The Unseen History of Board Games: From Senet & Go to Catan, Monopoly, Mahjong, and D&D | Strange History Podcast

0:00 Speaker 1: Hello, dear listeners, Welcome to the Strange History podcast, where

0:04 Speaker 1: we sift human civilization through the dice tower of time

0:07 Speaker 1: and see what rolls out today. The unseen, occasionally unhinged

0:13 Speaker 1: history of board games, those flat battlegrounds where friendships go

0:17 Speaker 1: to die, siblings become sworn enemies, and someone inevitably flips

0:21 Speaker 1: the board like a Renaissance table. Waiter in a hurry,

0:25 Speaker 1: grab your mepals, hydrate your sarcasm, and please do not

0:30 Speaker 1: eat the components. Let's play.

0:34 Speaker 2: Sand stars and strategy. When boards were altars.

0:38 Speaker 1: Picture Egypt around three thy one hundred BCE. The air

0:43 Speaker 1: smells like figs, incense and projects that will absolutely require

0:48 Speaker 1: change orders. A priest scribes a grid on a polished

0:51 Speaker 1: board Senate a race game of thirty squares where pieces

0:55 Speaker 1: glide as if pushed by invisible gods and sandals. People

0:59 Speaker 1: played it to pass eternity's time, to gamble, and awkwardly,

1:04 Speaker 1: to rehearse their afterlife commute. In tumart, you'll find queens

1:08 Speaker 1: concentrating like grand masters because in sin It, bad roles

1:12 Speaker 1: could signal divine displeasure, or just a cousin who accidentally

1:16 Speaker 1: bumped the table across the euphrates. The Royal game of

1:21 Speaker 1: Er circa two thousand, six hundred BCE spreads like a rumor.

1:26 Speaker 1: Its board is a stylish hour glass of rosettes. Its rules,

1:31 Speaker 1: reconstructed from cuneform tablets, involve racing, blocking, and developing the

1:36 Speaker 1: poker face of a Mesopotamian accountant. Even then, people argued

1:40 Speaker 1: about rules. House variant muttered a bearded merchant inventing a

1:46 Speaker 1: phrase that would haunt game nights forever. Meanwhile, in ancient China,

1:51 Speaker 1: scholars draw lines on the earth, place stones and quietly

1:55 Speaker 1: invent an intellectual thunderstorm. Go no dice, no luck, just

2:01 Speaker 1: you Me and three hundred and sixty one intersections, daring

2:05 Speaker 1: us to make existential mistakes. Go look simple like minimalism's

2:10 Speaker 1: minimalist cousin, Yet its strategic depth is so vast that

2:14 Speaker 1: early players likely stared at their boards and said, we

2:18 Speaker 1: have made a beautiful mistake.

2:20 Speaker 3: Meeple oil splinters in your soul from long wooden turns.

2:25 Speaker 3: Try meeple oil, the only essential oil blend for tabletop

2:28 Speaker 3: stress with notes of eucalyptus cedar, would and please stop

2:33 Speaker 3: rules lowyering meeple oil turns analysis. Paralysis into zen not

2:39 Speaker 3: FDA approved, may cause you to apologize for hoarding wheat.

2:44 Speaker 2: Where kings learn humility, elephants become bishops.

2:49 Speaker 1: In the Indian subcontinent around the sixth century, we get Chaturanga,

2:54 Speaker 1: a war on a board with elephants future bishops, chariots, rooks, horseman, knights,

3:01 Speaker 1: a king, and a vizier that will eventually glow up

3:04 Speaker 1: into the Queen, the biggest power jump since coffee met

3:07 Speaker 1: the espresso machine. As Chataranga travels to Persia, it becomes Shatrange,

3:13 Speaker 1: acquiring poetic names and serious eyebrows. From the Islamic world

3:18 Speaker 1: to medieval Europe, the game remixes, the queen turns into

3:23 Speaker 1: a rocket, Bishops discover diagonals like it's a new continent.

3:27 Speaker 1: Pawns learn promotion because social mobility feels great in cardboard,

3:33 Speaker 1: Monks teach chess to nobles, Nobles use it to flirt,

3:37 Speaker 1: and everyone writes metaphors about life being chess not checkers,

3:41 Speaker 1: though to be fair checkers or drafts also mutates from

3:46 Speaker 1: earlier wargames and becomes the world's most efficient way to

3:49 Speaker 1: feel smug until you get double jumped into next Thursday.

