How to Summon Cubic Dice With Only Players’ Brains

Date

November 8, 2025

Type

Tachyon

Antecedent

No prior reading is required.

Emergence

It's bothersome when we are prepared to play board games like Monopoly but forget to bring the dice. One day, I thought of a simple idea to replace the role of a die without any props.

Stabilization

Before reading the left part, please don't suggest just using a phone app for dice. Why not just play a video game, then?

To summarize the role of a die, what we need is a way to generate a uniform and unpredictable random number within the range of 1 to 6.

The first idea that might come to mind is to pick one person to generate the random numbers. However, this violates everything I just mentioned. That person will probably be influenced by personal tendencies, making the results biased and predictable. It reminds me of a friend who wins at rock-paper-scissors much more than fifty percent of the time. It would be a disaster if such a player were included in the game. Also, this method makes it challenging for all people to participate in the game equally.

Therefore, my suggestion is this: all players think of a number between $1$ and $6$, then shout it out simultaneously. Sum up all the numbers, and use the remainder after dividing by $6$. (If the remainder is $0$, use $6$.) Here is an example:

1. Let's say four players (A, B, C, D) are playing. On the count of three, they all shout out a number: • A shouts: "$3!$" • B shouts: "$5!$" • C shouts: ""$1!$"" • D shouts: "$6!$" The numbers are summed up: $3+5+1+6=15$ We find the remainder divided by $6$: $3$ Since the remainder is $3$, the "roll" for this turn is $3$.
2. On the next turn, they shout again: • A shouts: "$6!$" • B shouts: "$4!$" • C shouts: "$5!$" • D shouts: "$3!$" The numbers are summed up: $6+4+5+3=18$ We find the remainder divided by $6$: $0$ According to the rule, a remainder of $0$ is treated as $6$. Therefore, the "roll" for this turn is $6$.

With this method, it is guaranteed that no player can predict the result, as it is sensitively affected by everyone's choice. Also, only one person in the group needs to be thinking randomly for the final output to be unpredictably uniform.

Convergence

Try it the next time you want to play a board game with your friends but you've forgotten your dice. However, it will unfortunately take much more time for each turn.

Descendant

No more related particles, yet.

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