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Club Dice- Cheat to Win, or Ignorance is Bliss?

By Master Shake | August 27th, 2013 | Categories: Master Shake, Miniature Wargaming Editorials

Everybody at some point or another has played with, or played against somebody with those goofy looking dice with a club symbol or something else engraved on a facing in lieu of the traditional 6 pips.

When watching those dice roll, you likely noticed how they wobble and just roll funny.

There is a reason- and it might not make you happy.
 
Non-precision dice, which most gamers use, are made by drilling out the pips and simply painting inside them. This means that all dice, save casino dice are slightly heavier on the one side than the six side.

Precision dice are made by drilling out the pips, and then the pips are filled with a paint that is the same weight and density as the original material, thus making them as close to perfect as reasonably possible.

The issue with dice with symbols is they are non-precision dice (which already have a bias towards rolling sixes) with an even larger bias towards rolling 6’s.

When a symbol is used on the 6 side of a die in lieu of pips, a lot more of the original material is cut away. This means that the 1 side is far more likely to end up facing down since it is far heavier. This trait is accentuated by the fact that 90% of dice with a symbol have rounded edges, thus making it easier for the “one” to end up down when rolled.

Ever wonder why so many Necron players roll dice with symbols? I hear 6’s are good for tesla…
There are 2 solutions to this that I can think of immediately for the tournament scene. The first is simply to not allow dice with symbols. The better solution, one already implemented by the Indy Open GT, is to provide dice for the event so everybody has the same skewed odds of rolling sixes. – Master Shake

About the Author: Master Shake