there. Knock it around a couple of times and if the same number keeps rolling up then your die is balanced to roll on that number. Of course I tested every d20 I have and come up with a number of dice that would not float so I figured that they are too heavy overall to really really matter, several that were perfectly balanced, two dice that roll 20s and eight dice that roll on something that's not 20. normally 4s or 7s, but one rolls on 1s confirming that the particular die hated me. (fyi, the d20s you get from beginner boxes are perfectly balanced.)
So of course I separated the 'lucky' d20s and the 'unlucky' d20s from the rest. One of the unlucky ones I cut in half to confirm that it was made of two different materials in the center.
My question is what to do with the 'unlucky' d20?
Also, how bad is it to use the 'lucky' d20s?
While we're at it, test your own d20s. let me know how it turns up. Remember: You don't really have to check transparent dice. I don't think.
Link to video?
I'd just throw them away.
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The video is here. I had to do some digging deep into facebook for the link.
I'd just throw them away.
Including the 'lucky' ones?
The "unlucky" dice might be useful for a Diviner Wizard's Portents in 5th Edition. Useful whenever you want to force an opponent to do a re-roll.
I was curious about how much salt to add to the water. The answer is "enough that the dice float". :)
I was curious about how much salt to add to the water. The answer is "enough that the dice float". :)
Pretty much. Some dice are pretty heavy so I used a LOT of salt. My solution was about 1/4 salt with the salt dissolved in hot water before I got to most of them and the few that didn't float I just figured that they were safe enough if they were that dense overall.
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I'd just throw them away.Including the 'lucky' ones?
Yup. Using them for my character would make me feel like I was cheating and lying to my friends. Using them as a GM just makes the game arbitrarily worse for my players.
Any of them that don't actually give me genuine randomness and end up favoring one number over the rest would go in the trash.
I'd just throw them away.Including the 'lucky' ones?Yup. Using them for my character would make me feel like I was cheating and lying to my friends. Using them as a GM just makes the game arbitrarily worse for my players.
Any of them that don't actually give me genuine randomness and end up favoring one number over the rest would go in the trash.
What about cursed magic items? Like an Evil Knucklebone of Fickle Fortune?
The video is here. I had to do some digging deep into facebook for the link.
That's pretty impressive. Good trick to know.
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For dice that won't float, I WOULDN'T assume that they are safe -- what if they had a piece of metal in one side? If they are just a little bit too heavy, you can try saturating the water with salt (might have to heat the water up) to make it denser. If they still won't float, if you could get hold of cesium chloride (can get up to something over 1.7 g/cc), that might work (and is not horribly toxic -- just don't eat it, and rinse it off your hands when you are done, and you'll be fine; denser salts do exist but are quite toxic; making the halogen component also be heavier doesn't help, because it lowers the solubility).
I ain't no computer programmer, but my programming colleagues tell me just the opposite: dice are more random than computer generated random number generators. All of them have told me that if I want true randomness, find a balanced die rather than using a program.
Edit: got a link for those machines? That sounds really cool, and I can't find anything on the net with a few quick searches (only people talking about theoretical machines).
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Seriously? You don't throw the cursed dice away, its these you let your players use for their rolling (just don't use them yourself)... ;)
I'm checking the heavy ones with a thicker liquid. Prbably will throw away the unfair d20s and sticking with clear d20s from now on.
Okay, the heavy dice were the worst ones. I tried it out again with epsom salt at a high concentration, and all of the heavy d20s roll float 1s or 20s. nothing in between. I currently have 8 d20s that float 20s, one set of them was responsible for winning a huge fight two weeks ago where I was rolling a ton of crits. I thought they were lucky.
Guys, if you don't want your dice to be biased, stick with transparent die. If I throw away the biased d20s I throw away two thirds of the d20s I have.
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I ain't no computer programmer, but my programming colleagues tell me just the opposite: dice are more random than computer generated random number generators. All of them have told me that if I want true randomness, find a balanced die rather than using a program.
