mstdn.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A general-purpose Mastodon server with a 500 character limit. All languages are welcome.

Administered by:

Server stats:

18K
active users

elle

Speaking of rolling the dice, here's an incredible carved Roman crystal dice from 1st century AD

(currently in the British Museum)

@ElleGray i had no idea that the modern dice form went back that far.

@ElleGray I have watched Clickspring for more years than I can recall, and I'm still not certain how this would be accomplished. Stellar work.

@theplaguedoc While I first thought the same, I then thought "Sure it's not from Londinium?"

@ElleGray

@wonka @ElleGray That would be a lucky coincidence. When it comes to the BM, thievery is more likely.

@ElleGray Ah the British Museum, where all historical artifacts belong lol:

@ElleGray imagine playing a TTRPG with that!

@ElleGray

I was a bit sceptical (blame the proliferation of AI, sorry), but quickly found that crystal dice were quite a thing 🤯

This 20 sided one is in the Louvre, presumably surrounded by crowds of D&D aficionados.

roger-pearse.com/weblog/2020/1

@ElleGray I looked up another angle of it and I’m genuinely surprised it conforms to the standard that opposite sides add up to 7, since it could really truly be arranged in any way

@ElleGray they washed the color so hard it became transparent /j

@ElleGray Rather than being "that guy" I'll let ChatGPT be it. 😉

Yes, "dice" is the plural form of "die," which refers to the small, usually cubic objects used in games that have numbered sides.

So, when you're talking about more than one die, you use "dice." For example:

"I rolled the dice" (not "the die," unless you mean just one).

However, in casual speech, "dice" is sometimes used to refer to a single object as well, but this is technically considered incorrect in standard English.

@ElleGray Folks have been playing with shiny dice for literally centuries and that's beautiful.

@ElleGray
My thoughts on The British Museum: Many culturally important artefacts Stolen from their homes.

The provenance of gambling paraphernalia? 🤔 I'd bet a salary those things are wagered, lost, thieved and discarded out of hand even to this day.

@ElleGray That's amazing. I'm wondering if it's correctly weighted because if so that's incredible.

@ElleGray it's amazing that after so many centuries dices are still rolling in the Caesar Palace

@ElleGray

A modern dice's opposite faces will sum to seven. So if you roll a six, one will be facing the floor.

I can see four, five and six for definite and I think I can see two opposite five.

The layout of 4,5,6 are identical to what we use today, so if two is correct then dice have not changed in at least 2000 years.

Note the chamfers, which we still use today to try to avoid bias.

If anyone is upset at my use of dice (singular), please feel free to both Latin and English up.