Okay, so I've started typing up my posts in NotePad before I post them here. Lets see how this goes. (and pictures too)
Here we go. A history of the familiar D&D polyhedral dice that I looked up and then didn't publish for a few weeks.
Actual Names of the dice. The actual names of the different numbered sided side goes as follows. Poly = Many, and Hedron = Parts that make a whole, such as sides. So they are PolyHedron dice. Tetrahedron - d4 Hexahedron "The Cube" - d6 Octahedron - d8 Pentagonal Trapezohedron - d10 and percentile die Dodecahedron - d12 Icosahedron - d20 Hecatonhedron "Zocchihedron" - d100 -D&D Dice Explained, 31MAY2019, https://www.dieharddice.com/what-are-dnd-dice
The history of dice. 3000 BCE (Before Common Era... used to be known as BC) was the approximate date of the oldest known dice to have been found. They were found in Turkey and judging by the picture I saw, they were d4's. 400 BCE was the oldest known written records of dice, in the Sanskrit epic, the "Mahabharata" 300 BCE Oldest d20 found in Egypt. Dated to the Ptolemaic period of Eypgt (their last royal dynasty before being fully engulfed by the Romans (304 BCE - 30 BCE.) It has symbols on it like Eta, Theta, and Epsilon. 1974 CE (Common Era... used to be known as AD) Dungeons & Dragons sells a set of polyhedral dice with their game. 1980 CE GenCon claims to have invented the d10 die (which was missing from the standard set of 7 listed today) 1985 CE The Zocchihedron (a true d100) is created by Lou Zocchi (more on him later) -Oldest confirmed Dice found in ancient Turkey -Dice, A. (18MAY2012) History of Dice, 31MAY2019, https://www.awesomedice.com/blog/253/history-of-dice-2/
To cut down on this complication, Gary Gygax started using a bag of poker chips numbered 1 through 20 that players would draw.-Kushner, D. (2017) Rise of the Dungeon Master, New York, Nation Books
Original D&D Dice The original dice were from a small educational company in the United States. They were not very good, being very soft and brittle. This damaged their statistical use as their corners and edges wore away. I've seen them called Crayola Dice and Clay Dice (nothing that stated they were actually made of clay) -Johnston, T. (9DEC2015) Gamescience providing precision dice for more than 40 years, 31MAY2019, https://nerdarchy.com/gamescience-precision-dice-40-years/ AND "Crayola Dice" 31MAY2019 https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Crayola_Dice Dave Wesley from the Geneva/Gygax side of the early D&D seems to have found the dice from the educational company first. -Wrzlprmft (10APR2013) At what point did polyhedral dice become part of D&D, 31MAY2019, https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/24627/at-what-point-did-polyhedral-dice-become-part-of-dd One source I found said that Lou Zocchi was the first person that Gygax approached to make dice specific to D&D (cannot find a date that Gygax spoke to Zocchi about this though.) Choovanski, K. (12JUL2015) History of the D20, 31MAY2019 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1399985/history-d20 The original d20 was numbered 1-10 twice. It (like all the other original dice) would be filled in by crayon. But the d20 used two different colors of crayon. The first color would denote 1-10 normally, and the second 1-10 would be a different color to mark that they were +10 to the roll. This allowed the d20 to function as a d10 also (hence why the d10 doesn't seem to appear until about 5 years later)
Dave Arneson in an article he wrote that appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #150 says that the dice were differently colored. d4 was Yellow, d6 was Pink, d8 was Bright Green, d12 was Light Blue, and d20 was White. Their numbers were not colors, so you would color them in yourself with the crayons that came packaged with them (apparently different from today's crayons as they were softer and would cram a bit of themselves in the number space). Originally there was a problem in that D&D only expected to use the d6 and d20. But there were other dice in the back from the educational company that TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) were buying dice from. It was figured to be far easier to change the rules to incorporate the extra dice instead of opening every package and removing the dice that were not originally in the rules. -Arneson, D (April 2009) Dice Story, No. 150, pg 103 The price of the dice started low (even low for the time) and steadily began to rise as more people ordered these 2nd hand dice from TSR. After the 3rd printing (NOT 3rd Edition) the educational company couldn't keep up. A magazine article by Dave Arneson says that they went to a Chinese company after that to get dice and that Lou Zocchi (him again) made the first non-TSR table-top RPG dice. -Arneson, D (April 2009) Dice Story, No. 150, pg 103 Another forum, however, stated that Lou Zocchi was the first company that Gygax came to for RPG dice. Never did find a date for that though. -Choovanski, K. (12JUL2015) History of the D20, 31MAY2019 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1399985/history-d20
A little info on the, oft mentioned, Louis Zocchi. A little personal idea of Lou Zocchi is that the guy is -crazy- about dice. Making 10,000 rolls for dice to see if they were random enough and making multiple YouTube videos on why his dice are more random than other dice and all the steps he makes to ensure his dice are ultra nice. Lou Zocchi has two patents on true 100 sided dice (known as Zocchihedrons) the first type was not random enough for him so he created a better version. The first patent ran out in 19SEPT2015 and the patent on the Zocchihedron 2 lasts at least until 09AUG2025 Zocchi created the GameScience company in 1974 (same year that D&D was published) out of the company called Gamescience Corp that was started in 1965. -Wikipedia GameScience was the first company to market polyhedral dice. -Johnston, T. (9DEC2015) Gamescience providing precision dice for more than 40 years, 31MAY2019, https://nerdarchy.com/gamescience-precision-dice-40-years/
A a note, most Metal Dice today are a Zinc alloy that is usually coated to resemble a different metal "copper coated" or "gold coated" dice. Dice that are usually solidly made of a metal seem to run $20 - $70 per die of the metal -Google Search
If anyone has more questions on dice, I might be able to answer them. Whether in posts or personal messages.
* Edited to make the pictures view-able without clicking on the links for the pictures.
Okay, so I've started typing up my posts in NotePad before I post them here. Lets see how this goes. (and pictures too)
Here we go. A history of the familiar D&D polyhedral dice that I looked up and then didn't publish for a few weeks.
Actual Names of the dice.
The actual names of the different numbered sided side goes as follows. Poly = Many, and Hedron = Parts that make a whole, such as sides. So they are PolyHedron dice.
Tetrahedron - d4
Hexahedron "The Cube" - d6
Octahedron - d8
Pentagonal Trapezohedron - d10 and percentile die
Dodecahedron - d12
Icosahedron - d20
Hecatonhedron "Zocchihedron" - d100
-D&D Dice Explained, 31MAY2019, https://www.dieharddice.com/what-are-dnd-dice
The history of dice.
3000 BCE (Before Common Era... used to be known as BC) was the approximate date of the oldest known dice to have been found. They were found in Turkey and judging by the picture I saw, they were d4's.
400 BCE was the oldest known written records of dice, in the Sanskrit epic, the "Mahabharata"
300 BCE Oldest d20 found in Egypt. Dated to the Ptolemaic period of Eypgt (their last royal dynasty before being fully engulfed by the Romans (304 BCE - 30 BCE.) It has symbols on it like Eta, Theta, and Epsilon.
1974 CE (Common Era... used to be known as AD) Dungeons & Dragons sells a set of polyhedral dice with their game.
1980 CE GenCon claims to have invented the d10 die (which was missing from the standard set of 7 listed today)
1985 CE The Zocchihedron (a true d100) is created by Lou Zocchi (more on him later)
-Oldest confirmed Dice found in ancient Turkey -Dice, A. (18MAY2012) History of Dice, 31MAY2019, https://www.awesomedice.com/blog/253/history-of-dice-2/
War Gaming.
