Page 1 of 2

Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 2:12 am
by Gaixo
I'm often heard that the rulebook states that the same dice should be used by both players. Can anyone give me a page number for that? Thanks!

Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:54 am
by Oventa
Would be curious as well. I dont think this exists.
But i very much welcome nowadays many naf tourneys Writing in their rules that if the Opponent Wants to share dice you have to allow it.
As i am Full for Sharing dice!

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:13 am
by Darkson
There's nothing in the CRP about sharing dice.

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:32 am
by Smeborg
I'm not aware that anything like this has ever been in the rulebook. Furthermore, it does not sound like the sort of thing that would ever get past Jervis.

I believe the rules for the Chaos Cup in Chicago (one of the majors) mandate that players must share dice. I think that is a good way to go for tourneys.

Personally I favour sharing dice, but some individuals and groups are strongly opposed to the idea. In Australia, it is not uncommon for coaches to tip 80-100 dice onto the board. Each time they roll dice they pick which dice they want to use. I find this a little disconcerting. They also don't like to share dice. At the last World Cup, I politely requested my 9 oppponents to share my dice, 8 agreed readily, the 9th did not, but agreed to share his dice.

I have witnessed one obvious problem in a tournament with shall we say "lucky" dice. I have also found that popular dice given away at tournaments can be noticeably less than even (hardly surprising, they are not designed to be even). I once tested a beautiful pair of such dice by rolling 100 times when I got home, this produced the following results:

1: 11 times
2,3,4,5: 15-17 times each
6: 23 times

Now no doubt the owner of such dice would merely consider them "lucky". Personally I favour using the GW/NAF dice for blocking, and professional dice for other rolls (I use professional backgammon dice, they are pleasantly sized and coloured, they have nice rounded corners, so will not damage the board). I also favour using a shaker, however, many coaches do not like using one. I know at least one coach who can produce whatever result he wants when rolling from hand. He uses a shaker of course.

All the best.

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:39 am
by Elyoukey
Smeborg wrote: I know at least one coach who can produce whatever result he wants when rolling from hand. He uses a shaker of course.
i beleive (and youtube is a witness) that even with a shaker, a trained buddy can make some crazy figures and can make any roll. But we are playing bloodbowl, there is no point in this kind of cheating.
When bloodbowl will have an international diffusion with billions dollars winning competitions like soccer in france or footbal in us, then we may be concerned by dice cheating.

Also in a real life environment there is no way you can have a really trustable RNG if you don't include a third person to throw the dice. (like in casinos)

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:27 am
by Strider84
In my opinion, people who really think dice are not random just can't handle bad luck.

When playing against such people it really helps to share the dice, and if they request and provide me with a dice cup I might even use it even though I hate it since I like the thrill of already seing a one come into place just to flip over to a 3 in the last twist.

However, I really hate to play with the impact dice, as the logos just look stupid and I can never figure out which is what :-)

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 11:30 am
by Gaixo
Strider84 wrote:In my opinion, people who really think dice are not random just can't handle bad luck.
Haha.There's a set of dice from a certain tournament that are renowned throughout at least three different leagues for rolling high. They were infamously used to cause 31 casualties in a 3-round tournament (including 17 in one game) and more recently caused 19 casualties in a single league match. Anyone familiar with them groans when they're produced from a dice bag. I don't think that's just a collective superstition. As alluded to above, custom dice are not especially well balanced.

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 12:51 pm
by Elyoukey
Gaixo wrote:As alluded to above, custom dice are not especially well balanced.
Not only custom dice, GW dices are not balanced, and almost all dice are not balanced. the backgammon ones are, but it is not the same price.

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:04 pm
by Stimme
Smeborg wrote:I believe the rules for the Chaos Cup in Chicago (one of the majors) mandate that players must share dice.
Must share dice if one of the opponents requests it. But that is rarely the case. Unless you are playing against fatfinley, who luckily did not figure out how to activate the magnet in the bottom of my dice cup.

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:56 pm
by Smeborg
Elyoukey wrote:
Gaixo wrote:As alluded to above, custom dice are not especially well balanced.
Not only custom dice, GW dices are not balanced, and almost all dice are not balanced. the backgammon ones are, but it is not the same price.
I recall a thorough test by a coach, using a mechanical shaker, which found that a set of GW dice rolled 29% ones. May explain why these are not used for BB.

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:44 pm
by dode74

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:48 pm
by Loki
This has always puzzled me, I was under the impression that the main systemic imbalance on dice was weight at the face i.e. the '1' side has less material removed is therefore heavier and more likely to end up face down and therefore rolls a 6.

Versus a random imbalance say mis-sized sides where a greater surface area would, result in that side being heavier and/or having greater friction and therefore landing down but this should be truly random so that it could be any side which shows more rather than always being '1'. This should be less likely due to the dice being tumbled in the manufacturing process anyway.

What is the suggestion for GW rolling more 1's than would be statistically likely?

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:50 pm
by MattDakka
Don't share dice, instead share a laptop connected to this site:
www.random.org
for every dice roll you need.
:D

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Tue Oct 01, 2013 9:54 pm
by Loki
Cheers Dode, that answers my question!

Re: Sharing dice

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:50 am
by Elyoukey
MattDakka wrote:Don't share dice, instead share a laptop connected to this site:
http://www.random.org
for every dice roll you need.
:D
several issues :
1-there is no block dice so you may need a hash grid (1=>skull 2=>push etc...)
2-one can fake the layout of the site and make his own rolling code.
unless there is a way to ask the server for the result served to someone else ?

i once made this:
http://www.elyoukey.com/bbroller2
(ipad, smartphoone compatible webpage)

but issue#2 remains.
i think a server side dice roll is required, i wish i had time to work on it.

Also i made some tests matchs with it and it is a bit weird to not have an real cube to shake, there is something unnatural in the process.