6 ms·
Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?
by bigato 9y ago
Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?
- pmiller2 9y agoI was a little disappointed when I clicked, too. I can't think of a way you could make physical dice like that, unless maybe the faces were LEDs? That might be too fragile.
- Mister_Snuggles 9y agoApple has a patent[0] for a fall-protection system that will rotate the phone while it's in the air. If something like that could be made small enough to fit into a die, that would work. The biggest challenge will probably be the power supply. I'm sure that a processor, accelerometer, and the Taptic Engine (the thing that provides vibration and haptic feedback in Apple devices) are all small enough to fit in a typical die. Of course, something like this could easily be built into a larger novelty die. Bonus points should be awarded if the die is perfectly balanced when it's not actively adjusting itself in mid-air. [0] http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/02/apple-patents-active-fall-protection-system-that-shifts-iphones-in-midair http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/12/02/apple-patents-acti...
- xori 9y agoOh my god, you totally could use reaction wheels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_6p-1J551Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_6p-1J551Y
- Mister_Snuggles 9y agoWow - that is cool!
- michaelbuckbee 9y agoThat's really clever - I've been wondering how small and quiet you could make such a device. Can you imagine how cool it would be to have one of those attached to a VR controller? You'd be able to get real (albeit slight) resistance when you interacted with things.
- default-kramer 9y agoPut 6 weights in the die, one per face. A mechanism controls each weight individually, moving it from near the face (likely to land down) to near the center (likely to land up). Combine it with something that can detect roll outcomes. This would probably cost a lot of money to fit in a normal sized die.
- pbhjpbhj 9y agoWhy not have an electromagnet at each face and ball-bearing in a 3 way race. You weight the device by turning on the opposite number's coil. You don't guarantee a particular roll but the statistical weighting should be pretty strong. I wonder if you tuned the e-m coil for a particular frequency if you could make the device passive and weight it using an external frequency change? Or use computer vision, a passive dice with a metal insert and a magnetic table; switch on the magnet when the dice hits the table right (this version would be highly obvious but perhaps could be made less so).
- peteretep 9y agoMake them from a substance that leaves a tiny amount of residue on any surface it's left on for more than a small amount of time. Any time a die is rolled (and then left unperturbed for a short amount of time), that face becomes lighter.
- kej 9y agoWouldn't this be the opposite of what you want? You'd weigh down the current bottom face, making that face more likely to be on the bottom for future rolls.
- chris_va 9y agoWell, a little micro mechanical device offsetting the internal balance could work, though the balance change would have to be pretty large to bump the probability of any one face up significantly.
- kej 9y agoI wonder if you'd get more performance with mechanical balance changes or a magnetic table surface and individual electromagnets on each die face.
- xori 9y agomaybe have a dense liquid in a die, and have something "float" internally. Like a ball bearing in Gak slime or mercury.
- jpfed 9y agoThis was the first place my thoughts went to. But a passive device like this seems like it would oppose the gambler's fallacy: after you roll, the weight distribution of the die shifts to be as energetically favorable as possible for that number. Now the die is weighted to roll another of that same number!
- Pxtl 9y agoYou could just use a deck of cards with numbers on them. That's the simplest way to do "Gambler's Fallacy Dice" IRL. For example, there's a popular Catan expansion pack that replaces the dice with a deck of cards with numbers on them for just this reason, because in Catan each roll of 2D6 represents different regions of the map paying out so if a number never comes up it never pays out.
- jjnoakes 9y agoThere's a little randomness in the Catan deck of cards: the bottom 5 cards of every shuffle are not used. Not as much as dice, but also not a guarantee for certain numbers to come up a certain amount.
- thefifthsetpin 9y agoOne of our first house rules for Catan was to introduce a deck. Not quite sure why they went with dice for that game; the deck eliminates a lot of boring games. Some purists insist that they role dice, so we just let 'em and the resulting game feels quite like you're using gambler's dice.
- andy_wrote 9y agoI've never played in real life with the deck, but I first came across this version on a software version of Catan I had (I think Xbox?). I really enjoyed it and my guess is that in real life it adds a substantial angle to negotiating placement of the robber. In particular, bribing people to put/not put the robber in a given location - if the deck is 7-heavy or your good squares are already drawn, no big deal.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pavel_lishin 9y agoI don't think I'd want to start having to count cards in order to play Settlers well, in addition to keeping track of players' hands.
- 9y ago
- XaspR8d 9y agoMaybe if the dice think they are settling on a too-common result, the internal servo gives them an impulse?