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

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