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Dungeons, dragons and dice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

K. Robin McLean
K. Robin McLean*
Affiliation:
Department of Education, University of Liverpool, P.O. Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX
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Extract

My younger son has become interested in the game “dungeons and dragons”. He is intrigued by the shapes of the dice that are used to play the game and by the number of faces they have. Besides the standard cubical die with its 6 faces, there are the other regular solids with 4,8,12 and 20 faces. There is also a die with 10 faces, each in the form of a kite, and my informant points out longingly that our local games shop has a die with 100 faces. “Could you have one with an odd number of faces?” he asks.

His innocent question led me to think about many mathematical aspects of dice. This article answers his question, examines the geometry of dice (highlighting some unnamed solids which deserve to be better known to model-makers), considers surprising aspects of the mechanics of tossing dice and describes sets of unusual dice whose probabilities offer scope for many games which can trap the unwary gambler.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 74 , Issue 469 , October 1990 , pp. 243 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1990

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