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Chris M's avatar

That was very interesting. I'm not a historical expert, but as a game buff the history of games is an interest of mine. I thing I remember from when I learned meditation in Hawaii was the instructor saying that people in modern society generally need more complex visualizations than people living simpler lives (He blamed television). People were happy playing checkers, go, nine men's morris, chess, etc for an immense amount of time. The games are still strategic, but generally seen as a bit dull by people not really into them. It seems the same with plays vs movies, or music over time. Maybe as our lives get more complicated our entertainments need to get more complicated to be an effective distraction?

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Jens B Fiederer's avatar

The “I pull out a sword and hack the goblin’s head off” was actually a common occurrence when I was a child. We just never thought of using dice to resolve the inevitable disagreements. Of course, that was natural...we didn't have dice because we were in our bunkbeds in the dark, and we were supposed to be sleeping. We just kept alternating between who was the "dungeon master" and who was the "character", usually in a Western or a Medieval setting.

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