How does a d5 work?

[MerakSpielman]

Make 100 dice and roll them all 100 times?

Would that be any faster?

 

[Buttercup]

Take a triangle, and extrude it thru your playdough machine until it has depth.

Thank you. That was very clear. But how did you know about my playdough extruder?

 

[Gez]

It's called a "prism".

About testing, I believe in something automated. Like, with little electrodes on the dice, or even simply an optical reader. Throw the dice, wait for them to stop rolling, and scan.

Note that, on the same principle, there exist also d7s.

 

[der_kluge]

A better question is - why do you need a d7, d5, or a d3?

For d7, just roll 1d8, rerolling 8s. For d5 and d3 just roll d10 and d6 and divide by 2.

 

[MerakSpielman]

You just don't understand. You don't get them because you NEED them. It's so you have something the rest of your group doesn't have. It's a geek-macho thing.

Plus they're just cool.

 

[der_kluge]

You just don't understand. You don't get them because you NEED them. It's so you have something the rest of your group doesn't have. It's a geek-macho thing.

Plus they're just cool.

 

[MerakSpielman]

LOL!

To be honest, you don't NEED any dice other than a d20. It's possible to simulate all rolls of all the other standard dice using a d20. d12 is the hardest, since you have to reroll on a 13-20, but you hardly ever need to roll a d12 anyway.

 

[Hypersmurf]

To be honest, you don't NEED any dice other than a d20. It's possible to simulate all rolls of all the other standard dice using a d20. d12 is the hardest, since you have to reroll on a 13-20, but you hardly ever need to roll a d12 anyway.

Believe it or not, one of my players does this.

Half a dozen sets of dice in a convenient box on the table, and he uses a d20 for everything.

Gah.

-Hyp.

 

[Brown Jenkin]

They hired some summer interns whose job it was to roll these dice 10,000 times a day for three months, recording the results. What a job eh? Seriously though - how else would you test them?

I talked to the guy who designed them at Gen Con. They did have someone roll the die thousands of times recording the results.

 

[jgsugden]

If you think about it, all you need to do is balance the length of the prism correctly to get this to roll randomly. If you had a very long prism (life a rolling pin cut into a long triangle), it would not like to rest on the triangular ends. If you had a very short prism (like a triangle cut out of a quarter), it would always want to lie on the triangular side. Something of a length between these two extremes will result in a die that likes to land on its 'sides' as often as it lies on its 'ends'.

The only problem is that the result of this die can be manipulated by controlled rolling far easier than a d6 can. You may not be able to control it every time, but if you roll it so that the square 'sides' of the die roll evenly, the die will be a bit less likely to 'roll' onto an end. If you allow players to use these dice (and do not *completely* trust them), I recommend having them use a dice cup.