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gerdesjlast Wednesday at 10:59 PM5 repliesview on HN

Love it - any sphere will do.

A ping pong ball would be great - the DM/GM could throw it at a player for effect without braining them!

(billiard)


Replies

lloekilast Thursday at 8:13 AM

Nitpick: one of the properties of dice is that they stop on one side (i.e they converge towards stable rest on even ground) and the typical rule is that when they come at rest because of something other than even ground then the throw is invalid.

So while a sphere has only one side it basically never comes at a stable enough rest unless stopped by uneven ground (invalid throw), and if it stops because of friction it is unstable rest where the slightest nudge would make it roll again.

Therefore in a sense a sphere only works as a 1D because you know the outcome before throwing.

Edge cases are fun.

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thaumasioteslast Wednesday at 11:53 PM

> the DM/GM could throw it at a player for effect without braining them!

If you're prepared to run over to wherever it ended up after that, sure.

I learned to juggle with ping pong balls. Their extreme lightness isn't an advantage. One of the most common problems you have when learning to juggle is that two balls will collide. When that happens with ping pong balls, they'll fly right across the room.

cubefoxlast Thursday at 2:24 AM

A sphere is bad, it rolls away. The shape from the article would be better, but it is too hard to manufacture. And weighting is cheating anyway. The best option for a D1 is probably the gömböc, which is mentioned in the article.

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hammocklast Wednesday at 11:06 PM

Or any mobius strip

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thaumasioteslast Wednesday at 11:56 PM

> Love it - any sphere will do.

That's basically what the link shows. A Möbius strip is interesting in that it is a two-dimensional surface with one side. But the product is three-dimensional, and has rounded edges. By that standard, any other die is also a d1. The surface of an ordinary d6 has two sides - but all six faces that you read from are on the same one of them.