So one thing that is obvious from reading the rules for OD&D is that in design it was meant to be a total black box. Players don't even roll up their own characters, let alone roll to-hit, damage, or saves! But it seems to me that this must have changed in actual practice fairly early on.
My question for Gronan is -- at what point did D&D break out of the black box? Were you rolling your own characters, to-hit rolls, etc. during the pre-release Greyhawk games? When did that become standard practice in Lake Geneva, if ever?
Quote from: Iosue;869423So one thing that is obvious from reading the rules for OD&D is that in design it was meant to be a total black box.
The obviousness you refer to eludes me. Got a few quotes?
The only obvious thing that comes to my mind is that the referee rolls ability scores.
One might infer however from the reference to players perhaps having acquired the booklets to get a leg up in a campaign (and the suggestion to pencil in whatever house rules one might learn) that a lot of people had been playing before publication with at least a significant portion hidden.
The Example of Play might further suggest that player knowledge of details was largely (if not wholly) limited to that acquired in play, which might eventually include a fair bit of lore about what sorts of magic items had been found yet not encompass precise mapping of various dice tosses to results.
Tim Kask laments in Supplement III the effect that proliferation of the books among players has had. Gary Gygax in the AD&D DMG suggests that discovering how things work and what might be encountered is a key part of the fun, an experience of which novices should not be deprived for the sake of the old hands.
Here's an image of the OD&D character sheet TSR produced:
(https://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/miscpages/miscscans/76pc.jpg)
This shows at least a different attitude than the AD&D sheets!
Quote from: Phillip;869459Here's an image of the OD&D character sheet TSR produced:
This shows at least a different attitude than the AD&D sheets!
How so? Looks just like my home-made AD&D character sheets?
Quote from: Bren;869446The obviousness you refer to eludes me. Got a few quotes?
Book 1 has this?
QuoteDETERMINATION OF ABILITIES:
Prior to character selection by players it is necessary for the referee to roll three six-sided dice in order to rate each as to the various abilities, and thus aid them in selecting a role.
I glanced around and did not see any mention of players rolling their own stats. They rolled their own HP and attacks far as I can tell.
Quote from: Omega;869494I glanced around and did not see any mention of players rolling their own stats. They rolled their own HP and attacks far as I can tell.
Thanks. I didn't remember that line. We always had the player roll their own. Similar to...well it was the seventies after all.
It sounds like the intent was for the referee to hand out a set of stats to the players who would then choose a race and class and play what they got. Conceptually it seems similar to a referee determining the numbers and types of figures, the terrain, order of entry or set up, and the victory conditions for a miniatures battle prior to two groups of players playing out the resulting scenario.
In regards to whether or not having the referee roll the scores made the game more or less of a black box, I note that the full quote is the following (bolding added for emphasis).
QuoteDETERMINATION OF ABILITIES:
Prior to character selection by players it is necessary for the referee to roll three six-sided dice in order to rate each as to the various abilities, and thus aid them in selecting a role. Categories of ability are: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. Each player notes his appropriate scores, obtains a similar roll of three dice to determine the number of Gold Pieces (Dice score x 10) he starts with, and then opts for a role. A sample record of a character appears like this:
Obviously the player's scores are not a black box since the player himself makes a notation of his scores.
That's not to say that common mode of thought at the time was that limiting player knowledge to character knowledge was a desirable outcome of the game process. We discussed having the referee handle the rolls for attacks, the hit points, and the damage taken so that the player would not know exact numbers. The referee would provide some general guidance on how damaged the PC was and the player might deduce die rolls from effects and a knowledge of the underlying tables. In the end, we decided that without computerizing the game the logistics of managing this were too unweildy to implemnt.
Quote from: Bren;869515Obviously the player's scores are not a black box since the player himself makes a notation of his scores.
Exactly. How can the player choose a class if they dont know their own stats?
DM: "Ok, choice A is kinda weak but a little nimble. Choice B is really smart and fairly tough."
Quote from: Omega;869490How so? Looks just like my home-made AD&D character sheets?
Official AD&D sheet:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qUojMV6XaYM/VhbDUWesMeI/AAAAAAAADeY/tLlgPDZAtyU/s1600/2.jpg)
Thats obviously not my home-made character sheet... ahem.
So they made class targets all inclusive character sheets. So what?
