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Dark Wizard
Senior Scribe
USA
830 Posts |
 Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 04:48:06
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Found this video being shared on G+ detailed an old golf ball trick applied to d20s to see if they are balanced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI3N4Qg-JZM
Now I'm reminded I have a lot of relatively cheap opaque d20s.
(I know this isn't technically Realms related, but it may hold relevance to the gaming scribes who frequent these boards.)
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
8030 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 05:18:19
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The wikipedia page about dice offers a cursory description of how dice are made. Kevin Cook's dice collector website is filled with dice-obsessed information. And various dice manufacturers offer details about the tolerances and testing involved in their products. Casino dice are basically as "fair" (as in, unbiased) as dice can get - because, of course, they influence large sums of money changing hands. Reading dice-related patents is pretty revealing, too.
Good old Zocchi used to be a regular fixture at gaming conventions. Always operating a little booth where he would sell his dice, always entertaining and enlightening dice-users with a variety of creative demonstrations which proved "common" D&D dice suck and his D&D dice were better.
The overwhelming majority of polyhedral D&D dice are biased. Not deliberately skewed towards low or high values or whatever, but they're basically all rotated through a cylinder (with all the other dice from their batch) to round off the sharp edges/corners, and the abrasive batch process is almost entirely random. One of Zocchi's typical demonstrations was to have two "equal" piles of d20s stacked into vertical cylinders, and due to irregularities in the dice, one stack would always be substantially taller. Cubical d6s tend to be the most consistently "fair" dice simply because dice manufacturers tend to possess more accurate molds for them than for complex polyhedra. Any die which has isohedral facings is "fair", although only about half of the complex polyhedra make viable dice because they need to have an unambiguous top-facing "flat" surface when rolled (tetrahedral d4s are basically the only exception). Players who favour certain "lucky" dice which roll high/low more often than they should are quite often correct, these particular dice may indeed be biased. |
[/Ayrik] |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2511 Posts |
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Barastir
Master of Realmslore
Brazil
1607 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 14:57:51
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Very good, I'll try it at home.  |
"Goodness is not a natural state, but must be
fought for to be attained and maintained.
Lead by example.
Let your deeds speak your intentions.
Goodness radiated from the heart."
The Paladin's Virtues, excerpt from the "Quentin's Monograph"
(by Ed Greenwood) |
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Artemas Entreri
Great Reader
USA
3131 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 15:42:53
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| Wow, cool vid. Thanks for sharing. |
Some people have a way with words, and other people...oh, uh, not have way. -Steve Martin
Amazon "KindleUnlimited" Free Trial: http://amzn.to/2AJ4yD2
Try Audible and Get 2 Free Audio Books! https://amzn.to/2IgBede |
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banedarkstar
Acolyte
USA
1 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 15:58:23
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| Now I need to go home and check my bag of cursed die... |
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Mr Dark
Seeker
50 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 18:00:43
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I tried it and the results were so-so. First it took a crap ton of salt to get most of mine to float. Second it works for D20s and D6s all day, gets odd on D12s but gets wonky on D4s, D8s and D10s. The one die that showed any bias didn't show too much when my wife and I rolled it a hundred times and averaged the results; they came out to 10.5-11.5. A friend tried some from a pound o' dice he bought and found that they were badly off. He even took a Micrometer to them and found that they were out at least .010" on most sides.
While by no means a scientific study, my thought is that it can tell if a die is out of balance but cannot account for how the die is rolled, surface impact, bounce or other variations in rolling. |
Canon stops where the table begins. |
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Dark Wizard
Senior Scribe
USA
830 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jun 2015 : 18:43:28
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This method does not account for edge variance, which as Ayrik mentioned is a demonstration that is easily observable by stacking dice like Zocchi does (there are YouTube videos of him doing exactly that) or using measuring tools like a micrometer.
This method can check for material inconsistencies and bias due to ill-distributed weight of the die, something the video creator mentions is particularly useful for opaque dice where manufacturers often skim on compared to transparent dice. No matter how good the surfaces are, if the materials inside the die are not even, there will be some bias. This is something less visible unless we do as the video creator does and crack open a biased die to find the chalky center from a low-quality process.
Casino dice are of course held to more stringent standards. I recall reading casino dice are machined rather than molded, which offers much greater control of shaping the surfaces and edges. |
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Delwa
Master of Realmslore
USA
1272 Posts |
Posted - 12 Jun 2015 : 11:58:57
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| Saw this on the Plus the other day as well. Tried it on my DMing dice. Sadly, they are all golden. Now I need to check for edge alignment. If it turns out to be the same, I'm going to be sad. The dice truly do hate me if that's the case. |
- Delwa Aunglor
I am off to slay yon refrigerator and spoil it's horde. Go for the cheese, Boo!
"The Realms change; seldom at the speed desired of those who strive, but far too quickly for those who resist." - The Simbul, taken from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Conspectus |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
8030 Posts |
Posted - 13 Jun 2015 : 04:36:37
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Engraved/inset die faces are also bad, especially if they're cut deep or filled with a "heavy" pigment. A d6 with 6 deep lead-filled holes on one facing and only one such hole on the obverse face is typically very biased.
The actual numbering of the faces is important, too. Good dice will always have their opposite sides add up to a constant value (die facings plus one), will somehow pattern them so that adjacent faces alternate high/low values, and (ideally) also add adjacent faces to alternating constant values.
Solid metal dice with sharp edges/vertices and painted-on (or very shallow) numeric indicators will generally be far less biased than plastic dice. Machined precision with tight tolerances wouldn't hurt but would greatly increase costs (on the complex polyhedra, at least) and isn't really necessary for D&D.
I used to keep a cookie sheet at the center of the table. Everyone (including the DM) rolled the same dice on it, and the dice had to clatter or bounce off at least two edges of the sheet to ensure no sleight-of-hand influences, rolled results were always open to all to see and never ambiguous or disputed. Dice never rolled unless the purpose of the roll was announced beforehand, even the DM had to roll "secret" things in plain sight. Players could amuse themselves rolling other off-sheet dice all they wanted, but only on-the-sheet rolls were accepted to determining any meaningful game mechanics. I like random and don't fudge the results, no matter how unexpected or extreme, it keeps the game honest and quite often develops things/events/challenges in surprising directions. |
[/Ayrik] |
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The Arcanamach
Master of Realmslore
1885 Posts |
Posted - 13 Jun 2015 : 08:29:47
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quote:
Good old Zocchi...
I miss the old man. I used to take trips to his store in Biloxi years ago. Most of my out of print DnD (the non-advanced game and original 1e material) came from there.
That was back when I could afford to travel and spend money like crazy before wife/kids came along. |
I have a dream that one day, all game worlds will exist as one. |
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TBeholder
Great Reader
2511 Posts |
Posted - 14 Jun 2015 : 17:50:15
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| My point is, analyzing but 1-2 contributing factors is not very useful if it's much easier to analyze the output as such. |
People never wonder How the world goes round -Helloween
And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense -R.W.Wood
It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo. -Ed Whitchurch |
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How to check if your dice are balanced.
