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Is it worth pointing out that, despite not rolling in a mathematically perfect manner, it really doesnt matter, the actuall difference is negligeble, this isn't a high stakes casino game, it's some nerds in a basement, so long as the dice aren't crooked or stupidly light (because I don't trust dice that don't have at least a little weight) then you should be fine with it.

29% for rolling 1 versus 16.7% is not negligible. Using proper dice would result in more statistically accurate combats and thus would likely affect outcomes of entire games.

That being said, as long as everyone is at the same disadvantage, then there is no advantage to be had.

I'm suprised at the number of people who say they use these kinds of precision dice, but have a tray to roll them in. Where do you put this tray? I've never seen anyone do this in person and can't see where there would be room for it.

And as a few people pointed out, even with such a tray, using larger dice with squared off edges it would be possible to affect rolls. I'm not separating the "roller" from the dice, since it's really the outcome that matters.

If casinos go to such trouble to make an uneven surface, it definitely means that it's possible to affect the outcome. Just as their going to so much trouble to balance the dice means they won't naturally roll one number more than another. So if someone really wanted to be a stickler about it, they'd need to reproduce the whole casino rolling surface- not just the dice.

As it is, because this argument is well known, I see people justifying using huge dice with squared off edges, even though there's not (usually) enough spare room on a gaming table to give them adequate room to roll these dice randomly.

I think rolling a smaller dice on the uneven surface of the board is more trustworthy in its randomness... than rolling a larger (yet perfectly balanced) dice on a very small, flat surface.

So I just don't agree with the arguments about the level of play upping the stakes so much that you use these dice to make sure the rolls are random. If you're using large, squared off dice in a small space... I think common sense shows that rolls of a few dice (not a huge number, as someone pointed out) could be affected by the roller.

RiTides wrote:I'm suprised at the number of people who say they use these kinds of precision dice, but have a tray to roll them in. Where do you put this tray? I've never seen anyone do this in person and can't see where there would be room for it.

My tray started life as a 9" round cake pan (2" deep). Even on terrain-dense tables, there tends to be room for it to go somewhere. (Again, though, I'm using square small Chessex dice, not casino dice. Those wouldn't have much room to roll in a cake tin.)

You can find square cornered dice for about 30-40 cents each. That's not too bad. But if you want the total flat dice with screened pips and sharp edges, your stuck at about $2 per die.

The choice is yours, how badly do you feel you need those dice.

aerethan wrote:29% for rolling 1 versus 16.7% is not negligible. Using proper dice would result in more statistically accurate combats and thus would likely affect outcomes of entire games.

That being said, as long as everyone is at the same disadvantage, then there is no advantage to be had.

If everyone is using the same army, yes. Not so much when you are Terminators and they are gaunts. 2x as many rolls of "1" is too much.

If his terminators have a 29% chance of a 1, and your tryanids do as well, then the number of rolls won't make a difference in the math, only that your dice might better exemplify the statistic thru greater numbers of rolls.

To flip a coin and get heads 100 times in a row does not disprove the existence of tails.

Yes you will in theory roll twice as many 1's but you also have twice as many rolls to begin with so your loss is still balanced against his.

RiTides wrote:I've seen that article, too, and read the arguments for and against its validity, etc...

Here is something I have been wondering about the so-called "casino dice" however. If you're rolling a large dice, with square edges to boot, and you just "drop" it onto the table- isn't there a greater chance of its' outcome not being truly random?

It bothers me when people use really, really large dice, and don't roll them adequately. In a casino, playing (what's it called? craps?) you have to roll them across a long table, past a line, right? So that makes the result random.

However, if you're using large, squared off dice, and just basically shaking them slightly and then dropping them from just above the playing surface- I wonder if they're not really being randomized?

"
Seconded, it drives me insane when people using "casino" dice weakly "roll" them so they just end up dropping right on to the number they already had up which generally tends to be a hit as people usually pick up their hits in my experience. I don't think they are consciously doing this though, it is just a product of the dice they are using and the tendency to pick up one's hits and then rolling them.

