Board Game Arena

Some months ago, I saw in the bga news that they were coming out with improvements to the random number generator for die rolls. Has this happened? I thought there were going to be several adaptations to choose from, but I haven't seen where I can change it.

Stonewall62 wrote: ↑05 June 2026, 02:19 Some months ago, I saw in the bga news that they were coming out with improvements to the random number generator for die rolls. Has this happened? I thought there were going to be several adaptations to choose from, but I haven't seen where I can change it.

Wasn't that an April Fools joke? https://boardgamearena.com/news?id=1066

In all seriousness, I do have some doubts about the randomness of the dice rolls.

Stonewall62 wrote: ↑05 June 2026, 02:19 Some months ago, I saw in the bga news that they were coming out with improvements to the random number generator for die rolls. Has this happened? I thought there were going to be several adaptations to choose from, but I haven't seen where I can change it.

Winn81 wrote: ↑05 June 2026, 02:51

Stonewall62 wrote: ↑05 June 2026, 02:19 Some months ago, I saw in the bga news that they were coming out with improvements to the random number generator for die rolls. Has this happened? I thought there were going to be several adaptations to choose from, but I haven't seen where I can change it.

Wasn't that an April Fools joke? https://boardgamearena.com/news?id=1066

In all seriousness, I do have some doubts about the randomness of the dice rolls.

"BGA dice are rigged" was indeed the perfect April Fool's joke. It had to be a topic nearly everyone knows isn't real or serious but still recognizable enough to be funny.

I have a little experience in security, programming and randomness generation. I looked into it, and the randomness generation is not great, but it's not in a state that you could easily exploit it.

https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=115867

Thanks for referencing the dice roll news from April 1. Was it really an April Fools joke? Did bga state that later?

If you read the article it is clearly a joke.

Stonewall62 wrote: ↑06 June 2026, 19:05 Thanks for referencing the dice roll news from April 1. Was it really an April Fools joke? Did bga state that later?

The title is literally "BGA Rick Roll - April Fool". The thread itself was littered with reasons to indicate it was a joke, though obviously it had to be a joke given the topic alone.

I recently explained to a friend of mine that if there is a digital adaption of any game with dice there WILL be a discussion about the dice being not random. There will be rigorous testing and debate but no amount of evidence will convince some players that the dice are not rigged.

People will see patterns they want to see.

In real life players do not tend to question the dice. But have you ever measured if your dice were perfect cubes? We have seen dice that were not as high as they were broad or long in Memoir'44.
And we had a D6 die, not Memoir'44, that threw consistently more sixes than other numbers. (that took a lot of dice rolls to test.) We never found out why but we burried it in the yard in a dark night at the witchin' hour.