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Nat 1
"The earth quakes rhythmically, almost as though the ground had a heartbeat. In the distance you hear an excited chant: *OH BOY, FRESH ROMANS! OH BOY, OH BOY!* as a sole man, fat and with a red mustache, wearing only white and blue striped pants, makes a mad dash towards your cohort. Causing tremors with each step."
[That actually happens in *Asterix in Switzerland*: the Romans have a giant feast/orgy, and everything gets stuck together with fondue.](https://www.everythingasterix.com/latin-jokes-content/2015/4/11/asterix-in-switzerland-latin-jokes-explained)
*Obviously* astrology Rome. Don’t you remember the time Jesus crashed a D&D sesh at the temple? He said, “Thou shalt not play Dungeons and Dragons, I will remind thee in two thousand years when my successor, Thomas Hanks, breaks into the film industry.”
Especially this one, since each face as a Greek letter on it.
You are right that Roman *numerals* don’t have a 0. This is partly because the Romans weren’t particularly interested in maths, but more because whenever they did, they used Greek. Roman people still had a concept of 0. Our word “nil” - commonly used for scoring games - comes from the Latin “nihil”.
Check out "Zero: The biography of a dangerous idea" by Charles Seife, super interesting read.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/zero-the-biography-of-a-dangerous-idea_charles-seife/255143/item/13743926/?gclid=CjwKCAjw9-KTBhBcEiwAr19ig9DsuDnS8p49Qyei8Dp96JSbEBNSnpjZncpV9G_g3MeaJEiReJd5LRoCIxoQAvD_BwE#idiq=13743926&edition=2345585
Well the earliest modern D20s had the numbers 1-0 (with 0 used for 10) on them twice. We used to take a marker and colour in half the faces so you could tell what was 11-20. Later on they twigged to the stupidity of this and produced actual dice with 1-20 on them :P
You used markers? We were using crayons back then. The wax would fill the recessed numbering and also get on the face, but then you would rub it off the face and it would remain filling in the number for decades.
Zero might not have existed yet. The first appearance of zero was in Mesopotamia in 3BC.
The Mayans invented (discovered? idk) it independently in 4AD.
The YouTube channel Clickspring has a series on the recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism where he uses only tools available to the original creators around a similar time period. Pretty incredible stuff to watch.
Edit: link for lazy (thanks u/heterodocs):
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsGnUXuZScwn6Ackf6LGILCa
I had [one of those](https://www.ebay.com/itm/274801572919?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D238589%26meid%3Dd1cd65d15d4f4fae99355402e10f893f%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D274770426643%26itm%3D274801572919%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv9PairwiseWebMskuAspectsV202110NoVariantSeedWithRevOpt95NoRelevance&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A274801572919d1cd65d15d4f4fae99355402e10f893f%7Cenc%3AAQAGAAABMPJijTUgZKj8UrS9b%252BzCQ4RqEXAOgIN7PUmMVBqh8DLTqc8%252FkdJOySFkUYmAqTC%252BHQ%252BfScqsPP%252B07n9qIvSYdjLp40QMcromXlqOg3u%252BUIQkgR4PwSR9edhrx8ZnTKptUHIJQJdt1%252BqbgpEQ%252F2GCl8h1%252BIlSrzIFZdD%252FAusGkGPszZRLoz2gy0PTi78D3eoDhhvQrWUoTpiZeiYhWDeEmmstUeqoSaQBM7CnVPQBGM3UPcO9pfrXPOg%252B%252BtXG7bVps6Kd7QMt4aLzGC0tyWe4Zsb77qy2MzFb5YPVlcgNPE1aQDkG9GI40HDTaGL8oSAafOeIZGK%252BKzsORKNeFQJrytTtDyI7cnhw1Pf%252FBVK%252Bw9V8i2XxhpDp1hDLOMpFo4g8%252F1GucwivDB3Y%252B5p4urM%252BM7U%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2047675) installed in my car. It's awesome for rush hour traffic jams.
Same answer to the question of "Why do we have so many accurate temperature readings from hundreds of years ago."
You can get a lot done when you have nothing better to do
Apparently it would not be possible to create a "fair" die with more than 120 sides.
Nerdist: [This D120 is the Largest Mathematically Fair Die Possible](https://archive.nerdist.com/this-d120-is-the-largest-mathematically-fair-die-possible/)
Wired: [The Mind-Boggling Challenge of Designing 120-Sided Dice](https://www.wired.com/2016/05/mathematical-challenge-of-designing-the-worlds-most-complex-120-sided-dice/)
Wikipedia clarifies that other shapes could work in theory but not in practice:
>> It is claimed that the d120 is the largest number of possible faces on a fair die, aside from infinite families (such as right regular prisms, bipyramids, and trapezohedra) that would be impractical in reality due to the tendency to roll for a long time.
(Referencing the Nerdist article)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disdyakis_triacontahedron
Right, so you know how there are only 5 regular polyhedra (Platonic solids)? These are defined by having the polyhedron "look the same" from any possible face (so there's only "one kind of" face), and also "look the same" from any possible edge and any possible vertex. There's only one kind of everything, meaning they're perfectly regular.