3:53 Speaker 2: North winds and shield walls, vikings, grids and grudges.

4:00 Speaker 1: Sail north and find hanefatafel a game so Viking it

4:04 Speaker 1: practically smells like smoked fish. One king flees from besiegers

4:08 Speaker 1: across a cross shaped grid, while attackers coordinate like a

4:11 Speaker 1: Nordic project management tool. It's asymmetric, tense, and historically accurate

4:17 Speaker 1: in the sense that someone always yells were surrounded, followed

4:21 Speaker 1: by a brave plan and three conflicting rule sets carved

4:24 Speaker 1: into runestones by committee. Slide over to Africa. Watch fingers

4:29 Speaker 1: dig pits in the earth and seeds clack from hole

4:33 Speaker 1: to hole. Mancola really a family of games so elegant

4:38 Speaker 1: they make spreadsheets jealous. The goal is to capture more

4:42 Speaker 1: seeds than your opponent, and also to look wisely serene

4:46 Speaker 1: while calculating ten moves ahead. Mancala boards travel in cloth bags,

4:52 Speaker 1: on caravans and into every village, where children learn planning, counting,

4:58 Speaker 1: and how to pretend they definitely meant to feed their opponent.

5:01 Speaker 1: A mega capture.

5:03 Speaker 3: Table Flip Insurance Company. Did your uncle overturn risk somewhere

5:07 Speaker 3: around Kumchatka? Protect your game night with table Flip Insurance company.

5:13 Speaker 3: We covered dings, dense and emotional damages caused by statements

5:17 Speaker 3: like I thought, we said no alliances. Add the monopoly

5:21 Speaker 3: writer to cover hotels. Yeaed it across the room at

5:23 Speaker 3: two am. Some exclusions apply, including but not limited to

5:28 Speaker 3: your cousin.

5:28 Speaker 2: Gary, serpents, ladders, and moral panic boards with opinions.

5:35 Speaker 1: Back in India, a second millennium moral chart called malkshapatam

5:39 Speaker 1: teaches virtue via ladders and vice via snakes. Good deeds

5:44 Speaker 1: rock at you upward. Bad choices slide you down with

5:47 Speaker 1: reptilian judgment. The British colonials tote this into Victorian parlors

5:53 Speaker 1: as snakes and ladders. In America, it becomes shoots and

5:58 Speaker 1: ladders because snakes were apparently too spicy for small children,

6:02 Speaker 1: but near death via laundry shoot family fun. At the

6:07 Speaker 1: same time, nineteenth century moralists print games like The Mansion

6:11 Speaker 1: of Happiness eighteen thirty two, where vices are punished and

6:16 Speaker 1: virtue is rewarded with presumably tepid applause. Board games become

6:21 Speaker 1: moral power points slide after slide of don't, but families

6:26 Speaker 1: still play because the box art is shiny and the

6:28 Speaker 1: living room has no Netflix.

6:31 Speaker 2: Dice cards and Majong shuffle rattle roll.

6:36 Speaker 1: Dominoes likely travel from China, where black tiles with white

6:40 Speaker 1: pips ring like tiny doors knocking. Playing cards also start

6:44 Speaker 1: in China, wander through the Islamic world, then deck hop

6:48 Speaker 1: into Europe, wearing Momluk fashions before getting a full Western makeover. Hearts, diamonds, clubs, Spades,

6:55 Speaker 1: and eventually Jokers for chaos. Taro begins as a trick

6:59 Speaker 1: to making card game that later moonlights as career counselor

7:03 Speaker 1: for your soul. The cards do not condone your Etsy

7:06 Speaker 1: impulse purchases, or do they. In Qing era China, Majong

7:11 Speaker 1: became the tabletop equivalent of a jazz quartet, clacking bone tiles,

7:16 Speaker 1: storms of symbols, a flow state that makes hours vanish.

7:20 Speaker 1: When Majong hits nineteen twenties America, everyone buys sets, the

7:24 Speaker 1: size of end tables and claims they play for the culture,

7:28 Speaker 1: which is code for the tiles are gorgeous and aunt

7:32 Speaker 1: dot is a shark.

