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I’m more than a bit surprised that the “deckaider” and other “decader / d% / tens” ten siders only hit the market in 1990. I thought they started showing up in the 80s, but then I remember a lot of times rolling 2d10 and declaring which colour die was “high” at the time of the roll.
(Ad from Dragon Magazine, 1990)
Original d10 patent was 1983. https://patents.google.com/patent/USD267569S/en
But that is 98.74% irrelevant to discussing the “tens” die. That is specifically for the Gamescience design of the d10 (regular d10s were around before that, they were included in the 1981 Basic D&D set for instance). This is about the ones numbered 10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/00.
Interestingly, that patent was originally filed in 1981. Did Lou Zocchi actually invent the d10?
No, Lou’s d10 is different than the d10s that were being made in the early 80s because it has the extra facets around the “belt-line”.
I didn’t have any in my first die set from Christmas 1987 (thanks, grandma!), and they weren’t in the Mentzer Basic Set, which I also got about the same time. I think I first remember seeing them in the mid-1990s, and by the end of the decade was amazed they were now in the standard die tubes.
I’m pretty sure I had percentile dice in 89 when I moved towns and elementary schools. I remember getting my first chessex container with all the dice, including a 00’s d10.
My admittedly faulty memory says that tens d10s were around before 1990, but I have no real evidence to support that. True, I’m so old that I remember when dice sets were only the 5 Platonic solids and the d10 hadn’t even been invented yet! Good old d4, d6, d8, d12 & d20.
Actually Wikipedia thinks there is a patent for that type of 10 sided dice dating back to 1906 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagonal_trapezohedron ).
I can’t remember ever seeing a dice marked in 10’s when I was active playing EPT and Runequest in the 70’s and 80’s. Some 0-9 twice 20 siders were available then some 0-9 10 siders which were an 8 sider with 2 flat facets where the points should be. Finally the modern 10 sider shapes but still numbered 0-9. So my guess is after the mid 80’s. I’m not going to argue with that 1990.
None of the patents people keep pulling up are for decader dice, they are for d10s.
Some research will quickly locate the 1906 patent. It is however labeled with card symbols rather than numbers. There is another patent dated to 1980 for a ten-sided with the corners rounded off. I saw a few of these for sale about that time, However, they rolled too well and tended to fall off the table so I did not purchase any. Soon after that ten-sided (without the rounded corners) were available from most dice manufacturers.
Neither of these patents are for “decader” dice, but for general d10s.
Yea, so the main thing special about the “decader” is that it is numbered with a zero after the number (knocking the corners off might also count but I think that shows up on earlier dice). I do find this innovation useful but it is hardly revolutionary.