Comment on The house always wins
hansolo@lemmy.today 1 week ago100% agree. My family always played strict rules, and the game was always a painful slog. Constant mortgaging properties to afford rent somewhere else, a while game hanging on $11 here and there. The game I played in a mobile home during power outages was about living paycheck to paycheck.
The first time I saw people do the free parking tax money thing, I thought they were joking. The fuck kind of soft baby game is this? Two times around the board first? Why? Just give $600 more to start, idiots. Why not let the car roll 3 dice or some shit because a car goes faster than an iron?
Bongles@lemmy.zip 1 week ago
I’ve heard one time around the board, but not two. The idea though was so the first player to go doesn’t have an advantage (which is kind of irrelevant after the first couple rolls unless they keep rolling high, but it FEELS like it matters I’m sure).
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I… the player that goes first has the EXACT SAME statistical advantage, regardless how many round trips you do before allowing purchases. No matter how many times you roll the dice, each player will, on average, be ≈7 places in front of the person that rolls after them (not exactly 7, because there are rules for rolling again on matching dice etc.). This is true for the first roll of the dice, and it is true for the millionth roll. The distance between two consecutive players is on average equal to the mean number of places you move on a turn.
Amir@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Well, if you do infinite die rolls, your standard deviation becomes so high the “7” spaces bias will be relatively less significant
However, replacing first-mover advantage by RNGesus advantage is not significantly better
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That’s not how standard deviations work though. The point is that if you are n players, the probability of any given player starting is 1/n. After an arbitrary number of dice throws, the probability that a given player is ahead remains 1/n, when you account for the throw that decided who would go first.
Let’s put it this way: Would it be “more random” who goes first if you throw ten dice to decide instead of one? Of course not. But that’s essentially what you’re doing when you go “warm up” rounds. You’re just throwing the dice more times, and letting whoever has the highest total go first. Clearly, the probability that any given player gets the highest total remains 1/n, regardless how many dice are thrown.
hansolo@lemmy.today 1 week ago
Life ain’t fair. Neither is Monopoly. That’s the point!
kossa@feddit.org 1 week ago
Which is basically just a die cast, but extended for no reason 😅