The saltwater balance test is a simple method to check the fairness of dice. It involves placing one die in a glass of salt water and writing down the numbers it rolls. This helps identify any inconsistencies in their roll. The test was originally used to test the balance of golf balls, but it can also be used to check the balance of dice.
To set up the test, mix 6+ tablespoons of salt with 1/3 cup of room temperature water in a small glass jar. Place the die carefully in the cup, and use your finger to spin it several times to see what number is on the surface of the water. This will help identify any inconsistencies in their roll.
To test the balance of dice, fill a narrow cup or small mason jar with 1/3 cup of hot water and slowly add 6 tablespoons to the water. Then, place the dice you want to test in a small cup, pour enough salty water in so they float nicely, and then gradually add non-salty boiled water.
The saltwater balance test is a quick and easy way to determine which dice are fair to use in your next dungeons and drag games. To ensure that your dice tumble freely, use a dice tray to avoid simply dropping them, which maximizes randomness and fairness.
In conclusion, the saltwater balance test is a simple and effective method to check the fairness of dice. By mixing salt with water, placing the die in the water, and using a dice tray, you can determine which dice are fair for your game.
📹 How To Check The Balance Of Your Dice | DIY Easy Trick
A quick video on the DIY salt-water dice balance test. It’s super easy, super fast and you can tell which dice are fair to use in your …
Do dead things float in water?
Following the cessation of life, the body descends due to the accumulation of water within the lungs. However, as the body undergoes the process of decomposition, bacteria, particularly those located within the gastrointestinal tract, produce gas that reinflates the body, thereby enabling it to float.
Are dice unbalanced?
The probability of an unbalanced die in a board game is high; however, it is challenging to discern whether this is due to inherent randomness or an imbalance in the game’s mechanics without a substantial sample size. A few hundred die rolls conducted under controlled conditions would be necessary to differentiate between these two possibilities.
How to do a balance test?
The risk of falling is increased in all individuals, and it is therefore essential to learn gait strength and balance tests in order to maintain balance and prevent falls.
Will dice float or sink in water?
The test used water at room temperature and saltwater at around 1. 028g/mL, which allowed dice to float. The goal is to find a liquid with the right density so the dice barely float, almost fully submerged. Mixing solutions of different concentrations helps fine-tune the density. Denser liquids, like mercury, would result in dice sitting on one face. In rare cases, dice made of different plastics would not float, requiring a denser solution.
Chemistry knows many salts, but the availability of these is another question. Saturated solutions of $ce(MgSO4)$ have a density of 1. 3 or so, while $ce(CaCl2)$ has a density of 1. 4. Other salts are more difficult to find but are available.
How do you check dice with water?
The salt water test, also known as the dice float test, is a method used to test the mass distribution of certain dice, specifically those made of plastic but not metal. It involves dissolving a large amount of salt in warmer-than-room-temperature water and placing a die in it to float. If the die consistently rolls in the water to show the same face on its upside when disturbed, it is unfairly weighted and biased.
This test is simple but not highly precise, and in practice, dice bias is more likely to be caused by imperfections in the die’s shape rather than its internal mass distribution. Rolling a die multiple times and counting the frequency of each result is the most reliable way to check for dice bias.
How to test if dice are balanced?
To check the balance of your dice, roll them and record the results to see if there is any tendency towards one number or another. However, this method is time-consuming and may not be suitable for everyone. Instead, you can use a simple method to test the balance of your dice by rolling them 5, 000 times. This method requires a few basic ingredients, such as dice, dice rolls, and a calculator.
How do you test the accuracy of dice?
The saltwater dice balance test is a method to assess the fairness of dice rolls. It involves placing one die in a glass of salt water and recording the numbers it rolls. This helps identify any inconsistencies in the rolling patterns, providing an indication of if the dice are balanced. The test can be performed over a statistically relevant sample size, with each die tested individually. The results are recorded in a dragon notebook.
How to make dice float in water?
To create a dice potion, fill a jug or glass with enough water to fill a jar or vial. Place the die in the water and add salt, stirring between additions until it floats. Remove the die from the water and place it in the jar or vial. Add mica powder or glitter, stirring until the desired potion color is achieved. Add food coloring a few drops at a time, stirring until the desired color is achieved.
Pour the mixture into the jar or vial, secure the lid, and shake and invert to check the result. If necessary, add more mica powder, salt, or food coloring. Once satisfied, pour more water to fill the jar or vial, ensuring minimal air inside.
