Originally published at: Film of a 120-sided die bouncing through a forest | Boing Boing
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I bought one of the first 100-sided die to be released, way back in the late 80’s… maybe? Early 90’s? Whatever. Yeah, they roll forever. And ever. I returned to 2d10 for my 100% rolls, it worked fine. Not sure how you’d model 120 with a couple of die, though. Maybe 1d6 to determine the 20th pool it’s in, and 1d20 for the value of that pool (ie, 2 on the d6 is 21-40, and 17 on the d20 would be 37… seems messy though).
Anyone know why they’d need a d120? Is there a game system that has a value of 1-120? Or just for giggles?
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d120… otherwise known as a “ball”
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Suds? I fear someone upstream has an overflowing septic tank.
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Dude, I had decades like that…
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One of the gaming magazines I read (possibly different worlds, possibly white dwarf), printed the results of someone throwing a d100 5500 times. It wasn’t an even distribution.
What would you do with a d120 anyway? It’s hard enough finding a use for a D30.
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Looks like it was “White Dwarf”
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Probably a matter of construction rather than use, but 120 can be subdivided really well so you can throw away all the other dice
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120 can be divided evenly by 2,3,4,5,6,8,10,12,15, and 20 so it could be your go-to die (as long as you roll inside the box to make it stop)
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Do you need a reason?
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The fairest dice are those used by casinos. But razor cut D6s with flat painted pips lack a certain appeal.
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Last i read/heard there is no exact method for placing N points on a sphere such that they are equidistant to one another, (special cases such as numbers associated Platonic solids notwithstanding). This from a prolonged discussion from a math prof i had lunch with who was also an avid golfer and worried (perhaps overly intensely) about the placement of the dimples on the golf-ball. Or said another way, (in annoying falsetto perhaps), a number which is multiple of the number of vertices on a Platonic solid will be more easily placed symmetrically: 120 being 6 times a dodecahedron vertex set.
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Why not D12 and D10?
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Anyway, a good excuse to post a little bit of Dream Warriors:
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“May your die chip and shatter!”
– ancient Freman gaming curse.
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There’s a problem I assign pretty much every time I teach probability that involves a die with a prime number p of faces (where p can be an arbitrary prime). Occasionally I get pushback from students challenging the premise of the problem.
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Because they can - 120 is the largest possible fair die.
I got a glow in the dark D13, which is cool, but also a pair of hexadecimal dice which I use to roll random RGB colours of the day. Now those are useful.
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Well… because that’s too easy? 
Complicate the things! (good call, you’re right)
So “for the giggles” is the correct answer. Good to know.
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