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Casting with a 20-sided die

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Hello,
I've had a long-time interest in the I Ching, though little usage. I was working out a way of using a 20-sided die for generating the hexagrams and came to an interesting observation. I do not know if this has been observed before, or even if there would be interest:

One roll of a d20 gives one line of a hexagram with probabilities that are always between the yarrow stalk (YS) and coin (C) methods:

odd (yang) vs. even (yin) is of course the same: 50% probability for each (same as YS and C)

now:
for a *6* (old yin)
if you rolled a 2 or 4, then *6*,
otherwise, any other even number rolled is *8*

for a *9* (old yang)
if you rolled a 15, 17 or 19, then *9*,
otherwise, any other odd number rolled is *7*

probabilities:
YS d20 C
6 6.25% 10% 12.5%
7 31.25% 35% 37.5%
8 43.75% 40% 37.5%
9 18.75% 15% 12.5%

Just wondered if this kind of thing is of interest to the I ching community.

Thanks!
Brian
Orlando, FL, USA
 

moss elk

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Welcome brianthegoplayer,

Why not just designate 1-10 as yin and 11-20 as yang?
Then roll 3d20 six times. (Just like when you roll stats)

Also, would you mind handing me the cheetos and my Gauntlets of Ogre power? (Lord Smackintush is up to his old tricks again.)
;)

Tenuki time.
 
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remod

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Hi Brian. I'm very interested to this sort of thing.
I really believe that finding the casting method that mostly suits you is a great experience. I feel it gives you a much stronger connection with the resulting hexagram.

At the moment, among the methods I devised, my favourites are:
- a string of 16 identical beads
- an octagonal tablet
- a square tablet (that requires two "operation" for each line)

I'm currently working on a method that uses one special card (and which requires 3 operations for each line, as the yarrow stalk method does).

I prefer methods whose probability are close to the Yarrow Stalks but I think that any method is fine as long as one is able to interpret the resulting hexagram in light of that method.

Remo
 

remod

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Yes, the difference is that I use 16 identical beads, not 16 of different colours.

The first string of beads I made was of 4 colours as suggested (I posted it on my site back in 2001 under the "Marbles" section), then I made one with two colors, then I realized I only needed one :)

Of course the concept is the same: use 1,3,5,7 to determine the line.

Remo
 

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