You ever notice how sometimes dice are hard to read, because you're accustomed to a specific way that they are shaped and numbered, but then SOMEHOW you found one that works differently? Are there names for these patters in the community? Like, the Chessex pattern, and the Yellow Dragon pattern, or something?
The best way to distinguish between the two is to look at the d4. The Chessex pattern will depict the numbers at each point, while the Yellow Dragon pattern will display it on the middle of the bottom edge. The D8 is also pretty easy to tell with. Chessex pattern has an odd side and an even side, while the Yellow Dragon does not... as in, if you find the 1 and continue to the right, Chessex reads 1, 3, 5, 7; but if you read a Yellow Dragon, it reads 1, 8, 5, 4. Look at your dice, I bet 95% or more of them of them match one of these two patterns.
Extra Notes: So, I got my "black" and "oil" sets of dice, because I know they are different patterns and I'm taking a look at what other printing differences they have. Chessex's 1 points towards the 5, which points back at the one. Yellow Dragon's 1 and 5 face their tails toward each other. Weirdly, if you set them on their 1, which will face the 6 up, the numbers are the same on each side, facing the same way, EXCEPT for the 1 and 5. I dunno', it's just weird. It makes me wonder if it was ever worth suing over die shapes / patterns.
d10, d100's, d12, and d20's are all the same. Also, do you have any dice that aren't the normal pattern?
P.S. I really got to thinking about this because every d4 I own (except for one) is of the Chessex pattern, even though Chessex might be half of my collection (tops)... but somehow the most popular d4 I find in pictures is of the Yellow Dragon pattern. What's up with that? Even the d4 on Wikipedia's Four Sided Die page is a Yellow Dragon.
I was starting to suspect that my cheap dice were really unbalanced so I bought some numerically balanced d20s. Normal d20s have opposite sides add up to 21 but numerically balanced d20s also have each group of 5 faces around a vertex sum up to 52 or 53. This has the effect of reducing the influence of manufacturing imperfections on the results of a role. In some informal testing over ~70 rolls, they did appear to have an average closer to the expected 10.5.
Back in the OLD days. you had to use a crayon to fill in the numbers. You could paint in the 20 and surrounding numbers then use a heavy crayon on the opposite side. Now dice come with the number painted in.
I had a player with a 3D printer make some loaded dice in secret. He made me 3 d20s. I was running a combat and I rolled all three at one time. And came up with 3 20's. It was great seeing the expression. I didn't use the roll but it was fun. Now they keep a watch out for those dice
I was starting to suspect that my cheap dice were really unbalanced so I bought some numerically balanced d20s. Normal d20s have opposite sides add up to 21 but numerically balanced d20s also have each group of 5 faces around a vertex sum up to 52 or 53. This has the effect of reducing the influence of manufacturing imperfections on the results of a role. In some informal testing over ~70 rolls, they did appear to have an average closer to the expected 10.5.
You ever notice how sometimes dice are hard to read, because you're accustomed to a specific way that they are shaped and numbered, but then SOMEHOW you found one that works differently? Are there names for these patters in the community? Like, the Chessex pattern, and the Yellow Dragon pattern, or something?
The best way to distinguish between the two is to look at the d4. The Chessex pattern will depict the numbers at each point, while the Yellow Dragon pattern will display it on the middle of the bottom edge. The D8 is also pretty easy to tell with. Chessex pattern has an odd side and an even side, while the Yellow Dragon does not... as in, if you find the 1 and continue to the right, Chessex reads 1, 3, 5, 7; but if you read a Yellow Dragon, it reads 1, 8, 5, 4. Look at your dice, I bet 95% or more of them of them match one of these two patterns.
Extra Notes: So, I got my "black" and "oil" sets of dice, because I know they are different patterns and I'm taking a look at what other printing differences they have. Chessex's 1 points towards the 5, which points back at the one. Yellow Dragon's 1 and 5 face their tails toward each other. Weirdly, if you set them on their 1, which will face the 6 up, the numbers are the same on each side, facing the same way, EXCEPT for the 1 and 5. I dunno', it's just weird. It makes me wonder if it was ever worth suing over die shapes / patterns.
d10, d100's, d12, and d20's are all the same. Also, do you have any dice that aren't the normal pattern?
P.S. I really got to thinking about this because every d4 I own (except for one) is of the Chessex pattern, even though Chessex might be half of my collection (tops)... but somehow the most popular d4 I find in pictures is of the Yellow Dragon pattern. What's up with that? Even the d4 on Wikipedia's Four Sided Die page is a Yellow Dragon.
Guess I have never had a problem reading dice. Other than a d100 or d30.
I was starting to suspect that my cheap dice were really unbalanced so I bought some numerically balanced d20s. Normal d20s have opposite sides add up to 21 but numerically balanced d20s also have each group of 5 faces around a vertex sum up to 52 or 53. This has the effect of reducing the influence of manufacturing imperfections on the results of a role. In some informal testing over ~70 rolls, they did appear to have an average closer to the expected 10.5.
https://www.mathartfun.com/thedicelab.com/BalancedStdPoly.html
Back in the OLD days. you had to use a crayon to fill in the numbers. You could paint in the 20 and surrounding numbers then use a heavy crayon on the opposite side. Now dice come with the number painted in.
I had a player with a 3D printer make some loaded dice in secret. He made me 3 d20s. I was running a combat and I rolled all three at one time. And came up with 3 20's. It was great seeing the expression. I didn't use the roll but it was fun. Now they keep a watch out for those dice
I've never heard of those before. That's really cool!
@Bobberuchi Thems were the days, eh? And the loaded dice story is pretty cool too. Thanks for sharing!
Heh, I want all d4s to have 12-sides.
he / him
Look around, You can find some. You may have increase your search to non D&D sites. Amazon has some for about $9 for 4.
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