Virtual Dice Come Full Circle

It's been a long time since I tried to speak to the game community. Since none of you are interested or care that something like “The Matrix” exists and nobody even wants to talk about it, let alone look down at the table and see it for themselves. “Rube”, which isn't actually much like “The Matrix”... it's an artificial universe. “The Forth Generation of Artificial Time”, the ultimate end of 250 years of the evolution of how “turns” work in table top wargames. But you should all know who I am, and that nobody wants to even talk about the “Holy Grail of Simulation Design”. But, being very provably real, Rube has taught me to think in new ways and has inspired me to write this light-hearted article for people who know games. It doesn't have anything to do with Rube, I know how much you all hate Rube.

As we've all heard since the dawn of time of games on computers, virtual dice aren't the same as real dice. Only rolling real dice is “accurate”. I understand that this is partially about the nature of “randomization”, but really in the end we are talking about is a margin of error.

If a scientist were to take this seriously, they might make some “perfect dice” for the experiment. Perfectly weighted and balanced with edges so perfect that they are actually sharp. But then, this isn't how dice roll. Only the scientist has these “perfect dice”. They aren't the same “dice” everyone else is thinking of. So you throw those out, and just buy some random dice from the nearest hobby store.

There is a margin of error within the “real world” dice, just like the virtual dice. The margin of error of each have a different cause, but in the end is still just a margin of error. The cause isn't really relevant, in fact the flaws in the real world dice are affecting their “randomization” in reality.

So this thing that is thought to be so well-known, established, and cut-and-dry isn't really. Is it?

Kavik Kang, The Tin Foil Hat Prophet

Inventor of Rube: The Fourth Generation of Artificial Time