D&D 5E Testing Dice?

[IndigoTraveler]

So what is everyone's opinion on testing their dice to see if they are balanced or not? Like you go through the whole Warm Salt Water test or the best way of "testing" to see if your dice are balanced or not? It never occurred to me to do something like that until I was reading something bout it yesterday. Now I'm looking at my decently sized pile of dice and now I'm feeling like I gotta test em.


And for anybody that has, did it damage any of your dice? I have some dice sets that aren't as easy to purchase replacements on and I don't want to damage any of those if such a test would do that.

 

[turnip_farmer]

So what is everyone's opinion on testing their dice to see if they are balanced or not? Like you go through the whole Warm Salt Water test or the best way of "testing" to see if your dice are balanced or not? It never occurred to me to do something like that until I was reading something bout it yesterday. Now I'm looking at my decently sized pile of dice and now I'm feeling like I gotta test em.


And for anybody that has, did it damage any of your dice? I have some dice sets that aren't as easy to purchase replacements on and I don't want to damage any of those if such a test would do that.

The best way of testing would just be to roll them a whole bunch of times and then do a statistical test on the plausibility of your results.

Might take a while if you have a lot of dice. What I would do (and might do this weekend now I'm thinking about it - that's how you kill time in quarantine), is do it with a relatively low number of rolls for each, and then look in more detail at those which look suspicious.

A chi-squared test is easy to do. Say you have a four-sided dice and roll out 40 times. You would expect each number to show up approximately 10 times.

Count how many times each number appears. For each, subtract 10 (the expected value), square the result, and then divide that by ten. Add your four numbers together, and then find yourself a chi-squared table online (like here)

You would have 3 degrees of freedom (one less than the dice number), so find 3 on the leftmost column, then read across until you got whatever number you calculated. Looking at the top row at that point will tell you the probability of getting a result at least that far away from the expected value of your dice was fair.

 

[jasper]

You can buy balance rigs for d6 from some places. I wish they made them for other die.
Some of my old plastic dice sink in salt water test. And I was not going to use another cup of salt to super salt the water.

 

[jgsugden]

I've played since the 70s. In all that time, I've only encountered a few dice problems. They were all either based upon players trying to cheat by using spin down dice, weighted dice, or cheater dice - or they involved dice that were unreadable for one reason or another.

In all that time, I have never seen a die that had statistically biased results that I could detect unless it was an intentionally created cheat die. I had some luck streaks that made me question my dice, or those of other people, but in the end it was just a streak of luck.

 

[aco175]

I remember in middle school learning about the stained glass windows in the medieval cathedrals having to get turned over because the glass flowed and the sections are thinner at the top aver the years. This caused me to place all my d20s so that the 20 was on top thinking that the plastic would flow faster than the old glass. I do not think it helped in the rolling though.

Today, I have a few sets that get put into quarantine when they are not rolling right. They need to think about what they did to my poor PC. Similar to some of my golf clubs who need a break after they caused me to hit a bad shot. Things like this cannot possibly be user error.

 

[turnip_farmer]

I remember in middle school learning about the stained glass windows in the medieval cathedrals having to get turned over because the glass flowed and the sections are thinner at the top aver the years. This caused me to place all my d20s so that the 20 was on top thinking that the plastic would flow faster than the old glass. I do not think it helped in the rolling though.

Today, I have a few sets that get put into quarantine when they are not rolling right. They need to think about what they did to my poor PC. Similar to some of my golf clubs who need a break after they caused me to hit a bad shot. Things like this cannot possibly be user error.

I am often amused by dice superstitions. I have noticed in my online group that, after a string of bad rolls, my players will just ask the dice roller to roll 100 d20s. They call this 'clearing the dice', and is supposed to trick the software into skipping past the unlucky patch or somesuch nonsense.

 

[embee]

I remember in middle school learning about the stained glass windows in the medieval cathedrals having to get turned over because the glass flowed and the sections are thinner at the top aver the years. This caused me to place all my d20s so that the 20 was on top thinking that the plastic would flow faster than the old glass. I do not think it helped in the rolling though.

Today, I have a few sets that get put into quarantine when they are not rolling right. They need to think about what they did to my poor PC. Similar to some of my golf clubs who need a break after they caused me to hit a bad shot. Things like this cannot possibly be user error.

This is, far and away, the greatest flaw to VTT - bar none!

YOU CANNOT PUT VIRTUAL DICE INTO JAIL!

 

[Oofta]

I've played since the 70s. In all that time, I've only encountered a few dice problems. They were all either based upon players trying to cheat by using spin down dice, weighted dice, or cheater dice - or they involved dice that were unreadable for one reason or another.

In all that time, I have never seen a die that had statistically biased results that I could detect unless it was an intentionally created cheat die. I had some luck streaks that made me question my dice, or those of other people, but in the end it was just a streak of luck.

I think most biases against dice for good or ill are mostly in the player's imagination. However I did used to have a D20 that seemed rolled 20s significantly more often than it should have. I hadn't done anything to it, it was just the typical die from the bin.

Sadly someone took it at a Gencon one year when I left it unattended for two minutes.

 

[turnip_farmer]

I think most biases against dice for good or ill are mostly in the player's imagination. However I did used to have a D20 that seemed rolled 20s significantly more often than it should have. I hadn't done anything to it, it was just the typical die from the bin.

Sadly someone took it at a Gencon one year when I left it unattended for two minutes.

I'm sure most dice are slightly biased. The weight won't be perfectly distributed, and there will be minor imperfections in the surface that affect how they roll. But you're right that the biases people actually notice are more likely to be imaginary

 

[embee]

I'm sure most dice are slightly biased. The weight won't be perfectly distributed, and there will be minor imperfections in the surface that affect how they roll. But you're right that the biases people actually notice are more likely to be imaginary

That's why you can't settle for those crummy substandard plastic or resin dice that you can buy at your FLGS. No sirree! You need to by lovingly hand-crafted, scientifically-tested precision dice, engineered to near perfection, available for the bargain of $100 for a set of 7.

At least that's what the folks over at a certain wormlike wood keep telling me in online ads.