I wrote a little piece on a game called ZAZZ (1963) and how it may have been the first game to include the entire modern polyhedral set in the game rules and include the dice.
Naturally someone read it as I was saying the d20 was invented in 1963 and downvoted and linked to a article correcting me by showing the d20 existed in 200 BC...

Well hidden in the comments of that article was this absolute gem of a publicly posted comment.  Maybe this is a well known story but to me it was the first I'd heard of how the D&D dice came to D&D:

"There is no proof that this object was ever used as a die. The first “D20” I ever saw was also numbered from 1 to 20, not for use as a dice, but as an example of the icosahedron, the twenty-sided member of the set of five regular polyhedra that was made for use in solid geometry classes, so students could see what the five shapes were. The faces were numbered in case a student had telling the faces apart when counting them. The “numbering” on this object uses the first 20 letters of the Greek alphabet, rather than “1=20” as the Greeks did not have the Arabic number system, but there are examples of using their alphabet to represent numbers, as for example, in writing the Biblical number of the beast in the Book of Revelation as chi xi stigma (meaning 600+60+6) rather than as 6-6-6. I began using the five regular polyhedra in the set I purchased from a school supply catalog, as dice in 1965, adapting our wargame rules to employ them in combination with ordinary six-sided dice. Prior to my introducing them to our group, no one we knew had ever seen polyhedra used as dice. When David Arneson, who was a member of our group, created the first Fantasy RPG, Blackmoor, he included the use of the polyhedral dice in it. He then showed Blackmoor to Gary Gygax, who was inspired to create his fantasy RPG, Greyhawk, which followed Arneson in using polyhedral dice. And when they collaborated to create Dungeons and Dragons, which became the first commercially successful RPG, it made polyhedral dice a familiar feature of gaming ever since."

DAVID WESELY ON DECEMBER 30, 2019
David Wesely - Wikipedia

stratochamp wrote in Found great D&D lore from being downvoted on Reddit:Dave Wesely does not get his due generally speaking in the creation of RPG's. Jon Peterson has given him credit, but most other histories have bypassed his contributions.
Similar to a discussion of who was responsible for the start of World War I (I'd say Germany 30%, Russia 22%, Austria 22%, France 15%, England 11%), Dave Wesely is one of the few people who should actually have a percentage attributed to him (albeit much smaller than Gary and Dave) in the creation of our hobby.

Off topic. But I’d say Austria-Hungary 50% responsible due to reacting to the assassination by a Serbian.  

seodude wrote in Found great D&D lore from being downvoted on Reddit:DAVID WESELY ON DECEMBER 30, 2019

You can in fact read in the pages of this very forum what Wesely wrote, 15 years ago now, about his role in the invention of polyhedral dice.

"While I am beating my own drum, I would like to lay claim to having "invented" polyhedral dice.  I was the first person to USE what were then being sold as "Models of the five regular polyhedra" (for mathematics teachers to show to their students), AS DICE.  I have since seen a book that claims that the Japanese were already using three D-20s, numbered 0-9 twice, to generate 3-digit decimal random numbers at some time before 1976.  So it may be that they also invented this use for polyhedra, but I was unaware of them so I am at least an independant re-inventor. And it was my introducing the D4, D8, D12 and D20 to our gaming group in 1965 that led to them being used in RPGs and D&D.

...

Back in 1965, I read the rules to a game published in 1880 that said one could use a "12-sided teetotum" instead of a 6-sided die,  for resolving odds of 6:1, 7:1 etc up to 11:1, but did not explain what a teetotum was or how to make one.  I had seen a set of models of the regular polyhedra in my High School trig class, and decided that a "12-sided teetotum" must be the 12-sdied thingy (a regular dodecahedron) I had seen in the set.   Wanting to try out the game, I went to school, got out the "Edmund Scientific Supplies" catalog, and ordered one set of the polyhedra from them for $6.00 (gasolene was $ 0.20 /gallon then, so that would be about $66.00 in today's money).  This set of five polyhedra came with the faces already numbered, to make it easy to see that there were 12 sides on a dodacahedron, or 20 on an icosahedron, which made them easy to use as dice.  So they became the ancestors of all the D4, D6, D8, D12 and D20 sets ever sold.  There have been other shapes, and other ways of numbering them invented since, and there alwys were six-sided dice (though using the numbers 1-2-3-4-5-6 instead of pips or painted dots is a feature of the classic "D6" used by D&D, that I do not remember ever seeing before then)."

acaeum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?cache=1& ... c=1#p65129

This article is also relevant on how the dice came to be:

dungeons and dragons - At what point did polyhedral dice become part of D&D? - Role-playing Games Stack Exchange

Foul

stratochamp wrote in Found great D&D lore from being downvoted on Reddit:As you indicated ashmire13 off-topic, But I should have expected a reply given my post. Anyway I will reply one time. Everyone of the European powers is to blame with the interwoven politics and family power struggles that resulted in the horrific internecine war. Germany receives the most because they were actively pushing hardest for the war. England has its two fleet policy for a long time but with the building of the Dreadnought in 1906 Germany started a nautical arms race that pushed France (England's enemy for 1000 years) into England's orbit. The Austro-Hungarian empire was destined to break up with the rise of ethnic politics and Russia wanted Austrian territory so it could have a warm water port. What could have been a regional conflict between the two escalated because of the extra length of time Russia was going to take to mobilize to be ready for a war. With all of the nobility being cousins with each other personal emotions came in to play (especially with the Kaiser and Czar Nicholas). I'm going to stop now because scholars more knowledgeable than I have written 500 page tomes (Martin Gilbert, John Keegan) that should be read instead. But after thinking more I'm going to go with Germany 28% Russia 22% Austria 22% France 14% England 14%. Thanks for making me think it through!

I was trying to be witty…