I bought 4 dice the last time I was at a casino. I don't know if it's an inferior set that they sell to customers or what, but the plastic they're made of is so soft, they're not worth using. I can put a dent in one with a fingernail.

Any vegas dice you buy are usually "retired" which means they get drilled out and will fail a mic test. This is also why they are usually pretty cheap.

aerethan wrote:If his terminators have a 29% chance of a 1, and your tryanids do as well, then the number of rolls won't make a difference in the math, only that your dice might better exemplify the statistic thru greater numbers of rolls.

To flip a coin and get heads 100 times in a row does not disprove the existence of tails.

Yes you will in theory roll twice as many 1's but you also have twice as many rolls to begin with so your loss is still balanced against his.

What? No. The point is not the number of rolls. The point is that terminators care about 1. If they die twice as much as they should, something is wrong.

I usually set my dice tray off to the side of the table near the center line where it is easy to be seen by all. I know some people have crowded game shops and not much room to do this.

I keep seeing statements of people picking up and dropping dice, not rolling correctly, or trying to keep a certain number up while rolling. Again this isnt a product of the dice, I see just as many people with chessex/cheep dice doing the same thing.

Clay Williams wrote:What makes rolling average a WAAC activity?

I use casino dice because I am tierd of unbalanced and unfair dice. Mass produced dice do not give you true averages.

It's not WAAC, but it's considered distasteful because you don't have a level playing field. Unless EVERYONE is prepared to spend money on casino dice.

Since everyone uses rounded dice, by buying and using casino dice you're giving yourself a considerable in-game advantage which has nothing to do with tactics or skill. That's what annoys people.

Of course, you right - your dice only roll average just like dice should, rather than badly like rounded dice actually DO, but the point remains....

I'm beginning to suspect that my cheap block of dice from GW (the one with the multiple colors and one artillery, one scatter dice) is skewed to roll too HIGH. Maybe it's all mental, but I've been rolling on a tear lately

5+ Ward saves FTW!

If anyone could post a link to a place that sells small chessex dice cube sized dice without rounded edges I think a lot of us would appreciate it. I have looked casually but have never been able to find smaller non chessex dice.

I would pay a decent amount of cash to have dice that actually rolled average.

Here ya go.

$11.25 each, $22.50 a pair

http://www.gammonvillage.com/backgammon-shop/backgammon-accessories/backgammon-precision-dice/

The expense is why I never purchased any. And to be honest, I stopped caring about the issue.

GG

From the pic those look like they have rounded edges GG... am I wrong?

Yeah... I guess I missed that requirement in his post.

GG

Vengis wrote:I bought 4 dice the last time I was at a casino. I don't know if it's an inferior set that they sell to customers or what, but the plastic they're made of is so soft, they're not worth using. I can put a dent in one with a fingernail.

They are terrible knock-offs.

Real craps dice are made out of cotton, and are very hard. It takes a steel tool that heats up to scratch them (if you ever get a chance to inspect a die that is in use at a craps table you might notice a small mark scratched into one side, usually a letter or a dot, this is another security measure)


As or the comment about canceled dice. Most casinos drill a hole strait through the one, and out the six, then stamp the center of the 3 with a metal tube. This tends to make the dice roll 2-5 more often, and could be considered cheating.

I did a lot of reading after checking out that article, and I'm not really convinced. Chessex dice work fine for me, real world dicing conditions seem to offset any imbalance they might have. If you read the warseer thread that the article links to, the guy that did the experiment starts to think that there might have been something to do with the way he ran the experiment that contributed to making ones more prevalent.

To the casino dice rolling world, more power to you, but apparently to get a truly random number you have to toss them against a vertical surface.

Demogerg wrote:

Using casino dice is fine, but it does make you appear to be a WAAC gamer, and it can set a bad mood for the entire game.

THAT is why I just use normal GW/Chessux dice. the statistical advantage of using well-made dice is not worth it over the loss of fun from playing a game where the opponent acts like he has a stick shoved somewhere inappropriate.

News at 11: Playing with casino dice makes you a tournament WAAC gamer, and we all know that the two are interlinked!

Good job, moron.

What dice you use have absolutely nothing to do with your personality and your playstyle.

