I just saw this pair of videos on Youtube of what happened when someone gave Professor Persi Diaconis a d30. I think we have had a few discussions on what makes a die 'fair' in the past and I found this quite interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7zT9MljJ3Y

I would summarise but they are quite lengthy. One of the things I did find very interesting in part two is that for some of the more odd shaped dice, the surface you are rolling them on actually effects how fair they are.

I may be alone in this, but I've never cared about my dice being "fair".  If I don't notice a pattern, that's "random" enough for me.

And when I'm reffing I use the same dice for everything, so the "unfairness" is evened out.

Same here. I got tired of people obsessing over "fair" dice and their obsessions to prove dice "unfair" long long ago. Especially since half the time they only cried "unfair" when the dice didnt roll as they wanted. IE: it rolled fairly when they didnt want fair.

The old TSR soft plastic dice that were originally Platonic solid demonstrators could be loopy, especially the 20 siders.  Forrest Brown of FASA cut a bunch open, and they have huge air bubbles in them, and not on center.

But even then I've never noticed any really game-breaking problems.

Same here. Even the oddly soft blue ones that eroded into spheres. :confused:

That sort of thing only matters if you are gambling with real money at stake.  Dice aren't perfectly fair or perfectly random but they are fair enough and random enough for an RPG.  You don't need precisely made casino dice to play an RPG.

Unfortunately some players obsess over it. Like some sort of holy writ that the dice must roll perfectly 10000000% of the time. Forever.

And sometimes its just the dice-o-phobes looking for any straw to grasp to deny the hated dice. Or worse case scenario, the random-phobes who bitch and bitch and demand the game be "fixed" by removing the vile randomness. I ran out of patience with these loons long long ago.

Quote from: yosemitemike;919921That sort of thing only matters if you are gambling with real money at stake.  Dice aren't perfectly fair or perfectly random but they are fair enough and random enough for an RPG.  You don't need precisely made casino dice to play an RPG.

Of course, when your buddy buys a brick of d6s for Epic: Space Marine and one them - no kidding - is a defect that is "five" on ALL SIDES in a game where rolling 5+ is generally going to be a hit or save, casino dice seem appealing.

It was a genuine defect and an honest mistake on his part (hey, we all keep rolling the "good" dice when getting hits), but man, when I finally noticed, I did flip out a bit.

Quote from: Omega;919926Unfortunately some players obsess over it. Like some sort of holy writ that the dice must roll perfectly 10000000% of the time. Forever.

These people just don't live in the real world.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;919927Of course, when your buddy buys a brick of d6s for Epic: Space Marine and one them - no kidding - is a defect that is "five" on ALL SIDES in a game where rolling 5+ is generally going to be a hit or save, casino dice seem appealing.

It was a genuine defect and an honest mistake on his part (hey, we all keep rolling the "good" dice when getting hits), but man, when I finally noticed, I did flip out a bit.

That's a whole different level from mass produced dice that are less than perfectly random.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;919874I may be alone in this...

Apparently not.

The group of folks who do care appears considerably smaller than the group of folks who do not. But then it is often lonely here at the top.

Wow, I didn't know that about the TSR dice! We always joked about how crappy they seemed (and how deadly the 4-sider was to step on!), and were jokingly skeptical, but I had no idea they were actually weird in a meaningful way. I am rushing this info to certain old salts. :-)

I'm pretty convinced that almost all non-rigged dice are actually very fair, as long as the roller gives the throw enough bounce and isn't doing some cheesy feeble drop.

I have some friends & players who have been a bit funny about dice superstition, but I think this has acceptable/amusing forms that isn't a problem in moderation. My model for quite acceptable dice paranoia is my friend who starts a game session by choosing dice from those available, testing them out while muttering funny comments about some dice look suspicious and he has a good feeling about certain others today, and during play won't say anything until/unless he has some bad luck, and which point, not during his turn, he might mutter something about the luck being stale in those dice, or those dice being jynxed, and quietly picking another set. We find it comical because he's mostly joking, and he's entertaining and not annoying about it.

Keep in mind that some of the early polyhedral dice... were not dice. They were school learning shapes.

And on the subject of fair dice...

In the end there is no such thing. Even with a perfect die, in the hands of someone with micro-reflex action in effect the dice may skew because the person rolling is doing it without even being aware. And even without that effect just the way you toss the dice will twerk the results sometimes. Hence why I came to view these sorts of obsessions as less than useless.

In my 10 years of gaming, I have yet to see anyone in real life actually make a fuss about the dice not being fair. Then again, I am from a different generation, so we never had really bad dice.

Still, cool video. Definitely something for dice makers to watch, more than players.

Quote from: Omega;920139Keep in mind that some of the early polyhedral dice... were not dice. They were school learning shapes.

And on the subject of fair dice...

In the end there is no such thing. Even with a perfect die, in the hands of someone with micro-reflex action in effect the dice may skew because the person rolling is doing it without even being aware. And even without that effect just the way you toss the dice will twerk the results sometimes. Hence why I came to view these sorts of obsessions as less than useless.

Hmm, but even if the person's hand is having odd effects on the randomness, no one knows what those effects are, and they are translated to evenly distributed different numbers since dice are never asymmetrical (especially in games where you roll several and take the sum), so the distribution will eventually be the same, and only a mathematician with a computer could tell you the difference from the theoretical curve, if any, and neither the game designer nor the players are likely to be able to understand that change as a meaningful effect on what happens in the game because of it. i.e. don't know, don't care, doesn't matter, net effect is extremely subtle, unnoticeable, and just as fun.

What I meant was someone unconciously shifting the dice average positive or negative. Weird stuff. And hence why I dismiss obsessions with perfect dice.

Not to mention that unless the dice is weighted or REALLY bad off, the variance is not going to be really notable short of over hundreds if not thousands of rolls.

These two factors were why a designer I knew way back had his system flip wether a roll needed was roll over, or roll under as a sort of built in baffle.