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Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

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Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#81

Post by NelsonMinar »

root_axis wrote: post #71

This reminds me of an article discussing the perceived outcome of RNG decisions in video games. In many types of games, the system will display a percentage chance of success for a given action which allows the player to make risk assessments regarding possible choices. Unfortunately, the unmodified RNG behavior creates an unpleasant experience for the user because the unweighted random outcomes feel "unfair" when fa…

Folks who play Blizzard games call this the "Pity Timer". World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Overwatch all have some mechanic where your odds of getting a desireable thing go up if you've had more recent disappointments.

RNJesus is merciful.

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#82

Post by avisser »

sloppycee wrote: post #21
fiatjaf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I googled "RNG" because I wanted to know what it meant, but was presented with an interactive widget that generated numbers.

RNG stands for Random Number Generator. It is used colloquially, in gaming, to refer to the probability of certain random events or the underlying implementation of them.

In its most personified form, the RNG transforms into RN Jesus to whom you pray for good video game luck.

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#83

Post by andy_wrote »

Pxtl wrote: post #57
bigato wrote: post #38

Now I really want physical loaded dice which follow the gambler's fallacy! Is it too crazy of an idea?

You could just use a deck of cards with numbers on them. That's the simplest way to do "Gambler's Fallacy Dice" IRL. For example, there's a popular Catan expansion pack that replaces the dice with a deck of cards with numbers on them for just this reason, because in Catan each roll of 2D6 represents different regions of the map paying out so if a number never comes up it never pays out.

I've never played in real life with the deck, but I first came across this version on a software version of Catan I had (I think Xbox?). I really enjoyed it and my guess is that in real life it adds a substantial angle to negotiating placement of the robber. In particular, bribing people to put/not put the robber in a given location - if the deck is 7-heavy or your good squares are already drawn, no big deal.

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#85

Post by fiatjaf »

betenoire wrote: post #28
fiatjaf wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better have games without dice rolls. Unexpected events could come from other non-random sources (like the combination of a lot of factors involving other players actions).

dice add real live suspense

Real live stupidity.

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#86

Post by corpMaverick »

ideonexus wrote: post #8

A great application for this is in randomizing playlists. My friends, who are also CS grads and should know better, have often complained that their MP3 players, CD carousels, etc play the same music too often claiming that the random is broken, when a song repeating in a short period of time or other songs never playing is what you would expect from a truly random selection. Using this algorithm, you'd be sure to he…

Using the power of 2 idea that was recently posted here. Choose two random songs and play the one that was least recently played.

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#87

Post by fenwick67 »

eterm wrote: post #62
hesdeadjim wrote: post #39

This reminds me of Sid Meier's talk at GDC about having to game the random number system because of player's expectations: http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012186/The-Psychology-of-Game-... More often than not, true RNG in game design takes a back seat to fun.

Playerunknown's battlegrounds currently suffers from item spawns being "too random". You can go houses without finding a rifle then suddenly find 2-3 practically on top of each other. They could do with learning a little from other games and making it a little less random. Ultimately you can see it as a bug in human reasoning but we're the ones playing the game.

TBH I like the current uniformity of the item spawns. It varies the gameplay and forces you to adapt.

If every house had one pistol and one rifle it would get pretty dull. Raiding 3 houses and only getting a crossbow, bandages, and SMG magazines is frustrating but it's exciting. Just last night I got to #3 or #4 with a crossbow and a pistol.

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#88

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

xori wrote: post #79
Mister_Snuggles wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a patent[0] for a fall-protection system that will rotate the phone while it's in the air. If something like that could be made small enough to fit into a die, that would work. The biggest challenge will probably be the power supply. I'm sure that a processor, accelerometer, and the Taptic Engine (the thing that provides vibration and haptic feedback in Apple devices) are all small enough to fit in a typica…

Oh my god, you totally could use reaction wheels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_6p-1J551Y

Wow - that is cool!

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#89

Post by closed »

At first I was confused, because statistical models that aren't temporally independent are very common.

But it's very clear from the comments that having dice that aren't independent between rolls is incredibly in demand :o, and having the right words to google can be tricky.

(I feel like there's an important lesson there)

Re: Show HN: A Set of Dice That Follows the Gambler's Fallacy

#90

Post by plus »

_Marak_ wrote: post #11

I'm probably very wrong, but I still feel there is some undiscovered science when it comes to RNG and the fallacy of the maturity of chances ( Gambler's Fallacy ). Einstein believed the universe was deterministic. Just because it appears to us that there is no correlation between independent events ( the roll of a dice ), does not mean that there isn't some underlaying variable that we are unable to measure or percei…

Einstein, as everyone knows, was one of the most intelligent and insightful theoretical scientists ever born. His work on the photoelectric effect, which posited that the frequencies of light emitted by a material are quantized, rather than continuous, is what won him the Nobel prize. His thinking influenced the great thinkers behind the formulation of quantum physics as we understand it today: Bohr, Dirac, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Planck, etc. But nobody, not even Einstein, has been able to come up with a way to describe the physical basis from which the laws of quantum mechanics (which we know to be true based on many, many years of experiments which have failed to falsify them) can be arrived at.

Contrast this to a topic for which Einstein is better known, relativity. The mathematical framework describing the effects of special relativity had already been partially discovered by Lorentz, but we credit Einstein for its discovery. Why? Because he postulated two simple rules from which these laws can be derived: 1) The speed of light is the same in all inertial reference frames, and 2) the laws of physics should be the same in all inertial reference frames. How about general relativity? A similar idea, that a person inside of an elevator should not be able to tell the difference between sitting stationary on Earth and accelerating through space at a rate of 9.8 m/s^2.

Einstein had opinions on the physical basis for the laws of quantum mechanics. But they were not necessarily the most popular opinion at the time, and definitely not today. As tylerhou posted in another comment, tests of Bell's theorem more or less disprove the existence of local hidden variables, meaning local quantities that behave deterministically but not measurable. It is still possible that there are nonlocal hidden variables, but this is not a popular opinion these days for a variety of reasons.

I would also like to point out that the various "interpretations" of quantum mechanics (e.g. the Copenhagen interpretation, pilot wave theory, etc) frequently fail to address what the nature of physical reality, i.e. what is the starting point, what is the axiom, what is "real". Are wave functions real? Do they actually exist, or are they merely convenient mathematical tools that can be used to describe reality? Are pilot waves real? Are density matrices real? Are Greens functions real? Are quasiparticles real? (n.b., most of these things are described as complex-valued quantities ;) )

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