So my friends and I roll from a cup, and I was having a lot of misses. I mean a lottttt.

1. I rolled around 4 misses in a row (and then got a couple non misses)

2. I had it happen again (got another couple non-misses)

3. I started doing test rolls with the blue die and got another 6 misses in a row

At this point, I was utterly confused so then I started rolling a less bouncy surface and noticed the dice stopped rolling misses. Scientifically, this can be explained through side weights. The lightest side happens to be the X, so if you roll on a bouncy surface from a cup, you'll get misses much more frequently.

Alternatively, if you roll the defense dice on a bouncy surface, you'll get a lot more 3 or 4 shields ;). Kinda stupid I know but so far with my 20 sample size, that how it seems to work, and there is some science behind it. Turns out how you roll the dice may actually really matter.

Statistically speaking, the odds of rolling four misses in a row should be 0.08%. Rolling six misses in a row should be 0.002%. Will this never happen? No, I'm sure it will happen but the odds of double four misses in a row and a 6 in a row miss during some test rolls is surprisingly. It at least warrants getting that sample size up with more testing.

You need to start with all of your dice sitting on the table with negative results showing. Hence, when you roll them you're more likely to not roll what you began with. (according to my daughter... you should see her dice setup. Lol.)

I don’t claim to be superstitious, but I tend to pick up the blue die on the table with the x showing instead of the 2 damage + surge face.

How about dice towers? Does anyone has any experience with that?

Interesting. It could be that they didn't take the "pip" depth into account when they manufactured these dice. If the depth of the X side is equal to the other "pips" then this would cause the X to roll more than the heavier sides. Just like the 4-6 statistically roll more often than the 1-3 on a standard six-sided die, unless it is a casino die (which have evenly distributed weights on all sides).

It is known that dice with rounded corners and dice with special symbols carved to their sides tend to be unevenly manufactured.
I cannot say I have had such extreme experiences, but yeah, there have been turns (for both sides) that the dreadful "X" has been rolled twice in a row.
If you still feel prejudiced against them, you could try using an app, e.g. "Descent Horror Dice" on google play.

12 hours ago, kbalazsa said:

How about dice towers? Does anyone has any experience with that?

Dice towers? Did someone say dice towers ?

@doubletapdaddy I think you guys may need to pick up the pace of play. You appear to have lost a player, there.

16 hours ago, doubletapdaddy said:

Dice towers? Did someone say dice towers ?

Very nice exagonal based dice towers 🙂 Can you share the link?

1 hour ago, tibia said:

Very nice exagonal based dice towers 🙂 Can you share the link?

www.c4labs.com

I once recorded the number of "X"-rolls for an entire campaign. Sadly the numbers rolled eludes me, but needless to say there were hundreds of rolls.

Here is the interesting part: Of all the rolls made, excactly 20% were X-rolls. It should have been 1/6 = 16,67%.

I do indeed think the X is carved so deep, that this side of the dice is slightly lighter, thus making it a "bad-luck dice".

On 8/18/2020 at 5:58 AM, Brutalien said:

It is known that dice with rounded corners and dice with special symbols carved to their sides tend to be unevenly manufactured.
I cannot say I have had such extreme experiences, but yeah, there have been turns (for both sides) that the dreadful "X" has been rolled twice in a row.
If you still feel prejudiced against them, you could try using an app, e.g. "Descent Horror Dice" on google play.

This is true, and it's why casino craps dice are not rounded and have the pips filled in instead of indented / painted.

Maybe if casino dice are a thing (I'd never thought of any of this nor had I heard of casino dice), if unrandom rolls are a problem an alternative to a dice app (which would also need to be reliable randomness-wise!) could be casino dice and a conversion chart- a bit of hassle but could be more balanced. Or I guess you could print cards and draw a card, but again would take that little bit longer. Or creatively involve your cat in the process somehow as cats seem very random.

I'm no sciency physicy type but it might be that even if the dice are unbalanced the random nature of actually rolling them could maybe somehow counter this.

You do realize the nerdy geek in me now wants to know the actual facts/science *googles 'are dice really random' *

It is quite easier to produce random casino dice than a "good" random app 🙂 Of course, once done, the app can be reused by many, but it can be not easy to grant that it remains unmodified 😉

21 hours ago, KalEl814 said:

This is true, and it's why casino craps dice are not rounded and have the pips filled in instead of indented / painted.