For a fantasy aesthetic, add jute string or a piece of cloth over the top and seal with wax. Make potion labels on Kraft sticker paper and wrap the string around the lid and bottle. Finish with melted wax and logo wax seal.
How do you test the accuracy of a balance?
Linearity and eccentricity are indicators of a balance’s accuracy. Linearity tests measure the balance’s ability to accurately weigh loads before and after a second load is placed on the pan. Eccentricity tests determine the balance’s ability to accurately weigh loads placed in different positions on the load receptor, ensuring the same reading is generated regardless of the load position. Manufacturer specifications often list linearity, and results can be obtained directly from the manufacturer if not already listed.
What test is used for balance?
Posturography, also referred to as computerized dynamic posturography (CDP), is a diagnostic tool that assesses balance while standing. It is utilized to identify underlying causes of balance disorders, such as those resulting from abnormalities in the inner ear, eyes, or nerve signals from the feet and legs. The test entails opening and closing the eyes while observing a moving image on a screen.
Are dice perfectly balanced?
Dice manufacturers strive to achieve perfect balance in their dice, but this is technically impossible due to the limitations of physics. Physics is calculated in a vacuum, which cannot account for minute randomness in air resistance, friction, human factors, gravity, and other tiny variables. Table friction is particularly important, as a table with less friction causes the dice to roll more, while naturally, a table with less friction will cause the dice to roll less. This makes it difficult to predict the exact outcome of a dice roll, even if the science checks out and everything works perfectly in theory.
📹 Debunking the salt-water test for dice balance
Luke talks about why you should stop using the salt-water test to check dice balance.
I used to have a secret designated “DMing dice” It rolled a lot of 1s. My players in that game were dumber than a box of rocks, often drunk, and made horribly inefficient characters (we were just there for the fun and laughs) so one of the ways I ensured they weren’t constantly rerolling characters was to use the dunce die.
I tested about a dozen sets of Chessex pearl/swirl style dice. Of the dozen I tested only two were balanced. Eight d20s rolled low (5 or lower). And the last two rolled middlin’ numbers. Of those sets, I knew I had bad ‘luck’ and dumped them all and I like aesthetically pleasing completes sets so had to replace a lot of dice. Recently I bought two sets of Halfsies brand dice (that’s 2d20, and 4d6, as well as the rest of the dice) and have been super pleased with them. See, I don’t mind rolling low numbers when they are mixed in with high numbers, and everything in between. 🙂
Ya know, I recently designed and built my own board game. Made a 3D version, diorama-style, and it’s hella lit IMO. Only issue is I needed dice. So I found a pack of 30 dice at a dollar store…mistake 1. They are so poorly balanced, I never realised balance was an issue until this day. Then I bought loose dice at $2 a piece, thinking they’d be much more efficient. Incorrect; still a waste of money. I ended up using my Risk dice instead and just swapping out every time we play, because I’m not spending an absurd amount of money on something as basic as dice. This article would have greatly helped me explain to my peers why I thought my first game with the cheap dice was accidentally rigged, and not me complaining about losing my first game of my own board game haha
My favorite dice are the better quality (but admittedly less pretty) Chessex opaque dice. Instead of the lighter acrylic or epoxy resin used in a lot ot RPG dice, Chessex opaques are made of some sort of urea or phenolic resin (similar to Bakelite). This gives the dice a nice heavy feel, and a satisfying ‘clack’ sound when they hit each other, but it also means they are too heavy to float in salt water. Apparently you can use Epsom salts instead of table salt to get these dice to float, but I haven’t gotten around to trying it yet.
I was skeptical that there was actually anything wrong with using swirled plastic colored dice until I saw this. Your visual demonstration was really helpful! (Thank you.) P.S. Growing up, my mom was fascinated with seeing salt-licks hanging on rural livestock fences. On road trips, she would make us stop and go taste the salt. She loved them so much that she eventually bought one to put in our suburban flower garden. …Naturally it killed the soil and flowers.
If it’s cloudy it means that you still have undissolved salt, so adding more salt will not increase the concentration and density of the salt water. If you add excess salt and give it a little time you will form a saturated solution with maximum density. If you want more density, you need to increase the temperature to dissolve more salt, or use a different material.
