Two Quick Yijing Dice Methods: With Yarrow and Dice Probabilities!

I’ve always been a fan of having multiple ways to perform divination, and particularly a fan of methods that are compact, minimalist, and portable.

The Yi’s traditional coin method is portable (three coins in a pocket or wallet!), but I wanted to see if there were any other pocket methods, and particularly ones that involve dice. There’s already quite a few dice-based Yi methods out there, but mostly ones that result in only one moving line, or they have their own probabilities.

With a quick bit of ingenuity, however, you can get Yi casts with the same probabilities as coins with one die, or the same as yarrow with two. This requires an eight-sided (and extra four-sided, for yarrow probabilities) die, found in standard polyhedral dice sets sold online and at geeky stores the world over.

The probabilities of the two different methods and an explanation of the numbers can be found here.

Coin Probability

As the probabilities for the coin method all reduce down to fractions of 8, this is quite straight forward.

One option would be to simply chunk the dice results up by probability, but I want to stick with the yin-yang structure of even and odd numbers. I also want to keep the traditional association of moving lines as “old” lines, and so assign them to higher numbers on the die. Doing so also makes the method easier to remember! Thus:

1. Roll a d8.
2. If an even number, it’s a yin line. If an odd number, a yang line.
3. If the result is 8 (the highest possible yin number), it’s a moving yin line. If the result is 7 (highest possible yang number), it’s a moving yang line.
4. Repeat five more times for a complete hexagram!

Simple.

Yarrow Probability

Yarrow probabilities are more complicated, as they cannot be reduced to fractions of 8, and so we have to deal with fractions of 16.

We can solve this by doubling the range of our d8, through adding a second dice to decide whether we have a yin or a yang line — I would recommend here a d4, staying with the Daoist-Confucian cosmology of doubling from the One, but you could also flip a coin.

1. Roll a d8 and d4 at once.
2. If the d4 is an even number, it is a yin line, if odd, a yang line.
   3. For yin lines: if the d8 is showing 8, it is a moving yin line.
   4. For yang lines: if the d8 is showing 6, 7, or 8, it is a moving yang line
3. Repeat five more times for a complete hexagram!

As simple as that. Thanks, ancient compilers of the Yijing.

Peace,
⭕️

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