Louis Zocchi, inventor of the d100, has died

More than just the d100 he was a pioneer of being very exacting when it came to making polyhedral dice. See http://www.1000d4.com/2013/02/14/how-true-are-your-d20s/

The amount of games that use those kinds of dice make his contribution to tabletop gaming incommensurable. Sad to see him passing. But 91 yo is more than respectable

It had never occurred to me that somebody needed to invent polyhedral dice. There must be so many inventions in the world that I’m completely unaware that there was a point in time before which something didn’t exist and after that it did, thanks to somebody.

The internet reports that D100 is impractical to use but it's cool if your game design calls for a relatively rare "ritual value".

Here I was thinking he invented throwing two d10 where the other one is marked with tens.

Somebody had to invent that too, right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zocchihedron

I didn't see a picture of Zocchi's d100, Wikipedia has one

I just throw 17d6 and subtract 2.

Problem solved.

(I am joking!)

I've never played any games that require this, but the Wikipedia page makes reference to percentage rolls, but wouldn't you need 101 sides to get 0% and 100% for that?

The study of imperfection in dice that makes them settle on certain favoured numbers by Louis, helps clear superstitious story of Mahabharata whereby the character named Shakuni, had dice made of his dead father's ashes who/which always respects/fall on numbers he desired,threby winning/cheating in game of Chaupad, that ultimately lead to biggest war in human history

>> By far, his most significant contributions to the games industry came in the realm of dice design. Zocchi founded Gamescience in 1974. He was the first to create polyhedral dice for the U.S. market, and is credited with designing the D3, D5, D14, D24, and D100. The D100 was named the "Zocchihedron" in his honor (see "Have A Nice Day!").

And I happen to own at least one of each of those specialist dice. And many more still. I think I have a die with faces for most even numbers from 2 to 100 and also some of the odd ones too.

OK now you all know I'm a nerd.