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 JamesY wrote:
Never seen it. I see a lot of people rerolling fails when dice are just the tiniest bit cocked, who never seem to reroll successful rolls cocked the same though.

I can see how that's irritating, but personally I always re-roll any cocked dice. Just isn't worth the time involved with the discussion.

 Griddlelol wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
Never seen it. I see a lot of people rerolling fails when dice are just the tiniest bit cocked, who never seem to reroll successful rolls cocked the same though.

I can see how that's irritating, but personally I always re-roll any cocked dice. Just isn't worth the time involved with the discussion.

Yeah I'm the same, and only if it really isn't clear which facing is up. Doesn't bother me, I just seem to notice it more these days.

Didn't one of the BOLS kids (Kenny?) get caught at a tournament with cheat dice?

There was one game I played at my FLGS where I started out rolling a ton of 5's and 6's the first time I met my opponent. The second time I rolled really well to-wound, I noticed the funny look on his face (Hey, he doesn't realize I'm the fething Kronk) so I pushed them across the table and said "Here, roll to save" After that, the dice went back to their normal gakky rolls and a good time was had by all.

I have a similar story. The paat two times I've faced this chaos player my dice have rolled impossibly well to the point that I started feeling guilty. I'm putting those dice on time out and am gonna start using my other set instead.

But I dont think I've ever seen loaded dice.

I'm pretty sure I was a GW event where some loaded dice were discovered. I can't remember if it was a Baltimore GT or a Baltimore GD, but I remember seeing somebody with a bucket of water testing a set of dice.

Evidently the bucket of water slowed down the dice enough to allow almost all of them to tumble to the bottom with the weighted side down.

I've seen some accidentally loaded dice. A friend bought some especially chunky dice with very deep pips. They were so unbalanced you could actually see them bouncing strangely.

There was a rather large well know tourney last year or the year before where a Tz daemons player got caught with a few dice that had the 2's turned into 5's.

I've had a few sets of GW dice over the years that have consistantly rolled either really well or really poorly and sure enough, once they go into a bucket of salt water, there's a notable bias from more than a few dice so they get don't get used anymore.

Wait, how do you check dice with water? Now I want to check mine... I have a few that seem to be "cursed" might be nice to see if the bias is real or I'm just crazy.

As others have said casino dive are meant to be thrown the length of the craps table. That doesn't happen when wargaming, so they don't roll naturally. I don't go so far as refusing to play against them. But it always baffles me why people go to the expense of using them.

Loaded dice probably happen more than you think in tournaments. It is simply the most reliable way to cheat, so the odds are in favor of it happening. I can't prove it, but I am very certain I have played against players who used them. A few points to address for the discussion:

1. "Some will be rolling too many sixes"
You don't want to do that...it'd be better to load up your dice for 4's and 5's (and a mix of them). Then you can pass your leadership tests, as well as the majority of hit, wound, and save rolls. In fact with some units like warp spiders 3s are good enough. Then you'd be able have "good rolls", but not overtly suspicious ones. Throw in a few unmodified dice so the occasional 1/2 or 6 pops up. Loaded dice also don't ALWAYS roll certain numbers, but are much more likely to.

2. "People will throw them funny"
You only have to throw then in a weird way if they're not loaded.

3. "Precsision casino dice are the best"
Those are meant to be thrown and bounce, so if you try and roll 10+ of them they don't actually end up rolling a lot of the time, making it easier to cheat with the larger dice and also more annoying for your opponent when you have to make multiple rolls.

The thing about loaded dice is that you rarely (if ever) play the same person twice in a tournament. Each of your opponents might merely think you had a good game of rolling, but unless they all compare notes no one is going to notice a trend. This doesn't even cover more subtle things, like using dice that have symbols for 1s AND 6s. Finally, I'm suspicious of anyone who has a large number of non-homogenous dice...especially when a red one is always used for destroyer weapons and those green ones for leadership. At some point you had to aquire enough dice for your army...if you're mixing 5 different sets you picked those particular ones for a reason, whether maliciously or not. Call me paranoid I guess, but it seems to me that no one takes the posiblility of loaded dice seriously when it could have a serious impact on a game, especially in a tournament where a few good rolls at the right time can make all the difference.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
Wait, how do you check dice with water? Now I want to check mine... I have a few that seem to be "cursed" might be nice to see if the bias is real or I'm just crazy.

