Saturday 5 February 2011

2d30

I am now the proud owner of two d30 dice. Until recently I've always been of the opinion: "well no game I own or have ever played or am ever likely to play uses a d30, so why would I buy one?". Then the other day I came to think about random tables, and how to get the most "bang for your buck", so to speak. How to make a single roll pack in the biggest possible random factor -- and of course, the (or at least one) answer is to use dice with more faces.

For example, rolling 2d10 (d%) gives 10 x 10 = 100 possible results. Rolling 2d20 gives 20 x 20 = 400 possible results. Whereas 2d30 gives 30 x 30 = 900 possible results! Now, I'm not thinking of making tables with 900 individual entries, I'm thinking rather along the lines of combinatorial tables, such as the following 2d6 table of dubious use:

Roll - Adjective - Noun
1 - Grubby - Hat
2 - Mouldy - Radish
3 - Sprightly - Warhorse
4 - Half-hearted - Willow
5 - Lounging - Minstrel
6 - Winnowed - Balustrade

That sort of thing. And those are the kind of tables where it's hardly any more difficult to think up results for 2d30 (60 entires) than it is for 2d10 (20 entries), but the resulting number of combinations is a whole world of different.

There you have it.

2 comments:

  1. I also have invested in a d30. I'm a fan of odd dice, owning a couple of d16s, some twelve-sided d4s and a bunch of twenty-sided d10s.

    As for the d30, as per usual Jeff has the best ideas.

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