Comment vérifier l'équilibre des dés : test à l'eau salée et autres méthodes

Things can get pretty heated in a game session, the competition can get pretty tense, or maybe there are bets at stake for who will win the game. Therefore, you’re more focused than ever to get through as the winner. The problem is, if you’re playing a game that includes the use of dice, you have no choice but to leave it to your chances and trust lady luck. However, as you roll your dice, suddenly, you noticed that you’re always getting a bad roll. Or perhaps, the other players keep getting the best rolls throughout the game. Sounds like a bad play of luck? I tell you not!

That certainly ring a bell for something that’s so simple but gives great consequences, right? My friends, those are just some of the countless scenarios that can be caused by poorly balanced dice.

For today, allow us to tell you all about how to check your dice balance, and not only that, we’re also going to discuss why dice balance is essential and how to correct an imbalanced dice. To sum it up, we’re going to hit a number of birds with one dice in all throughout this reading. Are you ready? Without further ado, let’s all now take the roll towards the steps on keeping your games fun, fair, and random!

Here’s what you need for this tutorial

The dice that you want to test – You may want to consider your dice in this test, because apparently, this doesn’t work on heavy and metal die.
A small cup or jar (аor Saltwater balance test) – I’ll leave the size of the cup or jar you want to use so long as it conforms accordingly to the size of your dice. I would also like to recommend you to use glass cups and jars because you may want to use see through containers so that you can check the balance of your dice better.

Water – You can use any type of water, so long as it’s hot, but I would like to suggest tap water for your convenience.
Sel de table

Before we get started, you might want to answer the question; does dice balance really matter at all? The simple answer is both yes and no. If you’re on a friendly game night at your relative’s house, then dice balance won’t matter as much since you probably just want to play for fun and family bonding.

It’s a whole different story though when there are bets and money involved, or perhaps if you are competitively playing roll-and-move and roll-and-write games, you might really want to get a seriously fair dice in there.

Checking and improving dice balance can also be beneficial if you’re playing RPGs such as Donjons et Dragons qui utilise sept dés pour jouer.

It’s true that a set of dice may come perfectly balanced from day one. But no matter how perfectly balanced your dice is, as long as you use it, it’ll inevitably lose balance. It might not be that noticeable, but every time you roll your dice, small parts will chip or scratch off, especially with the edges, these chips and scratches will pile up soon enough and make obvious consequences to your plays in due time.

Test d'équilibre en eau salée

Before we go into the step by step guide, we’ll first discuss the origins, scope, and limitations of this test. First off, the saltwater balance test has been originally used to test the balance of golf balls. Now, this test can only determine if a dice is balanced on the core. This test will not detect imbalance that’s caused by external damage like scrapes, chipping, or uneven surfaces.

Enfin, le test d'équilibre à l'eau salée n'est recommandé que pour les dés légers, donc vos dés en métal et autres dés lourds ne sont pas recommandés pour cela.

Il est également un peu difficile à lire sur des dés plus petits et plus anguleux tels que les dés D4, D6 et D8, ce qui le rend plus recommandé si vous voulez tester des dés D12 ou plus.

And now let’s get into the step-by-step guide.

Préparez les matériaux suivants :

1/2 tasse d'eau
Un petit bocal ou une tasse

Environ 3-5 cuillères à soupe de sel
Vos dés

Étape 1

Maintenant que vous avez votre récipient avec de l'eau, versez du sel par cuillère à soupe. Et n'oubliez pas de remuer et de dissoudre le sel avant de verser une autre cuillère à soupe. Vous pouvez aussi mettre un dé pour voir s'il flotte encore.

Si notre dé coule, remuez davantage de sel dans la tasse ou le bocal jusqu'à ce que l'eau soit suffisamment puissante pour faire flotter le dé.

Étape 2

Une fois que votre dé peut flotter avec la moitié au-dessus de la surface, vous pouvez maintenant procéder au test d'équilibre.

Étape 3

Le test est simple : il suffit de poser les dés sur l'eau, un par un, et de les faire tourner à l'aide d'un bâton, puis d'observer comment le dé tourne et de noter la fréquence à laquelle un chiffre apparaît.

If the dice is wobbly and keeps showing 1 or 2 numbers consistently, your die is not balanced, at this point you should throw the die aside if you’re playing competitively.

Si le dé tourne librement et sans à-coups, et qu'il affiche des chiffres aléatoires, votre dé est équilibré et vous pouvez l'utiliser sans problème.

Autres méthodes pour vérifier l'équilibre des dés

The saltwater balance test is one of the easiest and most accurate tests there is. Anyone can do it. But there are more tests that are easier and more accurate than that. As I said above, the saltwater test is not reliable if you’re testing heavy and metal dice, and it’s not reliable for detecting external issues like uneven surfaces.
As a response to that, we’ve came up with other methods that you can use to determine the evenness of your dice fitting to your every need such as the following.

Inspection visuelle

Visual inspection is as straightforward as it can get. Although it’s a bit more than just looking for imperfections, there are some tricks you can use to find faults and imperfections faster.

Here’s how to do a proper visual dice inspection.

Préparez les matériaux suivants :

Dés
Surface plane (par exemple, une table de jeu)
Un bon matériel d'éclairage ou un endroit où la lumière est suffisante pour l'inspection.

Loupe (facultatif)