The OD&D sheet would end up with some of that as well. Written in on the margins or back. Saves, to-hits, turning, etc.
Later ones were less elaborate. Then later ones more. Then less and so on. TSR swung all over the place in detail vs non for those things alone.
Quote from: Omega;869522Exactly. How can the player choose a class if they dont know their own stats?
Blindly. :D I'd have thought that was also obvious. ;)
I've been reading the book Empire of the Imagination, the biography of Gary Gygax. It does mention that in the early D&D days the DM made all the to-hit rolls, and I'm guessing saving throws and everything else. I suspect that died quickly in '74 or '75.
My view is that the text of D&D of any editions are divided into broad categories, advice, rules, tools. Having the referee roll abilities for the player is more advice than a rule.
What the difference between advice and a rule? A rule helps to adjudicate some specific situation. For example roll 1d20, consult this chart, cross index the character level, and armor class. If the roll is equal to or higher than the number then a hit is scored.
Advice is about how to run the game. For example about having the players funnel what they are doing through a caller who will do most of the talking to the referee.
Having the referee roll the player's ability is advice on how to run the game.
Now with the caller rule, it obvious from various accounts that Gygax and Arneson ran sessions with a dozen or more players. I can personally state that having a caller or two helps the game a lot when you have that many players. Helps in that game runs smoother and stuff gets done.
But having a caller does little for smaller groups and probably reduces the fun of the game. Since over the years, RPG groups have averaged 3 to 4 players to a referee, the use of a callers has been relegated to obscurity.
There is probably a good reason why Gygax gave that advice. I personally can't think of anything I read as why he would do that. The best one I think of is that perhaps he ran into too much cheating and this was the best way of counter acting that. Perhaps there were a few honestly lucky players that caused a lot of resentment so everybody felt it was fair if only the referee rolled the stats.
Regardless of the advice's origin, the situation has changed so the idea of having the referee roll the PCs stats has been relegated to obscurity in the hobby.
My advice is to figure out how it came about and decide whether the reason are pertinent to your group's situation. For example once I understood why advice about callers was in the game, I was able to handle larger groups much easier. So if I had say 12 players in a session I would divide them up into two or three groups and have a caller for each.
Advice though is usualy placed in the Options/Variants section of an RPG. "Heres a few things that might be done differently.
The DM rolls the character rule is presented as a rule. It is not presented as advice.
Quote from: Omega;869670Advice though is usualy placed in the Options/Variants section of an RPG. "Heres a few things that might be done differently.
The DM rolls the character rule is presented as a rule. It is not presented as advice.
I submit the line in OD&D between what is merely advice and what was intended as a rule is not that clear, nor was it intended to be that clear. It was assumed that a referee would make whatever changes seemed good to them. To that extent everything in OD&D is advice and stronger advice.
It's funny that is the rule as written as I don't recall a referee ever rolling the stats for the PCs. I also can't recall any conscious decision to change the rules, I suspect the change occurred naturally because while referees found rolling up PCs as a minor bookkeeping chore, the players actually enjoyed rolling the dice for their PC's stats. Since the player records their own stats (so long as dice and rolling is fair) it's pointless who does the rolling.
I'm not convinced Saves and To-Hits would be written on OD&D character sheets.
Even in AD&D, the player rolled the die to hit, while the DM (on his hidden chart in the book) told the player IF he hit. That's what made the "nat 20" so special back then--you didn't have to wait for the DM to tell you if you hit, you knew you did.
Saves, likewise, were on special charts in the AD&D DMG (there was a "general save" chart in the blue book), so players again didn't necessarily know their saving throws. Players didn't roll that many saves in OD&D--while nowadays many characters and monsters have effects that generate saves with every single attack, in OD&D, there wasn't nearly so much saving.
You had a special column just for dragon breath--really worth writing down? Another for rods/staves/wands...just how often does that come up? One fight a level, perhaps. About the only one that came up "often" was poison, but most DMs knew better than to use poisonous monsters because the option in older D&D was "save vs poison or freakin' DIE". Modern versions of D&D have much, much, weaker poisons, to the point that some monsters' poisonous attacks are laughably weak...but now you can use the monsters all the time, unlike say, the Giant Centipedes, whose "weak" poisonous bite still had around a 50% fatality rate.
