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morgoth wrote:
First comes the vision, then the detailed explanation, then the experiments to confirm it.

I'm sure people have had that vision for centuries if not millennia, let me know when they get to the "detailed explanation" and "experiments to confirm it" part It wouldn't even be that hard to do, get a bunch of people who are diagnosed as depressed and a bunch of people who are extremely positive (maybe a bunch of people who have been drugged to be happy as well) and get them to perform some dice experiments without telling them. But people who believe that stuff usually aren't scientific enough to follow through with such an experiment.

I certainly think people can affect their own body chemistry with emotions, that it extends to effecting physics entirely external to them, yeah, I'm going to need something more than good feelings to believe that one

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
that it extends to effecting physics entirely external to them, yeah, I'm going to need something more than good feelings to believe that one

Err... The dice that you throw, is thrown by you ... its end result is 100% defined by the environment you throw the dice in (like your own dice tray), and your throw.

I don't see how you throwing a dice in a normalized environment is entirely external to you... that's probably why you don't get it though.

morgoth wrote:
I don't see how you throwing a dice in a normalized environment is entirely external to you... that's probably why you don't get it though.

Unless you're actively trying to effect the results by setting the dice and rhythm rolling (which is totally possible and has nothing to do with wishful thinking though is somewhat impractical in wargaming terms) then the physics are external.

I think your observation that people who are convinced they are going to roll well do roll well is nothing more than confirmation bias (or maybe those people genuinely are setting dice and rhythm rolling*** ).

You see positive people cheering their successful rolls and brushing off their failed rolls and pessimists complaining about their bad rolls and and brushing off their good rolls and have confirmation bias kicking in. Certainly from a psychological and physiological standpoint there's merits to trying to focus on the good results... but as far as effecting the results, you're dreaming unless you can show some tangible evidence or theory.

But whatever, believe what you like, I'll try not to blow the easter bunny, santa and the tooth fairy for you

***There is a lot of feel involved in rhythm rolling, but it's far from exerting positive vibes on the dice to get positive results.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

hobojebus wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
my mates dice were pretty infamous in our group he used GW dice and they came up 1's way more than they should, he threw them away bought 30 square dice for less than a tenner and has got proper results ever since.

It's perfectly possible to have bad dice that roll badly.

Don't suffer with them go out buy some decent ones.

I would just say *actually test them* to save you throwing money at your imagination if they're not biased

We did that's why he threw them away.

Cool, it's just most people complain about it without actually checking or quote that Dakka article which is hardly representative of every set of dice.

disdamn wrote:Take a small cup of warm water. Pour in a bunch of salt, mix it together.

drop a die in. If it doesn't float, keep adding salt until it floats.

Once it's floating flick the floating die. If it keeps coming up with one particular number face up than the die is weighted off. Usually with an imperfection like a bubble or something.

Easy way to test individual dice to see if they're off vs. rolling them hundreds of times and recording results. An imperfectly weighted die with be almost immediately apparent with this test. It will also tell you which dice are weighted high or low

*Edit*

When I say warm water, you need fresh off the tea kettle hot water to mix in enough salt to get this to happen.

That will tell you if they're weighted.... but how do you relate that to an actual rolling bias? I don't really care if my dice are biased to roll 6's 17.5% of the time instead of a perfect 16.67%, I start to care if it's 20+% of the time.

It's not a question of whether dice are biased, it's a question of HOW biased. I don't know of any way to test that other than rolling them (which again, doesn't actually take all that long, if you own an Orc or Tyranid army you probably already roll your dice hundreds of time in a game, it's just a question of noting the results ). If you're aiming for a perfect 16.67% it sounds more like OCD than caring about the outcome of a wargame.

the float test will tell you the number that floats to the top is the number that's likely to be rolled

morgoth wrote:
Conversely, good dice rollers are convinced their dice will kick butt and will easily roll above average consistently, no matter the set of dice.

The casino industry's continued profitability rather thoroughly disproves this claim.

 SonsofVulkan wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
And still have all of the other problems listed...

Well those are the only main arguments I saw against casino dices in that article which I agreed (my 19mm casino dices rolls horrible).

Best of luck with the new dice and tower.

For completion, I would like to add one thing. Please stop saying dices. It makes you sound like you are 8.

Die is singular noun.

Dice is plural noun.

Dices is a verb. He dices onions like a fool!

Again, enjoy your new toys!

 disdamn wrote:
the float test will tell you the number that floats to the top is the number that's likely to be rolled

Sure, but how much more likely?

I don't care if my dice are 1 or 2% biased, it's not something that's going to be significant in a wargame and chasing that last couple of percent is a waste of time and effort.

You need to know how badly the dice are biased, not simply that they are biased.

Am I the only one that gets bugged by the grammer of the thread title whenever they see it?

Maybe. I think of it as a spamvert for some sort of cooking product. It perfect dices; It perfect slices; It perfect minces. Act now and get a second one free, only pay additional S&H charges.

Drives the Mods nuts, I'm certain. They think it's another spam thread and well, no, just some guy with a serious case of dice lice. Meh.

I take casino dice. They always served me well.
Especially small dice have flaws due to recess.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 disdamn wrote:
the float test will tell you the number that floats to the top is the number that's likely to be rolled

Sure, but how much more likely?

