Dice Lore: The World’s Oldest d20 Die
Sometime between 304 and 30 BC, a craftsman in Ptolemaic Egypt shaped what is now accepted to be the world’s oldest 20-sided die. Carved from serpentine rock and engraved in Greek letters, the d20 looks remarkably well to be over 2,000 years old.
The die is currently held in The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it has resided without much fanfare since 1910 after being acquired by Reverend Chauncey Murch during his missionary work in Egypt between 1883 and 1906.
Awesome Dice add Q-Workshop's Arcade Dice to Product Lineup
In our quest to find world's most awesome dice, we discovered the Arcade 7-Dice set deep within the Q-Workshop's lair. The arcade dice set is a throwback to a by-gone era when digital entertainment was purchased 25-cents at a time. The arcade of the 80's was a wonderful place of flashing lights, digital sounds, and excited kids of all ages (and a few adults). I fondly remember one of my birthday parties being held at a Diamond Gems arcade at my local mall and if I close my eyes and concentrate, I can still remember the sounds and even the smell...
The Fodders: Epic Gaming of the Nameless
I’ve always preferred one-shots (or two-shots) for certain types of games, like Cthulhu or Little Fears. And I’ve always preferred campaigns — the longer the better — for others, like D&D, L5R, and World of Darkness. But one of my fondest gaming memories was something in between: an epic weekend-long Pathfinder game. The game was the perfect vehicle for the creative GMing genius of longtime friend and epic gamemaster Dan. In the game, we all played members of a special, and extremely large, extended family known as the Fodders. The Fodders had many strict traditions that governed their way of...
Multi-Purpose Geekery
I’m a big fan of multi-purpose possessions whenever possible. For example rather than buying a special-purpose meat tenderizer, I just grab a big heavy candle out of the Cthulhu prop box (and cover it with plastic of course). I hate guest rooms, because they sit empty most of the year, but you can’t do anything in them because there’s a bed taking up most of the room. But replace the bed with a daybed and now you have tons of space and a sitting area that can be easily converted into a bedroom on the few times a year that you need...
Do Transparent Dice Roll Better?
This is pure speculation based on how dice are manufactured, but it’s entirely possible that transparent or translucent style dice may technically roll more true than opaque dice. I was talking with some dice manufacturers who told me that the plastic used to manufacture dice is actually clear by default, and opaque dice have coloring added. This seemed odd to me, and I asked why basic opaque dice were vastly cheaper than, say, clear dice that wouldn’t require additional additives. The short answer: opaque dice have air bubbles inside them. Why it Happens Air bubbles can form inside the dice...
Home: the Secret to Better D&D Campaigns
At a high level, many D&D campaigns tend to take after the Lord of the Rings, or the Dragonlance Chronicles, or countless other high fantasy sagas. They are at their heart a fellowship of travelers and heroes, wandering the land fighting a great evil, or righting many smaller wrongs. The characters in these games usually have some kind of back story about where they came from, and perhaps they even have a theoretical family at some nameless village or forest. But the group really has no home: they are just wanderers. From city to city, from dungeon to necropolis, they...