Alright

So this has been a sort of background thought in my head for a very long time (Decades). I think we have all brought this up from time to time as to the accuracy and statistical distribution of various d6. One of the points brought up in that discussion is the weight differential created by the pips having been drilled out. Ditto with the smaller dice like the Chessex bricks. If the results that he was able to come up with are legitimate, it is quite a sizable statistical skew. It would also bug me quite a bit if the claim is true that Chessex is aware of the anomalies and continues to produce quite statistically skewed dice for the economics of 33% more plastic mileage. GW on the other hand, shit I could believe them setting a known horribly faulty product out the door for half a penny a unit over 10K units. Cheap fuckers.

Skeptical side: Unfortunately, the reliability of the source is well... suspect and the statistical skew is huge! I mean, a post in a web forum is not exactly authoritative. At the very least I would like to see photo images of the die rolling aperatus and the empirical data. That would at least bring me a little closer to being convinced. Also, 29% of the dice came up '1's out of 144,000 die rolls? Holy shit, that seems way too skewed to believe. That means a '1' is on average TWICE as likely to come up then any other single number. This seems so egregiously outside the realm of possible unnoticed aberrations that it seems a farcicle. The poster states that he/she is an engineering teacher at ASU which, if true, would at least bring some credibility to the experiment. Unfortunately, there again is now way to confirm this. I mean this posting could very easily be seeded FUD from who knows what. A disgruntled gamer? A teenage prankster? Shit, this would be exactly the type of tripe my brother and his friends would cook up at 2am on a Saturday morning.

Trusting side: Again some of the information makes sense with regards to drilled pips and rounded edges. Unfortunately, the great wide Internet seems to have surprisingly very little information on the subject; however, a few sources do seem to confirm the higher accuracy of "high precision" dice in both the gambling and backgammon venues. Not to mention Casinos usually do their homework and stick to specific algorithms for very good reasons. So either Casino dice are either a oddity of tradition and mistrust or there is some truth to the claims of higher accuracy. Anyway, if you truly can make one 12mm die from the plastic saved on three dice as a result of corner rounding and pip voids, maybe there is something to this... If a die loses 33% of its pure cube volume as a result of pips and rounding, that has to have an effect if the material removed is not evenly distributed across the die's surfaces.

I will definitely be interested in seeing a more definitive study on this matter or at least a more legitimate venue. A note of interest... Since 40K and other GW games rely on rolling grips of dice at a time, would it not seem more practical from a real world simulation stand point if the experiment used handfuls of dice at a time and not isolated individual die in bins? How would all of the dice in a roll effect this statistical breakdown? Would the large quantity of dice negate or perhaps enhance the claimed variance from perfect random? That is unless this guy is like JP and those damn one die at a time rolls. Uggg! Also, I am curious how much of an effect this would have on the more standard sized 16mm dice as opposed to the 12mm Chessex brick dice. The pips are often proportionately smaller on 16mm dice and the rounding is less severe.

Little Squeezers... I used to like that stuff, but the last time i had a slice, ick! Just not the same as when I was 14. I gotta agree with Art, the homemade way is the way to go. Rude, yeah the TJs dough is pretty darn good and very convenient. I get it every so often. I totally feel where you are coming from. Put a pie in front of my face and I will eat until I am way too stuffed to the point of uncomfortable.

D>M>