"The pre-Gygax icosahedron (D20 before D&D)" Topic

A pal of mine asked "Where the heck did Gygax and Arneston get their d20's from?".

I pointed out that there are crystals that form the shape, and that mathematicians since ancient times have been pondering geometry, so such a device probably existed.

I hear that part of the To-Hit-Armor-Class-0 system was closely modeled on naval wargame to hit charts.

Are there any gaming historians about that might be able to inform us what rulesets were around that used 20 sided dice, and if the D&D originators were likely to have played those rules?

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Obviously, Gygax did illegal digs in Egypt.

Lou Zocchi was selling games and dice before D&D, at least in 1973. Not sure if he had D20s then. One source says he was the first (USA) maker of polyhedral dice, in 1974. D&D came out in 1974.

Bottom line, I don't know for sure, either!

Interesting question.

There have always been those rumors about that trip to Roswell…

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This is Dave Arneson's account of where they got their d20s.

Tractics had you draw numbers from a cup

We converted to D20 and D100 as soon as we found them

Aslo some of the "Solids" were availible from School Suppliers (Math class materials)

c.1976, Edmunds Scientific was selling polyhedral dice. the twenty sided were numered 1-0, you rolled a separate D6 to indicate high or low for D20 results.

We just colored one set of numbers with a marker rather than roll a separate die.

I still recall Bob Jones' article in the original NEWA Courier circa 1970, "Deci, rather than sexy", in which he introduced the idea of using icosahedral dice to generate scores on a 1-100, or percentile scale, and explored some ways they might be used in wargaming. This was well before D&D, and included a source.

One source says he was the first (USA) maker

That source being Lou himself?
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His dice are the Best, but I still have mo' pretty ones

I still give it up for This Guy:

'Cause you know, credit where credit is due-

Then Rome totally ripped off his IP rights:

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Seriously though:
I am 80% sure that polyhedrals existed in school supply distribution
for use in mathematics classes years before they were adapted to gaming
(Edmund Scientific sounds about right!) That gibes w/ Arnesons account.
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I could be wrong, though-

Zocchi was likely the First US manufacturer, however, so : …Yes?

I remember the 1 – 0 twenty sided dice, and even have a couple of the Zocchi ones, I think, in red and green.

I just used to re-roll the D20 again, to determine if the D20 result was high, or low.

Of course, then I/we just started rolling the two together as a D100, instead.

Edmund Scientific did indeed carried polyhedral dice at one time. That's where I got my first batch. And Lou Zocchi was the first (remains the best) US manufacturer.

I'm fairly sure you could get percentage dice in the UK pre-D&D. One red one black each numbered 1-0.

D&D was the first time I saw D4s, D8s and D12s though.

My first d20s were produced in Japan and used as quality control devices. I ordered them from the Japanese Standards Association in 1969. They were sold as a set of three in red-yellow-blue and numbered 0-9 twice on each die. They came in a plastic case. They were used in my 1972 Jeu de la Guerre rules, and were the basis for the 1971 article in The Courier. To my knowledge, the first use of the "case numbering" system in a published rules set was also found in Le Jeu de la Guerre.

I still have my red and black D20s from back in the early 70s. I am fairly sure they were sold by Navwar.

The dice we struggled to get enough of when D&D arrived were D8s.

As further evidence of Repiqueone's statement .. here are the aforementioned dice …

… and somewhere out there is an article about them … I will have to dig to find it again

This is a very interesting thread. One of you savants should write an acount of how the non-six sided dice entered the hobby and why. Before someone laughs and says this is common knowledge, don't be so sure. I used to take for granted old gentlemen who told me great stories about flying in a dirigable over the Eastern Front or serving with Marshal Tito's Partisans. They're all gone now, and I wish I had recorded their memories.

Black and red 20 sided dice were used to generate hit percentages in Leicester Micro Models WWII rules in the early 70's.
The rules featured armour penetration graphs where thickness and gun automatically covered penetration once you'd hit.
The dice were pretty rough and you filled in recesses of the numbers yourself. I'm sure they didn't roll true!

You heretics!

The world did not exist before Gygax created our characters.

I still have a d20 from my very first D&D Basic set. It is white and nearly unrollable due to its roundness. It has 0-9 on it twice. Actually instead of one of the 1s there is an "A". The accompanying d8 also has an "A" in place of the "1".

Here's a not-so-great-picture of the dice; turns out I have a d4 with the same quality as well.

Eric