Windage Dice

[Pseudotheist]

So, reading over the rues for change in wind speed and strength, I get the feeling that maintaining two seperate pools of chips for the entire game is entirely too much overhead for the mechanic. It seems to me the mechanic would be much more easy to manage if I could just roll a couple dice each turn. Now, the part where you pull out a chip from the pool to track a pending wind change skews the numbers so that you don't get the same percentages as if you were rolling 10 sided dice, but I looked at the stats, and using an 8-sider wuldn't be too far off:

Percentage chance of at least one wind change vs. number of turns:

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# of turns | Erroneous_| 8-sided die | 6 sided die

1___|__0.00%___|___0.00%__|___0.00%
2___|__4.44%___|___3.13%__|___5.56%
3___|__10.07%__|___7.81%__|___12.96%
4___|__15.82%__|___13.18%_|___20.68%
5___|__21.35%__|___18.75%_|___28.09%
6___|__26.57%__|___24.25%_|___34.96%
7___|__31.45%__|___29.53%_|___41.25%
8___|__36.02%__|___34.54%_|___46.96%
9___|__40.28%__|___39.25%_|___52.13%
10__|__44.27%__|___43.65%_|___56.79%
11__|__47.98%__|___47.75%_|___61.01%
12__|__51.45%__|___51.56%_|___64.82%
13__|__54.69%__|___55.10%_|___68.25%
14__|__57.71%__|___58.38%_|___71.35%
15__|__60.53%__|___61.42%_|___74.15%
16__|__63.16%__|___64.25%_|___76.67%
17__|__65.61%__|___66.86%_|___78.95%
18__|__67.91%__|___69.29%_|___81.00%
19__|__70.05%__|___71.54%_|___82.86%
20__|__72.04%__|___73.62%_|___84.53%

Correct conuter pecentages in post 18

As you can see, the the odds of having at least one wind change (tracking either speed or direction, not both) are slightly lower for the 8-sider during the arly rounds of the game, but become slightly higher by round 12, which is coincidentally the round both mechanisms reach 50% odds of a wind change. More importantly, the odds differntial is never more than a couple percentage points off. I include the stats for a 6 sided die for comparison both because it is probably easier to find/make custom 6-sided dice, and in case some people were interested in a slightly more mercurial windage system.

So now I have 4 basic questions:

1. Am I the only one who thinks the token draw system is more cumbersome than it should be for the game element supported? I know it's not that hard to draw tokens, but if you play a 12 round game you have even odds that this element will come into play once.

2. Is anyone willing to independantly verify my math?

3. Is the 8-sdied die alternative close enough to be a reasonable substitute?

4. For Keith, really: If there were interest, would custom windage dice be something you'd consider creating and selling through Anchorage Accessories?