OSR Replica Dice Unboxing and D&D Dice History Retrospective 

I laughed so hard at this one. Talk about shared experiences. One of our DMs had a d20 like that. We called it 'The Marble'.

Hopefully any sets unopened or not used? Like Captocorajus said these things are work Bank. Found an unopened set (still sealed in the bag) in my 1st Ed Gamma World box -- of the Holmes-era dice -- and yeah -- going rate is around $500. (and over $100 for a beat-up set). Pretty wild for these crappy dice.

Glad to hear! It put a big smile on my face too. Wanted to share the joy!

Lord, you just made me have a flashback. It was a good one but still a flashback. hehe

Yeah, and the game would open with a title in bad phony Medieval calligraphy on a scroll in CGA colours with a title like DUNGEON OF THE UNWISE SUCKAHS or some junk.

Dungeon of the Unwise Suckahs is definitely the adventure Quentin Tarantino would DM.

I know, right?

Mine came with Keep on the borderlands. Interestingly enough, that edition of Keep has a few varying art pieces AND Holmes style monster statistics.. i.e. all the monsters have a dex stat for initiative.

A good story! The set is complete. 😂

Totally - I just checked and I still have my Holmes dice (full set), thought I had thrown them out. Yeah, who knew that crap would be worth $$$. Yeah, over $100 bucks for a set in poor condition. Yikes. There are some serious nostalgia collectors out there.

Another fun one. I just learned when the D10 entered the mix. I have only the D8 and the rolly D 10 left. Dad had a pair of Zochi D10's that we shared. He bought them at our first Gen con. Sorry you got stuck with the chits. Looks like you got some nice replacements. ❤

@@chrisholmes436 Cool story on the d10!! On my end in my Gamma World box I found a set still sealed in the bag of unopened Holmes-era TSR dice (apparently the 1st Ed Gamma World box also included Holmes dice). This one is amazing -- I looked for pricing for brand new (still sealed in the bag) new Holmes dice -- and get this -- around $500 a set. Wild. So yeah, glad I watched these RU-vid videos about old dice. I thought these crappy dice were almost worthless. Apparently, they are pretty rare -- because I guess everyone though the same thing -- and didn't take care of them. Also, whenever you buy boxed sets they usually don't come with the original dice. You're apparently better off selling the dice separately -- as most people that by boxed sets -- don't price the dice anyway, i.e. they expect there not to be any dice.

btw: I bet if you still have the chits and were never punched out -- probably worth $$$. Punched out -- yeah probably worthless. 😂

Not sure if you still have your beat up set still. I didn't believe this -- but a beat-up set of these crappy dice is worth $100+ now.

You can sometimes buy individual dice on eBay. But sadly, these go for $30-$60 ea.!! aye. Yeah, my story is I found a brand-new set (unopened) in my 1st Ed Gamma World Box. I watched a video then went to my storage bins -- no dice -- no dice - no dice -- and then finally opened the Gamma World box and total score!! Unopened Holmes-era set!! Glad I watched these videos I thought these dice were worthless.

Keep them. 😂 An old beat-up set of the Holmes dice is worth $100+ these days.

Larry Elmore is awesome. You have good taste! :)

It’s coming back next Friday. Just saw the post on their Facebook. In case you never snagged one.

lol.. yes, I have several of those of course.

They found a home. Cool!!

Certainly, but small boxes can be easily lost in the mail! :)

Never heard that story. From reading Playing at the World -- all of these guys were veteran wargamers and the knowledge of the existence of polyhedral dice was relatively common. Just revolutionary to decide to include them in D&D at the time -- because they were expensive compared to d6. Gygax and Arneson were giants!! - So grateful for what they both created.

@@quantus5875 You will note in "Playing at the World" that David Wesely, someone who I game with weekly, is the start of Role-Playing games. He is from Minnesota. John get a lot wrong. And I have talked to him about it. David Wesely even brought to his attention where he got stuff wrong. I believe his second book covers more of what he missed. Basically a lot of Gaming historians heard of Wisconsin, heck, its the address of TSR. BUT if you limit yourself to the people in Wisconsin you often NEVER hear what happened earlier in Minnesota starting in 1963. I will have the timetable of events at DaveCON. I will be showing Secrets of Blackmoor. And John's big hang up is original documents, and then he tries to interpret what is in these. He really did not interview the Minnesota crew that much. 1963: MMSA forms. The worlds largest Wargaming group, and also other games. (Minnesota) 1964: David Wesely recruits Dave Arneson who is still in grade school doing gaming. (Minnesota) 1965: David Wesely inspired by Strategoes corals in the various game lawyers in by creating the Referee role (Someone not allowed to play, rules arbiter, and decides WHAT rules are being used or how interpreted.... And sets up the armies, who is who, and enforces fog of war... now the Game Master) Rules Lawyers left for the most part, or adapted. (Minnesota) Games that would take over a year from start to finish, now completed in a night due to less or no arguing. 1968: David Wesely drops all WARGAMING in his Braunstein game. Teases they will do one, but really wants to do a game experiment. John wrongly called this 'proto-roleplaying'. No it was full one Role-playing. Characters with backgrounds, roles, and goals. Senario set up, and the rest was done in dialog. No combat planned..... ..... Then you have Dave Arneson who gets involved in a duel. This ROLE-PLAYING is why Minnesotans who were there do not say it came from Wargaming. Infact many of the players were not strictly wargamers.... 1969: William Hoyt, Dave Arneson, & Gary Gygax discuss forming a fictional world setting with a fictional Medieval setting. (No fantasy discussed.) Much like the Napoleonics That many were doing. Specifically Arneson was doing a not historically accurate Napoleonic campaign. (Wisconsin meeting) Duane Jenkins was doing his BrownStone variant of Braunstein, a Western RPG. Dave Arneson was a major player in it. 1969/70: Arneson decides to do his version of Braunstein, set in Medieval settings. Only he used the Lake Geneva game outcomes as back drop. He immediately started incorporating Fantasy elements, monsters, and spells. And it goes on..... There is no formalized combat matrix, much like Braunstein, until Domesday Book issue number 5. What Arneson refers to as the Chainmail without the Fantasy Supplement. He tries it about 3 times, then the players not liking the brutal combat system, plus it did not work too well in the dungeon, forced him to drop it (not completely) and look for a better system. He pulls the vast majority of combat rules from his own naval game, substituting ships for characters....