Edit: got a link for those machines? That sounds really cool, and I can't find anything on the net with a few quick searches (only people talking about theoretical machines).
I am a computer programmer and your friends are only partly right.
A GOOD random generator is going to be pretty darn random, certainly WAY more random than dice rolled in a hand the way gamers do. There is a reason when money is involved (eg, craps) dice are shaken very vigorously.
Bad random number generators are still quite likely better than most dice rolled at most tables.
Really bad generators and programmers do, however, exist
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Before we sit down to any game I make all players at my table dip their dice in epsom salt solution. I won't have any cheaters or witches at my table. I mean unless you're rolling up a witch.
Do any of your players weigh the same as a duck?
Before we sit down to any game I make all players at my table dip their dice in epsom salt solution. I won't have any cheaters or witches at my table. I mean unless you're rolling up a witch.Or a Rogue? ;]
To address the topic though, there are varying degrees of imbalanced dice. A die balanced towards 20, for example, may only roll it a tiny percentage more often than normal. [Say shifting from 5 to 6% of the time perhaps.]
I'm not so sure. Basically all of my 'lucky' dice turned out to be biased towards rolling 20s. Its anecdotal evidence but it was enough for me to notice while thinking it was just about luck. Likewise all of the dice the I hated for being 'unlucky' were biased towards rolling 1s or 4s. Again anecdotal but it rolled badly consistently enough for me to determine that they were unlucky without making some kind of statistical analysis. I would imagine that if the probability of it rolling it's biased number was so small my judgement of of which dice were lucky and unlucky would be more inconsistent, but all of my 'lucky' dice are tested to be 20 rollers. (Which explains some TPKs.)
I'm kind of afraid to weight the d20 I've been using with my current character. A 30 has only come up maybe 2% of the time, but rolls of 10 or more happen maybe 60% of the time.
Before we sit down to any game I make all players at my table dip their dice in epsom salt solution. I won't have any cheaters or witches at my table. I mean unless you're rolling up a witch.Do any of your players weigh the same as a duck?
I wonder if one could make dice from jelly or bits of bread.
Dang, I really need to do this with my dice. I've always just assumed I was really lucky since I have 20s come up 2-3 times most fights (rolling 5 d20s/rnd); I'm going to be sad if I have to replace my dice. :(
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There was an experiment done a few years back where d20s were rolled 10,000 times and the results recorded. The experiment was to compare the randomness of Chessex dice against GameScience dice. It was demonstrated that the GameScience die rolled more true than the Chessex die.
However it has been pointed out that a typical d20 is more egg shaped than round, with the flattened axis being aligned through the 1 and the 20. If you look at the bar graph of the Chessex die in the link above you will see that the numbers that came up less often were the 1, the 20, and the six other numbers that share a side with them (2,7,8,13,14,19). The numbers that came up more often were those along the "equator".
Because of this shape it makes sense that the 1 and 20 would come up more often in the saltwater test, but I would expect the same thing to happen when they are rolled, contrary to what the data show.
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op, what do you mean "what do you do with the curesed ones?"
you give it to the gm when he rolls for his saves and attack on you.
i went through the old island of terror (the dino island) with one baleful polimorph spell prepered a day.making a turtle dino a day on the fact my black dice never rolls higher then 7 for anyone but me.
(we had only one dice set back then between us0
and on the only day that we met two dino, an alosaorus and a t-rex, that the gm was sure will trump us after i made a turtle out of the 1st. i took that black dice rolled a 19 on a range attack and chugged the turtle alosaorus into the t-rex mouth..momnets later it's belly exloded ;)
there are no cursed dice. there are only dice you missuse.
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I'm kind of afraid to weight the d20 I've been using with my current character. A 30 has only come up maybe 2% of the time, but rolls of 10 or more happen maybe 60% of the time.
I wish my d20 would come up 30 2% of the time...
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Might have a slight problem with couple of my dice sets. . .
