Know Your Dice!
A downloadable game
This is a quarter fold zine explaining simple notation, odds, and uses for the various polyhedral dice common to RPGs (role-playing games). I packed as much in as I could while keeping it straightforward and useful. This would make a nice stocking stuffer for any gamer. Despite its "basic" approach, some of the tables are quite useful - such as the table showing the odds of a d20 vs. a target number with Advantage and Disadvantage.
Instructions: print on one sheet of US Letter paper, front and back, binding on long edge. Fold the top down and then fold side to side; keep the cover facing out. If you have a long-arm stapler, staple the middle in two places and then trim the outside edge (there's a crop mark) and slit the top folds. If you only have a normal stapler, trim the open edge, then staple, then slit the top folds. I recommend 24lb paper (like resume paper).
Download
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Development log
- Minor error correctionDec 07, 2023
Comments
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Hi again. I have a suggestion: since you're an accomplished artist, and since I'm doing an honours degree in mathematics, would you like to collaborate on an update to your zine, or perhaps a new zine entirely?
Best, Jason
When you say "odds %" do you mean probability? It's just that, with 2d4 your probability of rolling 2 is 1/16 = 6.25% The odds of doing it is 0.0625 / (1 - 0.0625) = 6.66%, so it's closer to 7 if anything.
Hi there, nice work. I have read the Gygax75 challenge, so I'm a fan of your work.
I have two suggestions:
- Your "dice chain" section includes the expected values of each die, but, expected values are useful in all games of dice. It's generally useful to know that a d6 can be expected to produce a value of 3.5 (even though it never will... but if we ran an infinitely long Monte Carlo simulation you would see it converge to that value). So, if it was my zine, I would put that in a section called "Expected Values".
- Of particular interest would be expected values of rolling dX with advantage and disadvantage. Eg: when rolling 2d20 to obtain a d20 with disadvantage, your expected value from 10.5 to ~ 7.2, and it's the opposite case with advantage. There's some interesting maths about it on this page: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/14690/how-does-rolling-two-d20-and-takin...
Also, good information, might be to make a reference to the gambler's fallacy. People sometimes think that if you flip a fair coin and it comes up heads 20 times, then it must be more likely to be tails next time. No, the odds of a fair coin will always be 1:1. The same applies to dice. If the dice hate you so far then unfortunately that doesn't mean your luck will improve.
I could spam you with probability tidbits but there's only so much time haha.
Much appreciated ... simple aid---in many cases already in use---nice to have it all laid out and neat and collected in one place!
This zine is super cute and informative! I just wish that there had been room for graphs of the probability of, e.g., 1d12 vs 2d6 (or what about 1d4+1d8, or maybe that's for a follow-up zine, Advanced Dice & Design).
Haha. Yup, the possibilities are endless. Thank you!
The instructions dont mention a cut, we need to cut to seperate the pages right?
I think they do mention a cut (two actually), but I'll double check. Once you fold you have to either staple then trim the outside edge (longarm stapler) or trim and then staple (regular stapler). Then you have to slit open the top edge folds.
The instructions were in the download screen, but I moved/copied them to the main description as well. Thanks!
np, thanks for the free grub!