Twenty Sided Die
Twenty Sided Die is a group of people who know who Gary Gygax is. We are people who still play Dungeons and Dragons and people who used to play Dungeons and Dragons, but wished that we could play Dungeons and Dragons again. We are members of this group because it makes us stronger.
The cube is one of a group of solid shapes known as Platonic Solids, named after the Greek philosopher Plato who first studied them. A better mathematical name is Regular Polyhedra. This group of solid shapes is defined by each face being a regular polygon (all sides and angles equal) and with each vertex (corner) having an equal arrangement and number of faces, all at equal angles. Regular Polyhedra make great dice because each face has an equal chance of being thrown as any other and can be considered as fair dice.
There are only five of these Regular Polyhedra solid shapes that meet the above criteria. Tetrahedron, Hexahedron (cube), Octahedron, Dodecahedron, Icosahedron.
We icosahedrons have 20 faces and each face is an equilateral triangle.
We are the elite.
This guy maintains the group profile.
This is a picture of my grandfather.
Favorite Movies
Summoner Geeks
Let (s)he who is without sin cast the first twenty-sided die. - Die Proverb
Spinning, rolling, gyring, circumduction, rotating, revolving, rocking, twirling, reeling, turning, wheeling, and whirling.
Dice are the oldest gaming implements known to man. Their precise origins are unknown but they have a long and rich history none the less.
Sophocles (496 - 406 BC), the Greek poet and tragedian, claimed that dice were invented by the Greek, Palamedes, during the siege of Troy. Herodotus (b. 484 BC?), historian and acquaintance of Sophocles, said they were invented by the Lydians of Asia Minor. But dice date back further than this. Egyptian tombs, dated to 2000 BC, have been found containing dice and dice reputedly dated to 6000 BC have been uncovered in archaeological excavations. Dice were developed independently by many ancient cultures all over the world and did not simply originate and spread from any one place.
In ancient times the throw of a dice was not just considered to be luck, the outcome was believed to be controlled by the gods and casting dice was a way of dividing inheritances, choosing rulers and as a method of prediction. The Roman goddess, Fortuna, daughter of Zeus (known to gamblers as Lady Luck), was believed to determine the outcome of a throw.
Before standard cubical dice became common, ancient peoples would use fruit stones, sets of flat sticks, sea shells, nut shells and pebbles to get random results for games. These were probably adopted from witch doctors and shaman who would throw them to gain insight and knowledge of the unknown and things to come. Fortune telling is still practiced with standard dice to this day.
Animal knucklebones were the next step in the evolution of dice. The Greeks and Romans used sheep anklebones as well as the more developed cubical spotted dice. The Romans called the four-sided anklebones Tali or Astaragali and the standard six-sided dice Tesserae. The Arab word for knucklebones is the same word they use for dice. Playing with dice is still known as "rolling the bones" to this day.
Of course games have been played with dice from their early beginnings. The first were probably simple racing games and have been lost to history. The pharaohs of ancient Egypt were portrayed playing with dice and both the Romans and Greeks were keen dice players. Roman Emperors notoriously played and gambled with dice compulsively. Dice games are known to have been popular in Europe during the Middle Ages when French academics taught them to their students. In England, Richard the Lion Heart and King John both gambled with dice and King Henry VIII lost the bells of old St Paul's church on a throw. Dice games have been played in English inns since at least the 15th century.
Dominoes descended from dice in China and spread to the west during the 18th century while standard ordinary dice became the vital component of a vast array of commercial board games in the 19th and 20th centuries. In recent times polyhedral dice have gained widespread popularity with modern technological advances in plastic moulding.
Many Role Playing Games (RPGs) along the lines of Dungeons and Dragons use polyhedral dice that do not have six faces but instead may have 4, 8, 10, 20, 30 even 100s of faces with numbers, spots, words or symbols.
In RPGs the dice are used to gain strength and power in specific categories. Wizardry and sorcery in ancient times may be expressed in terms of dice throws. Players take on character identities and may become elves, knights, wizards, etc. These characters will have abilities like speed, strength and magic which can be determined by the throw of the dice.
In Collectable Dice Games (CDGs) players must buy or collect particular dice to use against opposing players, giving them superior abilities, powers and the advantage. Consequently, some dice are rarer and than others.
These small plastic polyhedral shapes hold the key to a RPG or CDG games course and outcome.
Polyhedral dice are usually numbered with numerals not spots. Sometimes they are numbered more than once with the same numeral. d20s are sometimes numbered twice with the numbers 0 - 9. It is also possible that some numbers will be marked more frequently than others. For example a d6 marked 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4. Dice like these are known as averaging dice. They change the odds of particular totals being thrown and prevent extreme results. Unscrupulous players may use crooked polyhedral dice marked twice with a particular number to give themselves better odds.
Many polyhedral dice are not marked with numbers but are marked with symbols, categories or instructional words. These dice are usually specifically used for their own particular RPG or CDG although not always.
Polyhedral dice often come in standard sets of seven - d4, d6, d8, 2d10, d12, d20. One d10 will be marked in tens, 0 to 90, so it can be used with the other as percentile dice (d%).
Polyhedral dice come in a range of attractive finishes, colours and materials to appeal to a RPG or CDG gamer's aesthetic senses. You can even find them made from real semi-precious stones and minerals.
Several polyhedra in various materials with similar symbols are known from the Roman period.
Modern scholarship has not yet established the game for which these dice were used, but we know.
Don't we?