What does this mean?

[ncarson]

All through the game there are these modifiers of 'rolls" (which I assume are random number picks) such as "3d20". What does this mean? What's a "d"?

[LeoMPanther]

D is short for dice
Specifically
3d20 means that you roll 3 dice with 20 sides and add the dice rolls for the number that you check with.

[zgrssd]

D is short for dice
left number is how many dice. Right number how many sides those dice have

Note that propability dictates that rolling multiple smaler dice results in way more average results - creating a nice normal distribution.
4d20 and 1D80 do not have anywhere close to the same result spread - just similar possible results.

[ncarson]

Craps! Thank you all (sorry about that...)

[beyondwudge]

It's alright. The game presumes a fair about of wargaming knowledge. I'm sure Vic will get time at some point to write a little primer for people who haven't come from a tabletop wargaming / roleplaying background or haven't already played a lot of these "could-be-a-board-game" type simulation games before. The game has a wide enough appeal to will draw people from outside the veteran community. I think every effort should be made to help them get a handle on what is going on so they can enough the game too.

[MavenCole]

I also had this question during one of my early games. Check out the anydice website (forum rules prevent a link) for some graphs showing the distribution of different dice combinations

[Viranto]

i have the same problem. Just for understanding.
When there is a 1d100 this means i can never have more than 100?
When there is a 2d100 this means the maximum i can roll is 200? Right?
So the first number is how many dice i have and the second number is how many eyes this dice have? So a normal reallife dice with 6 eyes would look like this 1d6?

[Maerchen]

You understand it!

The retirement cards have rolls of 5d20for example , so results of 5-100 are to be expectec, with an average of 52.5.

[yutowap33]

Viranto, pretty much:

first number - number of dice rolls
second number - number of eyes on each dice.

ROUGHLY put, you can also say that:

max possible score = rolls x eyes (2d100 -> 2x100 = 200)
average score = max score / dice rolls (200/2 = 100 )

The more rolls you have the more likely the result be near the middle.
1d100 means that you are just as likely to get 100 as 50 or 1.
2d50 means that you are MUCH more likely to get 50 than a 100. (50 times more likely)

[zgrssd]

When there is a 1d100 this means i can never have more than 100?
When there is a 2d100 this means the maximum i can roll is 200? Right?

Pretty much that.

1D100 has a range of 1-100, with all results being equally likely (chance of 1 in 100).
2D100 has a range of 2-200.
However because there are multiple dice, the average result is way more likely then either extreme:
There are 10000 combinations those two dice can end up in. Only 1 each is for 2 and 200, so either only has a 0.01% chance. But the average of 101 has 100 possible combinations, meaning a 1% chance to roll it.
This is the basic rule for multiple dice.

However sometimes Vic throws this basic math for a loop, as some bonuses in the game actually only change the minimum roll upward rather then being a plain addition.

[yutowap33]

However sometimes Vic throws this basic math for a loop, as some bonuses in the game actually only change the minimum roll upward rather then being a plain addition.

That's a problem, because most people only ever care about one parameter, their chance of winning the odds. Thus obscure rules, special case, and hidden bonuses make it harder for us to make informed decisions.

This particularly critical early on, when we have poor characters and fledging economy in precarious situations.