Often
dice are written using the
lowercase `
d'. It still causes no confusion with
differentials, because a
digit follows rather than a
variable.
The full notation is more expressive:
- 1d6+3 means to roll a 6-sided die and add 3 to the result (between 4 and 9).
- 3d6 means to roll a 6-sided die 3 times and add up the results (note that this is not algebra's shorthand for multiplication!). The result follows approximately a normal distribution.
- Combining, 2d6-5 means to sum up the results of rolling 2 6-sided die, then subtract 5 (result is between -3 and 7).
- D&D also has a 10-sided die, so d10 also makes sense. And d100 or d00 is a percentage roll: roll the 10-sided die once for the tens digit, then once for the units digit