As long as one of each pair of numbers is one color and one the other, it's balanced. I mean, unless you're using crayons of two massively different densities, which I don't think is a thing that exists. There's no way to do it wrong as long you do 0-9 one color and 0-9 another. After that, it's just aesthetics.
Ok the first 20 sided dice numbered 0-9 twice and Inked is you ink(sharpie) one number of each is inked(sharpie) the inked side it the teens and twenty and the none inks is the 1-10. and is wondering is there was a good patterned to ink it I have not done with this sence 1979.
Back in the day, we just literally inked one side's numbers and left the other side's blank. No "pattern" was involved.
Personally, I did the "high number" on my dice in red ink, while the rest were black, just to give natural 20s and other max rolls that extra something.
My old dice are crayon black & white in a hemisphere pattern. First I fill in one of the zeroes in one color, then all the sides nearest it. Then the rest are filled in with the other color.
Eric Lawson it sounds like you want to avoid having a pattern that creates a hemisphere entirely inked as "1–10" , and a second hemisphere that is entirely inked as "11–20". This is difficult to avoid on an icosahedral d10. Every 'retro' d20 (numbered 0–9 twice) has opposing sides of the die imprinted as the same number. There doesn't appear to be a pattern that evenly distributes two-colors around an icosahedron, and there are examples of the 'hemispheres' solution among old-school dice manufacturers themselves: • on the Gamescience d20+ (numbered 0–9 once, and ⁺0–⁺9 once). All ﹢ marks are in the same hemisphere. • on the older Armory d20 (numbered 1–20), the numbers are arranged so that 1–10 are in the same hemisphere, and 11–20 are in the other. But more to the point (instead of opposing sides adding to '21' like some of us might expect) it seems to take its heritage from the old-school icosahedral d10: such that 1 is opposite 11, 2 opposite 12, ···, 10 opposite 20.
TL;DR — why not ink your d6 in two colors, and use it as a 'control die' for the d20? That's very old-school too.
I like the hemisphere pattern because it's easy to pick up the die and see it has 10 of each color. The ink or crayon aren't going to unbalance the die significantly, but the pattern I thought up for a more "balanced" approach is to vary the hemisphere pattern slightly so the three faces adjacent to zero (2, 3, and 4 on my old-school dice) are the opposite color. Still a fairly simple pattern, and every face is adjacent to at least 2 of the opposite color (high/low). This means even if the die is weighted towards one half, there's likely to be a good mix of high and low numbers. I may have to try that whenever I order some Microhedra to see if I like it in practice.
I suppose if someone was going to experiment with a pattern, you could use little torn off bits of a post-it note, and place them one of each number and move them around until you had a pattern you liked the look of...
I remember doing one set of 0-9 (1-10) in black, and the other (11-20) in green. "Green is teen" was the mnemonic we used back in the day.
ReplyDeleteWhat i am trying ro find is the pattern to ink thw numbers so it is a balanced rolls
ReplyDeleteAh, no idea, sorry.
ReplyDeleteAs long as one of each pair of numbers is one color and one the other, it's balanced. I mean, unless you're using crayons of two massively different densities, which I don't think is a thing that exists. There's no way to do it wrong as long you do 0-9 one color and 0-9 another. After that, it's just aesthetics.
ReplyDeleteI would just grab a regular 20-sided and ink the retro while comparing it
ReplyDeleteInk?
ReplyDeleteWe think ink is going to throw off the balance in a appreciable way...??
I could maybe see a case made for crayon, but I have my doubts about that, too.
If you're worried about the ink, you should be worried that the 3 takes a bigger bite out of that side than the 1 does on it's own side, etc.
Ok the first 20 sided dice numbered 0-9 twice and Inked is you ink(sharpie) one number of each is inked(sharpie) the inked side it the teens and twenty and the none inks is the 1-10. and is wondering is there was a good patterned to ink it I have not done with this sence 1979.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day, we just literally inked one side's numbers and left the other side's blank. No "pattern" was involved.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I did the "high number" on my dice in red ink, while the rest were black, just to give natural 20s and other max rolls that extra something.
I still have most of those dice, FWIW.
My old dice are crayon black & white in a hemisphere pattern. First I fill in one of the zeroes in one color, then all the sides nearest it. Then the rest are filled in with the other color.
ReplyDeleteEric Lawson it sounds like you want to avoid having a pattern that creates a hemisphere entirely inked as "1–10" , and a second hemisphere that is entirely inked as "11–20". This is difficult to avoid on an icosahedral d10.
ReplyDeleteEvery 'retro' d20 (numbered 0–9 twice) has opposing sides of the die imprinted as the same number. There doesn't appear to be a pattern that evenly distributes two-colors around an icosahedron, and there are examples of the 'hemispheres' solution among old-school dice manufacturers themselves:
• on the Gamescience d20+ (numbered 0–9 once, and ⁺0–⁺9 once). All ﹢ marks are in the same hemisphere.
• on the older Armory d20 (numbered 1–20), the numbers are arranged so that 1–10 are in the same hemisphere, and 11–20 are in the other. But more to the point (instead of opposing sides adding to '21' like some of us might expect) it seems to take its heritage from the old-school icosahedral d10: such that 1 is opposite 11, 2 opposite 12, ···, 10 opposite 20.
TL;DR — why not ink your d6 in two colors, and use it as a 'control die' for the d20? That's very old-school too.
I like the hemisphere pattern because it's easy to pick up the die and see it has 10 of each color. The ink or crayon aren't going to unbalance the die significantly, but the pattern I thought up for a more "balanced" approach is to vary the hemisphere pattern slightly so the three faces adjacent to zero (2, 3, and 4 on my old-school dice) are the opposite color. Still a fairly simple pattern, and every face is adjacent to at least 2 of the opposite color (high/low). This means even if the die is weighted towards one half, there's likely to be a good mix of high and low numbers. I may have to try that whenever I order some Microhedra to see if I like it in practice.
ReplyDeleteI suppose if someone was going to experiment with a pattern, you could use little torn off bits of a post-it note, and place them one of each number and move them around until you had a pattern you liked the look of...
ReplyDelete