Non-Transitive Dice

thank you for that link... it is very very interesting...

definately sparks some ideas....

Perhaps I'm not thinking in the right direction...

For the non-transitive dice on the website, D has a 66% to beat C, C has a 66% to beat B, B has a 66% to beat A, A has a 66% to beat D, A has a 50% chance to beat C, and B has a 50% chance to beat D.

What I don't get is that these are all very simple ratios that can be aquired by a single die role, not requiring keeping track of 4 different dice. It seems like there would be easier mechanics that could get you the same results without all the bits required for non-transitive die...

One of the easiest applications I can envision with this is 4 players each getting a die, having advantages for rolling against the player to their left, and having an equal chance of rolling against the player across from them. Unfortunately, this seems to limit the game to 4 and only 4 players (not that much of a problem... lots of card games do that).

However, another way to accomplish this same mechanic is to simply say, "A successful roll against a player on your left requires 3 or greater on a D6, a successful roll against a player on your right requires 5 or greater, and a successful role for the player across from you requires 4 or greater." That system could be expanded to have a 50% chance for all players not to your immediate left or right, and would still have that interesting level of strategy.

EDIT:though now that I've thought about it some more...

a bidding system for the different dice would be pretty damn cool. It would still limit the game to 4 and only 4 players (the dice really only work as a set, and larger numbers of dice would need a completely different set to work together), but bidding (or any mechanic, really) to have a higher chance of rolling successfully against a specific player while putting yourself in jeapordy from another player might be fun. Problems: first player who picks his die would always be at a disadvantage, as would the last player, and the bidding mechanic (or any decision-making mechanic) would have to account for the unusual attractiveness in positioning.

However, you could also abstract out the non-transitive idea to the point where picking dice (or markers or whatever) only gives you slight strategic advantages and disadvantages against other players, and then you could even randomize the process. This might be a fun twist to a tactical game if it were paired up with a fitting theme.

I was thinking along the same lines as Brykovian, but from my thinking, the dice are what create these relationships. So, one of the dice represents the spearmen, one represents the cavalry, etc. These dice give two big advantages over RPS or standard die rolling -- (a) uncertain outcome and (b) no ties!

Pretty cool, thanks for sharing. Definitely an interesting idea.

Also, I may be crazy, but doesn't the C die beat the A die more than 50% of the time? That might not be a bad thing...having a "most powerful" die could probably be modeled thematically as well...

-Jeff