"The truck was undamaged, having made its saving throw."

September 18, 2019 11:51 AM

Truck Carrying Gaming Dice Spills Onto Highway, Rolls A Perfect 756,000 (Kotaku)

And speaking of unfortunate spills: Massive tank of bull semen explodes in 'real blow' to farmers (Daily Star)

posted by Johnny Wallflower (70 comments total)

Second link goes to Vice, not the execrable Daily Star. h/t zarq and Fizz.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 11:57 AM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

What a string of bad luck, talk about blowing your load.
posted by Fizz at 12:00 PM on September 18, 2019

OK this resolves my question about casting fireball with 43,200 level 5 spell slots.
posted by GuyZero at 12:09 PM on September 18, 2019 [24 favorites]

I'm starting an escape room in California called Trivium Games. The folks who spilled dice all over the place are a small board game design company called Trivium Studios who don't have a website and posted their video to a youtube called Trivium Games Official, so the first I heard of this was someone on facebook asked us "Just saw that video about all the chessex dice on I75. Were they y'alls or someone else's?" and we had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. (Until a few google searches).

I'd point and laugh at these guys, except, like a decade ago, we had a large puzzle component come untied from the roof of our car on the interstate. So I would also have to point and laugh at myself, which: fair enough.

Ha ha!
posted by aubilenon at 12:13 PM on September 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

Tags
gaming
dice
accidents
livestock
semen
fire

There's a gametes/gaming joke just hanging there, Johnny. Step it up.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:15 PM on September 18, 2019 [10 favorites]

They're PIP DICE. Flagged as causal.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:16 PM on September 18, 2019 [22 favorites]

Truck Carrying Gaming Dice Spills Onto Highway

Driving over the remains of that messy spill must have been a dicey affair. I wonder if people were flipping coins to decide whether to even try it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:21 PM on September 18, 2019 [8 favorites]

Was wondering when you'd show up.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:23 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

There's always an element of chance...
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:24 PM on September 18, 2019 [8 favorites]

Q: What did the truck driver say when his load of dice spilled onto the freeway?

A: Aw, craps!

*deletes account, dons sackcloth and ashes*
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:24 PM on September 18, 2019 [34 favorites]

Truck driver rolls snake eyes, Internet wins
posted by nubs at 12:25 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

I love truck spill stories for some reason.

How about 22 tons of Nutella?
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:30 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

At least they weren't d4s.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:33 PM on September 18, 2019 [31 favorites]

OK this resolves my question about casting fireball with 43,200 level 5 spell slots.
posted by GuyZero at 3:09 PM on September 18 [1 favorite −] Favorite added! [!]

I was coming in here to make this same joke, not just about D&D in general, but about this spell in particular.
posted by HeroZero at 12:35 PM on September 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

At least they weren't d4s.

Lou Zocchi's d4s are literally caltrops. I don't want to hear about stepping on lego, step on one of those and you can talk (from the emergency room).
posted by tocts at 12:38 PM on September 18, 2019 [6 favorites]

My suspicion is that the spill was caused by somebody trying to prove that the universe is a computer simulation -- if you can figure out an easier way to crash a massively multithreaded random number generator than dumping out a whole truckload of dice at runtime, I'd like to hear it.
posted by Strange Interlude at 12:38 PM on September 18, 2019 [54 favorites]

How about 22 tons of Nutella?

Am I misremembering, or did something like that happen in Terminator 2?
posted by aubilenon at 12:39 PM on September 18, 2019

>How about 22 tons of Nutella?

Am I misremembering, or did something like that happen in Terminator 2?

There's not that much difference between Nutella and liquid nitrogen, no.
posted by hanov3r at 12:46 PM on September 18, 2019 [4 favorites]

At 4d6 drop lowest, that's 9000 pre-gen characters for your NPC needs.
posted by stevis23 at 12:48 PM on September 18, 2019 [10 favorites]

I don't want to hear about stepping on lego, step on one of those and you can talk (from the emergency room).

I once stepped on a d4. It was the stock plastic one that came with the mid-80s Expert Rules set, IIRC. Fortunately, it was nestled in some shag carpet and it wasn't sitting on a hard floor. I'm pretty sure you could hear me scream all the way over in the Grand Duchy of Karameikos.

It resulted in a giant blood blister on the bottom of my heel. I can't imagine stepping on a badass metal one on a harder surface. Gah.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:52 PM on September 18, 2019 [7 favorites]

There's a gametes/gaming joke just hanging there, Johnny. Step it up.

