Saw this online on how to check if your die is balanced:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VI3N4Qg-JZM

My buddy just tried using this method and just revealed all of his defense dice are unbalanced (on blank, go figure) and most of his attack dice are also.

I'm afraid to test mine out and find out the same.

Is this something you can claim to FFG? What do I do if all my dice are unbalanced? Though I play on Vassal for practice, I want to avoid having to download the dice app for tabletop play, and want to roll dice naturally.

Has anyone tested their dice using this or any other method? What do you do with the results?

Buy ficklegreendice a new set and tell him to change his screen name

I suggest doing some research on how that unbalance even affects your roll if you roll dice normally.

My bet is it doesnt do anything significant to a single game.

The effect should also be more noticable when rolling on D20 than D6.

I strongly suspect it will not work well with any d8 such as our X-Wing dice. The die shape just doesn't lend itself well to the float test. A d10 will suffer the same problems. A d4 is in interesting problem as that test should show if any point is heavier but that doesn't tell you which of those three sides is most likely to land face down.

By putting it in water (particularly salt water) you are removing almost all the force applied to the dice when you actually roll them naturally. Those forces are significantly stronger (magnitudes) than they are when the dice is buoyant (notice the force required to nudge a dice in water versus on the table, notice how the dice in the water accelerates (less inertia) and maintains it's velocity a lot longer with less force applied).

The test actually tells you very little about real world performance because the ratio of imbalance due to air bubbles versus outside force is really low (say 1:1000 for arguments sake, but this is completely made up). When immersed in water and all the external forces are changed the ratio of imbalance due to air bubbles versus outside forces is significantly lower ( say 1:100). Concluding a dice will not roll "randomly" because of the water test will almost always be fallacious.

The test is dumb and not relevant to actual rolling conditions. It is akin to testing casino dice by flopping them out of your hand compared with throwing them 20 feet down a table and bouncing them off a wall. One of those is significantly harder to manipulate, yet your results could easily diverge across the two tests. Or an even more apt comparison rolling dice in zero gravity versus sea level.

Force applied is not the issue here. Balance is. If the balance is off, the die won't spin true and wobble to land an amount of probable times in a predictable way as opposed to being in good balance and rolling unpredictably.

A heavy sided die will land with that side down with more probability than a die that is not heavy to one side. It's never 100% guaranteed but it is not a fair chance either.

Man this would be a perfect science experiment for some middle school kids.

1. Buy a bunch of dice from your local FLGS

2. Do the water test to find unbalanced dice and balanced dice

3. Perform a chi-squared test on these dice by rolling them and recording the results ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-squared_test -- but use this website to determine the answer - http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/misc/chi2.cgi )

4. Determine if there is any correlation in the chi squared test and the face that appears in the unbalanced water test. (Can also see how even the chi test is with the balanced dice as well).

Done!

Man this would be a perfect science experiment for some middle school kids.

1. Buy a bunch of dice from your local FLGS

2. Do the water test to find unbalanced dice and balanced dice

3. Perform a chi-squared test on these dice by rolling them and recording the results ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chi-squared_test -- but use this website to determine the answer - http://axiscity.hexamon.net/users/isomage/misc/chi2.cgi )

4. Determine if there is any correlation in the chi squared test and the face that appears in the unbalanced water test. (Can also see how even the chi test is with the balanced dice as well).

Done!

That was exactly my thought. I did the water test on my dice though, and it seems mine are balanced. I would have to look at some of my colleagues dice that claim imbalance and test the results this way. Thanks for the input!

I can say that this works. I had uncanny dice rolls. I floated my five sets of dice that I had bought and found out that over half of them were blankers. Once I noted the blankers I dotted the blank side and it consistently floated to the same blank dot. I removed these from my inventory of playable dice. My rolls have improved since playing with balanced dice. FYI, i have melted down said blankers and made a key chain!

Lue.

If only someone could build a device that rolls a die several thousand times and records the results to test if even obviously unbalanced green dice rolled significantly biased....

Dice Roller 3000

But I will say that d8's just don't inherently roll well. Your method of rolling may not be producing actual randomish results.

If only someone could build a device that rolls a die several thousand times and records the results to test if even obviously unbalanced green dice rolled significantly biased....

Dice Roller 3000

But I will say that d8's just don't inherently roll well. Your method of rolling may not be producing actual randomish results.

Nerd high fives all over the place for that. That was super cool.

If only someone could build a device that rolls a die several thousand times and records the results to test if even obviously unbalanced green dice rolled significantly biased....

Dice Roller 3000

But I will say that d8's just don't inherently roll well. Your method of rolling may not be producing actual randomish results.