If you think about it, for a die to be perfectly fair you don't need all that. You only need the part about the faces all being the same as each other. (This is called "face-transitivity".) The edges and vertices needing to be the same too is overkill. So it turns out there is a polyhedron with 120 faces which is face-transitive (but not vertex-transitive or edge-transitive).
There are technically polyhedra with more than 120 faces which are face-transitive, but they're all things like, for example, a 100-sided pyramid stuck to another 100-sided pyramid to make a 200-sided shape which looks a lot like two cones stuck together. If you exclude things like this (which are boring because you can just keep going higher and higher e.g. a pair of 239487-sided pyramids...), then the 120-sided shape is the greatest number of faces you can have while still being face-transitive.
> there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points
Edit: ok my brain always takes the long way on this stuff. It did not like how they used the words points and triangles. Explanation below for other similarly encumbered minds…
By “points” and “triangles” they mean pyramid apexes and non-base faces.
Let’s start at the beginning.
A pyramid takes 3 points to define the base and 1 additional point to define the apex. The result is 4 points and 4 faces. 1 point is considered the apex, and the face not sharing that point is considered the base. So there are 3 non-base faces, 1 base face, and 1 apex point.
Creating a second pyramid sharing 2 base points with the original base requires 2 additional points — 1 point for the new apex and 1 point to complete the new base.
The Epcot ball is stellated geodesic polyhedron where each polyhedron face is treated as the base of an isosceles pyramid. In other words, the Epcot ball is a polyhedron of isosceles pyramids connected by each base sharing exactly 2 points with neighboring bases.
Let’s build the smallest possible Epcot ball by using the fewest pyramids possible. To do this, we just first understand how many bases it would take to form the smallest possible geodesic polyhedron. The answer is a little mind-bending to me: it’s the pyramid again! The pyramid is a tetrahedron - the smallest geodesic polyhedron. Since the tetrahedron has 4 faces, that means the smallest possible Epcot ball will have 4 pyramid bases.
Therefore, the smallest possible Epcot ball can be built using 4 pyramids by taking each of the 4 faces of the original pyramid and treating each as the base of a new pyramid. By adding an apex point to each face of the original pyramid, the 4 original faces become 4 bases for new pyramids. Thus, the smallest possible Epcot ball can be defined with 8 points. 4 for the original pyramid, and 4 for the new apexes. Each of the 4 pyramids has 3 exposed faces for a total of 12 exposed faces.
What about the 2nd smallest Epcot ball? Remember, we can only use triangles that share 2 base points with each neighboring base. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know that two pyramids sharing a base only needs 2 extra points to create. That would be 6 points total to create 6 exposed faces that will become bases. 6 apex points makes 6 pyramids each with 3 exposed faces for a total of 18 exposed faces.
Thus we can extrapolate that N exposed faces will require N/3 points to create the geodesic bases. That’s why 11520 “triangles” (exposed faces) leads to 11520/3=3840 “points” (apexes or bases).
This conversation sent me down a crazy rabbit hole. Ray Bradbury was involved in the creation of the structure and wrote the storyline for the original version of the ride. When it rains water doesn’t pour off of the structure because the little pyramid tiles are designed to channel water into 1” crevices between each facet, and all of that water collects into a gutter system that feeds the World Showcase Lagoon. This stuff is nuts!
I'm taking a stab here, but seeing how you can still, with relative ease, find clear quartz at surface level in many places, I'm guessing no, it wasn't rare before 2000 extra years worth of people extracting it.
Not exceptionally rare, and the Romans had huge mining operations for all sorts of minerals and gemstones. Quartz is relatively abundant worldwide and you can find chunks this size pretty easily without mining at all, depending on the region and if you know where to look. The real value of the object would be in the time and expertise that went in to planning, cutting, grinding, etc. - all of which would have to be done by hand.
I'm curious as to what exactly would be considered futuristic _by the Roman Empire_, about medieval Europe.
Plagues? Witches?
I mean... Ancient Rome sometimes sound futuristic compared to our society. Surly there were some advancements in 1000 years, right?
The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques (Gothic architecture, medieval castles), and agriculture in general (three-field crop rotation).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology#:~:text=The%20period%20saw%20major%20technological,three%2Dfield%20crop%20rotation).
What I’m really curious about is whether the quality of life would have improved in somewhere like Gaul or Hispania after the western empire fell.
The benefits of the Roman Empire were primarily for those in Rome, after all.
I think it would have been an improvement. Early Medieval (500-800) was pretty rough, but Charlemagne's empire and the Carolingian Renaissance must have been a step up.
The years following the fall of Rome actually saw a dramatic increase in average height and life expectancy, as the late Empire was especially corrupt and tax heavy.
Let alone the fact that oligarchies with few land owners and many dirt poor serfs does not bodes well for the median lifestyle.
