Let’s revisit dice shape. After seeing the Awesome Dice study I had to acquire some GameScience dice. Not for any real reason except that they seem all the rage now-a-days. I’m not going to try to convince myself that I want dice that roll with the most consistency – because I don’t.
In Vegas, dice that roll all numbers equally might be desired, but I don’t mind dice in D&D that roll skewed. After all, if there are dice that seem to roll more often in my favor I’m all for it. I like random chance as much as anyone, but I like winning a lot more often than losing. As an extension of my previous observations, I took a look at the shape of the GameScience dice. As with the previous post, I used a Neiko caliper (01407A) which has a resolution of 0.01 mm an accuracy of 0.02 mm. I used the axis length of each side measuring from the center of the face then used standard deviation to see how far each die varied from the mean of all axes. I always counted the axis going through the 20 face as axis 1 and then going clockwise then outward to identify the other axes:
Introduction
As mentioned in the Awesome Dice study, the GameScience d20 has a pretty serious burr on the 7 face, so when I was calculating the diameter of that axis I decided to do so both ignoring and taking into account the burr. Let’s see how it did!
Opal
The die in question was the GameScience gem dice with an opal sheen and painted numbers. Here are the numbers when ignoring the burr:
| Opal | mm | axis | diff from mean |
| 20-1 | 19.07 | 1 | 0.082 |
| 14-7 | 18.99 | 2 | 0.002 |
| 13-8 | 18.91 | 3 | -0.078 |
| 19-2 | 18.98 | 4 | -0.008 |
| 17-4 | 19.06 | 5 | 0.072 |
| 15-6 | 19.05 | 6 | 0.062 |
| 16-5 | 18.93 | 7 | -0.058 |
| 11-10 | 19.00 | 8 | 0.012 |
| 12-9 | 18.99 | 9 | 0.002 |
| 18-3 | 18.90 | 10 | -0.088 |
| SD | 0.057585 |
And here are the numbers with the burr adding to the overall axis length. It’s tough to use the added length in a meaningful way in these measurements because the increase doesn’t cause any deformation to the other faces as it would if the entire face was this axis length. Still, the burr must have an affect:
| Opal | mm | axis | diff from mean |
| 20-1 | 19.07 | 1 | 0.024 |
| 14-7 | 18.99 | 2 | -0.056 |
| 13-8 | 18.91 | 3 | -0.136 |
| 19-2 | 18.98 | 4 | -0.066 |
| 17-4 | 19.64 | 5 | 0.594 |
| 15-6 | 19.05 | 6 | 0.004 |
| 16-5 | 18.93 | 7 | -0.116 |
| 11-10 | 19.00 | 8 | -0.046 |
| 12-9 | 18.99 | 9 | -0.056 |
| 18-3 | 18.90 | 10 | -0.146 |
| SD | 0.204802 |
Conclusion
And here’s where the Opal, with and without the burr, stands compared to the previous measurements.
| Die | Year Mfr. | Perception | Standard Deviation |
| Green | mid-80s | Good | 0.029 |
| Opal without burr | 2012 | Never Used | 0.058 |
| Black | 2010 | Never Used | 0.069 |
| Orange Swirl | 2009 | Good | 0.084 |
| Blue-standard | 1990s | Cursed | 0.184 |
| Opal with burr | 2012 | Never Used | 0.205 |
| Blue-large numbers | 1990s | Cursed | 0.229 |
| Pink | 1900s | Rarely Used | 0.280 |
| Blue-bad paint | 1900s | Cursed | 0.333 |
Without the burr, this precision die is close to a traditional Chessex style die (black) and oddly not as good as the die from the original Red Box (green). The burr then, since it certainly is still there, is a real problem since it skews the axis in these measurements and affects the likelihood of rolling a 14 (as per the Awesome Dice study). So, in order for this die to be effective, removing the burr is something worth attempting in order to ensure that the shape of the die is uniform.
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