I’m not voting either way on this at present – it seems unclear to me whether this actually does what we want (either in terms of “we can use the marginally non-uniform Dice Roller distribution as though it were uniform” or in terms of “if you roll {heads,heads,heads,heads,heads,tails} the rules don’t treat that as a fair coinflip”).

Indeed, it is quite possible with this wording that you can roll a DICE1 and treat the output as a DICE100, because this wording doesn’t require the Dice Roller results to have any connection to the Dice Roller command (it says that the results are sufficiently random without putting any preconditions on what might have caused the results).

That said, I think that that sort of interpretation would be perverse and probably unreasonable – but I also think that considerably more perverse interpretations have historically been considered valid at BlogNomic.

@ais: I think if the dice roller results need to be more strongly tied to the dice roller command, that’s a separate issue from whether or not the dice roller produces sufficient randomness and it need not be taken up here.

It’s covered by the pre-existing “If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified.”

@Josh: But say you’re trying to generate a random number in the range 1 to 10. Neither DICE5 nor DICE10 actually does that – so what in the rules requires you to use a DICE10 rather than a DICE5 for the purpose? (The requirement to use a uniform probability distribution succeeds or fails equally in both cases, as far as I can tell.)

What argument are you using to assert that DICE10 doesn’t select a random number between 1 and 10 that isn’t covered by “the results of the Dice Roller are considered to be sufficiently random to meet the purposes of the game”?

@Josh: My argument is that DICE5 obeys that restriction just as well as DICE10 does (after all, DICE5 also selects a random number between 1 and 10). So based on a literal reading, either this proposal allows both or it forbids both (after all, neither has the correct distribution, and nothing in the rule seems to care that the distribution for DICE10 is “more correct” than that for DICE5).

entirely pointless given we already have “This value must be determined by an appropriate roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified” and just further reinforces Ais’s delusions in the other threads that somehow the dice roller isn’t good enough for random rolls

@Clucky: We also have “If a number or other game variable is selected “at random” or “randomly” from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified.”. It is impossible to satisfy this restriction when using the dice roller, unless the number of sides on the dice is a power of 2.

The conflicting restrictions (use the dice roller, and use the correct probability distribution) make doing anything that would require a publicly random choice illegal.

I personally think that this issue is being overblown.

@ais There is no conflicting resolution. The sentence makes it clear the dice roller is not only appropriate, but allowed to make such a roll and the rules on prioritization make it clear “If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies “

@Clucky: Hmm – is this argument based on “The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.” despite the requirement for a uniform distribution stating that it can’t be?

This is an interesting point, and rather depends on whether you use prioritisation rule 4 or 5. To use 4, like you were, you have to consider the scopes to be “random rolls in general” and “random rolls that use the dice roller”, so that the latter scope is smaller – I don’t think that this is an unreasonable point of view.

However, you could also consider the scopes to be “random rolls using the dice roller” and “random rolls that use the correct distribution”, in which case it’s rule 5 that applies and the roll doesn’t work.

Perhaps the Prioritisation rule needs fixing to be clearer?