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Full Version: Have your dice pools gotten completely out of control?
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Dwight
Yes, Dice-o-matic! The answer to all your d6 die pool problems. It slices, it chops, it rolls a metric crapload of dice.

Call within the next 6 minutes and receive a free "Team Pornomancer" shirt with your order**.



** Available only in XS baby-t.
Darkeus
Priceless.

I'll take my Team Pornomancer T-Shirt please!

biggrin.gif
Cthulhudreams
That is stupdiest, yet most awesome contraption.
Kerenshara
*stares, slack-jawed at the device from the video*

"Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!"
::Kerenshara

OK, the Rube Goldberg Dice Roller aside, the question in the thread's title is germane. Fortunately SR4A is aparently putting in a dice-pool modifier cap. Our table already runs with the optional "no more hits than 2x skill (min 1)" rule to keep things balanced and emphasize skill. If they go with the cap at 2x skill for modifiers, that will just drive things further home, but even limiting it to stat+skill would be a nice limit to reign in the gouda.
Heath Robinson
We've already got a post over in General Gaming.

I'd contend that this is not a Rube Goldberg device. There's no pointless extraneous motion, and it's all custom built. That disqualifies it on 2 grounds. It's also efficient given the fact that people would complain about anything less similar to hand rolling.
Kingboy
QUOTE (Heath Robinson @ Jun 3 2009, 02:09 PM) *
We've already got a post over in General Gaming.


Which has been there for a week with exactly one response. smile.gif

Which just goes to show how many Dumpshockers (don't) read that section of the boards...
cREbralFIX
Kinda hard to burn Edge when the computer's rolling for you...need to have physical contact with the dice to get them to do what I want.
Dwight
QUOTE (Kingboy @ Jun 3 2009, 12:16 PM) *
Which has been there for a week with exactly one response. smile.gif

Which just goes to show how many Dumpshockers (don't) read that section of the boards...

They certainly don't include that board when doing Searches to make sure they aren't creating a duplicate a thread. embarrassed.gif wobble.gif
Dwight
QUOTE (cREbralFIX @ Jun 3 2009, 01:58 PM) *
Kinda hard to burn Edge when the computer's rolling for you...need to have physical contact with the dice to get them to do what I want.


Au contraire. Need another couple die rolls for those 6's or to reroll failures? Another handful of rolls will be by in a second or so. smile.gif
crash2029
I just use a dice cup.
Dwight
QUOTE (crash2029 @ Jun 3 2009, 03:22 PM) *
I just use a dice cup.


I question your manhood! Let me guess, if I were to see you pulling through the Starbucks drivethru I wouldn't see a pair of these hanging from the bumper of your Prius?
ShadowPavement
This is the kind of thing I totally got a degree in physics for!!!
the_real_elwood
That...is...awesome.

And so much cooler than a standard random-number generator. Though I wonder how accurate the dice-reading sensors/algorithm is.
The Jake
If only we had this for when we were playing Cyberpunk. One round of full automatic gunfire took up to an hour to calculate. It was retarded.

Seriously.

- J.
Draco18s
QUOTE (the_real_elwood @ Jun 3 2009, 09:59 PM) *
Though I wonder how accurate the dice-reading sensors/algorithm is.


Very. You're looking at black dots on white dice. The contrast is very high.
crash2029
QUOTE (Dwight @ Jun 3 2009, 04:34 PM) *
I question your manhood! Let me guess, if I were to see you pulling through the Starbucks drivethru I wouldn't see a pair of these hanging from the bumper of your Prius?


I don't drive, nor do I have a pair of chrome testes. Although the testes would make a great keychain. *shrug* Maybe my manhood is a little low.
Draco18s
QUOTE (crash2029 @ Jun 4 2009, 03:30 PM) *
I don't drive, nor do I have a pair of chrome testes.


They're called Truck Nutz. It's really bad.

I had a stick of ram out of a 486 as a key chain once.
tsuyoshikentsu
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jun 4 2009, 07:15 AM) *
Very. You're looking at black dots on white dice. The contrast is very high.

They're not, but it ends up more accurate that way.

Each side actually has a different color for the dots. (Six is yellow, for example.) What the sensor's actually reading is the color, not the number of dots.
Draco18s
QUOTE (tsuyoshikentsu @ Jun 4 2009, 07:04 PM) *
They're not, but it ends up more accurate that way.

Each side actually has a different color for the dots. (Six is yellow, for example.) What the sensor's actually reading is the color, not the number of dots.


Good catch, it is reading color. I suspect that it might be doing both, double checking-per say.
the_real_elwood
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jun 4 2009, 07:11 PM) *
Good catch, it is reading color. I suspect that it might be doing both, double checking-per say.


Double checking would be an excellent way to improve accuracy. And with the speed the machine moves at, if you have a dice that doesn't check out, you could just discard the roll without much affecting the dice rate.
Draco18s
QUOTE (the_real_elwood @ Jun 4 2009, 09:53 PM) *
Double checking would be an excellent way to improve accuracy. And with the speed the machine moves at, if you have a dice that doesn't check out, you could just discard the roll without much affecting the dice rate.


Right, if the number of dots don't match the color, try again (the die edge detection may have failed, you'd retry with a different location). If it still fails, discard.
Kerenshara
QUOTE (Draco18s @ Jun 5 2009, 01:26 AM) *
Right, if the number of dots don't match the color, try again (the die edge detection may have failed, you'd retry with a different location). If it still fails, discard.

Speaking of colors on the dice, I bought some dark blue and black speckled dice with white pips. Then I took a black sharpie and colored in the 2, 3 and 4 on every die. I went back and hit the 5 and 6 with a bright green, and 1 with bright red. So when you look down in the tray, you see "dark" dice you can ignore, "red" for possible glitches and "green" for the good stuff you want. Makes it VERY quick to pick out hits and check for a glitch. I saw the idea somewhere else originally (can't take credit), but I have to say it is a brilliant idea and has worked very effectively. I know it's not strictly on topic, but I thought I'd bring it up as a way to deal with the really large dice pools.
Draco18s
Oh, we did the same. Some 40 1/4" black d6ers. I whipped out a black sharpie and dutifully marked them all.

I didn't have to, the person who bought them said he was going to, but that he needed to get a sharpie first.
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