I wouldn't say OD&D was a black box, and I honestly think telling players what they need to roll to hit is an improvement over the DM looking it up on a chart...but it is a very different game than more current versions of D&D.
Quote from: Omega;869522Exactly. How can the player choose a class if they dont know their own stats?
DM: "Ok, choice A is kinda weak but a little nimble. Choice B is really smart and fairly tough."
Gary rolled and told me the numbers. Considering the thousands of words written in the last forty years about players cheating during character creation, I've heard worse ideas.
This entire thread is full of people missing the fucking obvious.
How long did "the referee rolls all the dice" last? Until players had dice. Polyhedral dice used to be rare and expensive, not "available all over the damn place."
Sometimes the obvious mechanical answer really is the right one.
Quote from: Doom;869698I'm not convinced Saves and To-Hits would be written on OD&D character sheets.
I never wrote that stuff down or saw them written down.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;869701How long did "the referee rolls all the dice" last? Until players had dice. Polyhedral dice used to be rare and expensive, not "available all over the damn place."
3d6 in order dude. Everybody back then had friggin' six-sided dice. Yahtzee!
Running a complete black box works really well for a lot of things, especially rules that are easily misinterpreted like thief skills. Did it with my students a good bit until class sizes got to big for D&D games to work well.
Quote from: Bren;8697153d6 in order dude. Everybody back then had friggin' six-sided dice. Yahtzee!
And I didn't bring any along when I went to Gary's, nor did he tell me to. Nor did I know that stats were 3d6 in order. Nobody but Gary had the rules. We were not seated around a table; Gary had his desk and everybody else was sitting on chairs or the sofa/daybed. Not only would it have been a royal pain to pass around dice, but we had no place to roll them. The referee rolling the dice goes back at least as far as Kriegspiel.
Given that the numbers are given to the player, and OD&D had no options on assigning ability scores apart from the somewhat-ambiguous sentences on trading points from one ability to another for the sake of the XP bonus*, having the GM roll up abilities is no different from having the players press a button on a random number generator and record the values. Which in turn is no different from having them roll the dice except for the pleasure of handing the cubes and the potential for outright cheating or using one's personal psi powers to influence the dice.
I.e., barring dishonesty or superstition, I don't see the point of this line argument.
I do remember that while HP, AC, the bonuses of magic weapons, spell slots, and damage caused by spells were all commonly player knowledge, it was also standard to leave it up to the DM to look up results on the combat & saving throw tables**. One reason for this apart from allowing players to play the game without knowing the rules, is that the AC of enemies, and possibly DRMs for saving throws, could be concealed. It also gave the DM more leeway to fudge**, although I don't know if that was Gygax's intention or simply something that happened.
* What I mean is that when I played the game, we interpreted this as literally erasing points off one score and adding points to the other. In the last few years I've learned that this may not have been intended--that you kept the scores as-is and just used the "tradeoff" to see if you met the XP threshold.
** There was no THACO or BAB. Instead you looked up the character class & level or monster HD against the target AC to find a target score.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;869749And I didn't bring any along when I went to Gary's, nor did he tell me to. Nor did I know that stats were 3d6 in order. Nobody but Gary had the rules. We were not seated around a table; Gary had his desk and everybody else was sitting on chairs or the sofa/daybed. Not only would it have been a royal pain to pass around dice, but we had no place to roll them. The referee rolling the dice goes back at least as far as Kriegspiel.
And none of that has anything to do with the limited availability of polyhedrals with other than six sides.
Quote from: Arminius;869769Which in turn is no different from having them roll the dice except for the pleasure of handing the cubes and the potential for outright cheating or using one's personal psi powers to influence the dice.
I don't think that is an insignificant reason behind why most RPGs are played with the players rolling the dice themselves.
Quote* What I mean is that when I played the game, we interpreted this as literally erasing points off one score and adding points to the other.
That's how we all read it.
Granted, I doubt that six-sided dice were hard to come by--apart from scavenging them from Yahtzee, Monopoly, or any of the kiddie Milton Bradley games, people needed them for gambling--but Gronan's point is reasonable for lots of other mechanics. That is, provided we assume that polyhedral dice were used very much at all for early D&D; remember there are some who believe that Chainmail was used extensively for dungeon adventures. Since I think they're wrong, this tidbit slightly reinforces my belief.
