Showing posts with label NAF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NAF. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

CHESSEX block dice fairness test

 The dice of Zeus always fall luckily. Sophocles


In this, the second test of Blood Bowl dice, I used CHESSEX block dice and again rolled them 1000 times.

I again decided to set the measure of statistical significance
again at 5% (p-value >= 0.05). That would mean that the actual dice outcomes would have to deviate by 5% or more from the expected outcomes for the test to indicate a potential problem. I figured 5% over 1000 rolls should be safe enough. 



Test results:


Outcomes Total Expected % diff
Pow 179 166.67 7.40
Pow! 155 166.67 -7.00
Skull 174 166.67 4.40
Pow/Skull 165 166.67 -1.00
Push 327 333.33 -1.90
Check 1000 1000 0.00



Conclusions

The dice finished outside the 5% threshold for both Pow and Pow! and so from this test, I have to highlight a potential issues as to the fairness of the CHESSEX block dice. More specifically, teams heavy in the DODGE skill could have problems due to the higher than normal occurrence of Pow and lower than normal occurrence of Pow!

As for the test itself, rolling more dice would, as always, provide a greater degree of certainty, so the results would be safer after 10,000 or even 100,000 rolls. Also, any study could provide a set of fluke results and so these outcomes would need repeating in a second test for significance to be assured.








Friday, January 20, 2012

NAF block dice fairness test







The dice of Zeus always fall luckily. Sophocles


Dice are funny things. If you play games a lot, especially wargames, you get use to how fickle they can be. In Blood Bowl, "Nuffle" the god of luck, has cost me more game than I care to remember by punishing me for daring to roll dice. Some people have mad rituals around dice and how they roll them, change them after they roll low, blow on them for luck etc. For me a dice is a random implement and so superstition has no place at my table. I do though, often wonder, if any dice are truly random, especially custom dice.


So I decided to test a set of NAF Blood Bowl dice by rolling them a thousand times and seeing how far they deviated from what would be expected by randomness.


A simple test but one that should highlight any potential problems with the fairness of the dice.


I decided to set the measure of statistical significance
at 5% (p-value >= 0.05). That would mean that the actual dice outcomes would have to deviate by 5% or more from the expected outcomes for the test to indicate a potential problem. I figured 5% over 1000 rolls should be safe enough. 


Test results


Outcomes Total Expected % diff
Pow 171 166.67 2.60
Pow! 160 166.67 -4.00
Skull 162 166.67 -2.80
Pow/Skull 163 166.67 -2.20
Push 344 333.33 3.20
Check 1000 1000 0.00




Conclusions

The dice all stayed within the 5% threshhold and so from this test, I am pretty sure, the NAF Blood Bowl block dice are safe to use.

Rolling more dice would provide a greater degree of certanty, so the results would be safer after 10,000 or even 100,000 rolls but even at 1,000 the results seem pretty sound to me.