You try a water test with the one green die that showed some bias? I'd be curious.

If only someone could build a device that rolls a die several thousand times and records the results to test if even obviously unbalanced green dice rolled significantly biased....

Dice Roller 3000

But I will say that d8's just don't inherently roll well. Your method of rolling may not be producing actual randomish results.

Gosh I wish I had the ingenuity to do something like that. Pretty awesome.

Was your test able to identify the actual face that landed or just the symbol? I'm curious to see if results might seem balanced between evade/focus/blank but if a certain face hit more often than others.

What altitude are the dice being rolled at? barometric pressure? state of the moon in the nights sky? temperture of water compared to the surface of the table? temerature of water compared to air temperature?

This warrants further testing. I will be back in 15 years. Actually, by that time we will be rolling dice with our mind powers so I will have to do more testing.

My friend brought this subject up last night during our weekly game. Not wanting to go through the whole bit with water and salt we just started rolling each die several times and kept track of what came up. He had one die roll seven blanks in a row so that die was pulled aside. After doing this for almost an hour, I had 5 dice that rolled hits and crits most of the time. During game play, I rolled four and got 3 blanks and a focus. So much for that. After many bad rolls, I started to roll each die individually and got better results and won the game. The game did slow down a bit during the times I had to roll 5 attack dice, but if that means winning then a slow game it will be (we play to the last ship and not timed games).

My friend brought this subject up last night during our weekly game. Not wanting to go through the whole bit with water and salt we just started rolling each die several times and kept track of what came up. He had one die roll seven blanks in a row so that die was pulled aside. After doing this for almost an hour, I had 5 dice that rolled hits and crits most of the time. During game play, I rolled four and got 3 blanks and a focus. So much for that. After many bad rolls, I started to roll each die individually and got better results and won the game. The game did slow down a bit during the times I had to roll 5 attack dice, but if that means winning then a slow game it will be (we play to the last ship and not timed games).

You might want to look into probability. None of the outcomes you discuss are uncommon or even unlikely. The tests you used were not robust and are meaningless. Your results from rolling dice singly is nothing more than confirmation bias. The results from rolling the dice separately are no different from rolling them together. You suggest you rolled better when you starting rolling individually, but you no longer have anything to compare it to. There is no reason those rolls wouldn't have happened if you kept rolling together.

My friend brought this subject up last night during our weekly game. Not wanting to go through the whole bit with water and salt we just started rolling each die several times and kept track of what came up. He had one die roll seven blanks in a row so that die was pulled aside. After doing this for almost an hour, I had 5 dice that rolled hits and crits most of the time. During game play, I rolled four and got 3 blanks and a focus. So much for that. After many bad rolls, I started to roll each die individually and got better results and won the game. The game did slow down a bit during the times I had to roll 5 attack dice, but if that means winning then a slow game it will be (we play to the last ship and not timed games).

That's not necessarily accurate results. If the dice are balanced and the throws are good 7 blanks doesn't indicate a bad die. That's still within normal probabilities. Too few roles.

My question is a little different. All the dice we normally game with have rounded edges yet the dice used in craps have square edges. Why? Is it just for cost? Or is there another reason?

My friend brought this subject up last night during our weekly game. Not wanting to go through the whole bit with water and salt we just started rolling each die several times and kept track of what came up. He had one die roll seven blanks in a row so that die was pulled aside. After doing this for almost an hour, I had 5 dice that rolled hits and crits most of the time. During game play, I rolled four and got 3 blanks and a focus. So much for that. After many bad rolls, I started to roll each die individually and got better results and won the game. The game did slow down a bit during the times I had to roll 5 attack dice, but if that means winning then a slow game it will be (we play to the last ship and not timed games).

That's not necessarily accurate results. If the dice are balanced and the throws are good 7 blanks doesn't indicate a bad die. That's still within normal probabilities. Too few roles.

My question is a little different. All the dice we normally game with have rounded edges yet the dice used in craps have square edges. Why? Is it just for cost? Or is there another reason?

According to the internet, the sharp edges are easier to manufacture, easier to detect changes on, easier to balance, and the edges tend to grab the felt playing surface thereby causing multi axis tumbling. Apparently, with rounded dice a skilled cheater can (on the right surface) roll the dice in such a way that they only roll along a single axis increasing their chance of rolling the numbers they want.

If I do this and all my dice are imbalanced towards blank, I may actually implode.

I dunno about you guys but my dice are lucky. *

Tried it on my sets.

All attack dice are balanced.

All but two defence dice are balanced. One favors focus, the other evade.

Tried my d20 sets and most of them sink despite using lots of salt. Think it may need heating to make a super saturated solution.