But I also see no reason to disbelieve Gronan's report of wargaming culture at the time. I was playing Avalon Hill-style war-games a few years later, which didn't use referees, and of course, you always rolled your own dice when attacking. But I could easily see in multiplayer miniatures games that a referee would keep the dice as "tools of the trade" as he went around the table adjudicating events.
There were always the little cardboard chits thrown in a glass. Those sucked so much.
Quote from: Bren;869779I don't think that is an insignificant reason behind why most RPGs are played with the players rolling the dice themselves.
That's how we all read it.
Now. but not necessarily then. There was, and probably still is a gap between how some wargames are played and how that carried over into early D&D, and how most board games are played.
Ive seen games where the players roll their character and damage. But the DM rolled all the rest. Saves, hits, checks.
I think over time and pretty quickly DMs delegated more of this to the players to free themselves up. And as Gronan points out. Polyhedrals became more availible.
This is where the boxed sets of BX had the leg up on AD&D. They packed in those dice. Sure the things disintigrated with use. But unlike AD&D you didnt have to go out and hunt these mythical things down. No-where local when I was starting RPG gaming up until nearly the 90s stocked polyhedrals.
Quote from: yosemitemike;869801There were always the little cardboard chits thrown in a glass. Those sucked so much.
My friend insisted on calling them "shits". More in reaction to SPI's effort at cost-cutting--where before they would include nearly microscopic, but functional, six-sided dice, they started claiming at one point that the price of oil had driven up the cost, so they included punch-out sh..., uh, chits in the counter sheet.
Remember when you had to rub crayon into the numbers because they were made to teach kids about the Pythagorean solids rather than for gaming? Better than the chits anyway.
Quote from: yosemitemike;869879Remember when you had to rub crayon into the numbers because they were made to teach kids about the Pythagorean solids rather than for gaming? Better than the chits anyway.
I still have in my bag dice with crayon in the numbers. Some of my dice are 35+ years old.
When I was introduced (late '76, I think), I wasn't taught mechanical stuff. Whether or not that was what Gary intended as normative, it was fun.
Quote from: Arminius;869787Granted, I doubt that six-sided dice were hard to come by--apart from scavenging them from Yahtzee, Monopoly, or any of the kiddie Milton Bradley games, people needed them for gambling
Exactly. There were ubiquitous. That's why I suggested having the referee roll stats had nothing to do with a scarcity of dice.
Quote--but Gronan's point is reasonable for lots of other mechanics. That is, provided we assume that polyhedral dice were used very much at all for early D&D; remember there are some who believe that Chainmail was used extensively for dungeon adventures. Since I think they're wrong, this tidbit slightly reinforces my belief.
Everyone I knew used the alternate combat system and the saving throws both of which required a D20 and I believe the referee used a D12 for some of the wandering monster charts. I could be wrong, but I think the D4 and the D8 were initially unnecessary for any rule until Greyhawk added the variant hit dice system.
Gronan would know what the culture and practice was in Lake Geneva. Never having been there I wouldn't. But what those folks did wasn't what we did and our practice was uninfluenced by their culture. The only influences were the rules we read and our prior gaming culture. Most of us had been playing RISK since before Dave and Gary were running the precursor to D&D. So rolling one's own attack or defense was a natural thing for us to implement. And as you said, the referee had other things to do and to roll for. Waiting around while the referee rolled for both sides of a combat seems odd and less immersive on the player side to me than each player rolling there own attacks.
The original boxed set included a set of dice. It wasn't long before referees purchased extra dice to have more dice and mostly we let the players have some to use. I don't recall anyone rolling attacks
for the players, but I might be forgetting how we first played the game. Saving throws kind of depended on what was being rolled for. Usually people let the player roll for that. So if your PC got Petrified it was your own damn fault for rolling bad.
Quote from: Omega;869854Now. but not necessarily then.
I was talking about 1974.
Quote from: Doughdee222;869905I still have in my bag dice with crayon in the numbers. Some of my dice are 35+ years old.
I still have all that stuff except for the chits which I promptly threw out as soon as I got dice.
Quote from: yosemitemike;869974I still have all that stuff except for the chits which I promptly threw out as soon as I got dice.
You hang onto those for in case you get a diceophobia player or the occasional randomphobe who also despises dice - but for god unknown reasons pulling counters from a cup is fine.
