Monday, March 22, 2010

Nontransitive dice

Without making you slog through the Wikipedia article, it's possible to make a set of dice where the first die will generally roll higher than the second die which will generally roll higher than the third die which will generally roll higher than the first die. Confused? Let me try again. Stealing an example from the wiki:

die A has sides {2,2,4,4,9,9},
die B has sides {1,1,6,6,8,8}, and
die C has sides {3,3,5,5,7,7}.

Now, if you roll die A versus die B, then die A will roll higher most of the time. Die B will roll higher than die C most of the time. Now here's the mind bending part. Die C will beat die A most of the time too. A beats B, B beats C, but C beats A. Sort of like a paper rock scissors game.

I'm calling this interesting, but it's hardly the only or simplest way to make a paper rock scissors mechanic. So I'm filing it away for future reference.

No comments:

Post a Comment