{"id":33911,"date":"2026-06-02T21:30:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T01:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=33911"},"modified":"2026-06-04T10:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T14:39:11","slug":"using-dice-to-choose-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2026\/06\/using-dice-to-choose-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"On Alphabet Dice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asked & Answered 17.0<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

I was an amateur inventor of games from my childhood to mid-adulthood.\u00a0 Looking back,\u00a0 all my games were way too lame for anyone but close friends to accede to play.\u00a0 That they did so anyway (as some readers may remember!) makes me both wince and smile.*<\/p>\n

For some odd reason — especially odd because the last time I attended a party was over a decade ago — I was recently inspired to think up a dice-based party game.\u00a0 I’ll call it POP!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The party-attendees\/players would be divided into teams.\u00a0 Each team would, in their turn, toss a set of dice that would specify a pop-culture question to be answered — for example, name a film<\/em> with a three-word title<\/em> that starts with P<\/em>.\u00a0 The dice decide the category (film<\/em>), the number of words in the answer (three<\/em>), and the first letter of the answer (P<\/em>).<\/p>\n

[Aside: Did you just now pause to rack your brain for films with three-word titles starting with P?\u00a0 If so, my apologies, because the only one I came up with — in desperation — was Peter the Great <\/em>(USSR, 1937).\u00a0 This shows why POP!<\/strong> should be played by teams and then strictly adjudicated by Wikipedia.]<\/p>\n

There would be a time limit for the team to answer, to keep the game moving along and to afford the chance of failure.\u00a0 The team would score points (“POP”) if it came up with an answer within the allotted time, and nothing (“PLOP”) otherwise.\u00a0 Answers could only be used once a game.<\/p>\n

In POP!<\/strong>, the arts category would be selected by a six-sided die with the faces FILM – TV – PLAY – MUSIC <\/span>– BOOK<\/span> – ANY<\/span>.\u00a0 If the player rolls ANY<\/span>, the team may choose any form of art or entertainment including those (say POETRY or<\/span> BALLET<\/span>) not shown on the die.<\/p>\n

The number of words in the team’s answer would be chosen by another six-sided die with the faces 1<\/span> –\u00a02<\/span> –\u00a03<\/span> –\u00a04<\/span> –\u00a05<\/span> –\u00a0ANY.\u00a0 <\/span>Since long titles are rarer and harder to recall, the team’s score (if successful) would be based on the number of words in the title — say, 10 points a word, with a 10-point bonus for five-plus words.\u00a0 So, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest<\/em> would be a very profitable film or book answer if the team’s starting letter was O<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the matter of deciding the starting letter, and my impetus for writing this article.\u00a0 The challenge of an amateur game-designer like me is how one might “best” use a die or dice to select a letter from the 26-letter English alphabet.\u00a0 (I will touch upon what “best” means as we go along.)<\/p>\n

Selecting a starting letter would be trivial if we were simply content to ask a computer, “Pick a number from 1 to 26 and name the corresponding letter of the English alphabet.”\u00a0 But that computation takes place deep inside some data center where no light penetrates.\u00a0 Humans don’t trust results that emerge from the dark — we like to see physical processes play out, to convince ourselves of their “fairness.”\u00a0 This is how humans came to use solid, scrutable objects like dice to turn chance into outcome.<\/p>\n

Enough Already!\u00a0 Just Use a 26-sided Die!<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

The first and most obvious solution is for POP!<\/strong> players to roll an object that resembles an ordinary die except that it has 26 faces, with letters printed on the faces.\u00a0 You can even buy such dice on Amazon:<\/p>\n

\"\"Problem solved, we’re done here, yes?\u00a0 Well, yes, if I were anyone else but the unfortunate perfectionist I am.\u00a0 The issue with dice like these is that they are intrinsically not fair<\/em> — some faces come up more often than others, not that I can predict which ones.\u00a0 But still…<\/p>\n

Mathematicians have long known that only certain shapes qualify as fair.\u00a0 The foremost of those are the five Platonic solids<\/em> shown below, having 4, 6, 8, 12 and 20 faces:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Image Credit: www.technologyuk.net<\/p>\n

Besides these, a group of solids known as isohedrons<\/em><\/a> are also geometrically fair, but none happen to have 26 sides.\u00a0 This means that alphabet letter-picking hairsplitters<\/a> like me are out of luck when it comes to POP!<\/strong>\u00a0 So what are my alternatives?<\/p>\n

A.\u00a0 Manufacture and spin a 26-sided teetotum<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

As I recently learned, a teetotum<\/em> is a top with flat sides that commonly replaced dice<\/a> in devil-phobic times and cultures.\u00a0 The player spins the teetotum and reads the side that faces up when it comes to a stop.\u00a0 Here are some examples, including the Jewish dreidel<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

So why not just make a 26-sided teetotum — or the equivalent, a 26-sided barrel-shaped object with a different letter on each face — then spin it (or roll it) and call it a day?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here’s-Why-Not No. 1:\u00a0 A 26-sided object would be so smooth — 99% of a circle — that it might just roll around forever before it came to a stop (see cross-section below).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dice-Tossing Principle No. 1:\u00a0 A die must eventually come to a stop.<\/p>\n

Here’s-Why-Not No. 2:\u00a0 Size and readability.\u00a0 In order to read a 26-sided teetotum or barrel-shaped die, each face would need to be about 1\/4-inch tall — which means the object that you spin or roll would be more than two inches in diameter.\u00a0 Come on.<\/p>\n

It is my opinion, as a grizzled game-inventor, that such an object would be far too clunky (not to say inelegant<\/em>) to do the delicate job of selecting a letter from the English alphabet.\u00a0 Who’s with me on this?\u00a0 Let’s find a better way.<\/p>\n

B.\u00a0 Use fair die\/dice with extra faces and discard some outcomes<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

If a 26-sided die isn’t fair and a 26-sided barrel-shaped die is too clunky, then POP!<\/strong> could use dice of other shapes, alone or in combination, to pick the starting letter.\u00a0 One option is the rhombic triacontahedron, a fair D30 (short for 30-sided die<\/a>) made by Koplow Games<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Conveniently for our purposes, this die is imprinted with the 26 letters of the alphabet plus four “wild” faces, and it is not clunky — at 1.25 inches diameter, the die is about the size of a plump cherry tomato, or the “OK” circle you make with your thumb and forefinger.<\/p>\n

Although this die is fair, its wild faces work against our original goal, to ensure each letter has an equal chance of being selected.\u00a0 If we stick to that principle, then a player who rolls a wild should have to re-roll.\u00a0 This would mean 2 re-rolls every 15 tosses — inconvenient, yes, but not an overwhelming burden for purists like me.<\/p>\n

Even so, POP!<\/strong> could have a rule that a player could pick any starting letter if he\/she rolled two wilds in a row.\u00a0 (There’s less than a 2% chance of that on any turn.)\u00a0 This would be a lemonade-from-lemons kind of rule, and why not.<\/p>\n

C.\u00a0 Use six-sided alphabet dice with a selector<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n

You can buy nicely-designed six-sided alphabet dice like these on Amazon and elsewhere:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Such dice may be pleasing to roll but they leave something to be desired for POP!<\/strong> players.\u00a0 First off, this set of dice has the same issue as the D30 we just discussed — four of the faces have no letter and thus would require a re-roll.\u00a0 Secondly, and more to the point, there’s no obvious way to select one letter out of the five letters facing up.<\/p>\n

I can think of a few creative ways to select one of the five letter dice:<\/p>\n