Quote from: Omega;870054You hang onto those for in case you get a diceophobia player or the occasional randomphobe who also despises dice - but for god unknown reasons pulling counters from a cup is fine.
That guy can use an app on his phone.
Tossing a die is not the same as knowing the algorithms the ref is using to decide what the number rolled means.
Quote from: Phillip;870200Tossing a die is not the same as knowing the algorithms the ref is using to decide what the number rolled means.
Agreed. And?
And it seemed like maybe the discussion was haring off to beat a horse that was dead on arrival. Don't mind me if I'm out of the loop; carry on!
Quote from: Bren;869912Exactly. There were ubiquitous. That's why I suggested having the referee roll stats had nothing to do with a scarcity of dice.
"Were you rolling your own characters, to-hit rolls, etc. during the pre-release Greyhawk games? When did that become standard practice in Lake Geneva, if ever? "
That is the question I was answering. Notice that rolling of stats was not singled out.
And the answer is STILL "when we got our own dice."
When did you get your own dice?
Quote from: Phillip;869459Here's an image of the OD&D character sheet TSR produced:
(https://www.acaeum.com/ddindexes/miscpages/miscscans/76pc.jpg)
This shows at least a different attitude than the AD&D sheets!
I'll say! They forgot Hit Points!
Quote from: ligedog;870238When did you get your own dice?
Sometime in late 1972 1973 Gary brought in some sets. They were also offered by Edmund Scientific, a school supplies dealer, but Gary was apparently ordering them in enough quantity to make the price competitive if not the same (I no longer remember).
I know that in Sept 1773 when I moved up to Minneapolis I had at least two sets of the early polyhedra. I don't remember if I had more.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870475I know that in Sept 1773 when I moved up to Minneapolis I had at least two sets of the early polyhedra. I don't remember if I had more.
Were you gaming with the Voyageurs or the Sioux?
Quote from: Bren;870480Were you gaming with the Voyageurs or the Sioux?
The Vikings. See also the game report found carved on a stone tablet in Kensington, Minnesota, in which the party is attacked by Skraelings.
The next question, of course, is Number Appearing, Hit Dice, and Armor Class.
Inquiring minds want to know... :)
Happy Holidays!
Quote from: chirine ba kal;870481The Vikings. See also the game report found carved on a stone tablet in Kensington, Minnesota, in which the party is attacked by Skraelings.
The next question, of course, is Number Appearing, Hit Dice, and Armor Class.
Inquiring minds want to know... :)
Happy Holidays!
And Chrine is still covering the General's ass. Well played good sir. Well played. :)
Quote from: Bren;870485And Chrine is still covering the General's ass. Well played good sir. Well played. :)
I never would have made it out of Milumanaya without him.
Quote from: Bren;870485And Chrine is still covering the General's ass. Well played good sir. Well played. :)
Thank you; we try... :)
And this points up the style of play we were all familiar with - 'cooperative'.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870487I never would have made it out of Milumanaya without him.
That first campaign up into the desert was miserable. It made the second one look like a cakewalk.
I'm assuming that you mean 'black box' in the same sense as a theater; I did twelve years at The Guthrie Theater here in the Twin Cities, so I think I understand the OP.
Yes. Both Gary and Dave are on record that 'the rules' are intended to provide a way for the individual GM create a world-setting of their own device, and then resolve situations that arise from the players' actions.
This lasted until the money started rolling in. Once the cash cow had arrived, then the market forces in the hobby took over, and selling new editions of the rules, 'suppliments', 'modules', and all sorts of 'accessories' became the business model - hence the emphasis on 'official', 'authorized', etc. in the product marketing.
Now, I do not blame either Gary or Dave for going down this path; if I'd had the kind of financial needs and overheads that they had in very short order, I'd have gone this route as well. What they did in their personal gaming was very different from what they did in their professional gaming, as they needed to be able to use their personal appearances to sell product.
Phil never followed that path. His personal gaming was always pretty much the same as his professional gaming, on the rare occasions when we could persuade him to go out to a convention, and did not (if I can be forgiven for being so crass) sell product. Likewise, his written output for rules did not mirror his gaming style, which had the same effect.
They are using "black box" in the sense of "the player does not need to know the rules," derived from "black box" software; that is, you are told what the inputs and outputs are, but not what's going on inside.
Essentially, it's the old "Don't worry about rules, just tell me what you want to do."
