Essentials Dice Set vs. Premium Dice = WTF?

[Argyle King]

If you really want to complain, ask yourself what about the Premium Dice are premium. As far as I'm aware, they're not made out of any special materials or made to Game Science standards. From everything I can tell, they're about the same as the ones I can buy from the local thrift store* for 10 cents a piece; I've even found blue ones in their bin which look almost identical to the WoTC Premium Dice - the only difference is that the numbers seem to be a slightly different font.


I do like the look of the dice. The white on blue is very nice. Now that they've gone down in price (I've seen some sets for as low as $6 online,) I wouldn't be opposed to buying a set. Honestly, I quite like using the d20 from a set of WoTC minis I bought; it appears to be the same(or at least very similar to the) d20 from the 'Premium Dice.' However, they have the unfortunate fate of sitting beside a few very nice looking sets of Chessex dice at the local store which around the same price.


*If you're curious, the store is called Five And Below. I went in one day to pick up some cheap paper cups for a party and surprised to find that they had buckets of dice sitting by the cash register. Depending on the style/bucket, they are either 10 cents a piece or 25 cents a piece.

I imagine most people have seen this video before, but here's an interesting youtube video about dice: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR2fxoNHIuU]YouTube - Game Science Part 1 of 2[/ame]

 

[Emertinel]

Whew, wow, this thread received some replies. The fact that there are 4d6 really cleared it up for me, thanks. And I removed most of the inappropriate content as well. What's odd was when I went to Five and Below I never saw dice but WTF! I should have spent my gift card on that instead of a bag >.<

Meh, I'll look. I received a lot of nice replies.

I like this place

 

[Plane Sailing]

And I removed most of the inappropriate content as well.

Thanks!

 

[aurance]

I imagine most people have seen this video before, but here's an interesting youtube video about dice:

I'm going to dispute this video. RPG dice are not rolled to an extent where tiny imperfections make any significant changes to probabilities. You can test this yourself - do a Chi-squared test on your "regular" dice vs. some of these Gamescience dice.

In fact a series of numbers generated by a true random number generator, at a small enough sample set, will most definitely SEEM streaky. That's a bias, not of the dice, but of human nature. When we see 20 numbers out of a d20, we expect to see a nice distribution of 1-20, when the odds of that happening are actually quite small. This is what accounts for the "dice superstition," not any appreciable difference between cheap dice and Gamescience dice.

Cheapo dice will do just fine as long as you don't chew on them or something.

 

[TikkchikFenTikktikk]

I'm going to dispute this video. RPG dice are not rolled to an extent where tiny imperfections make any significant changes to probabilities. You can test this yourself - do a Chi-squared test on your "regular" dice vs. some of these Gamescience dice.

In fact a series of numbers generated by a true random number generator, at a small enough sample set, will most definitely SEEM streaky. That's a bias, not of the dice, but of human nature. When we see 20 numbers out of a d20, we expect to see a nice distribution of 1-20, when the odds of that happening are actually quite small. This is what accounts for the "dice superstition," not any appreciable difference between cheap dice and Gamescience dice.

Cheapo dice will do just fine as long as you don't chew on them or something.

You are very wrong.

A fellow student in a 400-level (4th or senior year) university statistics class did a paper on dice probabilities. He rolled several six-sided dice five hundred times each and analyzed the results for randomness.

There is a reason casinos have very strict requirements on their dice and don't use whatever comes out of the Monopoly box. Those cheap board game dice rolled significantly more of some numbers than others, usually more 1s and 6s than 2-5. The new casino die he used rolled randomly.

I have a set of Q Workshop cthulhu dice that look super cool, but I've stopped using the d20 because it rolls significantly more 12-16 than anything else.

I have a set of the game science dice and while I'm not fanatical about them (I wish they were heavier, didn't have the flashing, and had easier to read, painted numbers) they appear random after 100 rolls, moreso than the q workshop set and 3.5 "official D&D" set I rolled them against.

 

[frankthedm]

Cheapo dice will do just fine as long as you don't chew on them or something.

I've seen a fair amount of cheap d20s that had noticeable rounding on some faces that skewed their rolls. Most were from the Armory Dice two packs.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm going to dispute this video. RPG dice are not rolled to an extent where tiny imperfections make any significant changes to probabilities. You can test this yourself - do a Chi-squared test on your "regular" dice vs. some of these Gamescience dice.

In fact a series of numbers generated by a true random number generator, at a small enough sample set, will most definitely SEEM streaky. That's a bias, not of the dice, but of human nature. When we see 20 numbers out of a d20, we expect to see a nice distribution of 1-20, when the odds of that happening are actually quite small. This is what accounts for the "dice superstition," not any appreciable difference between cheap dice and Gamescience dice.

Cheapo dice will do just fine as long as you don't chew on them or something.

I disagree, and you should follow your own advice and do a test. You'll find the imperfections do in fact make a difference over time.

 

[filthgrinder]

When talking about the two dice sets in questions, there is one important thing to remember, WotC isn't a dice company. It's not a product that is really in their wheel house, they don't manufacture or sell a ton of these. Most likely they don't even want to sell you dice. They want to focus on selling books and the RPG content. That's their core business.

However, the core business requires the use of dice. So, it behooves them to make them available, and offer the product. For instance, they don't want to go, "looking for dice? Check out ABC company and their selection of dice" They print that notice in all their books. ABC company then goes out and make their own competing fantasy RPG, and they splash it all over their webpage and de-emphasize their dice products. Thats not good for WotC.

Also, WotC offers these products through their various retail chains. You can go into a Barnes and Noble or a Borders and see the WotC dice. This is important because not every area has a FLGS or not everyone may know it. If you just ran out and bought a PHB and wanted to play, you might go "oh, I can get dice as well!" as opposed to looking at the book and going "where am I going to get a 20 sided die?"

Most likely this product is a loss leader for them. It's something they "have" to do, but it's not in their core business and they probably don't want to move into the dice manufacturing business. One solution would be to license the brand out for someone who does manufacture dice and have them do something really nice with the product. Then again, they are probably hamstrung by Hasbro who goes, "We have a board game division, we can make dice" and they are pumped out right along side the monopoly dice.

Anyways, the morale of the story is, you can get better cheaper dice elsewhere, so please do.

 

[Herschel]

There is a reason casinos have very strict requirements on their dice and don't use whatever comes out of the Monopoly box. Those cheap board game dice rolled significantly more of some numbers than others, usually more 1s and 6s than 2-5. The new casino die he used rolled randomly.

Casinos are a multi-billion dollar industry with an entire margin built on probabilities and insane numbers of rolls. The "hold" is 3% - 7% in Nevada (7% on the Vegas strip, 3% outside of town, for example) and everything is predicated off those numbers.

We're a bunch of schlubs sitting around pretending to be elves. Our need of that level of precision doesn't exist outside of anal-retentive ego.

 

[Emertinel]

well, to bring this off topic, but... where can I buy dice individually? Apparently I live in a bad location with no FLGS nearby...

Or I could pay up and pay the $13 for the Essentials Dice at Borders.