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There have been tons of threads about dice and probability that they roll how some dice statistically because of the way they are made have a propensity for rolling non average.

I was not convinced until I bought some precision dice from gamescience anyway the difference is really startlingly.


Also, consider getting a app for iphone for dice rolls anyone use this exclusively?

Do you basically care or will you roll just anything a dice is a dice.

I usually dont care what dice I roll. I kind of have a bunch of dice I set up in small groups of 5 before the battle (makes grabbing the right amount of dice alot esier) but I normally grab one of my bigger shiny-type dice when I roll for important things... First turn, setting up, mission, etc... But I jsut do it as a habit... not really a way for rolling better

IMO... A die is a die is a die is a die, you know? As long as you use the same dice for everything. then they can be whatever type your little heart desires.

I've seen some of the studies of rolling gw dice or other small dice that say that they roll worse than is average, but in my games, when I roll a bucket of dice, more often than not they're right on the statistical money (I like to make note of it after the die roll) So I don't see it as being a large problem, especially when everyone I game with uses the same style of dice.

I have a couple dozen precision dice, a bunch of large rounded side/corner, some GW dice and several pounds of Chessex. In the end, I tend to use different types and colors of dice to represent different types of equipment. "These are the power weapons, these are the regular strikes...." Precision dice do roll better, but I think that my game is hardly elevated to the point that those few extra percentage points are going to swing the balance.

But it's nice ot be able to grab different style dice like that. Different sizes are nice too.

I buy different dice for every army. They have to be square, so no rounded corners for me. I don't need Vegas dice that cost $15 a pair, but I don't want cheap Chessex crap either.

I also prefer my dice to match my army. I have blue dice for my Wolves and Fists, and a buttload of green dice for my Orks. My Iron Warriors should get some nice shiny dice too, actually...

Dice are dice.

The slight incremental increase in statistical chance of rolling the 'right' dice is not a consideration - I could have dice guaranteed to roll 6s and I'd still lose games.

Then again, I'm mainly in it for the modelling and painting.

I take larger dice when I play competitive games.
Larger dice are probably more random than smaller ones.

I have a bunch of Gamescience dice, but I still use specialist dice for games which need them.

For example, Langton's "Signal Close Action" uses a system of rolling a set of six dice in six colours to decide various in-game actions.

I can't be arsed to buy the right six colours from Gamescience and it would probably cost about £30 due to postage and stuff.

I just try and roll dice that are all the same size and type.

Though having said that, I only have 9 dice that are the same, with other misc sizes and shapes making up the rest of my nice.

Really need to get some more uniform ones, but hey, what does it matter so long as they have 6 sides and a different number on each face?

When you are chucking a huge handful of them about individual differences do not matter so much anyway.

Dice are dice. I avoid crazy novelty dice, however. I also avoid dice made from anything other than plastic. So, I guess I mean to say that regular, plastic dice are dice.

I have never heard of gamescience. Do they make something special?

As a sidenote, I recognize that all dice are going to be less than perfectly random. But if I notice a particular die that consistently rolls poorly, I will make a note of it and not use it in any situation where it would fail me. (I have a pair of grey dice that seem to consistently roll low. They aren't weighted or anything. But they roll 1's more than sixes. So I use them for leadership tests.)


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Also, I am kind of a technosavage. I dont trust fancy wurrin' gizmos. I wont play with someone who is using anything other than dice. I ran into someone who insisted on using an electronic die rolling application on a laptop. I offered to let him use my dice. He accepted, but had he refused I would have packed my crap and left. I just dont trust it.

The type of dice does not matter for the game. But, I choose ones that will disintergrate when hit by a lawn mower. There is nothing worse than getting hit by a die in the leg when the lawn mower hits the dice which are thrown into the lawn behind the FLGS.

When stationed at Fort Bragg, NC the FLGS you could get at least four blocks of dice out of the yard from all the people whom threw their ing dice that provided their own suction. It was the only place I saw the lawn mowers wearing eye protection when mowing.

jimsolo wrote:
As a sidenote, I recognize that all dice are going to be less than perfectly random. But if I notice a particular die that consistently rolls poorly, I will make a note of it and not use it in any situation where it would fail me. (I have a pair of grey dice that seem to consistently roll low. They aren't weighted or anything. But they roll 1's more than sixes. So I use them for leadership tests.)

You realize this is considered by many to be dice cheating right?

Seriously, if your going to use big dice, use them for everything and same goes for small dice.

I'm a little superstitious when it comes to my dice, but I generally find that small dice work better for 40k and that big dice work better for fantasy. I don't really know why, but it seems to work for me.

Also I prefer dice with a bit of weight behind them. I have some dice which are twice as heavy as other dice of the same company, and they just feel better to roll. And no, they're not "weighted" dice...

My wife when she played always bought dice that matched her armies paint job. I have never seen any person roll so many 5s and 6s in my life.

