Repeated die roll - is it truly random ?

[Faiz Ali]

I have been noticing repeated rolls often, many times the same number 3 times in a row, not just mine but my opponents' as well.

[KeithHendricks]

I have also noticed this phenomenon sometimes, and my remedy has been to refresh the page after every die roll.

Perhaps it is only apophenia. Dice are random, after all, and luck and unlock are part of the possible number sets. When I taught my son Castles of Burgundy yesterday, we had a round in which there were 6s on all rice rolled. This seems highly improbable, and it no doubt is improbable, but it’s the seeming improbable part, not the really improbable part, that affects the mind. In the set of all possible dice throws at that moment, it remained a possible result. So unlikely sequences needn’t be a part of a pattern. That’s just our mind working a bit more furiously in response to the failure of the dice. Especially in A Feast for Odin, in which we don’t see the extremely lucky sequences, since we stop on the number desired, like a 12 or 11 on our first roll. So we never see 11 10 12, probably stopping on the 11. But we do see 3 2 3 or 1 1 1, as we wouldn’t stop on a 1. So we always see the unlucky sequences, while never seeing the lucky sequences, and hence our information is biased. (Not that we’re even logging this data rigorously, but our gaming experience can be considered anecdotal data.)

[danielvictor]

Sort of repeating myself,but the thing I really noticed is that when I go roll,then click reroll and roll the same number,then click reroll again,it comes up the same number a third time an awful lot. Maybe some of that is subjective,because nothing appears to change except the number of die rolls that I've used,so it appears as if the dice was only rolled the first time and not rerolled.

[tcl1979]

Playing Catane makes me develop apophenia because there is no way this is entirely randm

[Silene]

Sort of repeating myself,but the thing I really noticed is that when I go roll,then click reroll and roll the same number,then click reroll again,it comes up the same number a third time an awful lot. Maybe some of that is subjective,because nothing appears to change except the number of die rolls that I've used,so it appears as if the dice was only rolled the first time and not rerolled.

Is it something that is still happening to you? Because I checked your account and you haven't played a game of AFFO on this account since march. So are we talking about the 72 games you played and in these games the repetitions you mention happened too often?

[danielvictor]

Yes.

[Silene]

Yes.

And what you claim is that among
* your rolls in these 72 games
* within the same action
* when you rerolled once and got the same number
* and you then rerolled again
[these are the circumstances we want to look at]

--> you then rerolled the same number a 3rd time in significant too many cases.

do i understand correctly?

And how many times would you estimate it happened overall? 2 times? 5 times? 10 times?

[danielvictor]

Yes,you understand me correctly. No,I don't know how many times it happened. After the first few occasions,I started trying things like switching browsers and restarting my computer between rolls . That seemed to work reasonably well.So maybe four or five times when I didn't do that.

[Silene]

Yes,you understand me correctly. No,I don't know how many times it happened. After the first few occasions,I started trying things like switching browsers and restarting my computer between rolls [ I was only playing turn-based]. That seemed to work reasonably well.So maybe four or five times when I didn't do that.

Ok so I made the effort and checked out all your 72 games:

I find that on a d8 you had 15 occurences where you had the same number in the first 2 rolls and tried a 3rd roll.
--> In 3 cases you rolled the same number again.
--> In 12 cases you didn't.

On d12 you had 11 cases.
--> In 1 case you rolled the same number again.
--> In 10 cases you didn't

So it seems like you got a bit unlucky by getting 1 (3rd-) repeat more than what would be average.

But that is under the assumption that the 3 dice-rolls always have 3 consecutive move-numbers. If that's not the case sometimes, I might be missing something.

[Shivaware]

Ok so I made the effort and checked out all your 72 games:

I'm just going to give you a little standing ovation here. Thanks for your service!