Earlier tonight Harvey Walters rolled 8 dice to try and cast a spell and EVERY SINGLE DICE came up as a 1.

At odds of 1,679,616 to 1. It was truly remarkable to see ... ! :-)

Although the person rolling the dice wasn't too impressed, I must admit. ;-)

are you serious? for real? seriously? really?

Neither more nor less likely than any other single result!

Every time you roll eight dice, the result you get was exactly that unlikely! It only seems special because we've arbitrarily assigned significance to that particular combination of numbers. GRRR! PROBABILITY HULK SMAAAASH!

On the other hand, woooah.

hahaha a brutal observation. True though!

Stenun said:

Actually those are the odds of it happening again. The probability of an event that already happened is always exactly 1 in 1.

Well, if you had rolled all 2s then you would have made the post anyway, right?

So then the odds that Harvey rolled all failures that were the same number are merely 1 in 419904.

The odds that all eight dice were the same result are are more humble 1 in 279963.

Still silly though. I once explained the rules of the game to a new player, and then drew the opening mythos card, "The Story Continues." I then shuffled the deck and drew again... "The Story Continues." This was with CotDP, Dunwich, and probably King in Yellow. Success!

Also, it was just one dice roll out of the millions of rolls made by Arkham Horror gamers over the years. The probability of it happening to someone, somewhere, at some point is probably close to 1 in 1. During a Shadowrun campaign that I was involved in, someone rolled 9 dice and got 14 hits. The chance of that happening is 125,000 to 1. Weird **** can happen when you spend hours of your free time rolling dice.

Argonel said:

Ouch! If this is a pedantry competition, then technically shouldn't we be expressing probabilities in terms of numbers between 0 and 1, hmmmmm?

P(Stenum's result) = 0.0000004.

thecorinthian said:

Well, since we're being pedantic here...

What you said above isn't strictly true. It's eight times more probable that you roll a result of seven 1s and a single 2 than rolling eight 1s. Unless you specify which die is meant to roll the 2.

Bel-Shamharoth said:

That's exactly what I was going to say. :-)

The odds of rolling four 4s and four 3s is NOT 1,679,616 to 1. 1,679,616 to 1 only applies if, as has just been pointed out, you specify which result each die is meant to roll - which in the case of eight 1s, you do. But just saying "four 4s and four 3s" you don't specify, therefore the odds are considerably less. I believe the terminology is Permuations and Combinations. Eight 1s (from eight dice) is a Permutation, four 4s and four 3s is a Combination. Permutations have higher odds that Combinations.

And for the record, my previous freakiest die roll observed was when two friends and I were playing a less good game and each rolled two dice to see who went first. We all rolled double 1. Spectacular, but not as spectacular as EIGHT 1s ... :-)

I once rolled three 6's out of three dice

kroen said:

I once rolled one dice and got a 4.

Joe Diamond once killed Shudde M'ell within a single combat roll, scoring 50 successes with 42 dices.

Stenun said:

Point made! I did say 'combinations' the first time, although I had forgotten about the distinction.

Eight 1s isn't just a permutation, it's a combination too - and it has equal probability when considered as either of those because all the dice are the same. It's only once you have different numbers appearing that it matters on which dice they appear.

That Shudde-M'ell thing is pretty unlikely. Presumably Joe Diamond had a shotgun. Was he also blessed?

thecorinthian said:

Of course he had a shotgun. And yes, he was blessed. And before you ask, yes, his girlfriend Mandy was there, too.
The moment felt fantastic (since the team had about 2 rounds until everyone would have died), but in the end, i'm not that proud of it...

Nothing beats a win by sealing.

Vitus_Prem said:

Join the Winning Team SO beats it ! I imagine For the Greater Good would also beat it. One of these days...

Vitus_Prem said:

I disagree! I've noticed there's a lot of pro-sealing, anti-battle sentiment on these boards. Personally, I prefer a long, tense final battle, which ends with the investigators narrowly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

The bit before the final battle, the bit where there's a sort of big 'town' board - that's basically a shopping trip.

thecorinthian said:

Say "Hi!" to Azathoth for me .

Dam said:

Yeah, right. Forgot about that one.

Dam said:

Y'see, that's why my group doesn't like Azathoth. All he does is make an end-of-game defeat less interesting. Usually seems like a bit of an anticlimax. Once you've gotten to the end and have tried to seal gates but failed, you might as well have a Final Battle too, because the chances are it will make no difference and you're all doomed anyway.