Beyond dice question

I started so far back that a list of "random numbers" could actually be found to repeat after a while but over the years that list got so long it took another computer to to notice.

I started so far back that a random number generator was new not all computers came with them. Pre PC. Pre internet. If I remember correctly on of the first PCs was found to have a RNG only about 10 thousand numbers long before it started to repeat.  It was quickly fixed in the next chip and reprogrammed to cover any repeating 

Those same computers, and by the way calculators, also has large number errors. For years some calculators gave different answers to the same problems. 

Quote from TheGnome5786>>

I started so far back that a list of "random numbers" could actually be found to repeat after a while but over the years that list got so long it took another computer to to notice.

I started so far back that a random number generator was new not all computers came with them. Pre PC. Pre internet. If I remember correctly on of the first PCs was found to have a RNG only about 10 thousand numbers long before it started to repeat.  It was quickly fixed in the next chip and reprogrammed to cover any repeating 

Those same computers, and by the way calculators, also has large number errors. For years some calculators gave different answers to the same problems. 

 Floating point math is still a potential source of error. 

Virtual dice in Beyond aren’t truly random, but they use strong pseudo-random generators combined with physics engines to simulate realistic rolls. As Davyd explained, factors like CPU load, system clock, and even dice “weight” skins help seed unique outcomes. The key is unpredictability and fairness, you can’t foresee the next roll, and results don’t favor certain numbers in any meaningful way. For tabletop play, that’s effectively as random as physical dice.

Quote from TheGnome5786 >>

Actually their is a background line of code that produces random numbers. These random numbers are them converted by simple math into D&D dice numbers. IE1d4 1d6 1d8.......

What your see happen on the screen means nothing to those numbers. I used to program a little for fun. All computers have a random number generator inside them because its not exactly possible to program a truly random number.

 

They could also just list the random numbers in a little box.

The number is generated and then the graphics happen. 

 

Random number generators are actually just long lists of numbers, each time you ask the computer for a random number it just takes the next group of numbers and then runs it though a program to make make one number and this sort of looks random.  The original lists of numbers were short so short that they could find the repeating numbers and predict the next number. Now the list is very long hundreds of thousands long.

 That is not what has been stated by the developers.  

Quote from jl8e >>

RNGs are, even now, mostly done in software, not hardware.

Modern computers frequently have a high quality random seed generator that work by sampling noisy system processes and storing the results as a pool of entropy, but the pool isn't all that big and doesn't refill that fast, so most applications will just acquire a seed and use a pseudo-random algorithm after initializing. Modern pseudo-random number generators have incredibly long periods (appears the current standard is Xorshift128+ with a period of 2^128-1, which is long enough that you could produce a quadrillion numbers per second and still not repeat in less than a hundred times the current age of the universe).

If people believe they are seeing inconsistencies or problems in the dice rolls on DDB, that's far more likely to be pattern recognition bias rather than an issue with which RNG is being used and/or how it's being applied.

Quote from BigHeartedGuy >>

If people believe they are seeing inconsistencies or problems in the dice rolls on DDB, that's far more likely to be pattern recognition bias rather than an issue with which RNG is being used and/or how it's being applied.

 There are also third party extensions can manipulate the dice results too, such as Beyond20 which can force crits for example

Pretty much every computer RNG has people complaining about them being biased. This is probably a combination of

1. we can't actually see the physical dice being rolled.
2. human intuition about random data as wrong. We expect it to actually look patternless, but true random data routinely contain chunks that look patterned.
3. We also expect random to be fair (the gambler's fallacy) and it isn't -- rolling badly now is not a predictor of future success, nor vice versa.
4. Actual physical dice aren't very good randomizers, particularly if you don't use a dice box or cup (rolling vigorously enough to produce good random values on an open tabletop is a good way to wind up with a bunch of stuff out of place or on the floor; also, many gaming dice are straight up biased due to low quality manufacturing), so actually random numbers may be significantly different from rolling physical dice.