Precision die's uncommon behaviour

Robin Reeve

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Hi,
This is the first time this happens to me with one of my precision dice...
I swear that I threw it.
Should I revert to non precision dice?
Or use sharp edged ones - this one is a professional backgammon one?
Or is that die just making fun of me?
(Its buddy in the rear of the image is behaving properly, but it could be scoffing at me)
Cocked precision die.jpg
 

ecz

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happens happens
This happened to my young Svedish opponent last March at ASO
dad.PNG
 

ecz

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same kind of die, same color, same position, same angle for the shot...
uhmm... a true mistery :D:D:D

... scenario played ? at this point...
 

Robin Reeve

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same kind of die, same color, same position, same angle for the shot...
uhmm... a true mistery :D:D:D

... scenario played ? at this point...
HF1 Black Day in Hatten (soloing).
"White die" in Hatten actually. :cool:
 

Steven Pleva

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Hi,
This is the first time this happens to me with one of my precision dice...
I swear that I threw it.
Should I revert to non precision dice?
Or use sharp edged ones - this one is a professional backgammon one?
Or is that die just making fun of me?
(Its buddy in the rear of the image is behaving properly, but it could be scoffing at me)
A precision backgammon die will do this once every now and then. I would take it as a sign that it is well balanced...
Steve
 

Will Fleming

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I have both the sharp edges and the round ones. Hasn't happened with the sharp edges and I think that would be near impossible, but with the rounded ones it has happened at least once.

Take it as a fun moment in life and re-roll. (I re-roll both die as that is 'how I roll')
 

Robin Reeve

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Hi. Noticed the 'sunglasses' on your emoji. Are you sure it was a 'white' die? How can you tell? Andy:p
You are right.
Especially with +1 Dusk LV.
Btw, I really liked that scenario - and the overall feel of the module.
Thank you for the good job !
 

MichalS

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I have a small acrylic dice tower which I use with precision dice. I had several string of very similar rolls (i.e. 2-2-3, 12-11-12...). Of course, mostly quite unlucky - and lost a scenario or two due to such rolls. I realised that the probable explanation is that I would take the dice into my fingers exactly as they fell and drop them into the dice tower, always at approximately the same point. The dimensions of the dice tower (the skewed platforms plus the final landing strip) must equal to an exact number of turns of the dice (divisible by 4, obviously).

Didn't happen since I switched to a dice cup.
 

von Marwitz

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Forget about precision dice and play the game.

It is one of those frequent errors that people believe a comparably small sample of rolls with precision dice (or without them) should be evenly distributed. In fact, it is improbable that they are.

The impact of precision dice only caters to the player's superstition.

The impact of using precision dice compared to normal dice is neglible compared to other factors that are massively more important - namely in which situation you get a certain die roll and your skill level of play with regard to

a) rules knowledge i.e. knowing your own and your opponent's options,
b) experience i.e. getting/"seeing" things right intuitively and being able to assess your opponent, and
c) knowledge about calculating probabilities.


von Marwitz
 
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MichalS

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That is very good advice, thank you!

Anyway, my post was not about precision dice, probabilities or losing due to bad rolls per se, but a rather strange (and verifiable/testable) experience.

Getting two 12s or 2s in a row is not so rare. Getting three or four is - and this was happening on a regular basis. I even had several turns where 80 per cent of the rolls on were 10s, 11s or 12s. Again, once I realised the dice tower effect and started taking measures (shaking the dice before throwing them in, dice cup, rolling on the table...), this disappeared.

And again, this is not to take away the attention from learning the rules or strategy well, those are obviously central. ASL is not a game of luck, but several bad rolls at crucial moments can make or break a scenario.
 

MichalS

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That is true!
Although the point of precision dice is not to be saved, but rather getting fair results. However, the theory of probability, as you imply, is not concerned with small n - and obviously, it does not recognise the importance of the context in which you roll. (Probability as such is an abstract construct, that is close to meaningless for single rolls.) We make jokes that it's fifty/fifty: you either succeed or don't.
 

Philippe D.

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Precision dice should exhibit uncommon behavior. If they don't, they have a problem.

It is one of those frequent errors that people believe a comparably small sample of rolls with precision dice (or without them) should be evenly distributed. In fact, it is improbable that they are.
Indeed.

As an example, with perfect dice, it takes, on average, about 150 DRs before you get each possible result at least once. And, whenever you roll dice 8 times, you have a more than even chance (57% vs 43%) of seeing at least one identical result twice. There are plenty of such numbers that one can compute and that are often a surprise to many.
 
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