7:33 Speaker 3: Rules lawyer at law confused by contradictory rule books, call

7:40 Speaker 3: rules lawyer at law. We object to your house rules.

7:44 Speaker 3: We offer arbitration for does diagonal count and can I

7:48 Speaker 3: trade wood for eternal friendship, free consultation if you can

7:52 Speaker 3: recite the setup without signing.

7:55 Speaker 2: The Industrial age printing presses and petty grievances.

7:59 Speaker 1: By the eighteen hundreds, mass printing turned games into household staples.

8:04 Speaker 1: Enter Pachisi from India rebranded by the British as Ludo

8:09 Speaker 1: I play, which is Latin for scream quietly at your children. Backgammon,

8:15 Speaker 1: descended from Nard and other ancient race games, becomes the

8:18 Speaker 1: perfect blend of strategy, luck, and regret. You can carry

8:22 Speaker 1: in a suitcase parlor's hum with squares, tracks and dice

8:26 Speaker 1: that always roll off the table at the most suspenseful moment,

8:30 Speaker 1: like dramatic actors pursuing adjacent careers as marbles. Then capitalism

8:35 Speaker 1: waltzes in and asks what if property que The Landlord's

8:40 Speaker 1: Game nineteen oh four, invented by Lizzie Maggie to critique monopolies. Later,

8:45 Speaker 1: a cleaned up derivative explodes as Monopoly, a game that

8:49 Speaker 1: unintentionally says, actually monopolies are kind of fun. Families learn

8:55 Speaker 1: three facts. One someone will buy the oranges. Two Free

9:00 Speaker 1: parking is a myth. Three Short game is a lie

9:05 Speaker 1: told by box lids. Milton Bradley publishes The Checkered Game

9:09 Speaker 1: of Life eighteen sixty because nothing says whimsy like Victorian

9:13 Speaker 1: existentialism and a coffin space. In the twentieth century, designer's

9:18 Speaker 1: experiment Pludo Clue nineteen forty nine turns murder into a

9:23 Speaker 1: polite logic puzzle, Scrabble nineteen thirty eight, Slash forty eight

9:28 Speaker 1: makes you stare at seven letters and invent a language.

9:32 Speaker 1: Risk nineteen fifty seven allows you to invade your sibling

9:36 Speaker 1: soul via North Africa.

9:38 Speaker 2: Plastic fantastic party games, war rooms and Dragons.

9:44 Speaker 1: Post war plastics give us chunky pieces and bright boards,

9:48 Speaker 1: operation buzzes when you touch the sides, teaching steady hands

9:52 Speaker 1: and fear of litigation. Twister insists you acquaint your left

9:56 Speaker 1: foot with your coworker's personal space. Meanwhile, wargame like Tactics

10:01 Speaker 1: and panzer Blitz inspire a generation of armchair generals with rulers,

10:05 Speaker 1: hex maps, and the thrilling sentence that's not in the erata.

10:10 Speaker 1: In the nineteen seventies, two Midwestern alchemists Guygax and Arnison

10:16 Speaker 1: collide chainmail with imagination and birth to dungeons and dragons.

10:20 Speaker 1: It's not a board game, more like a board optional

10:23 Speaker 1: storytelling bonfire, but it contaminates tabletop DNA forever with character sheets,

10:29 Speaker 1: polyhedral dice and I seduce the dragon energy. Whole universes

10:34 Speaker 1: now fit on dining tables pizza grease.

10:38 Speaker 3: Likewise, sleave it and believe it. Protect your cards with

10:42 Speaker 3: sleave it and believe it. The sleeves that whisper you

10:46 Speaker 3: are a collector, while your wallet screams, please stop new

10:50 Speaker 3: sizes mini Euro American standard and why is this one

10:54 Speaker 3: card taller?

10:56 Speaker 2: The euro Invasion and the cult of the Wooden Cube.

11:00 Speaker 1: The nineteen nineties and two thousands brought a design renaissance.

