When Work and Play Collide - Bringing the D&D Dice to Work

Not many people get to play with dice at work, but I do!  This week we're looking at stochastic simulation models in my 4th year class.  Having been trained as an elementary school teacher (some time in the dark ages), I love to use concrete materials in class when ever possible.  So today I gave each of my students a D10 and had them rolling away to generate four digit random variables between 0 and 1.  The we used the inversion method to generate claim times, loss amounts and lag times to adjudicate claims (this being longer for more expensive and thus more complex claims).  On in wargamers terms were rolled a handful of dice and checked our Combat Results Tables!


The really funny thing is every time I do this exercise the class instantly separates into two groups - those who played D&D as kids (most of the Canadian kids, easily inditified by the grins that light up their faces) and those who haven't (mostly the foreign kids identified by looks of complete befuddlement).