30DODND Day 29: What is the number you always seem to roll on a d20?

            Probability.  Everyone respects it to some degree.  Most game shows are based on it, all casinos, the economy and almost all aspects of international politics are predicated on our assessments of risks, chances and uncertainty.  It is everywhere.  We place so much importance in it.  On top of that, we have developed a thousand superstitions about luck and fortune, sometimes placing total confidence on something which has no real meaning.

I have never really believed in dice superstitions.  I’ll go along with a few things, like rolling a new d20 to see how it rolls, or switching dice if one is rolling poorly, but in general I don’t believe that any of it actually works.  Switching d8s is perhaps the only thing I really believe in, just because it rolls poorly, and changing which I use is a good way of getting different results.  I find them fun, but not useful.  I really don’t think I have number that comes up more than others, though I did once have a d20 which was flawed and weighted towards the number 2.  I didn’t like that die.

I could talk about probability for a long time, and I probably will at some point in the future.  It’s a fascinating concept, which dominates so much of our outlook on life.  In a world where the gambling industry is so massive, and where security consultancy and risk management are major career paths, it is important to think about exactly what probability is.  But that’s another story.  So no.  No number. Sorry.