What's dense enough that obsidian, and steel, "float" but not so thick that they move "freely"?
Guessing the steel is balanced. It looks even, and should be the same the whole way through.
Less certain about the obsidian. Looks more "egg" shaped, and guessing it's solid.
In my experience, minor fluctuations in die weight aren't as relevant to rolled numbers as people think. I painted the 1 face of a d6 with five layers of nail polish, which should return a result of more 6 rolls, since it is opposite the increased weight. In practice the die rolls 1 more often than 6, and 3 most often of all.
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{. . .}
on a more serious note, better to change to a denser fluid than changing the salt in the salt water. if you feel like going all out, switch to glycerin (cheaper than caesium chloride too) but cooking oil or liquid soap should do the trick for most dice and does not require a trip anywhere but the grocer.----edit---
completely forgot that what most people use as cooking oil these days is less dense than water. why people would want to cook perfectly good food in light oils is beyond me, but it is the fashion.
Wait, you cook in heavy crude or halogenated hydrocarbons? I'm not eating your french fries . . .
The saltwater test will not detect a die which is 'out-of-true' shapewise, only one which has poorly distributed weight. The saltwater test demonstrates the heaviest side 'sinking' to the bottom resulting in the rotating die stopping with it's lightest face (or vertex if the weight is really off) on the top. If the weight in the die is evenly distributed then the shape of the die is irrelevant in the saltwater test and the die won't roll to any favored side.
Just because a die passes the saltwater test doesn't mean it is fair. Also one shouldn't expect too much of a die in the saltwater test, what one should really look for is how long it takes to come to rest after being spun than what number it comes to rest on, the faster a die comes to a stop the more unequally the weight is distributed.
True enough, but at least irregularities in shape are visible by visual inspection (not necessarily casual visual inspection), whereas irregularities in density can be hidden inside an opaque die.
{. . .}
Also note that physical dice aren't 'truly random' either: they just magnify small differences in your hand movements. Any appearance of randomness from physical dice actually comes from humans' lack of fine control over our own body movements--there exist machines which can roll a natural 20 on a fair die every time. {. . .}
This is true. I developed a method of spin-stabilizing dice that worked on d6, d8, and to a lesser extent d12 (couldn't get it to work on d20 or tetrahedral d4) to get good rolls. If I DIDN'T use this, I got horrible rolls, especially when rolling up attributes -- and 3d6 no tweaks really hurts, especially when you have this problem -- 1 DM that I showed my spin-stabilization technique to and the kind of rolls I got without it was inclined to let me use spin-stabilization.
Might have a slight problem with couple of my dice sets. . .
What's dense enough that obsidian, and steel, "float" but not so thick that they move "freely"?
{. . .}
Dense enough for both obsidian and steel: Mercury.
Easily dense enough for obsidian, but not for steel, but much less toxic than mercury: Gallium (have to warm it up a bit to get it to be liquid) or Galinstan.
Dense enough for steel, and less toxic than mercury, but needs too much heat (to melt it) to be safe for obsidian: Bismuth.
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Most d20's have the number "carved" into the die face. The 1 side has less surface material removed than the 20 side. It would be natural for the side with more material to be pulled down by gravity while it's floating in a fluid.
Rolling an extra 20, or 1, or 8 once every few hundred rolls isn't indicative of an unfair die, at least it's not enough to be statistically significant.
-Skeld
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I'm kind of afraid to weight the d20 I've been using with my current character. A 30 has only come up maybe 2% of the time, but rolls of 10 or more happen maybe 60% of the time.I wish my d20 would come up 30 2% of the time...
Thats what I get for typing with my phone... I must have been subconsciously aware that was typed incorrectly, because last night in a dream we had a d20 that came up 40 a couple of times.
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I am a computer programmer and your friends are only partly right.
A GOOD random generator is going to be pretty darn random, certainly WAY more random than dice rolled in a hand the way gamers do. There is a reason when money is involved (eg, craps) dice are shaken very vigorously.
