Game Tools

Nineteen tools, and every draw comes from a seed you can share

**Every draw here is seeded, and the seed is shown.** A roll, a shuffle, a scramble and a dungeon all come from a word: type one and everybody who opens the link gets the same result; leave it empty and a fresh one is drawn and printed, so a roll can be pinned after the fact. That is what makes a roll made on somebody else's phone a roll you can check — and it is exactly why none of this may be used to deal for money.

**A probability is exact wherever exact is possible, and says which it was.** `3d6` has 216 outcomes and 27 of them are eleven; that is counted, not simulated, and the number does not move when you press the button again. A hand against three unknown opponents has more deals than could ever be walked, so that one is sampled — and labelled as sampled.

**The rules are yours.** No game's tables are shipped: a loot table, a scoring template, a word list and a character sheet's own progression all come from whoever is playing. Rules are somebody's copyright and every group plays a variant, so a built-in table would be wrong and authoritative at once. The three tables that *are* here — the letter values, the basic strategy chart, the poker rankings — are published ones and say so.

**Three tools of this group are missing, and they are named here rather than left to be hunted for.** A life counter, a quiz buzzer and an escape-room timer are interfaces that keep a state and run a clock; a tool here is a function from one text to one result. Five more became the half of themselves that *is* a function — a scramble rather than a timer, an average of the times you type rather than the times it takes — and each says which half it is.

Dice

Dice roller
Rolls the notation, dropped dice and all, from a seed anybody can check.

Dice odds
Counts every outcome of a roll rather than simulating it, and draws the histogram.

Dice score sheet
Scores a five-dice sheet, checks each entry belongs where it was put, and adds the bonuses.

Cards and boards

Card shuffler
Shuffles and deals from a seed, so the same word gives everybody the same hands.

Poker odds
Counts every board where counting is possible, samples where it is not, and says which it did.

Basic strategy chart
The published play for a hand against a dealer card, with the rules that change it as settings.

Chess game reader
Replays a game move by move, draws the board at any of them, and names an illegal move rather than reading past it.

At the table

Initiative order
Sorts a fight into order and rolls for whoever has no number yet, with the tie rule as a setting.

Character sheet
Works out the modifiers, saves and carrying capacity from the abilities, naming no game's rules.

Loot table
Draws from your own weighted tables, follows the references between them, and shows the chances.

People generator
Draws a trade, a manner, a want and a secret from small generic tables, and no names at all.

Dungeon map
Draws a floor plan with numbered rooms, every one of which can be walked to from every other.

Word games

Word score
Adds a word up with its premium squares, in five sets of tile values, and shows the working.

Word finder
Finds what your rack can spell in a word list you paste, because no dictionary is shipped here.

Scores and times

Score sheet
Adds a sheet up round by round and ranks the players, with the winning direction as a setting.

Swiss pairing
Pairs the next round by score without repeating a meeting, and gives an odd field a bye.

Split comparison
Compares your splits with a best run segment by segment, and sums the best segments into a run nobody had.

Cube scrambles and averages
Generates a competition scramble from a seed, and works out the trimmed averages of the times you type.

Game backlog
Counts what is left in the pile and how many weeks of your own hours it would take.

Questions

Why are the dice odds counted rather than simulated?: Because they can be. `3d6` has 216 outcomes and enumerating them is instant, so the answer is a fraction of whole numbers rather than a percentage that moves each time you press the button. Rolling 4d6 and keeping three is counted the same way — all 1 296 of them — which is where the 12.24 average every character generator quotes comes from.
Which three tools of this group are not here?: A life counter, a quiz buzzer and an escape-room timer. All three keep a state and run a clock: a counter you press, four keyboards racing to a millisecond, a countdown on a projector. A tool here is a function from one text to one result, and adding that vocabulary to the framework for three tools would be the tail wagging the dog. Five others became the half of themselves that is a function, and each says so.
Why does the poker calculator sometimes say “sampled”?: Because a hand against three unknown opponents has more possible deals than there are seconds in the age of the universe. Against nobody — or with the board nearly full — every completion is walked and the figure is exact. Which of the two just happened is on the result, because a number that moves when you press again is a different kind of number from one that does not.
Why does the dungeon map never have an unreachable room?: Because the corridors are dug from a room already connected, so every room is reachable by construction rather than by a check afterwards. A room nobody can walk to is not a surprise for the players, it is a bug in the map.

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