Math People...What are these odds?

[MojoGM]

Ah, but maybe it is a sign TELLING us to buy lottery tickets

Tonight I'm going to buy some...you never know...

Seriously, it WAS very strange. I'd say 4 out of the 6 times we were rolling at exactly the same time, on the same book surface, yet the dice did not touch or interfere with each other in any way.

The other 5 people in the game were floored.

I'm still shaking my head thinking about it.

 

[geezerjoe]

This debate reminds me of a Bloom County strip where one character asks a guy behind a counter for a lottery ticket. The guy behind the counter comments that it's just as likely to get hit with a piece of stray aircraft parts as it is to win at the lottery. When the character is smashed by a large chunk of aircraft in the next frame Opus, next in line, asks for 2 lottery tickets and the guy beind the counters simply says ... Yes yes.

Wow that doesn't translate to text well does it? ... hehe ... still funny though.

l8r

Joe2Old

 

[CarlZog]

All of these statistical odds presuppose that every number was generated randomly, without outside influence.

But clearly, as soon as they began rolling for the sake of seeing if they could duplicate the results, they generated a psionic influence on the dice to meet their expectations. The fact that they already share a close personal relationship no doubt made that influence stronger and its chances of success better. So the odds are actually much lower than those statistically generated.

While the rest of you were studying algebra, I was watching The Amazing Kreskin!

CZ

 

[LightPhoenix]

Nope. Those would be the odds if the question was what are the odds of 2 people rolling a 10 and then rolling a 1 and then rolling a 6 and then rolling ....

However I think she is in fact asking what are the odds of the second person always rolling the same as the first person ... so what the first person rolls is irrelevant and it's only the second person's roll that counts and they have a 1 in 20 chance of rolling whatever the first person rolled.

Which would make it 1 / 8000, a much more likely occurance.

 

[nikolai]

Just got back from a gaming session during which MojoGM and I rolled the same number SIX TIMES in a row at the exact same time...

Can someone with some knowledge of statistical odds give me the odds of this? We're both still amazed...

Okay, we've got the odds of matching a series of 6 numbers with a d20, given one shot at it. Next question:

What's the odds of this happening to an enworlder? and hence the odds of us seeing something like the above posted? Seriously, does anyone care to make an estimate of this?

We've got c. 10,000 members, if you can estimate how many are players, how often they play & how often they make matched roles with their DM similar to this - you've got your number to work with. Although getting it to happen in that particular instance is long shot, the chance of it happening are going to be a lot smaller.

nikolai.

 

[Umbran]

Ah, but maybe it is a sign TELLING us to buy lottery tickets

Nope, more like a sign that you should have bought lottery tickets. But you used up all your luck matching dice rolls rather than on matching lottery numbers. Sorry.

 

[Flyspeck23]

Nope, more like a sign that you should have bought lottery tickets. But you used up all your luck matching dice rolls rather than on matching lottery numbers. Sorry.

Good thing the dice don't remember their last results. And neither do the lottery tickets

 

[The Sigil]

Which would make it 1 / 8000, a much more likely occurance.

This is the correct answer.

Roll 1 (MojoDM): X (probability of this happening: 1 out of 1)
Roll 2 (Djeta): X (probability of rolling X on a d20 is 1 of 20)
Roll 3 (MojoDM): Y (probability of MojoDM rolling Y is 1 out of 1)
Roll 4 (Djeta): Y (probability of rolling Y on a d20 is 1 of 20)
etc.

Think of it this way:

Odds of rolling a 1: 1 in 20
Odds of rolling a 2: 1 in 20... etc.

So the odds of Mojo rolling a given number are 1 in 20.
The odds of Djeta rolling a given number are 1 in 20.

That's 400 possibilities.
However, there are 20 possible matches: 1 and 1, 2 and 2, 3 and 3, etc.

So 20 matches in 400 possibilities gives a 1 in 20 chance that any particular paired throw will wind up with a match.

Three paired throws: 1/20 * 1/20 * 1/20 is 1 in 8000.

--The Sigil

 

[d4]

Three paired throws: 1/20 * 1/20 * 1/20 is 1 in 8000.

except it wasn't three paired throws -- it was six paired throws.

here's what Djeta said:

"First we rolled the same initiative (roll 1). Then the same attack (roll 2). Then we did that again (roll 3). Then we noticed it was weird so we each rolled a random roll to see what would happen (roll 4). We both got a 10. Then we both rolled the same initiative again (we both got natural ONES that time) (roll 5)."

hmm... don't know what happened to the last one, but Djeta said in her initial post that it was 6 rolls.

you are correct that three paired rolls would be 1/8000. six would be 1/64,000,000 and five would be 1/3,200,000.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Nope, more like a sign that you should have bought lottery tickets. But you used up all your luck matching dice rolls rather than on matching lottery numbers. Sorry.

Oh man...and we didn't even take down those orcs!