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
Long dice Design advantages of long dice include being relatively easy to create fair dice with an odd number of faces, and (for four-faced dice) being easier to roll than tetrahedral d4 dice (as found in many role-playing games). Both cubic dice and four-faced long dice are found as early as the mid third millennium BCE at Indus Valley Civilisation sites; these are marked variously with dot-and-ring figures, linear devices, and Indus Valley signs. Dot-and-ring figures are used to this day on long dice in India, and predominate in the central European long dice shown above. In India, long dice ("pasa") are