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Let's start off with a question and some reasons for asking it:

When rolling for saves, do you use the exact same dice that were originally rolled to cause wounds?

In other words, your opponent uses his/her dice to perform the attacks. Do you pick up the dice that caused the successfull wounds and use those to roll your saves? Further, if someone asked you to do this, would you have a problem with it?

The reason I ask is that I've noticed something about the packs of chessex dice I've been buying. For example, one set I have rolls low on average. Meaning that it is more likely to roll a 1 or 2 than a 5 or 6. I tested this by taking the dice both in groups of 10 and individually and rolled them 200 times while recording the results. It came out that a 1 would show about 22% of the time and a 2 about 19% of the time. If they were properly weighted a 1 should show, roughly, 17% of the time. This is a relatively minor difference but could sway the course of a single game.

So, I took out a different set that I owned and tested it the exact same way. The results were nearly the exact opposite, with 5's and 6's being more likely.

I tried this with a total of 5 different packs. Out of those only 1 was close enough to average that the statistics of it made the difference moot.

Also to make things a little more "scientific" I did the testing twice and let my 7 year old do all the rolling for the second batch of tests. The results were pretty close to identical.

As a side note, the packs I'm using are the 36 dice blocks. They were bought new at random local hobby shops, and have NOT been modified in any way.

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Which brings me back to my question. This was something I noticed only after having used the dice in question over the course of many games and obviously does not involve any type of conscious "cheating".

It seems to me that any quality issues that might be within the dice could be corrected simply by having both players roll the same set of dice when resolving a bit of action. It doesn't seem to matter if you have dice that average rolling low or high as long as the same dice are used.

For example, if my dice roll high then I'm more likely to cause wounds. However, if those same dice are used to roll saves, the opponent is more likely to make the saves.

What do you think?

I think it only becomes an issue if people have dice for certain situations. For example if you play someone that has specific dice for wounding and saves, and another set for leadership tests. This would show that they have dice that perform differently.

Also I have seen plenty of tournaments where you are forced to buy dice that they provide and use only them in the tournament.

Melchiour wrote:I think it only becomes an issue if people have dice for certain situations. For example if you play someone that has specific dice for wounding and saves, and another set for leadership tests. This would show that they have dice that perform differently.

I've got a chessex 12-brick of big dice and an additional 36-pack of little dice. I've noticed that they roll unusually high a lot of the time. I haven't taken action on it for a couple reasons. 1) I still manage to roll a lot of 1's (e.g. to wound with cannonballs ) and I play empire, so I end in taking a lot of break tests, where high rolls are a handicap. I use them for everything without discrimination. However, if I'm not the only one to have noticed this issue, maybe I'll do some kind of scientific test.

I think the way most dice are manufactured is fundamentally flawed. In fact this has been proven time and time again. It's because of this flaw in production that a die can favor one side. It all has to do with the rounded edges and momentum once rolled. However, if there are an equal number or dice that favor high rolls, medium rolls and low rolls it all tends to balance out.

I agree that a game can be made more fair if both players use the same set of dice, but I doubt it will ever happen. As gamers we develop a relationship (for the lack of a better word) with our dice and don't want anyone else 'tainting' them.

It's all about the dice gods!

I noticed the same issue. I was rolling so bad during a game once that the asst mgr at the FLGS tossed me a new block of dice. They were red (I was using a block of white and a block of black - all Chessex). The red dice scored MUCH better. To this day I use them when rolling for anything but leadership.

I have never spent the time to roll each one over and over again to see if there is a bias. I always thought it was the dice gods. A player never notices when rolls go right for them, they only remember the bad rolls.

The small dice on Assault on Black Reach roll low a lot (I use them when firing my Punisher cannon - 20 at a time).

On a side note, I bought my nephew 100 off-name dice I found on Amazon from $7. The reviews were very negative about the quality of the dice. So I told him to do what you described - take each one and find if there is a bias. For all 100 dice. Yes, it was a gag gift. Also gave him the kids book "Winning Isn't Everything".

I was failing leadership tests and then I did the Macarena and suddenly my dice started rolling what I wanted them to then I picked up a new box of dice and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias whoops

Apart from one compulsive cheater who would intentionally roll dice under terrain and then just claim what the result was, all of the people I've ever played with just used whatever dice were handy, theirs or their opponent's, and never worried about which rolled which way or were bought from which company.

If someone started throwing a fit about the "quality" of the dice, we'd probably just chide them for being such a dink.

I'd say this is simply an example of (a) using too small a sample size, and (b) reading too much into it.

Even though you may think 200 rounds of rolling is a large enough sample size, the truth is that your sample size is still too small. Until you start approaching infinity, you're still going to see deviations from the mathematical probabilities. Rolling 5.333% higher than the probably on 200 trials really isn't that extraordinary.

Yes, unless you buy precision dice, your rolls will have a slightly skewed probably, but to even begin to tell which way your chessex dice "lean," you'd have to do many many many more trials. For now, the 5.333% difference is really only going to affect you mentally, and choosing to put more faith in a certain dice set's ability to roll low on leadership tests will be anything but dependable.

shealyr wrote:I'd say this is simply an example of (a) using too small a sample size, and (b) reading too much into it.

Probably so, which is actually why I posted the question. I wanted to see first if others had noticed such a thing and, more importantly, whether the idea of asking your opponent to use the same dice would be a no no.

Sounds like it's pretty much a mix. Some people would have no issue, others would for possibly psychological reasons (ie: "dice gods"). Interesting either way.

Thanks,

Melchiour wrote:I think it only becomes an issue if people have dice for certain situations.

Agreed! And for this instance there are cups of water.

I agree that the sample size for the experiment is too small. However, I have also given this some thought.
Chessex dice are not weighted casino quality dice. They are cheap and as such their is undoubtedly some dice that favor certain sides. How far do those dice skew the results of a game?
I would say not much. In any given pack most dice are probably skewed to favor some certain number but the overall statistical average of the pack is probably close to normal (i.e., some dice in the pack may favor 1's but their will be other dice that favor 6's). The likelihood of an entire pack being manufactured that has is balanced such that it rolls low (or high) the majority of the time is probably very unlikely.
Now if the game comes down to a single roll - say Mephiston has one wound left, you rolled one hit with your assault squad sergeant's thunder hammer, and now you just have to wound him to keep him from contesting that objective. You may wonder what if I pick up that die that rolls a 1 22% of the time instead of 16.5%? I would say it doesn't really matter. It's one roll and as we all know when you only have to roll one die anything can happen.
Overall, I would have to say that the quality of dice is a relative non-issue. Now if someone were to buy 18 packs of dice, roll each die 10,000 times separately, record each result, and make a super block of dice that statistically rolled 5 or 6 more frequently then that would be a problem. However, the person that spend 2-3 weeks conducting an experiment of that scale to gain a 5% advantage over their opponent may not be much of a threat strategically on the battlefield.

Deathwolf wrote:Overall, I would have to say that the quality of dice is a relative non-issue. Now if someone were to buy 18 packs of dice, roll each die 10,000 separately, record each result, and make a super block of dice that statistically rolled 5 or 6 more frequently than that would be a problem. However, the person that spend 2-3 weeks conducting an experiment of that scale to gain a 5% advantage over their opponent may not be much of a threat strategically on the battlefield.

+1