Games Britannia Ep.1 - "Dice with Destiny"

Our lectureer had been mention for about a week or so about a program that came on about a couple of years ago or so of a program called Games Britannia. It's a 3 part documentary about the history of games in britain, luckily the class got the chance to watch the first episode, make notes and then post up our opinion.

The first game that was brought up was found in a Roman grave that was dubbed as the Stanway Game. It was to make the player to believe they were Roman. The pieces were always scattered on the board as if it looked like it was ready to be played. The game seemed like it was the sort of game the roman's would use as a way of planning ahead for wars, the pieces on the board represent their men and come up with strategies. The game in some ways could be debated as a early variation of the games we know as Chess and Drafts just obviously not to plan for a war.

Another game that came up was a game known as Hazard a.k.a the "devil's" game, the reason being was because back then gambling was frowned upon (still is to this day in some respect, but not as much). The game is fairly simple, players put any amount of money in a pot, players bet on the outcome of the dice, you pay to stay, the bigger the pot the more intense the game is. It is effectively a game of luck more than anything.

A game that was very popular that it had quite a few variations of was a Royal Game of Goose - a game all the family could enjoy. It was an interesting one as it was given something that wasn't given a dice, but it was (if that makes sense). Basically, back in those days, dice were seen as evil; as tools that children should not be playing with, hence why the game was given something else to act as it.

Chess is another one that came up in the program. It was said to originate from India and had different rules across the globe, then one day a king held a tournament with a set of rules and since then, those rules are the rules we play to this very day. It was believed to be a way to teach about war.

The program as a whole was very interesting and I got quite a lot out of it than I originally thought I would. Though to end the note on the whole thing, the narrator did cleverly point out that seeing as there are re-hashes of certain, it's has taken away the fun out of them.