11:04 Speaker 1: Germany deploys elegant, low luck, high strategy games where you

11:08 Speaker 1: manage wheat, sheep and your stress. Catan lands in nineteen

11:13 Speaker 1: ninety five like a hextiled UFO, and teaches us that

11:17 Speaker 1: brick and wood are a currency pair more volatile than

11:20 Speaker 1: the stock market. Carcassan lets you build medieval France by

11:24 Speaker 1: committing all tile urban planning crimes. Ticket to Ride allows

11:29 Speaker 1: spiteful track blocking with the plausible deniability of tourism terms

11:34 Speaker 1: like worker placement, Engine building and meeple become normal words

11:39 Speaker 1: you say in public to the alarm of bartenders. Asymmetry

11:43 Speaker 1: returns with style. Co Ops arrive with pandemic, saving the

11:48 Speaker 1: world with cubes and a tight timer. Legacy games let

11:52 Speaker 1: you rip up cards legally, which hits the same nerve

11:55 Speaker 1: as bubble wrap, but with lore.

11:58 Speaker 2: The quiet super powers what boards really do.

12:03 Speaker 1: Beneath the wood cardboard and chaotic snacks. Board games have

12:08 Speaker 1: always been social technology Senate tutored the afterlife, chess mapped

12:13 Speaker 1: strategy and class taffle trained, asymmetric thinking, Mancala sharpened math,

12:19 Speaker 1: Snakes and ladders, moralized modern Euros teach resource trade offs, negotiation,

12:25 Speaker 1: and the art of saying I'm not attacking you, I'm

12:28 Speaker 1: attacking your unchecked victory points. Games let us rehearse risk,

12:34 Speaker 1: practice empathy, and ritualize conflict. They give us a table

12:38 Speaker 1: for community. They give chaos a polite container until Gary

12:43 Speaker 1: flips it.

12:44 Speaker 3: Stuck in decision limbo. Try anti ap timer, a kitchen

12:49 Speaker 3: timer that shouts compliments until you choose great jawline, build

12:53 Speaker 3: the farm, incredible posture, play the seven, Buy now and

12:59 Speaker 3: get a bonus sand teimer full of artisanal sand that

13:02 Speaker 3: definitely isn't from a cursed.

13:03 Speaker 2: Pyramid, secret rule books, house variants, folklore, and feuds.

13:10 Speaker 1: Every family has fossilized house rules. Free parking pays out

13:15 Speaker 1: sixes explode. You can trade sheep for apologies. These variants

13:19 Speaker 1: are oral tradition, tabletop folklore, passed down like heirloom grudges.

13:24 Speaker 1: The unseen history isn't just in museums. It's in the

13:28 Speaker 1: margins of your grandma's yachtsei pad, the coffee ring on

13:31 Speaker 1: your clue score sheet, the pencil grooves in your D

13:34 Speaker 1: and D map where the dragon definitely wasn't supposed to be,

13:38 Speaker 1: rules drift, stories, stick, and somewhere a scribe will someday

13:43 Speaker 1: translate no, we don't play with ports like that into

13:46 Speaker 1: cuneiform on a clay meepal.

13:49 Speaker 2: Epilogue aboard the size of the World.

13:53 Speaker 1: Today, designers remix ancient DNA with modern magic. African sewing

13:59 Speaker 1: meets crunchy and eins goes. Elegance meets Ai Tarot's art

14:03 Speaker 1: meets trick taking comebacks, legacy stickers meet historical campaigns that

14:08 Speaker 1: would make herodotus ask for an expansion pack. We're living

14:12 Speaker 1: in a golden age where one hundred thousand boxes. Whisper,

14:16 Speaker 1: open me and your shelves. Whisper, please don't. From tombs

14:21 Speaker 1: to taverns, palaces to patios, the same drama plays chance, choice, consequence,

14:28 Speaker 1: and laughter when chance trips over choice and face plants

14:31 Speaker 1: into consequence. The unseen history of board games is not

14:36 Speaker 1: a straight line. It's a glorious tangle of roots, ladders, snakes, ports, pits, dice, tiles, cubes, cards,

14:45 Speaker 1: and the same fragile miracle people sitting together at a

14:48 Speaker 1: table telling a story with moves. This has been the

14:52 Speaker 1: Strange History Podcast. If you enjoyed our cardboard Odyssey, leave

14:57 Speaker 1: a review that says, I, for one, welcome our people, overlords,

15:01 Speaker 1: and to Gary put the board back. See you next time,

15:05 Speaker 1: dear listeners, and may all your roles be narratively satisfying.