Games Britannia: Dicing with destiny

Dicing with destiny is the first part of a three part series called Games Britannia. In the series, presented by Benjamin Woolley, we go on a journey that explores games made in Britain throughout history. We start at the beginning, with ancient board games. These are my notes:

We start off with The Stanway Game, a board game discovered by Colchester in 1966. They found a grave, dating back to the roman invasion in 43 AD. In this grave was one of the best ancient medical kits ever discovered, leading us to believe it was some kind of doctor. But also in the grave was a board game. This turned out to be the earliest discovered game set in Britain. It was laid out like it was mid-way through play, but nobody had any ideas what the rules were. It appears to be some kind of war strategy game.

Hazard is another game that is talked about on Dicing with Destiny. It is a simple game that involves dice and gambling. Players have to gamble on the outcome of the dice, with each round you have to bet more and more to stay in the game. Irving Finkel says that ‘dice are the work of the devil’, because then everything is based on luck and Finkel brings up the point that they work well for cheats. Hazard was condemned by the church because it wasn’t just about playing for fun, passing the time or had some intellectual challenge.

The show also talks about the Hindi game of knowledge or enlightenment, this is where snake and ladders came from. There are many parts to this game, but the one that stuck out the most was the fact that you could become trapped in the eternal loop of paradise (or something close to that). This happened to players that were basically unlucky when it comes to the roll of the dice, it essential finishes the game for them.