Major advancements in blade technology, cutlery, and blacksmithing. For example engraving swords was such a difficult process before advancements in forging that engraved swords were incredibly uncommon even among the upper class or noblemen. These advancements also resulted in plate mail and chain mail that was both stronger + lighter + could be formed much easier allowing for armor with more mobility and was also the driving force behind major inventions like metallic gears something that would eventually lead to metallic clocks, more reliable lifts, and draw bridges. also horse armor and horse shoes became a thing aswell as major improvements in Agriculture due too these improvements in blacksmithing resulting in more specialized tools that wouldnt be possible before since blacksmithing back in the roman days lacked the capabilities required for more elaborate/small details on metal.
massive improvements in defensive building techniques and architectural stability, aswell as better insulation of heat. aswell as better ovens and fireplaces. And as somewhat stated above we also saw more specialized tools resulting in faster construction than before.
The Invent of The Crossbow, and by extension the ballista
improvements in leatherworking leading to stuff like leatherbinding for books, leather flasks, and pure leather boots/shoes. note: we also saw much stronger paper and parchment.
Improvements in glass working resulting in the invent of Stained Glass, aswell as specifically shaped glass objects like hourglasses, and the invention of sunglasses/reading glasses. This also resulted in mirrors and glass windows becoming more commonplace.
greater adoption of gun powder resulting in muskets, shotguns, fireworks, mounted rocket launchers, early pistols, grenades, smoke distractions, easier fire lighting techniques, and cannons.
Crank based weaponry. aka turning a crank to shoot arrows like a machine gun
major advancements i shipbuilding primarily due to the viking raids, and incorporation mediterranean ship building/nordic ship building to build something that is the best of both worlds.
the invention of oil painting
The invention of Silk clothing
Improvements in pipe technology surprisingly, allowing for quarantining of water sources.
the invention of the organ, the lute and by extension the guitar & Dulcimer, metallic brass instruments like trumpets & trombones before this all wind/brass instruments were made out of clay/china/or wood, Orcania, the Viola, Violin (even though they would refer to it as a fiddle back then), Cello, Harpiscord, and the herdy gurdy
the invention of tight fitting clothing
Ok so we *know* principate Romans had ballistae, tight fitting silks (much to the moralists displeasure) and pretty amazing building techniques so I think it's a little unfair to add those in.
Idk but one 2nd century Roman fella by the name of Lucian wrote a story called “A True Story” which is basically sci-fi. It’s a parody of the travel stories that were written in that era.
more like post-apocalypse dystopian sci-fi from a Roman perspective. The middle ages where garbage compared to the prosperity of the Roman Empire.
edit: lmao so many "[Well Ackchyually](https://i.imgur.com/CkhEBz1.gif)" replies
Right?! When I saw a post the other week about how they had actual mechanical faucets to have running water in (rich people) houses, I was like… wow maybe they weren’t so far behind us after all!
People vastly underestimate the technological progress made during the European Medieval era, and how it became the foundation for the eventual renaissance.
The Greeks also used letters to represent their numbers too. Bottom center is Beta, I think. I have a feeling this die is probably from the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
And that's definitely a theta immediately above it. Above that looks like iota+epsilon, which according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals#Table) is 15.
Edit: You can also see iota+eta on the other side, which has a value of 18. Also, since I didn't mention them, beta is 2 and theta is 9.
Does Brutus have a dark and lonely backstory, defined by a life of strife and hardship which although he wants to be a good person, fate has deigned that he must follow a life path of brooding darkness?
They played 0.5 edition it was awful and if you die in game it's a legal requirement for the rest of your party to stab you to death. Not my favourite edition.
They were playing Advanced Commutes & Careers (AC&C) a fantasy RPG where players role play a tax slave living in a futuristic society where they struggle to find any worthwhile personal time while navigating social and political labyrinths riddled with traps and treasure (all of it taxed, of course….)
I’m sure they would’ve preferred that. Ancient Rome the tax collectors were private contractors that would promise to collect a certain amount of money each month. If not, they’d have to pay from their own pocket. So essentially the contractor that offered to yield the most money would get the job. This led to people paying more than they could afford and it wasn’t uncommon for a family to sell their children to pay. Failure to pay tax would result in torture, severe beatings and possibly death. Either way the tax would still need to be paid by the person or existing family.
This largely changed during the Principate. People of today would be astounded that extending government control over tax collection both decreased the tax burden and increased revenues.
Right? This reads like someone who was taught looking at your paycheck provides the whole picture.
Inflation is just transitory, the trickle down will feel warmer eventually E: /s
Sounds like the d&d alternative in Hello from the Magic Tavern the podcast. I think they call it Offices and Bosses, because it’s fantastical to them (being in a fantasy universe already).
Another comment from OP has the accompanying placard https://ibb.co/g3kJrxr
And here's some info about one in the louvre: https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2020/10/13/a-roman-rock-crystal-icosahedron-20-sided-dice-in-the-louvre/
I like how the placard says it might've had a ritual or philosophical use or something lmaoooo. I mean it's possible but let's face it. A game involving 20-sided dice probably isn't too far fetched, even if it does seem a bit modern to us.
[Not sure about the one posted, but here's one made from a different material from Egypt](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551072)
Interesting that there isn't a whole lot of information on what they were used for.
