What's the Math Behind The Fate Dice

By René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas

The big thing we need to understand when using Fudge/Fate Dice is that the chances of getting a +4/-4 versus getting a 0 are drastically very different.

Outlining the results in a graph where the vertical axis represents the chances of getting a result and where the horizontal axis lists all the possible results, you would get something that looks like this:

So you technically have a 1.23% (1/81) chance of getting a -4/+4 but a 23.46% chance of getting a 0.

Where it gets crazy is when you start thinking about the chances of getting a 0 or higher?.

Because the probabilities are going to stack, you get 61.73% chances to get a 0 or higher.

If you were playing with a D20, the graph would look something like this:

That flat line means that basically, you have equal chances of getting each result separately which, by consequence means that the outcome of a roll tend to also be "flatter".

Closing Thoughts

Since Fudge/Fate Dice statistics have this bell curve quality to them, the end result will have a big tendency to stay in the -1 ==> 1 range. This makes even getting something like a +2 exciting.

Getting a +4 on the other hand is truly cause for celebration.

More Stats

ResultOdd of rollingOdd of rolling this or higher
-41.23%100%
-34.94%98.77%
-212.35%93.83%
-119.75%81.48%
023.46%61.73%
119.75%38.27%
212.35%18.52%
34.94%6.17%
41.23%1.23%
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