A die (Old French de, from Latin datum "something given or played" [1]) is a small polyhedral object (usually a cube) suitable as a gambling device (especially for craps or sic bo).

Traditionally, a die is seldom seen alone, rather than as one of a pair of identical dice that are sized to be comfortably rolled or thrown, together, from a user's hand. (The singular word "die" is therefore rare, and treating "dice" as interchangeably singular or plural is not uncommon.) A traditional die is a cube (often with corners slightly rounded), marked on each of its six faces with a different number of circular patches or pits called pips. All of these pips have the same appearance within a pair (or larger set) of dice, and are sized for ease of recognizing the pattern the pips on one face form. The design as a whole is aimed at each die providing one randomly determined integer, in the range from one to six, with each of those values being equally likely.

More generally, a variety of analogous devices are often described as dice, but necessarily in a context, or with a word or two preceding "die" or "dice", that avoids the assumption that traditional dice are intended. Such specialized dice may have cubical or other polyhedral shapes, with faces marked with various collections of symbols, and be used to produce other random results than one through six. There are also "loaded" or "crooked" dice (especially otherwise traditional ones), meant to produce skewed or even predictable results, for purposes of deception or amusement.

Use of Dice for Divination

Some people believe that dice can be used for divination. Using dice for such a purpose is called cleromancy. A pair of standard 6-sided dice is generally used.

Astrological dice are a specialized set of three 12-sided dice for divination, using the concepts of astrology and containing astrological symbols for the planets, the zodiac signs and the astrological houses. The first die represents planets, the Sun, the Moon, and two nodes (North Node and South Node). The second die represents the 12 zodiac signs, and the third represents the 12 houses. In simplified terms, the planets, etc. could represent the 'actor'; the zodiac signs could represent the 'role' being played by the actor; and the house could represent the 'scene' in which the actor plays.

Rune dice are a specialized set of dice for divination (runecasting), using the symbols of the runes printed on the dice.

References

• Persi Diaconis and Joseph B. Keller. "Fair Dice". The American Mathematical Monthly, 96(4):337-339, 1989. (Discussion of dice that are fair "by symmetry" and "by continuity".)
• Bias and Runs in Dice Throwing and Recording: A Few Million Throws. G. R. Iverson. W. H. Longcour, et al. Psychometrika, Vol. 36, No. 1, March 1971
• Knizia, Reiner (1999). Dice Games Properly Explained. Elliot Right Way Books. ISBN 0716021129.

Links

• MathWorld: Dice Analysis of dice probabilities.
• Fair Dice is an illustrated Math Games column about all the possible fair dice, and the mathematical reasons why other shapes are not fair.
• Roman Board Games (See, in particular, Tali and Tesserae.)
• Properties of Dice is a page describing all solids that make for provably fair dice.
• Openroleplaying.org's automated Die Roller - allows rolling any combination of any die using standard RPG 'Dice Equations')
• Worlds Largest Dice Collection Links, Photos, Information about dice

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