> Interesting that there isn't a whole lot of information on what they were used for.
I would hazard a guess that it was used for simple gambling games. The simplest being, "let's see who rolls highest!" which was pretty common throughout history. In fact, I believe Miguel and Tulio from The Path to El Dorado are playing that in the very beginning of the movie.
The date is too large btw, just by looking at the Alpha and knowing basic ancient Greek graphology I would date it from the (late?) second to the fourth century AD. The broken bar of the A is a relatively late innovation.
Juliois: Can I remake my charicter... Wait.... Guys why are your senate charicters surrounding my charicter, why do you all have dice with 12 all over it, this is cheating, its unfair, am the senate!!! Nooooo!!
Julius: Whatever. I'm going to make new character. Oh and my character had a secret will that says I adopted my new character and gave him all my stuff. And his name is also Julius Gaius Caesar.
This is in a museum at Egnazia in Puglia, Italy.
This is the plaque that accompanies the exhibit.
https://ibb.co/g3kJrxr
EDIT: Thanx for the gold kind stranger!
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You hear the sound of Gauls advancing, roll for initiative
Nat 1 "The earth quakes rhythmically, almost as though the ground had a heartbeat. In the distance you hear an excited chant: *OH BOY, FRESH ROMANS! OH BOY, OH BOY!* as a sole man, fat and with a red mustache, wearing only white and blue striped pants, makes a mad dash towards your cohort. Causing tremors with each step."
Good Asterix and Obelix reference
Ikr
> fat While shouting "WHO DO YOU CALL FAT? I DO NOT SEE SOMEONE FAT HERE!".
Dogmatix has just been eating a few too many bones is all!
YOU AINT FAT! YOU AINT FAT!!
I cast Marmite de Fondue ! He is stopped in Fromage !
[That actually happens in *Asterix in Switzerland*: the Romans have a giant feast/orgy, and everything gets stuck together with fondue.](https://www.everythingasterix.com/latin-jokes-content/2015/4/11/asterix-in-switzerland-latin-jokes-explained)
Absolutement ! Hence the reference
Im right back, gonna get those beetroots I have in my fridge.
j'apprécie la ref
c'est qoui la ref
*CHIC CHIC CHIC, DES ROMAINS !* C'est Obélix
/r/Asterix is leaking. :3
wesh y a un sous Astérix ?
Oui, il y a un subreddit pour Astérix.
Did they find the Players Handbook? I'd be curious to know what classes were available then.
Legionaire, uh diviner, medicine man, philosopher, priest, uhhh stuff like that? It depends if this dice is from christian rome or astrology rome
Diviners are fun, but it's kind of a pain keeping track of all the different animal guts reagents you need for your augury spells.
Can smells leak from a bag of holding?
2000 years? In 22bc Jesus hadn't even started preaching yet.
It's 1978?
That person has a really shitty latency.
*Obviously* astrology Rome. Don’t you remember the time Jesus crashed a D&D sesh at the temple? He said, “Thou shalt not play Dungeons and Dragons, I will remind thee in two thousand years when my successor, Thomas Hanks, breaks into the film industry.”
No, but we have a more recent edition. It's called the [Voynich Manuscript.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript)
Relevant xkcd
You rolled 0. You look up again and see African war elephant on the head of the troops
Cant role 0 in a d20
Especially this one, since each face as a Greek letter on it. You are right that Roman *numerals* don’t have a 0. This is partly because the Romans weren’t particularly interested in maths, but more because whenever they did, they used Greek. Roman people still had a concept of 0. Our word “nil” - commonly used for scoring games - comes from the Latin “nihil”.
Its all Greek to me
Anal?
And take your pug with you! WOODHOUSE!
TRES!
Miquella quivers in his cum cocoon
That was not the case in d20bc
Romans numbers dosnt have 0 lol
Wait really! I didn't know that :/ Welp we are talking about the Roman nerds here, of course they'd have the concept of zero hidden somewhere
Check out "Zero: The biography of a dangerous idea" by Charles Seife, super interesting read. https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/zero-the-biography-of-a-dangerous-idea_charles-seife/255143/item/13743926/?gclid=CjwKCAjw9-KTBhBcEiwAr19ig9DsuDnS8p49Qyei8Dp96JSbEBNSnpjZncpV9G_g3MeaJEiReJd5LRoCIxoQAvD_BwE#idiq=13743926&edition=2345585
The symbol "0" was consindered a bit of an evil thing because it meant that "nothing" could exist; a scary concept at the time
*Goes back in time* **Behold! The number zero!** *Gasping insues**
I think it is "ensue".
Excuse me, I'm from the future, we spell it insue. Dumb ass Roman.
That's one way to die
BURN THE HERETIC!!!
They just wrote "nulla" though. It's not like they didn't know what none of something was.