I can understand it for one simple reason: Those things were so fragile there can't be that many sets left, at leasy not in good shape. Only collectors are really going to want them, there aren't that many available, and collectors are by definition willing to pay a premium for rare things they're collecting.

Full unused set of Holmes dice goes for $100+ these days on eBay. They'd have to I think be in really good shape to get $200.

Keep it!! Even 1 die of the Holmes set can go for $30-$60 each. Some people a missing a die or two and want to complete their sets.

btw: a d12 beat up will go for $30-$60 on eBay -- so don't toss it. 😂

@@quantus5875 my wonky d12 is my favourite dice, it will be buried with me

@@marcraygun6290 😂 Cool!! Yes, always a good conversation piece.

but these are replicas and are not soft. :)

I agree. You can't and I can't -- but yeah and I never knew this -- there are people out there that are. It's essentially nostalgia collectors for the beat-up versions and professional collectors I think that are willing to pay more for unused sets and even sealed sets.

Its my job to keep my finger on the pulse of the culture brother. lol. :)

"Scruffy" is a highly accurate word to describe my dice.

Keep them!! 🙂 Since this video had been released prices have gone up. Full beat-up set is worth $100+ (almost tossed mine years ago but have them), not sure how much a full unused set (opened) is, and a sealed bag set (lucky I have one) is now worth around $500. Yes -- wild!

Well, do what you want of course. I prefer rolling a d20.... there's some magic when a player rolls a nat 20 at the table ... everyone enjoys that. As far as rolling the d6 to determine 1-10/11-20, mathematically its the same.

Statistically it’s the same, considering your d6 is either a 10 or a 0 in this case (2 outcomes), and the 0-9 d20/d10 have a total of 10 outcomes. 2 x 10 = 20, so you have a 1/20 (5%) chance of rolling any number, same as any given number on a d20! Have you tried rolling 3d6 instead of 1d20? You may like it! It provides a bell-curve that rewards a character’s modifiers (/proficiency/skill) more than having rolls be decided ~70%+ of the time by sheer randomness (how the d20 operates).

@@Sanguivore It's funny you mention using 3d6. Lately, I've been experimenting with Blueholme (modern version of Holmes Basic), and that game has an optional rule for skill checks where you roll under your stat values with 3d6. I'd been using a d20 for that rule before I found the recommended method in the book. Maybe I should give it a shot.

@@drunkendelver1966 Highly recommended! Ever since I decided to experiment with 3d6 on a whim, I love it and use it all the time! I also let all my players at my table choose if they want to roll 3d6 or 1d20, and after toying with it for a while, they’ve all decided they like 3d6 more. Speaking of, how you liking Blueholme vs. something like Basic Fantasy? I have Blueholme on my shelf and I’ve been meaning to try it and give it a read!

Fixed it, thanks for the heads up

Roll a d20 and a d6 at the same time. 1-3 read the d20 as 1-10. 4-6 read the d20 as 11-20.

@@captcorajus thanks! I have a set of not recreations per say but, they are 20 sided d10s. This is useful info.

Wouldn't want it to get lost in the mail!!

captcorajus suppose that’s a fair point. They are super cool dice. Seems so weird to think that I’m the beginning d10s just weren’t a thing, especially when you think about how world of darkness as a system relied on them not so many years later.

Its just a matter of entomology of the game. The dice were originally mathematical educational tools based on the five platonic solids. They were adopted into the game from that. Later on, the decahedron shape was adapted to the game as a natural evolution based on the needs of the game.

You're not wrong. The problem is each set is meticulously hand made, so he can only make so many sets at a time.

That's a good thing. I myself would never pay $$$ for these old dice either. But yeah -- strangely enough there are people that are. Replica dice is not a bad compromise IMO. I myself would never buy a replica set -- but I get it for those that do.

@@quantus5875 - The original dice were badly made, and the plastic was much too soft. Thankfully, the game caught on, and better manufacturers started making better dice.

@@fleetcenturion Agreed. It is the crappy, cheap dice that are worth a ton -- because the old OD&D set and Holmes set dice are rare and collectors want them. Yeah, as far as "use" went I went to a better set of dice in 1979 and never looked back -- although just glad I didn't throw my original set away.