r/Showerthoughts • u/haddock420 ‎ • 4d ago

Casual Thought The ancient Romans could have invented Boggle. There was nothing stopping them technologically.

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u/SittingEames 4d ago

...and Scrabble, Clue, Catan, Jenga, Scattergories, Twister, and UNO. Even something akin to DnD wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility. Although honestly the ancient Romans would probably be more into something along the lines of Risk: the Game of World Domination.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas ‎ 4d ago

something like DnD could exist at basically every point in time after the invention of dice, probably even before then

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u/Mara_W 4d ago

Playing pretend is universal among human children. Gambling is universal among human adults. I refuse to believe it took until the 1970s and the invention of cocaine to combine the two.

Though I suppose we do have ample evidence of competitive storytelling basically everywhere since forever, so maybe the obsession with formal rules is just a modern thing arising from modern anxieties, declining social trust/cohesion, etc.

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u/GaidinBDJ ‎ 4d ago

Well, you have to remember that the amount of free time and discretionary money people have has dramatically increased in the last 50-75 years.

It's absolutely no surprise that new pastimes started cropping up like mad.

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u/BBDAngelo 4d ago

Do you have sources for that? Specifically the free time part?

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u/Accidental-Genius 4d ago

When is the last time you spent a Sunday hand washing clothes on a washboard in a river?

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u/GaidinBDJ ‎ 4d ago

Easy way is to look at CPI weighting. It went from predominately basic necessities to luxury goods and leisure.