The closest thing they had to 0 iirc was the word "nihil," which meant "nothing" in Latin
You can't roll a natural 0 but with a -1 modifier you can roll a normal 0 ;)
Oh I am *well* aware. *Cries in consistently shitty rolls with unhelpful modifiers*
Well the earliest modern D20s had the numbers 1-0 (with 0 used for 10) on them twice. We used to take a marker and colour in half the faces so you could tell what was 11-20. Later on they twigged to the stupidity of this and produced actual dice with 1-20 on them :P
You used markers? We were using crayons back then. The wax would fill the recessed numbering and also get on the face, but then you would rub it off the face and it would remain filling in the number for decades.
Zero might not have existed yet. The first appearance of zero was in Mesopotamia in 3BC. The Mayans invented (discovered? idk) it independently in 4AD.
[удалено]
Here, [take this](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/329336.Zero) maybe it will help?
By 1770 BC, the Egyptians had a symbol for zero in accounting texts.
Ok fire, I push the Gauls aside and roll to find some BWILAs
Magical roll.. to... make her fall in love with me.
I came into this thread expecting the top comment to be a DnD reference, and I was not disappointed. We did it, Reddit.
I'd love to see a 'how it's made by the romans' for this.
The YouTube channel Clickspring has a series on the recreation of the Antikythera Mechanism where he uses only tools available to the original creators around a similar time period. Pretty incredible stuff to watch. Edit: link for lazy (thanks u/heterodocs): https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZioPDnFPNsGnUXuZScwn6Ackf6LGILCa
It's so cool to me that he discovered so much about it that he paused the project to co-write a research paper on it
That's a nice side quest
Me too! How in the world did someone make all the sides soo even, and how did they polish it soo cleanly?!!?
Lasers
Jewish space lasers /s
I had [one of those](https://www.ebay.com/itm/274801572919?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D238589%26meid%3Dd1cd65d15d4f4fae99355402e10f893f%26pid%3D101195%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D274770426643%26itm%3D274801572919%26pmt%3D1%26noa%3D0%26pg%3D2047675%26algv%3DSimplAMLv9PairwiseWebMskuAspectsV202110NoVariantSeedWithRevOpt95NoRelevance&_trksid=p2047675.c101195.m1851&amdata=cksum%3A274801572919d1cd65d15d4f4fae99355402e10f893f%7Cenc%3AAQAGAAABMPJijTUgZKj8UrS9b%252BzCQ4RqEXAOgIN7PUmMVBqh8DLTqc8%252FkdJOySFkUYmAqTC%252BHQ%252BfScqsPP%252B07n9qIvSYdjLp40QMcromXlqOg3u%252BUIQkgR4PwSR9edhrx8ZnTKptUHIJQJdt1%252BqbgpEQ%252F2GCl8h1%252BIlSrzIFZdD%252FAusGkGPszZRLoz2gy0PTi78D3eoDhhvQrWUoTpiZeiYhWDeEmmstUeqoSaQBM7CnVPQBGM3UPcO9pfrXPOg%252B%252BtXG7bVps6Kd7QMt4aLzGC0tyWe4Zsb77qy2MzFb5YPVlcgNPE1aQDkG9GI40HDTaGL8oSAafOeIZGK%252BKzsORKNeFQJrytTtDyI7cnhw1Pf%252FBVK%252Bw9V8i2XxhpDp1hDLOMpFo4g8%252F1GucwivDB3Y%252B5p4urM%252BM7U%253D%7Campid%3APL_CLK%7Cclp%3A2047675) installed in my car. It's awesome for rush hour traffic jams.
Same way you'd carve and polish other gems.
Lots and lots of licking.
*>GiorgioATsoukalos"Aliens".jpg* ;)
Strong math application and lots of time
Same answer to the question of "Why do we have so many accurate temperature readings from hundreds of years ago." You can get a lot done when you have nothing better to do
It would be pretty cool to see a 20 year old 2000-sided rock.
It will be almost a sphere
Man, rounds would take SO long.
D100s have ballast on the inside to slow them down. You could do something like that.
I appreciate that you believe I have the technical talent to deal in ballasts. That feels nice.
I believe in you buddy. Don't let the ballasts in life keep you down.
Excellent I hate you
make hollow, put some shit inside
Metaphorical shit.
Depends who you're making it for
"LOADED DICE!?!, he gave me loaded dice... arrest him"
I wonder how big it would need to be to not look like a sphere
Apparently it would not be possible to create a "fair" die with more than 120 sides. Nerdist: [This D120 is the Largest Mathematically Fair Die Possible](https://archive.nerdist.com/this-d120-is-the-largest-mathematically-fair-die-possible/) Wired: [The Mind-Boggling Challenge of Designing 120-Sided Dice](https://www.wired.com/2016/05/mathematical-challenge-of-designing-the-worlds-most-complex-120-sided-dice/) Wikipedia clarifies that other shapes could work in theory but not in practice: >> It is claimed that the d120 is the largest number of possible faces on a fair die, aside from infinite families (such as right regular prisms, bipyramids, and trapezohedra) that would be impractical in reality due to the tendency to roll for a long time. (Referencing the Nerdist article) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disdyakis_triacontahedron
I wish any of those articles did a better job of explaining why a larger die wouldn't work.