I’ve tried this at home once and it worked just like in the article. The thing is I’m not entirely convinced that the slight unbalances that can be perceived by this method actually do translate into consistent differences when you roll the dice. If a specific unbalanced die deviates only slightly from the expected outcomes, I don’t see a problem. I’m also not sure if there’s something that could cause the die to be inconsistent that would not be revealed by this method, though I doubt it. I think we should find some better way of testing and analyzing that.
This made me laugh a tad, because of the fact that since dice and nerd things in general are expensive af here, I bought a Wiz dice set (really cheap) instead of Chessex ones that costed double and lo and behold they don’t seem to be so good… Mine are clear too so I think that does help with the randomness
My observation when I did this experiment is that ALL DICE are biased if the water is dense enough. Using sugar to nake a thick syrup will let any die roll around to it’s heart’s content until it feels comfortable. My conclusion? Whenever you roll dice make sure something stops the rolling soon. Letting it tumble for too long will make it more likely to settle by its own weight.
The solid dice are also made from the same material inside and outside because they areeasier to mold that way and to keep the cost efficiency. Anything else would make things rathercomplicated and more expensive on the production side. I have destroyed some dice sets on purpose to look inside and found nothing to worry about.
For a college project I rolled a set of dice, by hand, more than 10,000 times and recorded the result. I can say with confidence that minor imperfections in the balance have no appreciable effect on the fairness of the dice in real world use. Checking your dice balance is pointless unless there’s money on the line.
None of these are good dice though. They’re all egg shaped soft edged dice that were run through a rock polisher to do the painted numbers. Get sone Gamescience dice you’ll see the difference immediately. Lou Zocci went into depth in the topic and shows practically the difference. Dude is a dice nerd, he invented the d100.
I have a d20 what is apparently weighted towards it’s 20 side. But in action it’s like I either roll a 1 or a 20. So I stopped checking them, because they roll whatever they want. I mean I have a really buffed up barbarian, who rolls totally crap strength checks in casual situation, making it look like whimp (like, she had to pull out an axe of a piece of wood and she failed the strength check). But in combat she’s an absolute beast, hitting everything and dealing huge dmg… I roll really good with her, but only in combat.
So i bought a pound of dice and decided to do this. I used a pint of water and used so much salt that even after using an electric blender for 10 minutes there was still about a half of a cup of salt on the bottom of the glass. The results : 11 good dice, 10 bad dice, and 79 dice that would not float! I’m not so sure about this method after that. I even heated up the water to try and get the salt to melt. I’m pretty sure the water is about as salty as it going to get. Am i missing something? I mean, 79 that won”t float? Please help me if you can!
I feel like it has more to do with the sharpness of each die edge and the friction that it imparts on the die rolling in your solution. If a die has large or sharp edges it takes more energy for the die to roll from say 2 times vs. 3… Conversely if a die has soft or low edges it takes less energy for the die to roll from say 2 times vs. 3… Now since the force your applying with your finger flicks isn’t drastically different the small difference in force between each flick is going to be more likely to spin the softer edge die than the larger die, making it appear like the softer edge die is more random.
I honestly doubt the ‘weighted’ dice would show any statistically significant bias towards the numbers that seemed to appear more often while floating. Dice companies go through notable effort to try and ensure that the materials which swirl dice are made from have almost precisely the same density, and they do extensive testing on all of their dice, esp dice with combinations of different materials, to see if they will produce some level of detectable bias, meaning any ‘weighting’ you get while the dice floats should be negligible, and while perhaps enough to see slight bias in a float test, is unlikely to produce detectable levels of bias in actual roll testing. (not including dice sold as 2nd’s or errors, which can be experiments, one off’s or have other imperfections that may impact bias more significantly)
It would technically be meta gaming but I kinda wanna try this out in my DnD campaign since my character has built up a reputation for dice gambling (one time winning a diamond worth 10k gold, subsequently used to revive my characters gf since she died when a gnome forgot that the city was flooded when going to shoot a water elemental with lightning, and succeeded) and my character has seen a couple of weighted dice, one of which was being used by a guy who literally looked like Satan
I think the reason the recipe says 6 tablespoons but you only needed 2-3 is because you overfilled the spoons lol. To get an accurate measurement, you’re supposed to scrape off excess salt with a knife or another flat thing. It doesn’t really matter for the purposes of this experiment, but if you ever need accurate measurements for baking or something, it might be good to keep in mind. Very helpful vid tho, thanks! 😀 Time to torture my DM with bad decisions and consistent d20s :eyes:
I had a DM who said he had his sets of killer dice. And sure enough they were percentile and they always was in the 80’s-100. I thought he was cheating or had some improperly balanced dice. But I was too nice to say anything. Shortly afterwords I left our RPG group. I guess what I should have done was take my dice and asked him to roll them. See what would have happened.
