Ten sided D10s and Twenty sided D10s

[T13A]

Hi

Over the weekend a friend mentioned that he had several twenty sided D10's for a Fire and Fury game we are playing tomorrow. When I asked him if there was any significance to 'twenty sided D10's' as opposed to ten sided D10's he came up with this:

"The research shows: -
The way a d10 as we know it rolls is not a "pure" polyhedral die roll. d10's used to be 20 sided polyhedrons numbered 0-9 w/ the "0" representing a 10. It gives a true random roll compared to the 10 sided polyhedral that can be influenced by the distinction between the upper and lower portion".

This was a new one on me and wondered if people had come across it before (it may well be just me who it is new to, it wouldn't be the first time)!   :-

Any thoughts.

Cheers Paul

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Well there is no 10 sided regular solid - so they actually have 20 sides, 10 are very small. In terms of game play there is no practical difference, the bias is too small.

IanS

[Leman]

Sounds like total bummocks to me.

[fred.]

I suspect in theory its true.

But as Ian says in practice its irrelevant. For regular d6 you can get casino dice that are made to far high tolerances than gaming dice. I wonder if you can get the same for polyhedral dice. And if you can would anyone pay for.

D20s roll much better than d10s (or d8s, let alone d4s).

And I do remember that my first d20s where only numbered 0-9, and you had to colour 1 of each number differently. Obviously we never thought that painting some of the faces of the dice would affect the way it rolled...

[mollinary]

I find that a pack of cards with the court cards removed works very well, and they don't have to be casino cards!

[Raider4]

I find that a pack of cards with the court cards removed works very well, and they don't have to be casino cards!

That's a good idea, and blindingly obvious when someone points it out to you!

Although you miss the thrill of rolling a die . . .

Cheers.

[Raider4]

Although thinking about it, it's not random.

You can't roll (say) 6 10s in a row. Or, once all four 1s have been drawn, you know there are no more left in the pack.

Back to the dice.

Cheers, M.
--

[fsn]

You can if you replace the cards once you have drawn them.

I tend to have a laptop or something lying around. Must be a high tech random number generator available.

[mollinary]

You can if you replace the cards once you have drawn them.

I tend to have a laptop or something lying around. Must be a high tech random number generator available.

fsn has it! And even if you don't it introduces another little frisson into the process!  It actually subtly minimises the extremes, particularly if you put more than one pack together!

[toxicpixie]

Don't trust computer generated random numbers, they can be very tricky depending on the seed & code

d10's for ACW? Switch to BBB for all the lovely bell curve goodness you can eat!