Add salt to water until it's sufficiently buoyant that your dice float. Give them a bit of a nudge. If they always float with the same side up, they're ... well, not loaded, but imperfect and will tend to return an abnormal number of results that the face is showing. Some dice are worse than others.

 thepowerfulwill wrote:
Wait, how do you check dice with water? Now I want to check mine... I have a few that seem to be "cursed" might be nice to see if the bias is real or I'm just crazy.

If the dice have an obviously biased side, when you drop them into a tall glass or bucket the dice will settle to show that side repeatedly.

I've seen a pair of loaded dice before, a State Gaming Board Agent I am friends with had them. They are quite obvious after a half dozen rolls with the pair. They didn't always land the same way but it had to be well over 75% of the time. Problem I would see is the ability to hide them in a bunch of regular dice.

Claas wrote:
Problem I would see is the ability to hide them in a bunch of regular dice.

^This guy gets it.

TBH, it's a problem unique to wargaming (and to some extent 40K). A 5-elf squad of scatter bikes has 20 to-hit rolls; if someone loaded half their dice you'd just be too busy cursing the Eldar/GW's codex writers to notice. What you gain by loading dice is insurance against exceptionally bad rolls.

 Frozocrone wrote:
Well, I won't be calling anyone out because it's rude and I have no proof.

But I do have a mate with translucent dice that are hard to read at a glance so when they say 'rolled x' and picks up the dice to continue, it's hard to confirm what was said. I guess it doesn't help his case that's he's known for bringing tough lists in every game.

There was an article on here about Games Workshop dice. 25% of the time you're probably going to roll a one, lol.

That article was crap though.
I did my own 600-throw test (same 6 dice thrown 100 times) with Citadel dice and results gradually got closer to average distribution as the test progressed. 1 was actually least common result, probably because that side of the die has most mass.

I recall an incident here few years ago when someone in a tournament was using a loaded novelty die to roll for starting the game and stealing the initiative.

 greyknight12 wrote:

Claas wrote:
Problem I would see is the ability to hide them in a bunch of regular dice.

^This guy gets it.

TBH, it's a problem unique to wargaming (and to some extent 40K). A 5-elf squad of scatter bikes has 20 to-hit rolls; if someone loaded half their dice you'd just be too busy cursing the Eldar/GW's codex writers to notice. What you gain by loading dice is insurance against exceptionally bad rolls.

That's what I said earlier in the thread.

You don't want to roll 6s all the time, you just want to bias the probability a few per cent in your favour.

If you're a clever cheat, that is, of course.

I got accused of using loaded dice once. Odd, because I always offer to share dice with my opponent (provided neither of us is dripping with snot, etc).

I think its good to share as it prevents mixing dice and it means if the dice are biased both players get the benefit/disadvantage.

 greyknight12 wrote:
Finally, I'm suspicious of anyone who has a large number of non-homogenous dice......if you're mixing 5 different sets you picked those particular ones for a reason, whether maliciously or not.

You would thoroughly hate playing against me, as I have a habit of picking up two matching dice every time I'm out at a game store. My current dice pool has like 13 different style of dice, no more then 2 of a color pattern lol

Now I hope I picked the loaded ones!

Backfire wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:
Well, I won't be calling anyone out because it's rude and I have no proof.

But I do have a mate with translucent dice that are hard to read at a glance so when they say 'rolled x' and picks up the dice to continue, it's hard to confirm what was said. I guess it doesn't help his case that's he's known for bringing tough lists in every game.

There was an article on here about Games Workshop dice. 25% of the time you're probably going to roll a one, lol.

That article was crap though.
I did my own 600-throw test (same 6 dice thrown 100 times) with Citadel dice and results gradually got closer to average distribution as the test progressed. 1 was actually least common result, probably because that side of the die has most mass.

I recall an incident here few years ago when someone in a tournament was using a loaded novelty die to roll for starting the game and stealing the initiative.

Yeah that article was BS. I don't know how they managed to get such biased results, but when I tested it, I rolled about 53 dice 40 times, so 2120 rolls in total and my spread was...

1: 15.7%
2: 17%
3: 16.8%
4: 16.3%
5: 16.4%
6: 17.8%


I can't remember exactly, but 2120 rolls is sufficient to be pretty bloody confident that your results are true.

