Today, 22 February 2022 or 22-02-2022, a Tuesday, I would like to focus on the subject of the binary randomizer and the D2 (or d2). You have two choices. Continue reading, or cease reading.
Ah, you have chosen to continue reading. Excellent. That was a binary choice. You had two options: do the thing or do not do the thing. That is how binary randomizers work. In its simplest form, such as a coin, you have two possible results: heads or tails (referring to the obverse and reverse sides of a coin). Traditionally, the coin is flipped or tossed by one person and "heads" or "tails" is called by another. If the the coin lands on the side called by the second person, the second person prevails. If it doesn't, the first person prevails. The coin flip can also be used to make a decision for which there are two options, or determine a course of action that can be answered by "yes" or "no." In such cases, heads usually means yes and tails usually means no. Coins have also been used as binary randomizers in certain role-playing games, one of the more famous of which is Prince Valiant. This game takes the concept of the D6 dice pool and replaces it with coins in which heads = 1 and tails = 0. Toss the coins and count those that land on heads. That's your result. Dice can be substituted for coins in which even numbers = 1 and odd numbers = 0. Or you can make 1 through 3 = 0 and 4 through 6 = 1 if you prefer high numbers. You can even find binary dice that have an equal number of sides marked 1 and 0. The point of all this is that binary randomizers, including coins, give you a range of two results: 1 or 0. Something or nothing. Yes or no.
None of this is related to the "D2." Some may claim that a coin is a D2 on the basis that it has two sides, but the number of sides on a randomizer does not necessarily reflect the range of numbers it can generate. Take, if you will, the D3. The D3 is typically a six-sided die in which the result is divided by two (or a six-sided die marked 1 through 3 twice). It has six sides, but the highest number you can roll is 3. That makes it a D3. For a coin to be a D2, one side must be designated as 1 and the other as 2. This would be fine, especially if they were custom made, but there are some who mistakenly call a coin a D2, but use it as a binary randomizer. In actuality, a binary randomizer is a D1 because the highest number you can generate with a single binary randomizer is 1. The coin as a real D2 can exist, but only as an outlier. The coin in its traditional use as decision maker is truly a D1.
In honor of this twice blessed day, though, I offer a true D2 coin that need not be a binary randomizer: the coin bearing the likeness of Janus, the Roman god with two faces. If you roll heads, Janus counts as 2. The other side counts as 1.
No comments:
Post a Comment