Dice dice. The transition from dice to playing cards occurred in China around the Tang dynasty, and coincides with the technological transition from rolls of manuscripts to block printed books. In Japan, dice were used to play a popular game called sugoroku. There are two types of sugoroku. "Ban-sugoroku" is similar to backgammon and dates to the Heian period, while "e-sugoroku" is a racing game. Dice are thrown onto a surface either from the hand or from a container designed for this (such as a dice cup). The face of the die that is uppermost when it comes to rest provides
Dice generate random numbers for use in passwords and cryptography applications. The Electronic Frontier Foundation describes a method by which dice can be used to generate passphrases. In many gaming contexts, especially tabletop role-playing games, shorthand notations representing different dice rolls are used. A "d" or "D" is used to indicate a die with a specific number of sides; for example, codice_4 denotes a four-sided die. If several dice of the same type are to be rolled, this is indicated by a leading number specifying the number of dice. Hence, codice_5 means the player should roll six eight-sided dice and add