Bad random number generators are still quite likely better than most dice rolled at most tables.
Really bad generators and programmers do, however, exist
Mostly this. Technically most computers make pseudorandom numbers, which means they are not truly random in the statistical sense. With the correct information, you can predict the result, but that only matters when a sophisticated attacker is willing to take the time. For the purpose of everything but computer security, pseudorandom is much better than dice.
If you happen to really care, it is possible to generate true random numbers using special hardware that reads white noise created by solar particles. That's the nuclear option for combating dice cheaters :)
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I am a computer programmer and your friends are only partly right.
A GOOD random generator is going to be pretty darn random, certainly WAY more random than dice rolled in a hand the way gamers do. There is a reason when money is involved (eg, craps) dice are shaken very vigorously.
Bad random number generators are still quite likely better than most dice rolled at most tables.
Really bad generators and programmers do, however, exist
Mostly this. Technically most computers make pseudorandom numbers, which means they are not truly random in the statistical sense. With the correct information, you can predict the result, but that only matters when a sophisticated attacker is willing to take the time. For the purpose of everything but computer security, pseudorandom is much better than dice.
If you happen to really care, it is possible to generate true random numbers using special hardware that reads white noise created by solar particles. That's the nuclear option for combating dice cheaters :)
For further fun, note that some video games don't just stop at generating a random number between X and Y, they do other silly stuff that throws a wrench into the mix.
For example, in some of the Fire Emblem games they roll a d% twice and average the result for determining if you hit. This means an 80% hit chance is actually more like a 94% hit chance, while a 20% chance is closer to 6%. Only a 50% remains unchained.
Other games will skew the random results based on previous results. So if you got lots of good rolls it might deliberately force a bad roll to keep things "even". Or visa-versa, of course.
Many games save where they are in the psuedo-random sequence when you save your game. This means that if you reload and do the same things in the same order, the same things will happen. This doesn't mean that the RNG is broken! It's just to prevent people from reloading until they win. (I think X-Com does this.)
In other words, never trust an RNG.
How much salt to what amount of water? I tried it and every d20 I tried sank to the bottom.
Regarding randomness of dice programs - that is some really cool information. Thanks, folks! :)
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How much salt to what amount of water? I tried it and every d20 I tried sank to the bottom.
Best results for me was about 1/3 of the solution as epsom salt. I had to use hot water to dissolve it.
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How much salt to what amount of water? I tried it and every d20 I tried sank to the bottom.
Well if the die is just resting on top of the salt, you'll know you used too much. :P
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I too was unable to get a solution dense enough for dice to float in. I was using kosher salt, and tried microwaving the bowl (sans dice of course) a few times to help it dissolve, but no dice. (dur hur hurr)
I then tried SodaStream soda mix (a thick syrup that you pour into carbonated water to make soda) and they sank in that too, albeit more slowly. I then gave up in exasperation.
Now that I know the ratios necessary, I might try again later.
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Don't be silly, heavy crude is lighter than water, are you thinking of the extra heavy sludge (bitumen) which comes from coal sands, because that isn't really crude oil. I use the oil that is so good it is sinful, I use milk of the animal as my cooking oil - cow milk for beef usually. As for French fries, I gave up long pig as it has too many chemicals in it. Unless you are talking about french fries made from plants dug out of the ground, which might be interesting if I could find a potato oil to cook them in and were wiling to accept that vegetables actually are food.
So when you say "cooking oil", you're talking about milk? Because I just checked, and my dice sink in milk also.
I actually asked my roommate (a materials engineer) about it when salt water failed for me, and when I suggested milk, he said that milk is the same density as water-- the minerals and substances dissolved in it that make it milk are of equivalent density as the water itself (which is why it doesn't separate in the jug).
Heavy cream, on the other hand...?
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Why not just keep track of what you roll, and perform a chi-square test?
Mathematics is really way more reliable than witchcraft.