If anyone wants a practical way to decide who goes first, in a single roll, with no possibility of a tie, this works:
For 2 players, the dealer rolls a standard 6-sided die, and the result determines who goes first:
1, 2, 3 => Player A
4, 5, 6 => Player B
For 3 players, the dealer rolls a standard 6-side die:
1, 2 => Player A
3, 4 => Player B
5, 6 => Player C
For 4 players, the dealer rolls a standard d20 die:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5 => Player A
6, 7, 8, 9, 10 => Player B
11, 12, 13, 14, 15 => Player C
16, 17, 18, 19, 20 => Player D
For 5 players, the dealer rolls a standard d20 die:
1, 2, 3, 4 => Player A
5, 6, 7, 8 => Player B
9, 10, 11, 12 => Player C
13, 14, 15, 16 => Player D
17, 18, 19, 20 => Player E
If the dealer has a tetrahedral (d4) die, they can use that instead for the 4-player problem.
This is really all you need to decide who goes first. It's perfectly fair. It uses standard dice that most people already have in their game drawer.
The article is actually about a different, much harder problem about the full playing order. You don't actually need that extra complexity to decide who goes first.
For 2 players, the dealer rolls a standard 6-sided die, and the result determines who goes first:
For 3 players, the dealer rolls a standard 6-side die: For 4 players, the dealer rolls a standard d20 die: For 5 players, the dealer rolls a standard d20 die: If the dealer has a tetrahedral (d4) die, they can use that instead for the 4-player problem.This is really all you need to decide who goes first. It's perfectly fair. It uses standard dice that most people already have in their game drawer.
The article is actually about a different, much harder problem about the full playing order. You don't actually need that extra complexity to decide who goes first.