I started out just buying one of GWs dice cubes (27 x 12mm dice including a scatter die). But I came round to really liking the bigger (16mm) dice in pretty colours which I saw being used. I've just got some Chessex ones I really like, and I'm waiting for the shop to get another matching set in (they come in 12s) so I can use them exclusively - often need more than 20 dice in 40k, as you know.
I hadn't thought about them not being perfectly random - my games aren't that close.

It is very important to use the correct dice for a situation!
Subbing in your D&D damage dice instead of using 40K attack dice will lead to Great Wrath being visited upon you by The Dice Gods!
Electronic Dice Apps are the Devil's Work, and should be burned at the stake!

Zen and the Art of Dice Maintenance:
http://maddwarf.co.uk/Articles/dice.htm

I try to encourage my opponents to share a set of dice for a game, so that both sides use the same dice. Doesn't fly with everyone, but it ensures that neither side has an advantage due to the particular dice they use.

niceas wrote:I try to encourage my opponents to share a set of dice for a game, so that both sides use the same dice. Doesn't fly with everyone, but it ensures that neither side has an advantage due to the particular dice they use.

This is actually by far, the best thing to do. Sometimes I just leave my dice in my case and use my opponents. I believe this really needs to start becoming the standard.

I got cheapo 16mm Chessex I've been using but I find when I need to roll up 48 dice at one time it's far to clumsy as I only have 24 and it's a pain to toss 24 16mm onto the board without knocking minis over like a bowling alley.

I ordered some 12mm Chessex from the warstore. I got 36 in a cube so while I'll have to roll 12 of them over for 48 attacks at least they won't destroy minis if accidentally rolled into them.

To me it's just dice. However, I have noticed some things:

1. Whenever I roll a bunch of dice (ie more than 3), I tend to roll higher than average, as compared to when I roll 3 or less dice, I tend to roll below average. Spooky, but true.

2. Whenever I roll with average, everyday dice (from monopoly, for eg), I tend to roll lower than when compared to when I roll my GW dice (the ones in a die box)

3. Statistics and Averages are just lies. Surely

I prefer to use my own dice and keep my hands off others' dice unless told otherwise and expect the same from other game players. Just a space-invasion-property-ownership-thing though, not a superstition. That being said, none of the players in my RPG would touch my dice for fear of them killing their characters - which happened the one or two times a player forgot to bring their own dice.

No preferences other than numbers over pips.

@timmah

First off, they are regulation dice, and not weighted. So...no. It isn't cheating. I bought them from the store, which advertises them as regulation dice. That makes them what we gamers like to call 'lucky.' Now, if you got the impression that these dice are hot dice that are rolling sixes five times out of ten, then I apologize, I didnt mean to give you that view of the situation. But I do have dice that (I think) roll higher or lower than others, in certain situations. But the margin is small enough that it is possible that its only in my head.

Secondly, I do not enjoy sharing my dice. At all. Or sharing in general. I have seen too many terrible examples of what gamers do with their hands, and I dont want them handling my dice. I also notice that when i share things, those things have a remarkable tendency to vanish. By the same token, I dont want to use anyone else's dice. Out of my little cube of Chessex dice, one of them was devoured by a cat and later recovered from the litterbox. (No, i didnt do it. The dice set is one I have had for thirteen years, and my little sister did it. She thought i wouldn't notice) Care to guess which one? If the 'standard' was to share dice, then I would be very unhappy. Actually, if it became 'good' sportsmanship for everyone to use a communal set of dice, I would just be a terrible sport.

Note: Edited for clarification.

Dakka dice for TFG, otherwise dice I can read (seriously, thats an issue).

jimsolo wrote:@timmah

First off, they are regulation dice, and not weighted. So...no. It isn't cheating. I bought them from the store, which advertises them as regulation dice. That makes them what we gamers like to call 'lucky.' Now, if you got the impression that these dice are hot dice that are rolling sixes five times out of ten, then I apologize, I didnt mean to give you that view of the situation. But I do have dice that (I think) roll higher or lower than others. But the margin is small enough that it is possible that its only in my head.

Actually, locally, if people catch you using one set of dice for one type of roll, and another set for another type of roll (i.e. using dice group 'a' for hits and wounds, and using dice group 'b' for leadership and trait tests) you WILL be called out as a cheater. It normally only happens with people using a dice cube for hits/wounds and casino dice for leadership tests, but I have seen it happen a few other times.

It doesn't tend to happen in friendly games, but god help you if you do it in the tournament scene.

If I run into TFG, I have a dice cube from chessex that I use alongside my VC army. I'm happy to offer to share dice, and I'll typically pull out a particularly random set of GW dice, but if I know my opponent is TFG who believes in WAAC, these chessex dice roll disproportionally high, with the average being closer to 5 than anything else.