Hmmn I have 3 sets of two town dice Red blue, orange blue, gold and purple. They’re really nice dice bit now I’m concerned on their weight but I dunno. When my friends roll these dice they do fine. I roll them and I end up getting shite. I also have a set of black dice with gold letters. Funny thing is as the player my rolls are bad as the DM my rolls are ok My friends get upset when I roll Nat 20’s against them. To this day though I roll with my left hand cuz my right hand is cursed apparently?
I don’t think this level of min-maxing is necessary for a d&d campaign. Also, floating and rolling on a solid surface are very different. Get a dice tower and record rolling your dice, say 10,000 times and record the results. And control the rolling otherwise your results would still be compromised. Post the results to that.
Add salt and then mix it in until it disappears. When it stops disappearing and begins to settle on the bottom and won’t mix no matter how much you stir you’ve reached supersaturation. There’s really no point in adding any more salt. It won’t change the density of the water anymore and you end up just wasting salt.
You shouldn’t see a curve when rolling a single die: Theoretically all sides come up with same frequency, so results are ideally flat (and not biased towards “the center”). You’re mixing up rolling multiple dice – that’s where you see a bell curve (due to number of combinations giving a certain result).
I’ve purchased many sets of dice over the past 30 years, and yes in the past the quality control was terrible sometimes with balance. It’s gotten much much better, but you have to be careful sometimes buying from some places. These days its less about air pockets, but differences between weights of resin or polymer used in diced with mixed patterns. Even then usually they are using the same resin or polymer just with different dyes. Sometimes, and I’ve only come across it once in the last 5ish years, you can buy from someone making cool looking dice at home but using leftovers from different past projects.
My first set of dice were purchased in the early 80s. They were made of a cheap plastic that chipped when they were rolled on a hard surface. The d4 had one edge that bowed inward causing one face to bulge outward. Two chips also broke off from rolling. I glued the chips back on and still have the die to this day. I keep it for sentimental reasons.
I really appreciate this post! There is generally so much paranoia about dice being balanced in the RPG tabletop community. I just bought some beautiful acrylic dice for my cleric, and came to YouTube for reassurance and you definitely provided it, haha. Your article was super informative, and I loved the mini history lesson! Thanks ☺
Thanks for the article. I have loaded dice, and even with that it is hard to roll a 6 every time. You need to roll them in a certain way to get always the 6. So even with a little difference on one side of the dice, it will still be hard to always roll the wanted number. What I know: as long as all sides have the same size, the dice is a good dice.
What me an my friends do is if it’s randomly rolled, it counts. That and, if you’d accept the way it rolled if it was a good number, you have to accept the way it rolled for a bad number. The only rolls we automatically exclude are drops, rather than rolls, and if they’re skewed by landing in a crack or unacceptably uneven surface.
The roll rate of unique faces of a die come up the same as the time rate of radioactive atoms decaying in a sample of radioactive material. So, for example, if you roll a 20 sided die 20 times then the expectation is that 20(1-e^-(20/20)) or 20(1-e^-1)=12.6 or about 13 unique sides will show (decay) in 20 throws of said die. If you roll that same die 60 times the expectation is that 19 sides will show ie 20(1-e^-3)=19. Then using Excel for example, x,y plot the expected number of unique faces that show against the actual number of unique faces that show for 60 throws. Do this plot roll by roll. Then do a first order (linear) curve fit with intercept set to zero. The slope of said curve is then the judge of the die. I would think that a slope of 0.98 to 1.02 would indicate a fair die.
Imagine thinking that your limited test proved that it was completely random. This was pathetic. There’s no point to rolling it less than 20 times and pretending that proved anything other than it’s not a completely loaded die. On a D20 you should have about a 5% chance of rolling each result. If you have a 10% of rolling a 19, that’s double and there is still an excellent chance you wouldn’t have rolled a 20 during your limited testing. So pointless.
I take the advice and buy the die sets I like. There is so much randomness with each single roll. I came here because I read about a saltwater test few minutes ago. A reviewer brought it up about a set of die, not being balanced when he did the test. But from what I could see he presented a clear cut and pretty balanced average outcome in his review. That was confusing.