And once the money rolled in things did indeed change, especially since TSR was a for-profit corporation, and if the officers of said same do NOT pursue the path of profit they are subject to removal or even lawsuit by shareholders.
Huh, I had never heard of black box theatre (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_theater).
I think the OP is referring, rather, to the computer science idea of "black box". (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box) Meaning that the players don't know anything about the internal workings of the mechanics or rules, and interact with the game purely by natural language conversation and description.
I think some earlier posts describe how this can be done. For example, players might not know their hit points or even their level, so when they suffer a wound the DM would just say if it was grievous or light, and whether they felt faint, or still strong, etc.
Pretty much the diametric opposite of how we played in our first few naive games, in which the DM would literally say, "Two Swordsmen walk into the room" meaning that two 3rd-level fighters had made an appearance.
Ah! My mistake! Sorry! :)
Quote from: Arminius;870587Pretty much the diametric opposite of how we played in our first few naive games, in which the DM would literally say, "Two Swordsmen walk into the room" meaning that two 3rd-level fighters had made an appearance.
:D Ah yes, we did that at first as well. We quickly made fun of our own silly practice by commenting on how those two guys must be wearing tee-shirts with a big '3' on the front and back. Shortly after we made the jokes we switched to "Two men in chainmail armor walk into the room." Problem solved. Sometimes making fun of dumb shit does help fix the problem.
Quote from: chirine ba kal;870583Thank you; we try... :)
And this points up the style of play we were all familiar with - 'cooperative'.
Interestingly, I don't recall Phil ever trying to make anything of the fact that Chirine and the Glorious General were opposite sides of the Change/Stability axis. Quite possibly because both of us made it absolutely clear from Day 1 that as far as we were concerned, we were first and foremost Soldiers of the Tsolyani Empire, and everything else was secondary to that.
Being stuck in the Godsforsaken eastern desert with six thousand close friends only made the connection stronger; when it's your legion against everything and everyone within a thousand tsan, there is no room for any sort of internal friction. Not to mention that in Tekumel and many other games of all types as well, we have always both been proponents of Sam Vimes' principle that "you do NOT drop your mates in the cacky."
For that matter, the Petal Throne has this artifact called the "Jade Arch," that if you pass through it makes you unshakably loyal to the Empire. In the very early days when I was still a Kasi in charge of a single cohort, Phil was using it to threaten Dutlor and a few other clowns... er, characters. The first time I got threatened with it, I told Phil that I was telling the friendly OAL officer to make me an appointment to form up my cohort and march through it in ranks, and that I would be delighted to have my eternal loyalty to the Petal Throne confirmed.
The old boy didn't know what to make of that. I simply wasn't interested in skullduggery or power politics.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870475Sometime in late 1972 1973 Gary brought in some sets. They were also offered by Edmund Scientific, a school supplies dealer, but Gary was apparently ordering them in enough quantity to make the price competitive if not the same (I no longer remember).
I know that in Sept 1773 when I moved up to Minneapolis I had at least two sets of the early polyhedra. I don't remember if I had more.
How was their quality as dice?
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870475Sometime in late 1972 1973 Gary brought in some sets. They were also offered by Edmund Scientific, a school supplies dealer,
Were those the d20s numbered 0-9 twice and you had to toll a d6 to get if it was 1-10 or 11-20?
I've seen those and at least one RPG I had mad mention of using them. Starships & Spacemen I think???
A quick glance around shows that a company in Japan made some d20s back in the late 60s too? (Japan Standards?)
My first set of polyhedrals have the d20 like that. I think they were made or at least sold by Heritage. Back then there was no d10, so they did triple service as d10s, d20s, and (with two different colored dice) d%.
Quote from: estar;870613How was their quality as dice?
Horrible, but they are what existed. They were created as Platonic solid demonstrators, not dice. A few years later Forrest Brown of Martian Metals and then later FASA cut some in half. They have enormous off center air bubbles inside them.
Quote from: Omega;870617Were those the d20s numbered 0-9 twice and you had to toll a d6 to get if it was 1-10 or 11-20?
Yep. I've also got a couple pairs where I painted one set of faces a different color.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;870629Yep. I've also got a couple pairs where I painted one set of faces a different color.
That was the recommendation back then. And yeah quality wise they sucked. The plastic was way too soft. My original D20s are nearly spherical due to wearing on the corners and edges.