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+--- Thread: Ancient d20 found, interesting article! (/showthread.php?tid=577)
Ancient d20 found, interesting article! - kysharr - 03-07-2018
https://www.cnet.com/news/ancient-d20-die-emerges-from-the-ashes-of-time/
Its from ptolemic egypt, I wonder if Cleopatra herself was rolling crits...
I'm going to get a little spacey here for a sec, but pen and paper rpgs don't exactly require any degree of technological sophistication to arise in a society, just imagination, spare time, something to write with. Obviously wargames were a thing for many years before Gygax modded it for DnD. I wonder how often individual-based rule-following rpg games arose throughout history, I'd be interested in reading about the phenomenon.
Obviously a d20 is not ONLY used for rpgs, it could be for some much more basic gambling, but it just got me thinking. I'm no expert, but I think some form of wargaming was probably popular among the elite youth (think tin/toy soldiers, models, even chess), and it would not take long for someone to mod it into their own form of rpg in the same vein as our pathfinder or dnd, especially considering the Egyptians had a literate portion of society for thousands of years. I'd be very interested to know what an ancient Egyptian's fantasy pantheon would look like, and if it would be different from their iconic Egyptian religious pantheon.
RE: Ancient d20 found, interesting article! - PneumaPilot - 09-23-2018
This is pretty awesome! Children have played pretend from the dawn of time, and it comes naturally to them, so yeah, it seems like some nerdy dad could have codified some rules, and that it possibly could have happened multiple times throughout history.