48
votes
Accepted
Why do people call an n-sided die a "d-n"?
It's a Dungeons & Dragons convention
The "d" dice notation originates with Dungeons & Dragons, which innovated in the use of multiple types of polyhedral dice and often requires ...
- 596
43
votes
Accepted
What game did these black and yellow dice come from?
Well, that was an obscure one.
As seen in the below image, these dice are from the 2006-07 Collectable Miniatures game Dreamblade. As far as I can tell, the game was extremely popular in a very small ...
- 11.7k
35
votes
What is this weird d12 for?
These dice are for a game called GOLO Golf Dice.
I asked dice guru Kevin Cook at dicecollector.com and he recognized them almost immediately. This game is sold by a company called Zobmondo. It looks ...
- 7,773
31
votes
Why do people call an n-sided die a "d-n"?
It is less confusing to say "twenty D six" (20d6) than to say "twenty six-D" (20 6d), which could be interpreted as a "twenty-six-D" (26d).
Having the D act as a ...
- 529
26
votes
What is this die for?
It looks like this die is from the Pokemon Card Game; part of the 'Roaring Skies Elite Trainer Dice Set' which is used to keep track of damage done to Pokemon in the card game.
The symbol on the dice ...
- 479
26
votes
Accepted
What game uses dice with compass point arrows, forbidden signs, explosions, arrows and targeting reticles?
These are survivor dice from the cooperative world-of-survival-horror board game Dark, Darker, Darkest.
(The picture is labeled as "an expansion", but it's just a set of dice in each of the player ...
- 346
25
votes
What game uses dice with sides powers of 2?
Backgammon uses a die like that; it's known as a doubling cube. It's used, when playing a multi-game match or for money, to track the current stakes of the game. Note that in this capacity it's not ...
- 966
20
votes
What dice to use in a game that revolves around triangles?
Doing some research shows you will still 5-9 range but it will be slightly more when you are using d4. Now if that difference causes a problem that would be up to you to decide. One other thing to ...
- 14.4k
19
votes
Where is this die from?
This die is from the Star Wars: Galactic Battle Game. This was a game that involved individual action figures being purchased which came with cards & dice for use in the game. Some models like ...
- 24.5k
19
votes
Accepted
Why are the pips on dice organized the way they are?
This is a really interesting question and just spent last hour googling around for various thoughts.
The first thing is why pips and not numbers. This is because the invention of dice predates the ...
- 10.6k
17
votes
15
votes
Which game do these dice belong to?
This is Go Long, a game about (American) football.
The black die is for yards gained, if I remember correctly.
Here's an image of the dice from Go Long (from BoardGameGeek):
- 3,476
13
votes
Accepted
Can experts roll dice with non-uniform distribution?
In theory, yes (the macro nature of the dice and the table overcoming any quantum-level randomness, leaving you with classical physics). In practice, the bulk of the evidence says no, that the chaos ...
- 11.4k
12
votes
What dice to use in a game that revolves around triangles?
In general, rolling more, smaller dice will give a narrower range of possible answers and a distribution that's more concentrated around the average value, compared to rolling fewer, larger dice. This ...
- 501
11
votes
Accepted
What game uses dice with shields, fleur-de-lis and rapier hilts?
The dice are from the game "Mousquetaires du Roy" ("The King's Musketeers")
Board Game Geek Entry
- 3,160
11
votes
Is there a method that gets beneficial diminishing returns when adding more dice, yet stays random?
You're actually asking two questions:
How can I design a function that computes a result on a dice roll that gives asymptotically decreasing benefit to adding more dice?
How can I have a system ...
- 17.9k
10
votes
Accepted
Usual size for D6 dice?
This page on DiceGameDepot has an exhaustive article about it. A visual aid from that article:
From my experience and the info from article, the 16mm die is the most common plastic die, used in the ...
- 9,251
10
votes
Accepted
What game has this weird 12 sided die with clouds, a bug, a pear and other stuff on it?
Found it! Through sheer Google-fu, I discovered ThinkBlot!
Tom Vasel's review describes its use:
The game is very simple. Up to six players are given a sheet from a pad included with the game, along ...
- 9,683
10
votes
Accepted
What game? Matching dice with two each of d4, d6, d8, and d10
Ah-ha. I searched for the 2015 gen con convention map, looked up the booth number and found the associated store.
Lumps, by Continuum Games There are a couple of printings, with various packaging and ...
- 271
9
votes
Accepted
What game do these dice go to?
The dice appear to be from a game called Don't Bug Me, published in 1969/1970 by the Pacific Game Company (of California).
A look inside the box reveals a pair of dice with an identical bug on each ...
- 236
8
votes
Does this mining mechanic add genuine choice to my game?
Instead of modeling you can compute these results exactly. If you roll n dice at difficulty d, the variance will be [d * n * (d-1)/6 * (7-d)/6], and the mean net gain will be [d * n * (7-d)/6 - 1]. ...
- 11.1k
8
votes
Accepted
Roll dice to see who goes first in Monopoly
All the official rules say is " Starting with the Banker, each player in turn throws the dice.The player with the highest total starts the play: "
However I have never seen a system for determining ...
- 20.1k
8
votes
Balance of Numbers on dice
To prevent skill from being a factor in rolling
Dice have an even distribution of the numbers around the faces to prevent (or at least reduce) the ability to modify your chances of a result by ...
- 4,766
8
votes
Fairness of Cowry Shells as Dice
This has been a problem since the days when dice, hand-carved out of sheep's knucklebones, could never be considered mathematically fair. Historically, there have been two principal ways of improving ...
- 2,636
8
votes
What board game is this die from?
This die is from the game Throw 'n Go Jenga, which is a Jenga variant.
Check this link:
https://board-games-galore.fandom.com/wiki/Jenga
- 816
7
votes
Is there a standard way to number the faces of a 20-sided die?
Is there any standard way of numbering the faces of the 20-sided die?
There is no industry-wide standard for mapping numbers 1...20 across the faces of a regular icosahedral d20 die. Manufacturers ...
- 131
7
votes
What is this die for?
Probably nothing.
It is very common for dice, especially six-diced dice, to have a varying symbol for the side where the "one" would normally go, while the remaining sides have the normal two through ...
- 2,131
7
votes
Accepted
What are these wooden dice with X's and O's on 2 sides?
The game is Quixo; here are the rules. The only game component you're missing is a 5x5 board to put them in, and the game should be playable without that.
- 11.1k
7
votes
Why do people call an n-sided die a "d-n"?
You can take a look to this article.
It seems that the "d" notation was introduced in order to remove the ambiguity of a mixed instructions (verbal and numerical).
The "d" notation ...
- 181
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