Journey from ancient tombs and temples to modern tabletops in this witty, story-driven deep dive into board game origins. Host Amy uncovers how Senet, the Royal Game of Ur, Go, Chaturanga (chess), Hnefatafl, Mancala, Mahjong, Tarot, and dominoes evolved into crowd-pleasers like Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, Clue, Catan, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, and legacy/co-op Eurogames. Expect archaeology, strategy, dice drama, meeples, and tongue-in-cheek faux ads—plus the surprising social tech behind games: community, negotiation, and beautifully contained chaos.
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This episode of The Strange History Podcast was lovingly crafted with the help of ElevenLabs.io — the magical technology that gives Amy her time to sleep, eat, work and spend time with her dog Jack. While some might say she sounds too good to be true, we assure you, Amy is absolutely a real person… who just happens to have access to studio-grade AI vocal cords and an unnatural ability to pronounce “necromancy” without flinching. Any resemblance to an AI is purely coincidental — and mildly flattering. Dan the announcers name is really Bill and Patrick, the fake ad guy who thinks he is funny? well he is questionable at best. So yes, AI was used but the people are real and the shinanigans are.... well.... shinanigans.
Like and Subscribe:
Apple
Spotify
IHeart
Audible
This episode of The Strange History Podcast was lovingly crafted with the help of ElevenLabs.io — the magical technology that gives Amy her time to sleep, eat, work and spend time with her dog Jack. While some might say she sounds too good to be true, we assure you, Amy is absolutely a real person… who just happens to have access to studio-grade AI vocal cords and an unnatural ability to pronounce “necromancy” without flinching. Any resemblance to an AI is purely coincidental — and mildly flattering. Dan the announcers name is really Bill and Patrick, the fake ad guy who thinks he is funny? well he is questionable at best. So yes, AI was used but the people are real and the shinanigans are.... well.... shinanigans.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, dear listeners, Welcome to the Strange History podcast, where
we sift human civilization through the dice tower of time
and see what rolls out today. The unseen, occasionally unhinged
history of board games, those flat battlegrounds where friendships go
to die, siblings become sworn enemies, and someone inevitably flips
(00:21):
the board like a Renaissance table. Waiter in a hurry,
grab your mepals, hydrate your sarcasm, and please do not
eat the components. Let's play.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Sand stars and strategy. When boards were altars.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Picture Egypt around three thy one hundred BCE. The air
smells like figs, incense and projects that will absolutely require
change orders. A priest scribes a grid on a polished
board Senate a race game of thirty squares where pieces
glide as if pushed by invisible gods and sandals. People
(00:59):
played it to pass eternity's time, to gamble, and awkwardly,
to rehearse their afterlife commute. In tumart, you'll find queens
concentrating like grand masters because in sin It, bad roles
could signal divine displeasure, or just a cousin who accidentally
bumped the table across the euphrates. The Royal game of
(01:21):
Er circa two thousand, six hundred BCE spreads like a rumor.
Its board is a stylish hour glass of rosettes. Its rules,
reconstructed from cuneform tablets, involve racing, blocking, and developing the
poker face of a Mesopotamian accountant. Even then, people argued
about rules. House variant muttered a bearded merchant inventing a
(01:46):
phrase that would haunt game nights forever. Meanwhile, in ancient China,
scholars draw lines on the earth, place stones and quietly
invent an intellectual thunderstorm. Go no dice, no luck, just
you Me and three hundred and sixty one intersections, daring
us to make existential mistakes. Go look simple like minimalism's
(02:10):
minimalist cousin, Yet its strategic depth is so vast that
early players likely stared at their boards and said, we
have made a beautiful mistake.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Meeple oil splinters in your soul from long wooden turns.
Try meeple oil, the only essential oil blend for tabletop
stress with notes of eucalyptus cedar, would and please stop
rules lowyering meeple oil turns analysis. Paralysis into zen not
FDA approved, may cause you to apologize for hoarding wheat.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Where kings learn humility, elephants become bishops.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
In the Indian subcontinent around the sixth century, we get Chaturanga,
a war on a board with elephants future bishops, chariots, rooks, horseman, knights,
a king, and a vizier that will eventually glow up
into the Queen, the biggest power jump since coffee met
the espresso machine. As Chataranga travels to Persia, it becomes Shatrange,
(03:13):
acquiring poetic names and serious eyebrows. From the Islamic world
to medieval Europe, the game remixes, the queen turns into
a rocket, Bishops discover diagonals like it's a new continent.
