The Dark Side

[Jeremy]

I realize that. My point was him disagreeing with me on D6’s making the best bell curve. It was merely another method of demonstrating my point.

[FreddBloggs]

Ask him to explain average dice then where the two extremes are removed

You still get a Bell curve but the spread is truncated. A Bell curve is the frequency distribution of all possible outcomes. EG on 2D6 there's a 1 in 36 chance of rolling a 12 (more precisely rolling a 6 and a 6) and on 3D6 there's a 1 in 216 chance of rolling 18 (rolling a 6 and rolling a 6 and rolling a dice).

On average dice (2,3,3,4,4,5) there's a 1/36 chance of getting a 10, compared to 1/12 on 2D6. The 'middle values are more commonly found. (distribution is 4,3,3,3,6,6,6,6,7,7,7,7,7.7,8,8,8,8,9,9,9,10.

Lot of 3s showing up there!

[Etranger]

D'oh a lack of proof reading! Now corrected, Thanks Fred.

[ochoin]

I remember Rich once saying that D6’s produce the best bell curve over all other dice

My boy thinks I'm a little mad but he wrote:
"Nah it’s not true.

A single form of any one of those dice will have a triangle distribution.
The only way for any one of those forms of dice to reach a Gaussian distribution (bell curve) is to exponentially increase the number of dice.

Ie. 7D6 produces a more notable bell curve over 3D6.

But to answer your question, a D10 or a D20 a single dice has no conclusive effect on producing a bell curve in the functional outcome.

6D10 would have a worse bell curve than 10D6. It's all numbers."

He also wanted to know why wargamers would "need" this information. I found I could not answer.

donald

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

He also wanted to know why wargamers would "need" this information. I found I could not answer.

I've often wondered the same thing. My dice are invariably shite. I just accept it as a random fact of life, like the sun rising in the east, rather than the west.

[Etranger]

He also wanted to know why wargamers would "need" this information. I found I could not answer.

donald

Some will be gamers trying to play the system but most just don't understand probability and statistics, which to be fair can be quite complicated.

[FreddBloggs]

The key to dice games, is outliers, how often the designer is happy for them to happen. The more dice rolled the smaller the outlier chances, and the more often the median is hit.

So, you have to make a design decision on results against ease of rolling. 7d6 might give better results, but is a handful to roll, and if total, not individual scores are needed you would be amazed at how many people get the basic maths wrong.

[garyp]

It's simple really. Wargaming was invented by a Norfolk man and he chose to use D6 so he could count the result on the fingers of one hand.

[Shahbahraz]

The other factor wargamers tend to not realise, is the more dice you roll, the less 'luck'' is involved (if you use 'luck' as a synonym for randomness). A unit of 10 men each rolling a single d6 produces on the whole much more predictable spreads than a single d6 for the unit/element.

It always amazes me that some wargamers don't have a grasp of the fundamentals of probability. It's when and where you roll the outlier result that makes a huge difference. If I am playing DBA for example, rolling a 6 with my cavalry to your skirmishers 1 is no different in result to each of us rolling a 3, the skirmishers are still removed. Rolling a 6 with my skirmishers versus your elephant general rolling a 1, is a famous victory.

[goat major]

I’m no expert on probability but I do grasp the basics and what I know I pretty much learned from wargaming and roleplaying. The hobby is educational is so many ways.

I also learned that dice hate humans.