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The Dice System

Lark

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How does the dice system of making all decisions using a pair of dice work? Is it a arithmatical thing? Do higher or lower scores indicate one answer or option or yes or no or what?
 

UniqueMixture

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Do you mean in general?

 

Totenkindly

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I think the OP is extremely vague, hence no responses.

I mean, are you referring to some specific dice system that already exists? Or some general way you could use dice to make decisions? (That's essentially what UniqueMixture asked.)

For a more simplified form of the dice process, witness Two-Face with his coin flips in the "The Dark Knight."
 

Stanton Moore

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You might look into the I-Ching if you're interested in this kind of thing. Jung would approve.
 

Lark

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I found the i Ching confusing, I looked at the book of answers and magic eight balls for the same reason I did the i Ching.

It was on Big Bang Theory, Sheldo rolled two dice to make all his decisions but when you have two dice which are numbered to six each how do you decide what to do, they just give you numbers.
 

Totenkindly

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Sheldon Rolls Dice with the Universe - I missed the most recent episode of Big Bang Theory, but from what I hear, the episode began with the group playing a game of D&D, and continued with Sheldon using his gaming dice to make all of his life decisions. I'm hoping to catch it in reruns.

Well, he can get his "crit hit" charts out of the AD&D books, but that only refers to skill and attack rolls, unfortunately.

I haven't seen the episode, but I assume he was just winging it. It's pretty easy if you make everything into a binary choice. If he was using AD&D dice and not just the two 6-siders, that means he'd a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20 to play with. (AD&D has actually switched to the open-source d20 system, which means the twenty-sider figures more prominently in order to simplify game play.)

Yes. I'm a geek. There, I said it.
 

Lark

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He used just the two six sided dice, although it starts with the dungeons and dragons game it did make me think of the book The Dice Man as much as D&D, I've got the Dice Man in my tbr pile.
 

Totenkindly

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

Interesting...


Reminds me of a suspense/crime novel I once read back in the 80's, where people were being killed, and in the end you find out it's a group of people who are actually playing a popular board game of the time, and the crimes represent various moves that occurred during gameplay.
 

Lark

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dice_Man

Interesting...


Reminds me of a suspense/crime novel I once read back in the 80's, where people were being killed, and in the end you find out it's a group of people who are actually playing a popular board game of the time, and the crimes represent various moves that occurred during gameplay.

There was a TV show in the UK called murderdome or something like that which was a online game which if played resulted in murders on the streets, at the finish the guy escapes and you see him setting up an "international murderdome" game because he's just gone global, the UK one was a tester! That was a creepy show.
 

sprinkles

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How does the dice system of making all decisions using a pair of dice work? Is it a arithmatical thing? Do higher or lower scores indicate one answer or option or yes or no or what?

It's arbitrary. Don't know what else I can say.

Some times the number is matched against a results table.

In some systems you're going for a target number on a scale. For example if the target number is 5 and you roll 10, that would be probably a critical success or overkill success - e.g. the action is super effective or pulled off super easily. If you get 5 or 6 its just normal, 4 is a near miss, and 1 would be a critical failure - the action fails horribly, some times with extra consequences.

Other D6 systems use something like the above but have a success target for each die rolled and you must get multiple 'successes' (such as rolling 4 for three out of five rolls)
 

Totenkindly

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We have a large set of those here at work (they belong to the head dev for the disability software).

Yes, we run a high-class establishment.
 

Bardsandwarriors

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Speaking of game characters being real...

There are various methods of throwing "stones" to make decisions. iirc there is an olde chinese method of putting a black stone and a white stone into a small bag, which to touch are identical. When you need to choose, you mentally allocate the choices to each stone and pull one out.

Nordic runes can be used in a similar way:
http://www.jelldragon.com/images/ai_bag_of_runes.jpg

The principle by which they "work", if they work, is that subconsciously (intuitively?) you can tell which one you are pulling out, and your subconscious mind makes a choice which consciously you aren't aware of. So if you do it right, you are accessing the answer which you know to be true, without overthinking it.

imo tarot works (if it works) in a similar way.
 

Lark

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Speaking of game characters being real...

There are various methods of throwing "stones" to make decisions. iirc there is an olde chinese method of putting a black stone and a white stone into a small bag, which to touch are identical. When you need to choose, you mentally allocate the choices to each stone and pull one out.

Nordic runes can be used in a similar way:
http://www.jelldragon.com/images/ai_bag_of_runes.jpg

The principle by which they "work", if they work, is that subconsciously (intuitively?) you can tell which one you are pulling out, and your subconscious mind makes a choice which consciously you aren't aware of. So if you do it right, you are accessing the answer which you know to be true, without overthinking it.

imo tarot works (if it works) in a similar way.

I associate that with the i Ching, did you know that PKD is rumoured to have written The Man In The High Castle using the i Ching as a means of directing were the story was going, its a pretty damn good book for it to have been written that way. I personally think its one of his best.
 

Bardsandwarriors

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I am a fan of Blade Runner, but haven't read PKD's books at all. Didn't know he had done that, it sounds ingenious.

I am wondering whether introverts would process these tricks differently. As enfp with my wild and largely untamed internal world, I need ways of accessing that world sometimes, and doing mystical stuff helps me slow down and focus internally, or tune into vague memories and senses of things that I'm not quite aware of. Then, it seems magickal. But the sticky posts I've read are telling me I'm not actually magickal :D - so maybe the I's have it down pat without needing these tricks?
 

Lark

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I am a fan of Blade Runner, but haven't read PKD's books at all. Didn't know he had done that, it sounds ingenious.

I am wondering whether introverts would process these tricks differently. As enfp with my wild and largely untamed internal world, I need ways of accessing that world sometimes, and doing mystical stuff helps me slow down and focus internally, or tune into vague memories and senses of things that I'm not quite aware of. Then, it seems magickal. But the sticky posts I've read are telling me I'm not actually magickal :D - so maybe the I's have it down pat without needing these tricks?

Its a bit mad when you consider the book is an alt history of the japanese and germans winning the war, there is a character within the book who has written an alt history of the japanese and germans losing it and used the i ching to write it! Two or three brilliant sub-plots converge on the characters making contact with the man in the high castle and it all sort of collapses and concludes quickly, I believe the story that PKD actuall did write it that way having read it.

I'm going to keep an eye out for some decision dice I think, yes, no, roll again, sort of options but someone I know has told me already that the division is about scores of two to six meaning one thing and six to twelve meaning the other were there are two clearly defined options.
 

Bardsandwarriors

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I tried using decision bones/stones once, and whenever I rolled something that I didn't like, I had to roll them again. So after one or two rolls I knew what I wanted to do, and it was what the dice told me to do about half the time. So they helped, but not in the way I expected. I learned to pin down exactly which sense I should trust within myself. Once I knew that, within a couple of weeks I stopped using them.

Not sure whether I'm stepping on toes by saying this, but you can probably use anything. Throw a bead on the floor, having decided which way up it should land; roll a 6-sided dice, having decided in advance that 1-2 or 1-3 or whatever means you should do something. So long as you are clear about the meaning before you use it, you will have an answer.
 
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