Standard Dice Shapes
Standard gaming dice are based on Platonic solids:
- D4 (Tetrahedron): Standard four-sided die, generating numbers 1 to 4.
- D6 (Cube): The traditional six-sided die found in classic board games.
- D8 (Octahedron): An eight-sided die.
- D10 (Pentagonal Trapezohedron): Ten-sided die, commonly used in pairs to roll percentages (0-99 or 1-100).
- D12 (Dodecahedron): Twelve-sided die.
- D20 (Icosahedron): The ultimate RPG action resolver, displaying numbers 1 to 20.
Dice Statistics & Probability Distribution
When rolling a single die (e.g., 1d6), every number has an equal probability (flat distribution). However, when rolling multiple dice (e.g., 2d6), the probability curve resembles a bell curve:
- The most common sum when rolling 2d6 is 7 (6 combinations: 1+6, 2+5, 3+4, 4+3, 5+2, 6+1).
- The least common sums are 2 (snake eyes) and 12 (boxcars), with only 1 combination each.
- Adding more dice increases the central limit tendency, meaning outcomes will cluster closer to the average sum.