Not convinced your dice are right? Now you get get truely random numbers

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**OrlandotheTechnicoloured**

https://daily.jstor.org/the-quantum-random-number-generator/

Maybe this has never crossed your mind, but if you have ever tossed dice, whether in a board game or at the gambling table, you have created random numbers—a string of numbers each of which cannot be predicted from the preceding ones. People have been making random numbers in this way for millennia. Early Greeks and Romans played games of chance by tossing the heel bone of a sheep or other animal and seeing which of its four straight sides landed uppermost. Heel bones evolved into the familiar cube-shaped dice with pips that still provide random numbers for gaming and gambling today.

But now we also have more sophisticated random number generators, the latest of which required a lab full of laser equipment at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO. It relies on counterintuitive quantum behavior with an assist from relativity theory to make random numbers. This was a notable feat because the NIST team’s numbers were absolutely guaranteed to be random, a result never before achieved...….

the article carries on with more details

So there you have it, if your dice hate you all you need is a lab full of lasers, and if things still seem unbalanced you're clearly just cursed

**Steve steveson**

Personally prefer to use this:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Million-Random-Digits-Normal-Deviates/dp/0833030477

It has excellent reviews:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/292147.A_Million_Random_Digits_with_100_000_Normal_Deviates

I also like this:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Small-Book-Random-Numbers/dp/1452818363/ref=pd_cp_14_1/262-0404595-4580247?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1452818363&pd_rd_r=06763fb0-7e10-11e9-8f6e-13e541aad909&pd_rd_w=uLX0K&pd_rd_wg=GSKdU&pf_rd_p=01704ebe-a86a-4b47-8c36-0f9f5bbc2882&pf_rd_r=A5SVCSBK8R47105ZR9NY&psc=1&refRID=A5SVCSBK8R47105ZR9NY

But I do feel they took some plot ideas from the original.

**AndrewGPaul**

The article Orlando links to mentions that publication is not truely random, but annoyingly makes that claim without bothering to back it up.

I've also used Random.org for such things as generating a card for the Necromunda House sub-plots table.

**wuestenfux**

Well, I've used casino dice for a while.
But in the meanwhile, they (GW, use of some game mats in our gaming club) won't allow me to use them because of their sharp edges.

There are ways to provide true random numbers not by software but by hardware. What they use are resonant circuits.

**AndrewGPaul**

Use a dice tray like a civilised person, then.

**RiTides**

OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
So there you have it, if your dice hate you all you need is a lab full of lasers, and if things still seem unbalanced you're clearly just cursed

Nice, thanks Orlando

I wish I could find the article that wrote about dice being normally "axially biased". As in, they're slightly off in the size of their X, Y or Z width, resulting in that axis being more likely to be landed on. The ironic thing about this, is that for people who talk about rolling a lot of 1's, if that's the cause, they're also rolling a lot of 6's! (And just not noticing, as humans tend to focus on bad results

)

I had a set of dice that was quite clearly biased towards the 2/5 axis, which was noticeable because I was using an army full of 5+ saves at the time, and it was uncanny! I actually had to retire it from guilt

but dang, they rolled hot!

**Orlanth**

I think that casino dice are pedantry for gaming, not to mention uncomfortable.

I do not care if dice are not exactly true, so long as they are not loaded. There must be some form of balance discrepency caused by dice dimples, but can it matter? I doubt so to any meaningful degree.

**Slipspace**

Orlanth wrote:
I think that casino dice are pedantry for gaming, not to mention uncomfortable.

I do not care if dice are not exactly true, so long as they are not loaded. There must be some form of balance discrepency caused by dice dimples, but can it matter? I doubt so to any meaningful degree.

Agreed. There's a difference between non-random and loaded dice. As long as your dice aren't loaded or systematically biased towards a certain result and you're not defaulting to your "lucky" dice for important rolls, the fairness of any singular dice in a pool of 10-30 isn't that relevant. I usually use blocks of 36 dice and I have no idea if each individual one is truly "fair". Equally, if any aren't I have no idea which ones those are. Casino dice are complete overkill for wargaming and, frankly, far too large for most purposes. If your dice are in real danger of damaging my models or the terrain because of their weight and size I'm going to ask you to use something else. Also, in 40k you're often rolling well in excess of the number of casino dice that can comfortably fit in your hand. I'm not going to sit there and watch you roll 6 dice 5 times, with re-rolls, just for one unit's shots.

**John Prins**

wuestenfux wrote:
Well, I've used casino dice for a while.
But in the meanwhile, they (GW, use of some game mats in our gaming club) won't allow me to use them because of their sharp edges.

There are ways to provide true random numbers not by software but by hardware. What they use are resonant circuits.

Precision backgammon dice. Like casino dice, they are clear resin, machined to high tolerances, and have the pips filled with equal density resin. Unlike casino dice, they are smaller and have rounded edges.

**Steve steveson**

I play orks and they are £17 a pair! I would be bankrupt!

**John Prins**

Steve steveson wrote:
I play orks and they are £17 a pair! I would be bankrupt!

Yeah I got mine for about $6 CAD each. Not cheap, but at least they roll true. I've had awful experience with badly cast dice in the past. But if you need to throw 50 dice at once, you're in trouble.

**Orlanth**

Slipspace wrote:
..... and you're not defaulting to your "lucky" dice for important rolls....

I hate lucky dice bull. I have some tolerance for a few single extra large dice (within reason) reserved rolling more powerful titan weaponry, but lucky dice are inheerently suspiscious.

If anyone uses lucky dice for special rolls I will make sure those special rolls are both for those that need to roll low as well as high. Want to use lucky dice to roll a ward save, but not to roll a leadership test. Not good. Also if the dice are lucky ask to use them for your own special rolls. See what happens.

I play this by ear, if someone has old worn dice that have had for decades I have some sympathy, but still dfemand that if you use lucky dice to roll for high they can be lucky and also roll for low..