Dicing with Destiny

During this lesson with ED we was introduced into the history or gaming and he though there was no better way to do this than by watching part one of three in the series of Games Britannia, this part was called Dicing with Destiny.

This episode talks about medieval and ancient games that have been proven to be played not just for fun, for example Chess and games alike would have been played to work out strategies to fight a battle the opposition this would help the leader or the men understand the battle better and show them how it could or will be fought. however games like this and especially ones related to religion became less and less associated with these things and started to become more associated with gambling.

This then meant that more and more card and dice games where being played rather than board games, this then led to these games being associated with being "evil", this then led to a "stop gambling" campaign was started in 1784, back in those days though winning and losing was completely 50/50 based so one could win a complete fortune or lose it all within a few hours of gambling, a famous quote about this was said by Charles James Fox, he was one of many people who became bankrupt through gambling, he became bankrupt twice due to his gambling habits but he said "winning is the greatest pleasure in life, and loosing is the second". 

we also learnt that very big and famous games where based on other games from other cultures and eras for example the game Snakes and Ladders was based off of a Hindu game the would show you a journey of life across its board, this game was simplified and then adapted wha we now know as Snakes and Ladders.

i really enjoyed this part of the series and it talked about a lot of interesting things and theories tht have led to things as we know them today.