so.... what would a perfectly balanced d5 look like?

[Zander]

You can't have a D1 not just because there's no such shape (unless you count a sphere or similar), but because there are insufficient degrees of freedom. IOW it'll always roll 1, so there's no randomness.

 

[Umbran]

With regards to the roll, that's spurious. Any die, including a casino D6, can be rolled unfairly.

Yep. But it is far easier to doctor the roll if the die is not uniformly shaped. Thus, it's not an entirely spurious point.

Actually, it's the d5 that's kinda spurious. The industry is so used to even-sided dice, that nobody ever asks you to generate a number in an odd range.

 

[The It's Man]

Well, I'm assuming it's not simply a d10 with numbers 1 to 5, each painted on them twice.

I would prefer a d20 with numbers 1-5 each painted on them four times

 

[Darkness]

The industry is so used to even-sided dice, that nobody ever asks you to generate a number in an odd range.

d3s are often asked for...

I'd buy a d3.

- But not for $5 Darkness

 

[orbitalfreak]

Can we have a dpi?

How about 2dPi?

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

By the GODS. I want one!

 

[7thlvlDM]

Question:

This is a quote from the Gamescience d5:

"Shaped like a triangle with additional thickness, this 5-sided wonder has been precision-crafted, hand-numbered, and tested over 10,000 rolls for randomness, with NO side coming up more than 20% of the time. Truly amazing!"

If none of the 5 sides came up more than 20% of the time, doesn't that imply that

1. In 10,000 rolls, every side came up exactly 2,000 times (which is hard to believe) -OR-
2. There were some rolls where NONE of the 5 sides came up???

-7thlvlDM

 

[Darkness]

If none of the 5 sides came up more than 20% of the time, doesn't that imply that

1. In 10,000 rolls, every side came up exactly 2,000 times (which is hard to believe) -OR-
2. There were some rolls where NONE of the 5 sides came up???

Oh yeah.

I guess their "no more than 20%" figure is rounded, of course. But still.

 

[tleilaxu]

well i thought about it and here is my answer to my own question.

you have 'a seed' (banana, lemon, whatever )shaped die with five sides, tapering out to points on either end.

 

[Malin Genie]

If you are considering strictly regular polyhedral dice, only the d4, d6, d8, d12 and d20 work (no, not even the d10 qualifies.) IIRC the original dice for DnD, inspired by a set of Platonic solids in a mathemtical supplies catalogue, did not include what we now know as the d10; rather the d20 was numbered 0-9 twice (in different colours.)

If you take away the regular polyhedron requirement, Tleilaxu's idea works perfectly (indeed, for dANY, just alter the number of sides while keeping the same basic appearance.)

Of course, you could achieve a fair 'd' ANY by taking an n-sided polyhedron and place a rod through the centre to create a spinner. Viewed from the top (or bottom Tleilaxu's 'seed-die' would look like such a spinner....