I've never experienced (or noticed) loaded dice. Though I get suspicious of people who have one set of dice that they roll when they want to get a low result and another set when they want to get a high result, as I think the chances that a few specifically selected dice are biased is much higher than if you just randomly collect a handful of dice from a large pool.

Here is a article by Awesome Dice Blog.

The TL/DR is that GameScience dice are better than Chessex, neither are truly random, but either would be fine for general role-playing use. This test was done using D20 rolled by hand. D6s would be likely to deviate more from randomness.

If using the GameScience dice you need to file off the injection nub otherwise it biases the results.

On the plus side, GameScience dice are clear plastic, making it possible to spot air bubbles that might affect results.

I remember a university engineering department built a machine to test dice automatically, but I ca't find the article.

20-sided die is much more vulnerable to poor manufacturing though than d6 or d8. My dice include some d20's which look so uneven that some numbers probably almost never come up. That's one reason why I don't like d20 systems

If you've got bad dice you can buy better ones.

A D20 is less vulnerable to bad manufacturing because it's got more sides to roll onto making any bias less bad.

A bias on one side of a D20 is potentially 5%, while on a D6 it's potential 16%.

I don't think that's how it works. Smaller the sides are, more likely it is that even small imperfections in weight and shape make certain numbers unlikely to come up.
I have a d100 die (from Gamescience!) and that's the most biased die I have seen. It almost always ends up on its 'equator'.

Imagine a theoretical die with 1,000 faces, with a 10% bias to the 1 face, meaning the 1 comes up 10% more often than totally random.

If the die is truly random the 1 will appear 1 in 1,000 rolls, but due to the bias in this example, it will come up 1.001 in every 1,000 rolls. This is 0.1001 percent of the time.

Now imagine a 2 sided die with a 10% bias to the 1. This is liable to cause 1.1 appearances for every two rolls, which is 55% of the time.

Now imagine a D2 made with 1,000 faces, printed 1 or 2. A 10% bias to a single 1 face will produce almost negligible variation to the overall resuts.

This experiment assumes both types of dice are equally likely to contain flaws causing the same degree of bias. This may not be the case in real life. It would depend on the manufacturing quality of the dice. A badly moulded die might be of varying thickness between different opposite faces, or it might contain air bubbles that affect the centre of gravity.

The theory behind the GameScience dice is that Chessex dice are biased during the tumbling stage that polishes then and rounds the corners. This causes varying amounts of loss of thickness between opposing sides, which introduces bias. GameSciencea dice are not tumbled, and they are transparent, allowing the player to examine them for air bubbles.

Interestihgly, a paper reported here says that dice rolls are never completely random and the most inportant factor is which face is up when rolled.

I supposed this can be reduced by shaking the dice in a cup before rolling.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Interestihgly, a paper reported here says that dice rolls are never completely random and the most inportant factor is which face is up when rolled.

I supposed this can be reduced by shaking the dice in a cup before rolling.

You can use your hand for this purpose as well. Give them a good shake so their numbers are rotating in your hand -- not just moving around and keeping the same numbers on top.

An alternative solution I use for rolling dice is picking up a large handful -- that I cannot rotate in my hand easily -- and tossing them into my dice tray with enough force to ensure they all flip at least once.

 zfreie wrote:

 greyknight12 wrote:
Finally, I'm suspicious of anyone who has a large number of non-homogenous dice......if you're mixing 5 different sets you picked those particular ones for a reason, whether maliciously or not.

You would thoroughly hate playing against me, as I have a habit of picking up two matching dice every time I'm out at a game store. My current dice pool has like 13 different style of dice, no more then 2 of a color pattern lol

Now I hope I picked the loaded ones!

I have probably 9 sets in about 6 different styles that I keep in a Crown Royal bag. I like having a good variety to roll.

I had a spherical dice from a Christmas cracker once. It had the numbers 1-6 on it, but it was weighted to come up on 6.

I'm not sure whether to count this dice as 0, 1 or infinite number of sides in the 'do dice with more sides roll better'.

I've seen a gimmick D100 with 100 sides. It was more like a golf ball than a die. It wasn't a useful tool because it rolled for miles and hardly wanted to stop.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I've seen a gimmick D100 with 100 sides. It was more like a golf ball than a die. It wasn't a useful tool because it rolled for miles and hardly wanted to stop.

And this is why we use two d10s, but honestly I still find the d100 to be a kind of cool thing just to own.