Joke hell, that's the start of a very well-funded kickstarter campaign...
posted by jacquilynne at 1:00 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

I'm kind of disappointed the 756,000 is not actually the total of the sides that were facing up, but an estimate based on the number of dice that got spilled.
posted by wanderingmind at 1:12 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

Considering the average roll of two six-sided dice is around seven, and approximately 216,000 dice were rolled, Trivium estimates the roll totaled 756,000.

On preview, what wanderingmind said. A very misleading headline indeed!
posted by grumpybear69 at 1:14 PM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

I'm kind of disappointed the 756,000 is not actually the total of the sides that were facing up, but an estimate based on the number of dice that got spilled.

The truck crashed while trying to negotiate the apex of a bell curve.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:14 PM on September 18, 2019 [17 favorites]

I can't imagine stepping on a badass metal one on a harder surface. Gah.

To explain the joke and ruin it, Lou Zocchi of Game Science has been giving the same presentation at conventions for years about why you should buy his dice (see: from 2015). It is absurdly over the top, and amounts to: he doesn't tumble-polish his dice, which is faster and cheaper and cosmetically looks good but also can result in uneven dice that have a tendency to roll certain numbers.

Consequently, his dice have ridiculously hard edges, having come right out of the casting process and never been smoothed -- but they are not metal, they're still plastic like most dice. The d4 is seriously like, you could stab a person with them. I don't know that they're worth it. But, it's entertaining nonetheless!
posted by tocts at 1:37 PM on September 18, 2019 [8 favorites]

I'm kind of disappointed the 756,000 is not actually the total of the sides that were facing up, but an estimate based on the number of dice that got spilled.

I take the train to work now, so highways be damned! Shut it all down until we can get an accurate count of the total value of all die rolls from the crash, and then let's sort this thing out once and for all.
posted by Mayor West at 1:39 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

Omg! I have a truck spill story! In that after this goat cheese tunnel fire happened, my local cheese monger was out of one of my favorite cheeses (Gjetost) for months.
posted by itesser at 1:50 PM on September 18, 2019 [9 favorites]

the average roll of two six-sided dice is around seven

I guess exactly seven technically qualifies as "around seven".
posted by biogeo at 1:50 PM on September 18, 2019 [17 favorites]

tocts: It is absurdly over the top

Heh. It's a good cranky rant! This part made me feel ashamed about the aftermarket dice I proudly owned as a kid. I was clearly sold inferior product by Big Die.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:52 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

A lot of cast metal dice sets for sale have the points on the d4 cut flat. For safety, I'd imagine, because ow.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:57 PM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

I was coming in here to make this same joke, not just about D&D in general, but about this spell in particular.

Second choice joke is just yelling LIGHTNING BOLT three times while throwing a beanbag.
posted by GuyZero at 2:01 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

Added caltrop tag.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 2:01 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

also I had forgotten about those razor-sharp dice. So thanks for the reminder.
posted by GuyZero at 2:01 PM on September 18, 2019

Somebody tested a GameScience d20 and a Chessex d20 by rolling them 10,000 times—For Science!—and discovered that:

• GameScience dice, with their sharp, untumbled edges, do in fact have a more even distribution of the numbers 1 through 20...
• ...EXCEPT for 14, because GameScience dice have a noticeable sprue on the 7 face, causing it to settle less often on that face, resulting in a lower probability of the number on the opposite face (which is 14).

As someone who finds the GameScience claims appealing—OF COURSE I want my dice to be more random!—the idea that there's an obvious flaw in their manufacturing that affects their dice's randomness in such a glaring way really bothers me. When you find a bug like that you FIX IT.
posted by The Tensor at 2:05 PM on September 18, 2019 [8 favorites]

Also, the dice roll would be 756,000 ± 1704 (with 95% confidence). So, pretty close to 756,000.
posted by biogeo at 2:34 PM on September 18, 2019 [8 favorites]

tocts: So, he basically makes casino style dice (which also have sharp edges, for the same reasons)?
posted by NoxAeternum at 2:55 PM on September 18, 2019

My truck spill story: I once spent 4 hours on a bus because the motorway was shut because of a collision between two trucks, one of which had been carrying a load of lard.
posted by Pallas Athena at 2:59 PM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

When you make a metal d4, you might say the die is cast.
posted by hypnogogue at 3:03 PM on September 18, 2019 [24 favorites]

I once spent a week in WV cleaning up a spill caused when a truck with 100 drums of all different kinds of hazardous waste crashed into a moving van with someone's entire houseful of possessions. So many different colors.
posted by hypnogogue at 3:06 PM on September 18, 2019 [2 favorites]

100 drums of all different kinds of hazardous waste crashed

All I'm sayin' is, dude got paid in small bills to make that happen.
posted by GuyZero at 3:15 PM on September 18, 2019 [7 favorites]

So, he basically makes casino style dice (which also have sharp edges, for the same reasons)?