Pawns learn promotion because social mobility feels great in cardboard,
Monks teach chess to nobles, Nobles use it to flirt,
(03:37):
and everyone writes metaphors about life being chess not checkers,
though to be fair checkers or drafts also mutates from
earlier wargames and becomes the world's most efficient way to
feel smug until you get double jumped into next Thursday.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
North winds and shield walls, vikings, grids and grudges.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Sail north and find hanefatafel a game so Viking it
practically smells like smoked fish. One king flees from besiegers
across a cross shaped grid, while attackers coordinate like a
Nordic project management tool. It's asymmetric, tense, and historically accurate
in the sense that someone always yells were surrounded, followed
(04:21):
by a brave plan and three conflicting rule sets carved
into runestones by committee. Slide over to Africa. Watch fingers
dig pits in the earth and seeds clack from hole
to hole. Mancola really a family of games so elegant
they make spreadsheets jealous. The goal is to capture more
(04:42):
seeds than your opponent, and also to look wisely serene
while calculating ten moves ahead. Mancala boards travel in cloth bags,
on caravans and into every village, where children learn planning, counting,
and how to pretend they definitely meant to feed their opponent.
A mega capture.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Table Flip Insurance Company. Did your uncle overturn risk somewhere
around Kumchatka? Protect your game night with table Flip Insurance company.
We covered dings, dense and emotional damages caused by statements
like I thought, we said no alliances. Add the monopoly
writer to cover hotels. Yeaed it across the room at
(05:23):
two am. Some exclusions apply, including but not limited to
your cousin.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Gary, serpents, ladders, and moral panic boards with opinions.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Back in India, a second millennium moral chart called malkshapatam
teaches virtue via ladders and vice via snakes. Good deeds
rock at you upward. Bad choices slide you down with
reptilian judgment. The British colonials tote this into Victorian parlors
as snakes and ladders. In America, it becomes shoots and
(05:58):
ladders because snakes were apparently too spicy for small children,
but near death via laundry shoot family fun. At the
same time, nineteenth century moralists print games like The Mansion
of Happiness eighteen thirty two, where vices are punished and
virtue is rewarded with presumably tepid applause. Board games become
(06:21):
moral power points slide after slide of don't, but families
still play because the box art is shiny and the
living room has no Netflix.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Dice cards and Majong shuffle rattle roll.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Dominoes likely travel from China, where black tiles with white
pips ring like tiny doors knocking. Playing cards also start
in China, wander through the Islamic world, then deck hop
into Europe, wearing Momluk fashions before getting a full Western makeover. Hearts, diamonds, clubs, Spades,
and eventually Jokers for chaos. Taro begins as a trick
(06:59):
to making card game that later moonlights as career counselor
for your soul. The cards do not condone your Etsy
impulse purchases, or do they. In Qing era China, Majong
became the tabletop equivalent of a jazz quartet, clacking bone tiles,
storms of symbols, a flow state that makes hours vanish.
(07:20):
When Majong hits nineteen twenties America, everyone buys sets, the
size of end tables and claims they play for the culture,
which is code for the tiles are gorgeous and aunt
dot is a shark.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Rules lawyer at law confused by contradictory rule books, call
rules lawyer at law. We object to your house rules.
We offer arbitration for does diagonal count and can I
trade wood for eternal friendship, free consultation if you can
recite the setup without signing.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The Industrial age printing presses and petty grievances.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
By the eighteen hundreds, mass printing turned games into household staples.