Niceas: God help me? Hardly. It isn't a weighted die. Period. I do not own any weighted dice. Not a single one. What part of that didn't I make clear? It is a normal, run of the mill, freaking Chessex dice! And as a side note, all the Chessex dice I have ever owned roll for crap. All of them. And no, I dont care what kind of dice people are using as long as they aren't actual weighted dice. I know a guy with a die that he got from his grandfather, he only uses it for saves for his commanders. It's called superstition.

These aren't weighted dice. They are dice that I believe, after years and years and years of using them, roll better in some circumstances than others. And it isnt the only dice superstition I follow.

1. I wont roll dice twice in a row. I set them aside until every die in the cube has been rolled, and then start the rotation again.
2. I wont use any die that fell on the floor. It gets returned to the box for the remainder of the game.
3. I wont use any die that has come into contact with food until it has been washed.
4. I have some dice that I wont use with my Space Marines.
5. I have one set of dice that I wont use if I have any unpainted models on the table.
6. I have a set of three dice that I won't use unless it is raining.
7. Dice that are used as markers (wound markers, turn markers, etc) may NOT be rolled during the game in which they are used as markers.

I follow a dozen more dice superstitions. I know its weird, but half the time it isnt something obvious anyway. Is the belief that I can manipulate luck by observing rituals cheating? If so, then every football player who prays before his games should be banned from organized competition (what a cheater that guy is!)

I am of the agreement that I like my dice to match my army. I cannot for the life of me explain it honestly, it just always felt right. I like the Chessex 36 cube stack that comes in every shade of whatever under the sun.

My only exception is my "Troll Blood" dice. I love them. I love the bright orange and blue, which does not match a single thing i've painted. Its all about the symbol. I also have some Protectorate of Menoth dice that are pretty sweet.

For rolling for spell in WFB. 1 set of bone dice, 1 set of red dice, and 1 set of pirate dice. That way they look completely different from each other, I can speed roll them, and I never pick them up during the game.

jimsolo wrote:Niceas: God help me? Hardly. It isn't a weighted die. Period. I do not own any weighted dice. Not a single one. What part of that didn't I make clear? It is a normal, run of the mill, freaking Chessex dice! And as a side note, all the Chessex dice I have ever owned roll for crap. All of them. And no, I dont care what kind of dice people are using as long as they aren't actual weighted dice. I know a guy with a die that he got from his grandfather, he only uses it for saves for his commanders. It's called superstition.

First off, pardon the hyperbole.

With regards to the issue at hand, it matters not as to whether the die is weighted. In my experience the local tournament judges will cite you for cheating if you use specific dice for specific purposes. Hasn't happened to me, but from what I've seen you get a warning, then you get kicked. As I mentioned, the more common occurrence is where people use chessex/GW dice for hits and wounds, and casino dice for leadership.

Why is that? Chessex dice have been shown to statistically favour certain numbers (although it changes die-by-die). What causes this? Poor quality control. Older GW dice were shown in a study to roll the same number as much as 30% of the time, over thousands of rolls. This is not a statistical anomaly, this is something that is tied to the quality of the dice. By contrast, casino quality dice have been shown to be more in line with 18% consistency - when you consider that a perfect die is closer to 16.66%, you will see that a casino quality die is more likely to be truly random.

At the beginning of the game, I politely ask my opponent if they are willing to share dice - mine or theirs, doesn't make a difference to me. If they decline, and I notice that they are doing something like what you describe (using particular dice for a particular purpose), I will politely ask that they use the same dice for all their rolls. If they persist, and I believe that I observe statistical anomalies (ie. dice used to hit and wound are tending to result in an average roll of 4 or greater and the dice used to take leadership tests are tending to roll 3 or less) I chalk them up to being TFG and change the way I play my game from there.

Understand - this comes from dealing with a TFG at the local store who would do exactly what you are describing. His dice weren't weighted, but he used a set of chessex dice to roll hit and wound (and spell cast) and he would use old-school GW dice (pre-cubes) for leadership tests.

All that being said, I'm less likely to chalk someone up to being TFG if their following a regimen of superstition as strict as yours appears to be.

I roll furry dice.

Thanks Niceas for laying it out. It has been proven that most dice do not roll average unless you are using top of the line dice.

There are certain dice that roll higher generally and some that roll lower generally. Just because they are not weighted does not mean its not cheating.

Using small dice for leadership tests (proven to roll lower I believe) and big dice for everything else (proven to roll higher) you are most definitely cheating and at any larger even you will probably be called out on it.

Though I remember hearing at LVGT everyone at the top 10 tables was doing this.

Small dice actually land on 1 an average of 29% of the time, much higher than the 16.6% they should be.

Now please try and tell me using certain dice for certain rolls isn't cheating

OT but can you get more balanced dice at a cheap price vs. chessex?