I agree, cool problem solving, but ultimately a contrived solution. I found the next bit after your quote quite funny after thinking of this solution right away

I agree, cool problem solving, but ultimately a contrived solution. I found the next bit after your quote quite funny after thinking of this solution right away while reading. >A really obvious alternative approach would have been to roll a d6 (labelled 1-6 as usual) and a d5 (also labelled 1-5 in the obvious way), add the results, and then add one if it was 7 or more. . . I initially discarded this approach because it felt inelegant; I wanted my dice to roll (say) a 9 by producing something which was obviously a 9, rather than producing something that looked like an 8 and requiring you to remember to convert it into a 9. Because one simple rule is so inelegant compared to dice with numbers, dots and sometimes a second number, riiight.