Enter Pachisi from India rebranded by the British as Ludo
I play, which is Latin for scream quietly at your children. Backgammon,
descended from Nard and other ancient race games, becomes the
perfect blend of strategy, luck, and regret. You can carry
(08:22):
in a suitcase parlor's hum with squares, tracks and dice
that always roll off the table at the most suspenseful moment,
like dramatic actors pursuing adjacent careers as marbles. Then capitalism
waltzes in and asks what if property que The Landlord's
Game nineteen oh four, invented by Lizzie Maggie to critique monopolies. Later,
(08:45):
a cleaned up derivative explodes as Monopoly, a game that
unintentionally says, actually monopolies are kind of fun. Families learn
three facts. One someone will buy the oranges. Two Free
parking is a myth. Three Short game is a lie
told by box lids. Milton Bradley publishes The Checkered Game
(09:09):
of Life eighteen sixty because nothing says whimsy like Victorian
existentialism and a coffin space. In the twentieth century, designer's
experiment Pludo Clue nineteen forty nine turns murder into a
polite logic puzzle, Scrabble nineteen thirty eight, Slash forty eight
makes you stare at seven letters and invent a language.
(09:32):
Risk nineteen fifty seven allows you to invade your sibling
soul via North Africa.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Plastic fantastic party games, war rooms and Dragons.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Post war plastics give us chunky pieces and bright boards,
operation buzzes when you touch the sides, teaching steady hands
and fear of litigation. Twister insists you acquaint your left
foot with your coworker's personal space. Meanwhile, wargame like Tactics
and panzer Blitz inspire a generation of armchair generals with rulers,
(10:05):
hex maps, and the thrilling sentence that's not in the erata.
In the nineteen seventies, two Midwestern alchemists Guygax and Arnison
collide chainmail with imagination and birth to dungeons and dragons.
It's not a board game, more like a board optional
storytelling bonfire, but it contaminates tabletop DNA forever with character sheets,
(10:29):
polyhedral dice and I seduce the dragon energy. Whole universes
now fit on dining tables pizza grease.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Likewise, sleave it and believe it. Protect your cards with
sleave it and believe it. The sleeves that whisper you
are a collector, while your wallet screams, please stop new
sizes mini Euro American standard and why is this one
card taller?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The euro Invasion and the cult of the Wooden Cube.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
The nineteen nineties and two thousands brought a design renaissance.
Germany deploys elegant, low luck, high strategy games where you
manage wheat, sheep and your stress. Catan lands in nineteen
ninety five like a hextiled UFO, and teaches us that
brick and wood are a currency pair more volatile than
(11:20):
the stock market. Carcassan lets you build medieval France by
committing all tile urban planning crimes. Ticket to Ride allows
spiteful track blocking with the plausible deniability of tourism terms
like worker placement, Engine building and meeple become normal words
you say in public to the alarm of bartenders. Asymmetry
(11:43):
returns with style. Co Ops arrive with pandemic, saving the
world with cubes and a tight timer. Legacy games let
you rip up cards legally, which hits the same nerve
as bubble wrap, but with lore.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
The quiet super powers what boards really do.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Beneath the wood cardboard and chaotic snacks. Board games have
always been social technology Senate tutored the afterlife, chess mapped
strategy and class taffle trained, asymmetric thinking, Mancala sharpened math,
Snakes and ladders, moralized modern Euros teach resource trade offs, negotiation,
(12:25):
and the art of saying I'm not attacking you, I'm
attacking your unchecked victory points. Games let us rehearse risk,
practice empathy, and ritualize conflict. They give us a table
for community. They give chaos a polite container until Gary
flips it.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Stuck in decision limbo. Try anti ap timer, a kitchen
timer that shouts compliments until you choose great jawline, build
the farm, incredible posture, play the seven, Buy now and
get a bonus sand teimer full of artisanal sand that
definitely isn't from a cursed.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Pyramid, secret rule books, house variants, folklore, and feuds.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Every family has fossilized house rules. Free parking pays out
sixes explode. You can trade sheep for apologies. These variants
are oral tradition, tabletop folklore, passed down like heirloom grudges.