I'm always surprised at how many people take that article as gospel. The skew in results that it purports to show are really unbelievable. As in, not believable.

The author goes to great lengths to set up a lot of unnecessary peripheral smoke and mirrors to make it look scientific, but the whole rigamarole is some bizarre attempt to simulate something (dice rolling) which is simple enough to *just do* directly.

Here's the thing: instead of freaking out and rushing out to find casino dice in bulk, why not take a little time to test your own Chessex (or whatever) dice directly. Despite what the author of the dice article would want you to believe, you don't need to have an advanced degree in Mechanical Engineering [in fact, it may be a hindrance] to do a basic B.S. check yourself.

Roll a brick or two of Chessex dice. Record the number of each result (1's, 2's, etc.). You can even record the results for each color of dice. For a roll of a given brick, you may see some unlikely results, such as 9 1's and 1 5, or 11 4's and 2 1's.

But repeat this a few dozen times and you'll have 1000 or so samples. Add up the results over all trials. I'll bet dollars to donuts you'll get well within 1% of 1/6 per result. As a bonus, you'll be measuring the exact thing you care about (rolling dice by hand) instead of the behavior of a dice-jiggling contraption.

If I'm wrong, and your batch of Chessex dice somehow skew significantly over 1000 rolls, by all means go out and spend a bunch of money and time on "perfect" dice.

I've tested multiple bricks of "cheap" dice and the results are the same every time: over a significantly large enough number of rolls, the results are invariably uniform within a very small margin of error.

LMoE

Sweet tapdancing jeebus, am I glad I read that article. When I roll dice, I tend to roll 'em in buckets (36 attacks on the charge for my Fiends, for example), and switching to square-edged dice made a *huge*, noticable difference.

These are the ones I use now, btw: http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=48827&ref=goog

I bought about 20 random, square-edged dice from a FLGS in my area for 25 cents each. They roll so much better than Cheesex dice it's not even funny. For the longest time, I used a set of dice from a Bunco set and they worked really well. You don't have to buy casino dice... there are reasonable and effective alternatives out there.

ArbitorIan wrote:
It's not WAAC, but it's considered distasteful because you don't have a level playing field. Unless EVERYONE is prepared to spend money on casino dice.

Since everyone uses rounded dice, by buying and using casino dice you're giving yourself a considerable in-game advantage which has nothing to do with tactics or skill. That's what annoys people.

Lol, but it's perfectly level if one player spends $1000 dollars on a wide range of units and some newb has a couple generic battleforce sets? If it bugs you that much, bite the bullet and spend the pittance (compared to everything else in this hobby) to get a decent set of dice so you do get an ulcer nerd-raging that your opponent has decent dice.

After reading threads like this every few months, I had some money and figured I'd buy the things I always wanted to make gaming more enjoyable....an Armytransport "Division" case to replace the big rubbermaid tub I used to use and some casino dice. I've played for over 10 years, and plan to play at least as long in the future (GW solvency-dependent), so it's worth it. Heck, the used casino dice I got were pretty cheap ($2.70 a pair http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=58106 ). I still use the little chessex dice for massive numbers (kroot assaults, massed lasgun fire, etc), but other than that, it's the casino dice all the time. Some of the best gaming purchases I've ever made.

CatPeeler wrote:Sweet tapdancing jeebus, am I glad I read that article. When I roll dice, I tend to roll 'em in buckets (36 attacks on the charge for my Fiends, for example), and switching to square-edged dice made a *huge*, noticable difference.

These are the ones I use now, btw: http://www.frpgames.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=48827&ref=goog

Wow, those are really deep pips. No wonder why they roll so much better.

Danny Internets wrote:Wow, those are really deep pips. No wonder why they roll so much better.

Eh, as far as I can tell, any difference in depth is marginal (tested by inserting a needle into a chessex pip and a Koplow pip and comparing the depths). The koplow pips are much wider, for sure...but the square footage of each plane is much larger, too.

What about blank dice?

http://dicepool.com/Specialty-Dice/Blank-Dice/16mm-Blank-d6s/Assorted-Opaque-Blank-16mm-Dice-bag-of-100-/prod_1859.html