11

I found a strange d6. It has two "blank" faces, one "1" face, two "5" faces, and one "6" face. Here's a couple photos:

first 3 faces: 0, 5, 6 second 3 faces: 0, 1, 5

It was in a very old and battered vintage "Risk" game box that was missing a lot of other components, so I don't have any context clues to help me out.

What game (or kit or whatever) is this die for?

chicks
  • 299
  • 1
  • 4
  • 13
William
  • 211
  • 1
  • 5
  • 1
    Also try r/boardgames on reddit. They're very good at this. – Dave Jan 08 '21 at 23:24
  • 1
    It is possible that it was from an early example of a set of Nontransitive Dice, a set of dice A,B,C,... such that the probability that A is higher than B is greater than half, the probability that B is higher than C is greater than half, and so on... For instance, here perhaps this was die A. Die B could have been 2,2,2,2,2,7 and die C could have been 0,3,3,3,3,3. Of course, these numbers I made up on the spot and the chance of winning isn't particularly balanced, but with some effort they could be. – JMoravitz Jan 29 '21 at 14:42
  • That said, I haven't seen any explicit reference yet to this particular distribution of faces in literature related to combinatorics, probability, or nontransitive dice and am personally unaware of any game specifically utilizing this distribution of numbers. It is worth noting that this particular die does roll higher than a standard die with probability 13/36, ties with probability 4/36 and rolls lower with probability 19/36. – JMoravitz Jan 29 '21 at 14:47
  • There was a previous question about similar dice and it was suggested that they were part of a magic trick, apparently magic shops sell 'dice without two', yours are obviously missing more than the 2 side, but could be used for a similar purpose. Given the age, I wonder if they might be from some sort of wargame. Is the blank side recessed as if you'd put a sticker there at all?

    previous question: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/38243/what-game-is-this-d6-with-a-blank-two-for

    – Zach Sep 29 '21 at 20:25

0 Answers0