The unseen history isn't just in museums. It's in the
margins of your grandma's yachtsei pad, the coffee ring on
(13:31):
your clue score sheet, the pencil grooves in your D
and D map where the dragon definitely wasn't supposed to be,
rules drift, stories, stick, and somewhere a scribe will someday
translate no, we don't play with ports like that into
cuneiform on a clay meepal.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Epilogue aboard the size of the World.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Today, designers remix ancient DNA with modern magic. African sewing
meets crunchy and eins goes. Elegance meets Ai Tarot's art
meets trick taking comebacks, legacy stickers meet historical campaigns that
would make herodotus ask for an expansion pack. We're living
in a golden age where one hundred thousand boxes. Whisper,
(14:16):
open me and your shelves. Whisper, please don't. From tombs
to taverns, palaces to patios, the same drama plays chance, choice, consequence,
and laughter when chance trips over choice and face plants
into consequence. The unseen history of board games is not
a straight line. It's a glorious tangle of roots, ladders, snakes, ports, pits, dice, tiles, cubes, cards,
(14:45):
and the same fragile miracle people sitting together at a
table telling a story with moves. This has been the
Strange History Podcast. If you enjoyed our cardboard Odyssey, leave
a review that says, I, for one, welcome our people, overlords,
and to Gary put the board back. See you next time,
dear listeners, and may all your roles be narratively satisfying.
Hello, dear listeners, Welcome to the Strange History podcast, where
we sift human civilization through the dice tower of time
and see what rolls out today. The unseen, occasionally unhinged
history of board games, those flat battlegrounds where friendships go
to die, siblings become sworn enemies, and someone inevitably flips
(00:21):
the board like a Renaissance table. Waiter in a hurry,
grab your mepals, hydrate your sarcasm, and please do not
eat the components. Let's play.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Sand stars and strategy. When boards were altars.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Picture Egypt around three thy one hundred BCE. The air
smells like figs, incense and projects that will absolutely require
change orders. A priest scribes a grid on a polished
board Senate a race game of thirty squares where pieces
glide as if pushed by invisible gods and sandals. People
(00:59):
played it to pass eternity's time, to gamble, and awkwardly,
to rehearse their afterlife commute. In tumart, you'll find queens
concentrating like grand masters because in sin It, bad roles
could signal divine displeasure, or just a cousin who accidentally
bumped the table across the euphrates. The Royal game of
(01:21):
Er circa two thousand, six hundred BCE spreads like a rumor.
Its board is a stylish hour glass of rosettes. Its rules,
reconstructed from cuneform tablets, involve racing, blocking, and developing the
poker face of a Mesopotamian accountant. Even then, people argued
about rules. House variant muttered a bearded merchant inventing a
(01:46):
phrase that would haunt game nights forever. Meanwhile, in ancient China,
scholars draw lines on the earth, place stones and quietly
invent an intellectual thunderstorm. Go no dice, no luck, just
you Me and three hundred and sixty one intersections, daring
us to make existential mistakes. Go look simple like minimalism's
(02:10):
minimalist cousin, Yet its strategic depth is so vast that
early players likely stared at their boards and said, we
have made a beautiful mistake.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Meeple oil splinters in your soul from long wooden turns.
Try meeple oil, the only essential oil blend for tabletop
stress with notes of eucalyptus cedar, would and please stop
rules lowyering meeple oil turns analysis. Paralysis into zen not
FDA approved, may cause you to apologize for hoarding wheat.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Where kings learn humility, elephants become bishops.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
In the Indian subcontinent around the sixth century, we get Chaturanga,
a war on a board with elephants future bishops, chariots, rooks, horseman, knights,
a king, and a vizier that will eventually glow up
into the Queen, the biggest power jump since coffee met
the espresso machine. As Chataranga travels to Persia, it becomes Shatrange,
(03:13):
acquiring poetic names and serious eyebrows. From the Islamic world
to medieval Europe, the game remixes, the queen turns into
a rocket, Bishops discover diagonals like it's a new continent.
Pawns learn promotion because social mobility feels great in cardboard,
Monks teach chess to nobles, Nobles use it to flirt,
(03:37):
and everyone writes metaphors about life being chess not checkers,
though to be fair checkers or drafts also mutates from
earlier wargames and becomes the world's most efficient way to
feel smug until you get double jumped into next Thursday.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
North winds and shield walls, vikings, grids and grudges.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Sail north and find hanefatafel a game so Viking it
practically smells like smoked fish. One king flees from besiegers
across a cross shaped grid, while attackers coordinate like a
Nordic project management tool. It's asymmetric, tense, and historically accurate
in the sense that someone always yells were surrounded, followed
(04:21):
by a brave plan and three conflicting rule sets carved
into runestones by committee. Slide over to Africa. Watch fingers
dig pits in the earth and seeds clack from hole
to hole. Mancola really a family of games so elegant
they make spreadsheets jealous. The goal is to capture more
(04:42):
seeds than your opponent, and also to look wisely serene
while calculating ten moves ahead. Mancala boards travel in cloth bags,
on caravans and into every village, where children learn planning, counting,
and how to pretend they definitely meant to feed their opponent.
