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BGonline.org Forums
Clocks + Random Dice Generator ?
Posted By: MaX
Date: Friday, 11 September 2009, at 10:52 a.m.
I've read the whole thread about baffle boxes/tubes and I have to say that I'm not 100% convinced. What's our goal?
- Avoid dice cheaters. This includes unbalanced dice, skilled rollers, changing the dice once landed etc.
- Avoid discussions around premature rolls.
- Speed up the game, avoiding cooked dice, dice falling under the table etc.
It seems to me that the BG community is about to accept clocks as a standard, so why not take advantage of the thing and try to merge the clock and dice into a single electronic device ? I'll first describe how the device would be used and later on how the Random Dice Generator (RDG) seed is chosen and how you can prove the device has not been manipulated.
- The device is a normal BG clock (with one "Time" button per player) plus two "Roll" buttons (one for each player) and a display for the roll.
- You setup the clock part as usual (e.g. 2min/15sec).
- One of the players clicks on the roll button until a non-double roll appears: the player on the side of the higher die will start. Let's say its' player A.
- Player B presses his time button, starting the time for Player A.
- Player A moves and presses his time button.
- Player B can now decide to roll (pressing his roll button, making the move and then pressing his time button) or to double (giving the cube and pressing his time button).
The rest is obvious and not too far from current clock-based procedure.
The device could be made "smart":
·if player A has just pressed his time button ending his move or cube decision, then if player A presses his Roll button this is ignored (A is not on roll).
·if player A has doubled (has pressed his time button before rolling), then player B cannot roll (B is not on roll).
·the roll played by player A stays displayed until player B also has pressed his roll button. This allows contesting a move (you moved 64 it was 62, it’s still on the display).
Pros and cons:
+ As far as you trust the RDG (we'll come back on this later), there's no dice cheating.
+ No cooked dice, no dice falling under the table, no dice at all actually: the 15s per move could be made shorter as you don't have to shake.
+ No premature rolling.
- No dice, no shaking (maybe we can have a deluxe version with sounds)
- The device is BG specific. Is there a real market for that?
Now the question would be: how can you be sure that the device your opponent is offering to use has not been manipulated?
- The RNG must be initialized with a seed (an integer).
- At match start, each player enters in the device a private key (an integer), not shown to the opponent.
- The seed is computed from the two keys (let's keep it simple for now, take the sum of the two) and not shown.
- When the match is over, the device shows the two keys and the computed seed.
- You pick another similar device, enter the keys (or the seed, directly) and check if the sequence is identical to the one you have recorded (you need to record your match).
Notice that:
·The usage of the private keys is only to avoid the fact that, if the seed is visible, a player could ask for a break, pick another device, enter the seed and see the sequence (or be in contact with a third person that could do this for him).
·In order to check the sequence at match end, you don't need and identical device. If the RNG algorithm is known and fixed (e.g. a Mersenne Twister), any implementation of it is good to check the validity. You can even imagine a software version, with open source code, that runs on your PC/Cell phone.
Personally I would be happy to use this in big money tournaments, keeping the old-fashion dice for my local club where I know who I play against. To me, the only big obstacle is that this is a BG specific device.
MaX.
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