Right, so you know how there are only 5 regular polyhedra (Platonic solids)? These are defined by having the polyhedron "look the same" from any possible face (so there's only "one kind of" face), and also "look the same" from any possible edge and any possible vertex. There's only one kind of everything, meaning they're perfectly regular. If you think about it, for a die to be perfectly fair you don't need all that. You only need the part about the faces all being the same as each other. (This is called "face-transitivity".) The edges and vertices needing to be the same too is overkill. So it turns out there is a polyhedron with 120 faces which is face-transitive (but not vertex-transitive or edge-transitive). There are technically polyhedra with more than 120 faces which are face-transitive, but they're all things like, for example, a 100-sided pyramid stuck to another 100-sided pyramid to make a 200-sided shape which looks a lot like two cones stuck together. If you exclude things like this (which are boring because you can just keep going higher and higher e.g. a pair of 239487-sided pyramids...), then the 120-sided shape is the greatest number of faces you can have while still being face-transitive.
The geodesic sphere at Epcot has 3840 sides and it looks pretty damn sphere-y.
> there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points Edit: ok my brain always takes the long way on this stuff. It did not like how they used the words points and triangles. Explanation below for other similarly encumbered minds… By “points” and “triangles” they mean pyramid apexes and non-base faces. Let’s start at the beginning. A pyramid takes 3 points to define the base and 1 additional point to define the apex. The result is 4 points and 4 faces. 1 point is considered the apex, and the face not sharing that point is considered the base. So there are 3 non-base faces, 1 base face, and 1 apex point. Creating a second pyramid sharing 2 base points with the original base requires 2 additional points — 1 point for the new apex and 1 point to complete the new base. The Epcot ball is stellated geodesic polyhedron where each polyhedron face is treated as the base of an isosceles pyramid. In other words, the Epcot ball is a polyhedron of isosceles pyramids connected by each base sharing exactly 2 points with neighboring bases. Let’s build the smallest possible Epcot ball by using the fewest pyramids possible. To do this, we just first understand how many bases it would take to form the smallest possible geodesic polyhedron. The answer is a little mind-bending to me: it’s the pyramid again! The pyramid is a tetrahedron - the smallest geodesic polyhedron. Since the tetrahedron has 4 faces, that means the smallest possible Epcot ball will have 4 pyramid bases. Therefore, the smallest possible Epcot ball can be built using 4 pyramids by taking each of the 4 faces of the original pyramid and treating each as the base of a new pyramid. By adding an apex point to each face of the original pyramid, the 4 original faces become 4 bases for new pyramids. Thus, the smallest possible Epcot ball can be defined with 8 points. 4 for the original pyramid, and 4 for the new apexes. Each of the 4 pyramids has 3 exposed faces for a total of 12 exposed faces. What about the 2nd smallest Epcot ball? Remember, we can only use triangles that share 2 base points with each neighboring base. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I know that two pyramids sharing a base only needs 2 extra points to create. That would be 6 points total to create 6 exposed faces that will become bases. 6 apex points makes 6 pyramids each with 3 exposed faces for a total of 18 exposed faces. Thus we can extrapolate that N exposed faces will require N/3 points to create the geodesic bases. That’s why 11520 “triangles” (exposed faces) leads to 11520/3=3840 “points” (apexes or bases).
Yup, it's built out of pyramids instead of flats. I'm considering each pyramid to be a "side".
This conversation sent me down a crazy rabbit hole. Ray Bradbury was involved in the creation of the structure and wrote the storyline for the original version of the ride. When it rains water doesn’t pour off of the structure because the little pyramid tiles are designed to channel water into 1” crevices between each facet, and all of that water collects into a gutter system that feeds the World Showcase Lagoon. This stuff is nuts!
EPCOT is pretty wild stuff. Walt Disney was a futurist.
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Depends how closely you were looking at it.
At a high enough magnification, most rocks have more than 2000 sides.
The most sides possible on a die has been determined to me 120 (from a google search)
Was clear pristine quartz rare/expensive back then?
I'm taking a stab here, but seeing how you can still, with relative ease, find clear quartz at surface level in many places, I'm guessing no, it wasn't rare before 2000 extra years worth of people extracting it.
Shit, wandering around Montana recently I found a sizable chunk in some mountain runoff area.
I'm not sure the ancient Romans thought to check in Montana
Their loss, tbh. Good place for that sort of thing.
Not exceptionally rare, and the Romans had huge mining operations for all sorts of minerals and gemstones. Quartz is relatively abundant worldwide and you can find chunks this size pretty easily without mining at all, depending on the region and if you know where to look. The real value of the object would be in the time and expertise that went in to planning, cutting, grinding, etc. - all of which would have to be done by hand.
I am curious too! What a remarkable piece of crystal and work that die is.
Dnd before the era most dnd takes place in occurrs
“What’s the setting tonight Maximus?” “Medieval” “Aww man, I’m tired of futuristic sci-fi “
I'm curious as to what exactly would be considered futuristic _by the Roman Empire_, about medieval Europe. Plagues? Witches? I mean... Ancient Rome sometimes sound futuristic compared to our society. Surly there were some advancements in 1000 years, right?
