Specifically I’m asking about this situation that came up during a D&D game:
Say I’m rolling a 20 sided die, and I do not want to roll a 1. I know that the odds of rolling a 1 are 1/20.
I know that the chances of rolling a 1 twice in a row is (1/20 * 1/20), which is far a lower occurrence.
Say then, before I rolled my “real” roll, I rolled the die again and again until I landed on a 1, then proceeded to roll my “real” roll, would I have reduced the odds of rolling a 1 to (1/20 * 1/20), given that I’ve just rolled a 1 prior?
This is the logic I’m having trouble reasoning about and I’d appreciate it if anyone could clarify what is or is not accurate about the assumptions being made in this scenario.
In: Mathematics
No, you wouldn’t reduce the odds in any way.
Each individual roll is not being influenced in any way by any previous roll, they’re all separate events. The die does not have any kind of “memory” that stores previous roll information.
Also, in D&D, it is considered impolite to roll your dice outside of your turn/being asked to by the DM. The noise and activity tend to distract people from the narrative/events being discussed.
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