Well ... not quite.

For one thing, casino dice are milled, not cast like Mr. Zocchi's, so that there are no differences between the faces.

For another thing, casino dice pips are created by milling out a hole and then filling that hole with opaque material that is the same density as the material the die was made of, so that the weight distribution is not affected. Mr. Zocchi's die faces, meanwhile, have numbers imprinted, and those are filled with either paint or colored wax, neither of which is the same density as the plastic the dice are made of. So, while his edges will add a level of improved randomization, the weight distribution is affected (however slightly) by the fact that the "1" face has less material taken out (and thus is heavier) than the "20" face.

... what? I have a lot of dice! doesn't everyone have like 300 dice in various materials on a shelf in their home office??
posted by tocts at 3:18 PM on September 18, 2019 [12 favorites]

When you make a metal d4, you might say the die is cast.

Well, I'd said ālea fūsa est, but you do you.
posted by The Tensor at 3:18 PM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

1. The headline to the article says it rolled a perfect756,000, which is completely untrue, the article body says it averages to 756,000. Bad headline.
2. But the URL reveals the original title, which was something like "Truck Carrying Gaming Dice Spills Onto Highway Rolls A 1838218869," which is less accurate, but rather funnier.

In short, someone at Kotaku changed the original headline, which was obviously wrong but funny, and made it precisely wrong and less funny. Which, well, I don't really care, I just think it's weird. Why not leave it as it was?
posted by JHarris at 3:22 PM on September 18, 2019 [8 favorites]

With GameScience dice, on the other hand, you know that the 14 will roll substantially less than any other result — so technically the dice will roll low, but the 20 should roll just about as often as the one, or the 10. If you carefully cut off the bump on the GameScience dice with a sharp box cutter or exacto knife you should get a result that is very close to being truly random.

This is actually called out and recommended in the set of GameScience dice I bought. Science demands another 10k rolls with that treatment.
posted by pwnguin at 3:22 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

My truck spill story: I once spent 4 hours on a bus because the motorway was shut because of a collision between two trucks, one of which had been carrying a load of lard.

People were late to our rehearsal dinner because a truck full of eggs overturned on I-95. I missed how drunk my dad got because I was paying too much attention to see if the late arrivals were hungry or not.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 3:50 PM on September 18, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is actually called out and recommended in the set of GameScience dice I bought. Science demands another 10k rolls with that treatment.

No, science demands GameScience stop shipping asymmetrical dice.
posted by The Tensor at 3:58 PM on September 18, 2019 [3 favorites]

But they're predictably asymetrical unlike drum polished dice.
posted by GuyZero at 4:16 PM on September 18, 2019

"That's OK, though, because we KNOW they're wrong."
posted by The Tensor at 4:23 PM on September 18, 2019

Also, the odds that the dice roll was in fact exactly 756,000 are only about 1 in 2180. If you want to get technical. Which I do.
posted by biogeo at 4:36 PM on September 18, 2019 [9 favorites]

When I lived in DC a beer truck flipped over on one of the long sweeping curves that takes traffic around RFK stadium. Police had both ends of the block closed while the hazmat team was cleaning up the spilled diesel, but they turned a blind eye towards anyone who walked up through the adjacent grassy park to pick up some of the roughly one million cans of Bud Light that had spilled out. Word got out in the neighborhood and, well, we were drinking free Bud Light for a while.
posted by peeedro at 5:30 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

Two years ago in Toronto, during some of the hottest weather we’ve ever experienced, a truck rolled over on the off ramp from the DVP into highway 401 (so an interchange between two very busy highways). The contents of the truck: mayonnaise and salad dressing.

The interchange was shut down for more than a day while crews tried to de-slick the road surface.
posted by elkerette at 6:43 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

I love truck spill stories for some reason.

You've seen those flatbed trucks carrying a load of carefully stacked boards, all nicely squared up and fastened down with straps? Yeah, I've seen one of those across an interstate.

Also once was diverted onto a short DOT exit area because a semi carrying what looked to be the entire contents of the Oriental Trading Company catalog had gone sideways and its load wasn't secured onto pallets and the whole thing exploded all over the roadway for about 1/4 mile. They'd taken a plow to clear out the path through the short diversion because it had less shit all over the road than the actual roadway.

Once saw a driver with a flatbed stacked high with those quite large square hay bales (the ones people can't lift) that had been pulled over by highway petrol because his entire load was listing off to one side and continued movement would mean something really bad happening.

And it wasn't a truck spill, but I once drive by a semi truck on the shoulder of a narrow two-lane highway and so I slowed down a lot to pass it and while I was driving I noticed the hood had been tilted forward and while I looked something in the engine compartment caught fire. That was... bizarre.