I don't care if my dice are 1 or 2% biased, it's not something that's going to be significant in a wargame and chasing that last couple of percent is a waste of time and effort.

You need to know how badly the dice are biased, not simply that they are biased.

You have to think about how even a 5% bias impacts a dice roll. A weighted die that has a bias to roll a 1 for example will also increase the chances of rolling all the adjacent values too. This has an additive impact on a chance toll the opposite number of the bias.

So for example say the float test shows you there's a small 5% bias to roll a one. This means there's also a bias to roll a 2, 3, 4, or 5. If that bias was say 3% that means there's a 5% + (4 * 3%) = 17% chance to not roll a six.

you've only got a 16.7% chance to roll a six to begin with. Even a small bias on a die will reduce your chance of rolling the opposite of the bias value by roughly 1 die roll. Meaning your 1 in 6 chance to roll a six just became a 1 in 7 chance.

 disdamn wrote:
So for example say the float test shows you there's a small 5% bias to roll a one.

But how does a float test show you have a 5% bias?

I'm aware of all the other maths, that's fine, that wasn't my question, my question is how do you determine the magnitude of bias from a float test.

Surely a float test can only tell you if a dice is biased or not, not the degree of that bias.

I tested my dice by actually rolling them, mine actually came out slightly biased AWAY from one. As you can see, my highest probability was 6 followed by 2 then 3, all other results were less than expected with 5 followed by 4 followed by 1.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Proper tests have been done. The small Chessex/GW dice roll 1s over 25% of the time.

Except they don't. I tested my GW dice and they came out like this....

1: 15.71%
2: 17.03%
3: 16.79%
4: 16.27%
5: 16.37%
6: 17.83%

They were all GW dice bought over the course of several years.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 disdamn wrote:
So for example say the float test shows you there's a small 5% bias to roll a one.

But how does a float test show you have a 5% bias?

I'm aware of all the other maths, that's fine, that wasn't my question, my question is how do you determine the magnitude of bias from a float test.

Surely a float test can only tell you if a dice is biased or not, not the degree of that bias.

I tested my dice by actually rolling them, mine actually came out slightly biased AWAY from one. As you can see, my highest probability was 6 followed by 2 then 3, all other results were less than expected with 5 followed by 4 followed by 1.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Proper tests have been done. The small Chessex/GW dice roll 1s over 25% of the time.

Except they don't. I tested my GW dice and they came out like this....

1: 15.71%
2: 17.03%
3: 16.79%
4: 16.27%
5: 16.37%
6: 17.83%

They were all GW dice bought over the course of several years.

The float test doesn't tell you the degree of bias, only what the bias is. You have a roll a single die several hundred times to get enough data points to confidently say if there is a bias. The float test is just an alternate technique to get you the same certainty but with much less time and effort.

Yeah so that's my point, it doesn't help you to know which side a die is biased to if you don't also know to what percentage. I know my set of dice is biased toward 6, but I'm not about to throw them out because I also know it's only 17.8% vs 16.7%, really not enough for me to care about.

Everything is going to be slightly biased, all manufacturing processes have some inherent tolerance, nothing is perfect, the question is how not-perfect something is, not simply that it's not perfect.

A quick search through the thread didn't seem to produce any results, but have you considered sharing a set of dice with your opponent?

That way, hopefully things might seem a little more balanced.

 -Loki- wrote:
Am I the only one that gets bugged by the grammer of the thread title whenever they see it?

Grammar, not grammer

 -Loki- wrote:
Am I the only one that gets bugged by the grammer of the thread title whenever they see it?

If you're going to pick on someone else's language issues, best not to have any in your own posting.

Glass houses and all that.

nareik wrote:
A quick search through the thread didn't seem to produce any results, but have you considered sharing a set of dice with your opponent?

That way, hopefully things might seem a little more balanced.

That's actually what I always do, I'm always suspicious of people who want to use their own dice but won't let me use them as well. I know some people are a bit OCD about people touching their stuff, but dice can be biased so if my opponent is insisting they use their own dice but isn't letting me use them how do I know they don't have a pile of dice that are biased toward 6?

I also don't like people who have specific dice for specific tasks "Oh, these are my leadership test dice, that's my hero's armour save dice, etc".

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I also don't like people who have specific dice for specific tasks "Oh, these are my leadership test dice, that's my hero's armour save dice, etc".

That's one big red flag.

Never seen it though... maybe I'm not suspicious enough yet.

morgoth wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

I also don't like people who have specific dice for specific tasks "Oh, these are my leadership test dice, that's my hero's armour save dice, etc".

That's one big red flag.

Never seen it though... maybe I'm not suspicious enough yet.

I've seen one guy who had specific dice for specific tasks. He had his armour save dice, his leadership dice, his to hit/to wound dice. It was years and years ago and I didn't really think much of it but he totally could have been cheating by having some dice biased low and others biased high.

Though I think he was just an OCD weirdo, because he even had dice set aside for specific characters.

 chromedog wrote:

 -Loki- wrote:
Am I the only one that gets bugged by the grammer of the thread title whenever they see it?

If you're going to pick on someone else's language issues, best not to have any in your own posting.

Glass houses and all that.

I was joining in in the spirit of the OP.