I just finished reading this short book about the bad effects of Innumeracy. (The math equivilent of illiteracy.)
I enjoyed it quite a bit for the afternoon it took me to read it. Of particular interest to people here, is the author spends a good chunk of one chapter going over probability and posing some interesting questions. But it is all in a pretty accessable way. I would recommend this book for any of the designers here who like to get 'under the hood' of a game and explore its numbers. I would also recommend it for the more casual designer as it may encourage them to look a bit closer at the mathmatics behind their own designs.
And he mentions a set of 4, 6 sided dice labled in a such a way that, A beats B, B beasts C, C beasts D, and D beasts A, all 2/3rds of the time. And that is just cool.
No it makes me a poor writer :)
Apparently this was discovered by a guy named Bradley Efron.
You have four dics. A, B, C, and D.
Die A has the following faces: 4,4,4,4,0,0
Die B is: 3,3,3,3,3,3
Die C is: 2,2,2,2,6,6
Die D is: 1,1,1,5,5,5
If you roll die A against die B, A will win 2/3 of the time. B beats C 2/3 of the time, C beats D, and D beats A! All at a rate of 2/3.
In the book this leads to a discussion of voting paradoxes which is pretty interesting.