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Years ago (6+?) there was a discussion on dice probabilities, where someone who was a statistics professor had his students roll up twenty or thirty thousand d6 rolls and found that the Chessex dice came up 1 some unreasonable number of rolls. 31% is the number that sticking in my head. Does anyone know if that thread is still around? I did some searchy, and couldn't find anything. TBH, I don't even remember what subforum it was in.

Mnemoch wrote:
Years ago (6+?) there was a discussion on dice probabilities, where someone who was a statistics professor had his students roll up twenty or thirty thousand d6 rolls and found that the Chessex dice came up 1 some unreasonable number of rolls. 31% is the number that sticking in my head. Does anyone know if that thread is still around? I did some searchy, and couldn't find anything. TBH, I don't even remember what subforum it was in.

Interesting experiment. Sorry but I cannot help.
What's the reason for asking?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/That's_How_I_Roll_-_A_Scientific_Analysis_of_Dice

That stuff was made up.

Excellent, thank you!

That was found to be totally fraudulent. The truth is 'unbalanced dice' do have individual biases, but are biased based upon internal air bubbles *NOT* pips. So any unbalanced die may be biased to any side, not 1s.

The thing is, when you have a dice pool of undocumented biases, then it all balances out. When you begin to observe and document those biases and segment those dice is when you begin to have an issue.

This is a good site which talks about such things.
http://dicephysics.info/0107.htm

Rounded edges don't make dice unbalanced, pips don't make dice unbalanced, smaller dice don't make dice unbalanced. CHEAP dice make dice unbalanced. To have 30%+ bias, a die would be visually deformed.

While you can buy higher-end dice, the truth is your chessex cube of doo-doo die is going to be just fine for game play as long as you don't observe the bias by testing individual die. The chances to get a cube with a large distribution of die biased to rolling 1s across the entire set is virtually impossible and is a total MYTH.

Also, don't ever get casino die. Casino dice can not be randomized on a wargaming surface and the simple act of rolling them on a hard surface will damage them and create bias virtually immediately. Getting them and using them for 'segmented rolls' is emulating cheating as no one should ever have 'special dice for special rolls' as any die should be available for any roll. Those who have put the segmented dice into the hobby have done so either because they do dice rolling techniques or are emulating unconsciously through superstition those who do use rolling techniques.

I will forever use my sloppy cube of bad dice and never observe the bias. If you use segmented dice in a tourney, and the tourney requires dice sharing, I will molest your dice until you put those dice away.

What are "segmented dice?"

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
What are "segmented dice?"

I use these Special dice for leadership rolls and this die for my leaders 2++ save.

Basically when someone uses a 'specific die' for 'specific rolls'. Either they have observed bias of that die and it rolls the needed bias (high low) or they are using dice where the outcome can be influenced by rolling techniques. (Or emulating other's cheating via superstition beliefs)

Rounded-edge dice can be randomized without a cup or a bank and are ideal because it is virtually immpossible to control the outcome. Hard-edged larger dice can be influenced much easier. I know a person who can roll a 4+ about 90% of the time by using a technique with a square-edged die.

So I am much less 'worried' about a bubble that makes a die roll 2 10% of the time in a cube full of 36 dice and hides in an array of obscurity when compared to someone who pull out two special casino dice for his leadership rolls. If it is good enough for orc attack #27, it should be good enough for a critical leadership check.

I did my own test of a pile of GW dice and got a variance of only about ~1% to any one side. So I think that test was either flawed or lying.

Also as nkelsch says, casino dice are actually much easier to roll in such a way as to affect the outcome.... which is why casinos force you to roll a certain way to stop people cheating.

Casino dice also roll poorly on many typical gaming surfaces, which are often hard surfaces rather than the felt surfaces they are supposed to be rolled on.

I dunno, I like my casino dice. They are MUCH easier to read across a table, and I simply like the feel of them better. 40k rolls so many dice that I typically use regular old GW dice for that, but for games requiring far fewer dice, my enormous blocks of plastic are ideal

 Moktor wrote:
I dunno, I like my casino dice. They are MUCH easier to read across a table

You should try these 'un's.

The issue with casino dice is that -with practice- a person can roll the dice certain ways to get what they want*.
I've seen it at some tourneys, which is why I watch people with casino dice closely.
Ever wonder why you have to hit the bumper on a craps table?

*Disclaimer - not everyone with casino dice is doing this. I got it- casino dice can be fun. But there's always someone out there looking to take advantage.