There seemed to be a percentage table for people playing war games with only d6's that looked complicated. I'll try to post the picture here **** -Peterson, J. (3FEB2013) How Gaming Got Its Dice, 31MAY2019, http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2013/02/how-gaming-got-its-dice.html
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MVJfleXNz6g/UQ7py5FSrvI/AAAAAAAAAcA/8zwn63WjtDU/s1600/korns-dice-s.jpg
To cut down on this complication, Gary Gygax started using a bag of poker chips numbered 1 through 20 that players would draw.-Kushner, D. (2017) Rise of the Dungeon Master, New York, Nation Books
Original D&D Dice
The original dice were from a small educational company in the United States. They were not very good, being very soft and brittle. This damaged their statistical use as their corners and edges wore away. I've seen them called Crayola Dice and Clay Dice (nothing that stated they were actually made of clay) -Johnston, T. (9DEC2015) Gamescience providing precision dice for more than 40 years, 31MAY2019, https://nerdarchy.com/gamescience-precision-dice-40-years/ AND "Crayola Dice" 31MAY2019 https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Crayola_Dice
Dave Wesley from the Geneva/Gygax side of the early D&D seems to have found the dice from the educational company first. -Wrzlprmft (10APR2013) At what point did polyhedral dice become part of D&D, 31MAY2019, https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/24627/at-what-point-did-polyhedral-dice-become-part-of-dd
One source I found said that Lou Zocchi was the first person that Gygax approached to make dice specific to D&D (cannot find a date that Gygax spoke to Zocchi about this though.) Choovanski, K. (12JUL2015) History of the D20, 31MAY2019 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1399985/history-d20
The original d20 was numbered 1-10 twice. It (like all the other original dice) would be filled in by crayon. But the d20 used two different colors of crayon. The first color would denote 1-10 normally, and the second 1-10 would be a different color to mark that they were +10 to the roll. This allowed the d20 to function as a d10 also (hence why the d10 doesn't seem to appear until about 5 years later)
https://1d4chan.org/images/8/83/Crayoladice.JPG
Dave Arneson in an article he wrote that appeared in Knights of the Dinner Table #150 says that the dice were differently colored. d4 was Yellow, d6 was Pink, d8 was Bright Green, d12 was Light Blue, and d20 was White. Their numbers were not colors, so you would color them in yourself with the crayons that came packaged with them (apparently different from today's crayons as they were softer and would cram a bit of themselves in the number space).
Originally there was a problem in that D&D only expected to use the d6 and d20. But there were other dice in the back from the educational company that TSR (Tactical Studies Rules) were buying dice from. It was figured to be far easier to change the rules to incorporate the extra dice instead of opening every package and removing the dice that were not originally in the rules. -Arneson, D (April 2009) Dice Story, No. 150, pg 103
The price of the dice started low (even low for the time) and steadily began to rise as more people ordered these 2nd hand dice from TSR. After the 3rd printing (NOT 3rd Edition) the educational company couldn't keep up. A magazine article by Dave Arneson says that they went to a Chinese company after that to get dice and that Lou Zocchi (him again) made the first non-TSR table-top RPG dice. -Arneson, D (April 2009) Dice Story, No. 150, pg 103
Another forum, however, stated that Lou Zocchi was the first company that Gygax came to for RPG dice. Never did find a date for that though. -Choovanski, K. (12JUL2015) History of the D20, 31MAY2019 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1399985/history-d20
A little info on the, oft mentioned, Louis Zocchi.
A little personal idea of Lou Zocchi is that the guy is -crazy- about dice. Making 10,000 rolls for dice to see if they were random enough and making multiple YouTube videos on why his dice are more random than other dice and all the steps he makes to ensure his dice are ultra nice.
Lou Zocchi has two patents on true 100 sided dice (known as Zocchihedrons) the first type was not random enough for him so he created a better version. The first patent ran out in 19SEPT2015 and the patent on the Zocchihedron 2 lasts at least until 09AUG2025
Zocchi created the GameScience company in 1974 (same year that D&D was published) out of the company called Gamescience Corp that was started in 1965. -Wikipedia
GameScience was the first company to market polyhedral dice. -Johnston, T. (9DEC2015) Gamescience providing precision dice for more than 40 years, 31MAY2019, https://nerdarchy.com/gamescience-precision-dice-40-years/
A a note, most Metal Dice today are a Zinc alloy that is usually coated to resemble a different metal "copper coated" or "gold coated" dice. Dice that are usually solidly made of a metal seem to run $20 - $70 per die of the metal -Google Search
If anyone has more questions on dice, I might be able to answer them. Whether in posts or personal messages.
* Edited to make the pictures view-able without clicking on the links for the pictures.
Good luck and may you roll 20's when you need them and 1's when you need a laugh. - myself