Die roller using python

Question

So I have been putting together a small text based game and I was wondering if this was the best way to execute a die roller:

import random

def roll_die(die_type, roll_times, print_op):
    total_roll = 0
    for roll_times:
        roll_result = random.randint(1, die_type)
        roll_result += total_roll
        if print_op == True:
            print(roll_result)
            print(total_roll)

I haven't done to much in python so if this is horrible beyond comprehension I understand.

Answer 1

This is a good time to get to grips with splitting things into small, self-contained functions and passing arguments around. As I see it, you have two tasks here:

1. Roll a single die once; and
2. Sum total of multiple rolls.

So this should be two functions:

import random

def roll_die(die_type, print_op=False):
    roll_result = random.randint(1, die_type)
    if print_op:
        print("Roll: {0}.".format(roll_result))
    return roll_result

def roll_dice(die_type, roll_times, print_op=False):
    total_roll = 0
    for _ in range(roll_times):
        total_roll += roll_die(die_type, print_op)
        if print_op:
            print("Running total: {0}.".format(total_roll))
    return total_roll

In use:

>>> print("Output: {0}.".format(roll_dice(6, 3, True)))
Roll: 5.
Running total: 5.
Roll: 1.
Running total: 6.
Roll: 5.
Running total: 11.
Output: 11.

Answer 2

Here's what I would do if I were you, adapting your code to something that works and seems to do what you want:

import random

def roll_die(die_type, roll_times, print_op=False):
    total_roll = 0              # you need to use an iterable to iterate over
    for _ in range(roll_times): # range is made for this
        roll_result = random.randint(1, die_type)
        total_roll += roll_result # you mixed these up
        if print_op:
            print(roll_result)
    if print_op:
        print(total_roll)
    return total_roll # don't forget to return your result

And demo of usage:

>>> print('returning:', roll_die(6, 3, True))
1
6
5
12
('returning:', 12)