A mega capture.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Table Flip Insurance Company. Did your uncle overturn risk somewhere
around Kumchatka? Protect your game night with table Flip Insurance company.
We covered dings, dense and emotional damages caused by statements
like I thought, we said no alliances. Add the monopoly
writer to cover hotels. Yeaed it across the room at
(05:23):
two am. Some exclusions apply, including but not limited to
your cousin.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Gary, serpents, ladders, and moral panic boards with opinions.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Back in India, a second millennium moral chart called malkshapatam
teaches virtue via ladders and vice via snakes. Good deeds
rock at you upward. Bad choices slide you down with
reptilian judgment. The British colonials tote this into Victorian parlors
as snakes and ladders. In America, it becomes shoots and
(05:58):
ladders because snakes were apparently too spicy for small children,
but near death via laundry shoot family fun. At the
same time, nineteenth century moralists print games like The Mansion
of Happiness eighteen thirty two, where vices are punished and
virtue is rewarded with presumably tepid applause. Board games become
(06:21):
moral power points slide after slide of don't, but families
still play because the box art is shiny and the
living room has no Netflix.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Dice cards and Majong shuffle rattle roll.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Dominoes likely travel from China, where black tiles with white
pips ring like tiny doors knocking. Playing cards also start
in China, wander through the Islamic world, then deck hop
into Europe, wearing Momluk fashions before getting a full Western makeover. Hearts, diamonds, clubs, Spades,
and eventually Jokers for chaos. Taro begins as a trick
(06:59):
to making card game that later moonlights as career counselor
for your soul. The cards do not condone your Etsy
impulse purchases, or do they. In Qing era China, Majong
became the tabletop equivalent of a jazz quartet, clacking bone tiles,
storms of symbols, a flow state that makes hours vanish.
(07:20):
When Majong hits nineteen twenties America, everyone buys sets, the
size of end tables and claims they play for the culture,
which is code for the tiles are gorgeous and aunt
dot is a shark.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Rules lawyer at law confused by contradictory rule books, call
rules lawyer at law. We object to your house rules.
We offer arbitration for does diagonal count and can I
trade wood for eternal friendship, free consultation if you can
recite the setup without signing.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The Industrial age printing presses and petty grievances.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
By the eighteen hundreds, mass printing turned games into household staples.
Enter Pachisi from India rebranded by the British as Ludo
I play, which is Latin for scream quietly at your children. Backgammon,
descended from Nard and other ancient race games, becomes the
perfect blend of strategy, luck, and regret. You can carry
(08:22):
in a suitcase parlor's hum with squares, tracks and dice
that always roll off the table at the most suspenseful moment,
like dramatic actors pursuing adjacent careers as marbles. Then capitalism
waltzes in and asks what if property que The Landlord's
Game nineteen oh four, invented by Lizzie Maggie to critique monopolies. Later,
(08:45):
a cleaned up derivative explodes as Monopoly, a game that
unintentionally says, actually monopolies are kind of fun. Families learn
three facts. One someone will buy the oranges. Two Free
parking is a myth. Three Short game is a lie
told by box lids. Milton Bradley publishes The Checkered Game
(09:09):
of Life eighteen sixty because nothing says whimsy like Victorian
existentialism and a coffin space. In the twentieth century, designer's
experiment Pludo Clue nineteen forty nine turns murder into a
polite logic puzzle, Scrabble nineteen thirty eight, Slash forty eight
makes you stare at seven letters and invent a language.