Honestly, I've logged so many miles over the past couple of decades, I've seen pretty much anything. My war stories can be a bit brutal. I don't drive much anymore; the PTSD I live with from my driving has erased that interest in me.
posted by hippybear at 7:59 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

Trivium estimates the roll totaled 756,000. The truck was undamaged, having made its saving throw.

I should hope so! If you roll a 756,000 and don't make your saving throw, it's a pretty clear sign that you should stop doing whatever you're doing that is pissing off your DM so much.
posted by mstokes650 at 8:21 PM on September 18, 2019 [5 favorites]

MetaFilter: If you want to get technical. Which I do.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:44 PM on September 18, 2019 [10 favorites]

But did anyone die?
posted by aspersioncast at 5:05 AM on September 19, 2019

die, die, die my darling.

posted by aspersioncast at 5:06 AM on September 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Looks like a fairly typical game of Shadowrun to me.
posted by faceplantingcheetah at 5:08 AM on September 19, 2019 [4 favorites]

Guess you could say the driver made a pretty tremendous crit fail?
posted by Dillionaire at 8:37 AM on September 19, 2019

Truck Carrying Gaming Dice
Here's one about chocolate
22 tons of Nutella
goat cheese tunnel fire
long sweeping curves
mayonnaise and salad dressing

Lurkers, take notice: The links in this thread alone are just full of potential MeFi user names.
posted by Gelatin at 8:44 AM on September 19, 2019 [5 favorites]

Lurkers, take notice: The links in this thread alone are just full of potential MeFi user names.

For my money, the best one is "explosive canisters of bull semen."
posted by sciatrix at 9:08 AM on September 19, 2019 [4 favorites]

At 4d6 drop lowest, that's 9000 pre-gen characters for your NPC needs

Using the classic (and awful) 3D6 in order method, that's 12,000 characters. Of which 56 will have natural 18s. The odds of getting all 18s in a character is 1 in 101,559,956,668,416. So reroll your damn character at the table,Steve

(Note, on 4D6 drop lowest it's only 1 in 55,247,704,849. Get rolling, Steve. )
posted by happyroach at 9:08 AM on September 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

Using the classic (and awful) 3D6 in order method, that's 12,000 characters. Of which 56 will have natural 18s.

Wait. 216,000 dice, three dice per attribute roll, one-in-216 chance (6 * 6 * 6) of rolling an 18 on each attribute.

216,000 / 3 * 1/216 = about 333 18's

I think you were only giving each character a 1/216 chance of having an 18, but they actually get six chances.
posted by The Tensor at 9:24 AM on September 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

216,000 / 3 * 1/216 = about 333 18's

There are 6 stats. 333/6 = 55.5, or about 56 characters that will have 18s for all stats.
posted by hanov3r at 9:45 AM on September 19, 2019

Of which 56 will have natural 18s.

So what you're saying is that some minmaxer engineered this "spill" to claim his perfect PC is, in fact, the legit result of just rolling up characters the old fashioned way.
posted by GuyZero at 10:49 AM on September 19, 2019

There are 6 stats. 333/6 = 55.5, or about 56 characters that will have 18s for all stats.

If 333 attributes rolls are 18, there could be 56 characters with 18s for all stats, but only if the 18s "clump up" in groups of six, which is extremely unlikely. As happyroach mentioned above, the chance of any given strict-3d6 character having all 18s is 1/101,559,956,668,416, so the expected number of all-18s characters from this truck spill is roughly zero. (There's a probability of about 1/8,463,329,723 you'd get one out of the 12,000 characters.)
posted by The Tensor at 11:02 AM on September 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

only if the 18s "clump up" in groups of six, which is extremely unlikely

If you roll 216,000 dice at once, you get to group them however you want.
posted by hanov3r at 12:33 PM on September 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

We were explicitly talking about "the classic (and awful) 3D6 in order method".
posted by The Tensor at 1:11 PM on September 19, 2019

Rolling an 18 is going to be one out of every 216 3D6 sets, so the number of 18s is going to be (216,000/3)/216 = 333. So I messed up there. I blame being half awake.

The odds of rolling18s 6 times in a row is 1/216^6 or 1/6^(3*6) = 1/101,559,956,668,416. That checks out. So dice on the table, Steve.
posted by happyroach at 1:49 PM on September 19, 2019

Extremely pleased with the direction this conversation has inevitably taken
posted by churl at 8:56 PM on September 19, 2019

The odds were in favor of that, certainly.
posted by hippybear at 9:03 PM on September 19, 2019 [3 favorites]