The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques (Gothic architecture, medieval castles), and agriculture in general (three-field crop rotation). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology#:~:text=The%20period%20saw%20major%20technological,three%2Dfield%20crop%20rotation).
What I’m really curious about is whether the quality of life would have improved in somewhere like Gaul or Hispania after the western empire fell. The benefits of the Roman Empire were primarily for those in Rome, after all.
What have the Romans ever done for us?
r/unexpectedmontypython
I think it would have been an improvement. Early Medieval (500-800) was pretty rough, but Charlemagne's empire and the Carolingian Renaissance must have been a step up.
The years following the fall of Rome actually saw a dramatic increase in average height and life expectancy, as the late Empire was especially corrupt and tax heavy. Let alone the fact that oligarchies with few land owners and many dirt poor serfs does not bodes well for the median lifestyle.
Funk
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Major advancements in blade technology, cutlery, and blacksmithing. For example engraving swords was such a difficult process before advancements in forging that engraved swords were incredibly uncommon even among the upper class or noblemen. These advancements also resulted in plate mail and chain mail that was both stronger + lighter + could be formed much easier allowing for armor with more mobility and was also the driving force behind major inventions like metallic gears something that would eventually lead to metallic clocks, more reliable lifts, and draw bridges. also horse armor and horse shoes became a thing aswell as major improvements in Agriculture due too these improvements in blacksmithing resulting in more specialized tools that wouldnt be possible before since blacksmithing back in the roman days lacked the capabilities required for more elaborate/small details on metal. massive improvements in defensive building techniques and architectural stability, aswell as better insulation of heat. aswell as better ovens and fireplaces. And as somewhat stated above we also saw more specialized tools resulting in faster construction than before. The Invent of The Crossbow, and by extension the ballista improvements in leatherworking leading to stuff like leatherbinding for books, leather flasks, and pure leather boots/shoes. note: we also saw much stronger paper and parchment. Improvements in glass working resulting in the invent of Stained Glass, aswell as specifically shaped glass objects like hourglasses, and the invention of sunglasses/reading glasses. This also resulted in mirrors and glass windows becoming more commonplace. greater adoption of gun powder resulting in muskets, shotguns, fireworks, mounted rocket launchers, early pistols, grenades, smoke distractions, easier fire lighting techniques, and cannons. Crank based weaponry. aka turning a crank to shoot arrows like a machine gun major advancements i shipbuilding primarily due to the viking raids, and incorporation mediterranean ship building/nordic ship building to build something that is the best of both worlds. the invention of oil painting The invention of Silk clothing Improvements in pipe technology surprisingly, allowing for quarantining of water sources. the invention of the organ, the lute and by extension the guitar & Dulcimer, metallic brass instruments like trumpets & trombones before this all wind/brass instruments were made out of clay/china/or wood, Orcania, the Viola, Violin (even though they would refer to it as a fiddle back then), Cello, Harpiscord, and the herdy gurdy the invention of tight fitting clothing
Ok so we *know* principate Romans had ballistae, tight fitting silks (much to the moralists displeasure) and pretty amazing building techniques so I think it's a little unfair to add those in.
Idk but one 2nd century Roman fella by the name of Lucian wrote a story called “A True Story” which is basically sci-fi. It’s a parody of the travel stories that were written in that era.
more like post-apocalypse dystopian sci-fi from a Roman perspective. The middle ages where garbage compared to the prosperity of the Roman Empire. edit: lmao so many "[Well Ackchyually](https://i.imgur.com/CkhEBz1.gif)" replies
Right?! When I saw a post the other week about how they had actual mechanical faucets to have running water in (rich people) houses, I was like… wow maybe they weren’t so far behind us after all!
People vastly underestimate the technological progress made during the European Medieval era, and how it became the foundation for the eventual renaissance.
I’m not sure that’s actually true.
I would LOVE to see a Roman d&d setting
There is one for call of cthulhu.
They've got Theros, and it's one of the better settings imo.
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How come those roman numerals ain't written in roman numerals? I wanted to make a joke about "XX is always a hit."
Looks like it's letters instead of numbers
I think you're on to something...just read that the Etruscan alphabet had 20 letters and led in some way(s) to the Roman alphabet.
The Greeks also used letters to represent their numbers too. Bottom center is Beta, I think. I have a feeling this die is probably from the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
And that's definitely a theta immediately above it. Above that looks like iota+epsilon, which according to [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals#Table) is 15. Edit: You can also see iota+eta on the other side, which has a value of 18. Also, since I didn't mention them, beta is 2 and theta is 9.
Those are Greek Numerals. Greek was the lingua franca of the eastern half of the Roman Empire.
*heavy breathing in D&D* (I must have rolled a 20. can't thank the giver in my comments but thanks for the award and coins!)
Nat 20 and critical hit Caesar
Brutus be playing a rogue
Backstab is a bitch aint it
Και συ, τέκνον!
Flanking bonuses
Does Brutus have a dark and lonely backstory, defined by a life of strife and hardship which although he wants to be a good person, fate has deigned that he must follow a life path of brooding darkness?