(09:32):
Risk nineteen fifty seven allows you to invade your sibling
soul via North Africa.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Plastic fantastic party games, war rooms and Dragons.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Post war plastics give us chunky pieces and bright boards,
operation buzzes when you touch the sides, teaching steady hands
and fear of litigation. Twister insists you acquaint your left
foot with your coworker's personal space. Meanwhile, wargame like Tactics
and panzer Blitz inspire a generation of armchair generals with rulers,
(10:05):
hex maps, and the thrilling sentence that's not in the erata.
In the nineteen seventies, two Midwestern alchemists Guygax and Arnison
collide chainmail with imagination and birth to dungeons and dragons.
It's not a board game, more like a board optional
storytelling bonfire, but it contaminates tabletop DNA forever with character sheets,
(10:29):
polyhedral dice and I seduce the dragon energy. Whole universes
now fit on dining tables pizza grease.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Likewise, sleave it and believe it. Protect your cards with
sleave it and believe it. The sleeves that whisper you
are a collector, while your wallet screams, please stop new
sizes mini Euro American standard and why is this one
card taller?
Speaker 2 (10:56):
The euro Invasion and the cult of the Wooden Cube.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
The nineteen nineties and two thousands brought a design renaissance.
Germany deploys elegant, low luck, high strategy games where you
manage wheat, sheep and your stress. Catan lands in nineteen
ninety five like a hextiled UFO, and teaches us that
brick and wood are a currency pair more volatile than
(11:20):
the stock market. Carcassan lets you build medieval France by
committing all tile urban planning crimes. Ticket to Ride allows
spiteful track blocking with the plausible deniability of tourism terms
like worker placement, Engine building and meeple become normal words
you say in public to the alarm of bartenders. Asymmetry
(11:43):
returns with style. Co Ops arrive with pandemic, saving the
world with cubes and a tight timer. Legacy games let
you rip up cards legally, which hits the same nerve
as bubble wrap, but with lore.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
The quiet super powers what boards really do.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Beneath the wood cardboard and chaotic snacks. Board games have
always been social technology Senate tutored the afterlife, chess mapped
strategy and class taffle trained, asymmetric thinking, Mancala sharpened math,
Snakes and ladders, moralized modern Euros teach resource trade offs, negotiation,
(12:25):
and the art of saying I'm not attacking you, I'm
attacking your unchecked victory points. Games let us rehearse risk,
practice empathy, and ritualize conflict. They give us a table
for community. They give chaos a polite container until Gary
flips it.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Stuck in decision limbo. Try anti ap timer, a kitchen
timer that shouts compliments until you choose great jawline, build
the farm, incredible posture, play the seven, Buy now and
get a bonus sand teimer full of artisanal sand that
definitely isn't from a cursed.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Pyramid, secret rule books, house variants, folklore, and feuds.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Every family has fossilized house rules. Free parking pays out
sixes explode. You can trade sheep for apologies. These variants
are oral tradition, tabletop folklore, passed down like heirloom grudges.
The unseen history isn't just in museums. It's in the
margins of your grandma's yachtsei pad, the coffee ring on
(13:31):
your clue score sheet, the pencil grooves in your D
and D map where the dragon definitely wasn't supposed to be,
rules drift, stories, stick, and somewhere a scribe will someday
translate no, we don't play with ports like that into
cuneiform on a clay meepal.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Epilogue aboard the size of the World.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Today, designers remix ancient DNA with modern magic. African sewing
meets crunchy and eins goes. Elegance meets Ai Tarot's art
meets trick taking comebacks, legacy stickers meet historical campaigns that
would make herodotus ask for an expansion pack. We're living
in a golden age where one hundred thousand boxes. Whisper,
(14:16):
open me and your shelves. Whisper, please don't. From tombs
to taverns, palaces to patios, the same drama plays chance, choice, consequence,
and laughter when chance trips over choice and face plants
into consequence. The unseen history of board games is not
a straight line. It's a glorious tangle of roots, ladders, snakes, ports, pits, dice, tiles, cubes, cards,
(14:45):
and the same fragile miracle people sitting together at a
table telling a story with moves. This has been the
Strange History Podcast. If you enjoyed our cardboard Odyssey, leave
a review that says, I, for one, welcome our people, overlords,
and to Gary put the board back. See you next time,
dear listeners, and may all your roles be narratively satisfying.
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