Casino dice are quite different. They're machined instead of injection molded, so they don't shink unevenly in the mold as the plastic cools. Nor do they need to go through a rock tumbler to get rid of the mold marks (which makes the dice even more uneven). Casino dice are translucent, your dice are not which means there could be an air bubble in there and you'd never know. And that X is a whole bunch of missing plastic which casino dice with their perfectly filled pips don't have.

So, your saying I should fill in the pips with like maybe a clear resin, get them balanced, and then break the hands of anyone who messes with my dice?

At least now if any of my fan projects fail in playtesting I can just blame the dice not my game design skills/attempts

But joking aside maybe we do need to solve this one as players as it could be a game-breaker if it skews balance too much and you may not even notice it being the cause of a problem if it were just a case of either side being more/less likely to get lucky/unlucky with their rolls.

So answers on a postcard, is it not enough of a problem to worry about or is it significant enough to need fixing and if so what might be best?

On 8/18/2020 at 9:56 PM, kris40k said:

@doubletapdaddy I think you guys may need to pick up the pace of play. You appear to have lost a player, there.

Somebody pondered the randomness of the dice even when using a dice tower so they put the game on hold to start trying to work out if all their dice were actually 'fair' and the difference different dice towers made. Time did the thing time does, they lost their marbles even though they didn't have any to start with as Descent doesn't have any marbles in it and they got so deep into 'we have to solve this conundrum' that they hadn't noticed all this focus on die outcomes had led to an actual fatal-kind-of die outcome.

2 hours ago, Watercolour Dragon said:

But joking aside maybe we do need to solve this one as players as it could be a game-breaker if it skews balance too much and you may not even notice it being the cause of a problem if it were just a case of either side being more/less likely to get lucky/unlucky with their rolls.

So answers on a postcard, is it not enough of a problem to worry about or is it significant enough to need fixing and if so what might be best?

Operate with an assumption of a 20% miss chance instead of a 16.67% and problem solved?

On 8/21/2020 at 7:39 PM, kris40k said:

Operate with an assumption of a 20% miss chance instead of a 16.67% and problem solved?

Or put it down to them being Fortuna's Dice or the Bones of Woe - the dice (fates) do as the dice (fates) wish so you just gotta roll with them unless you've a way to beat their destiny (such as having the Fortuna's Dice card if you're a hero, but of course those dice can be stubborn so you may re-roll exactly what you just rolled )

Add some extra weight on the X side with some glue

So the x being a little bigger isn't the biggest problem. The dice aren't even square.

Definitely flawed: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2209566/article/32886854#32886854

I just did the saltwater test on 16 different dice to check their balance.
6 of these were not balanced. I have 2 blue attack dice and one was perfectly balanced, the other one had a lighter side which was the 3 Range, 2 Hearts.

In total, these were my 6 imablanced dice out of 16.

Blue die - light side: 3 Range, 2 hearts
Yellow die - light side: 2 hearts
Red die - light side: 3 hearts, 1 surge.
Brown die - light side : 2 shields
Grey die 1- light side: 1 shield
Grey die 2 - light side : 0 shields

So the lightest side doesn't seem to always be the one with the most carving.

I rolled my imabalced blue die 200 times to check how many times I got the 3 Range and 2 hearts and I rolled it 33 times, which is a basically 1 in 6. I rolled the X 35 times.
So i'm not sure if this little experiment got me anywhere 😂

11 hours ago, Dadler93 said:

I just did the saltwater test on 16 different dice to check their balance.
6 of these were not balanced. I have 2 blue attack dice and one was perfectly balanced, the other one had a lighter side which was the 3 Range, 2 Hearts.

In total, these were my 6 imablanced dice out of 16.

Blue die - light side: 3 Range, 2 hearts
Yellow die - light side: 2 hearts
Red die - light side: 3 hearts, 1 surge.
Brown die - light side : 2 shields
Grey die 1- light side: 1 shield
Grey die 2 - light side : 0 shields

So the lightest side doesn't seem to always be the one with the most carving.

I rolled my imabalced blue die 200 times to check how many times I got the 3 Range and 2 hearts and I rolled it 33 times, which is a basically 1 in 6. I rolled the X 35 times.
So i'm not sure if this little experiment got me anywhere 😂

I expect the biggest problem to be either air bubbles or which side is up in the mold.