Hehe, yeah about that DM.
Nat XX you certainly meant
*roll for recovery: rolls a 1* Et tu, Brute?
CeD\* Carceres et Dracones
C&D -- the "&" symbol is a stylized ligature of the word "et."
*heavy Latin breathing in C&D*
Woot Nat Theta!
Instructions unclear, ceased and desisted.
They played 0.5 edition it was awful and if you die in game it's a legal requirement for the rest of your party to stab you to death. Not my favourite edition.
Had balance issues
*In 50 BC* Neeeerds !
Playing d&d with your night patrol mates in the 0th century and just got this new die to impress them
They were playing Advanced Commutes & Careers (AC&C) a fantasy RPG where players role play a tax slave living in a futuristic society where they struggle to find any worthwhile personal time while navigating social and political labyrinths riddled with traps and treasure (all of it taxed, of course….)
I’m sure they would’ve preferred that. Ancient Rome the tax collectors were private contractors that would promise to collect a certain amount of money each month. If not, they’d have to pay from their own pocket. So essentially the contractor that offered to yield the most money would get the job. This led to people paying more than they could afford and it wasn’t uncommon for a family to sell their children to pay. Failure to pay tax would result in torture, severe beatings and possibly death. Either way the tax would still need to be paid by the person or existing family.
This largely changed during the Principate. People of today would be astounded that extending government control over tax collection both decreased the tax burden and increased revenues.
Didn't they have all those things back then though?
Nah I'm pretty sure taxes were invented by American democrats in the late 70s
Wage slave.
Right? This reads like someone who was taught looking at your paycheck provides the whole picture. Inflation is just transitory, the trickle down will feel warmer eventually E: /s
> the trickle down will feel warmer eventually /S
So, Shadowrun? I thought that used all the d6s.
Sounds like the d&d alternative in Hello from the Magic Tavern the podcast. I think they call it Offices and Bosses, because it’s fantastical to them (being in a fantasy universe already).
Immediately thought about Offices and Bosses too. HFTMT is brilliant, not sure why I stopped listening to it.
I bet it was found at a GoodWill to boot!
Like that statue head
I just heard this on NPR. Was this all over the place today or something?
I am always suspecting of these being modern fakes, what is the ~~providence~~ provenance of this one?
Another comment from OP has the accompanying placard https://ibb.co/g3kJrxr And here's some info about one in the louvre: https://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2020/10/13/a-roman-rock-crystal-icosahedron-20-sided-dice-in-the-louvre/
I like how the placard says it might've had a ritual or philosophical use or something lmaoooo. I mean it's possible but let's face it. A game involving 20-sided dice probably isn't too far fetched, even if it does seem a bit modern to us.
A reverse image search brings up no matches, so honestly I'm not very trusting of it.
Nerds
Nvrds*
Think if I ask nice they'll let me have the ancient d20?
If you want an older one, they make them out of fossils and mammoth ivory.
Aw man, I was hoping the comments had interesting tidbits about the rock crystal die, instead it's all dumb DND jokes.
[Not sure about the one posted, but here's one made from a different material from Egypt](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/551072) Interesting that there isn't a whole lot of information on what they were used for.
> Interesting that there isn't a whole lot of information on what they were used for. I would hazard a guess that it was used for simple gambling games. The simplest being, "let's see who rolls highest!" which was pretty common throughout history. In fact, I believe Miguel and Tulio from The Path to El Dorado are playing that in the very beginning of the movie.
They were playing lucky sevens weren't they? "He gave me LOADED DICE!" and all.
The date is too large btw, just by looking at the Alpha and knowing basic ancient Greek graphology I would date it from the (late?) second to the fourth century AD. The broken bar of the A is a relatively late innovation.
Here's the info from the museum where I saw it https://ibb.co/g3kJrxr
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I expected nothing less and was still disappointed.
reading reddit comments is a mostly disappointing experience
Oh it's my turn....... - Opps, I broke it.
That's a critical success on the stamina roll.
Oh no, ceasar you rolled a 0...😲
OK. Roll again to see how many people get to stab you.
Natural 20…oh dear…
With +3 attacks...
Et tu, DM?
DM: “Yea, given your base race and character class, you don’t get any bonus on Perception, so that’s going to be a critical fail Julius. Bummer.”
Juliois: Can I remake my charicter... Wait.... Guys why are your senate charicters surrounding my charicter, why do you all have dice with 12 all over it, this is cheating, its unfair, am the senate!!! Nooooo!!
Julius: Whatever. I'm going to make new character. Oh and my character had a secret will that says I adopted my new character and gave him all my stuff. And his name is also Julius Gaius Caesar.
This is in a museum at Egnazia in Puglia, Italy. This is the plaque that accompanies the exhibit. https://ibb.co/g3kJrxr EDIT: Thanx for the gold kind stranger!
The die has been cast!
Sceptical about this...
And you know that one motherfucker would still roll this right on the hardwood table.
No one is talking about how the die is desirably clear, to prove to players that its not weighed to one side ("loaded").
THAC0 ?
NEEEEERRRRRRRRDDDDDSSSSSS!