Dice pioneer Louis Zocchi passes away

Dice manufacturer Louis Zocchi passed away on April 15th at the age of 91.

If you've ever rolled dice with more than six sides, Zocchi is most likely connected to you having that experience. He and his company Gamescience were the first in the United States to manufacture polyhedral dice. He is also the inventor of the 100-sided "Zocchihedron."

Zocchi was well known on the convention circuit for his sales pitch, in which he described the dice manufacturing process--and highlighted the flaws in the dice made by his competitors.

In addition to dice, Zocchi worked on many games and magazines, including a number of wargames including Star Fleet Battles and The Battle of Britain. He was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming's Hall of Fame in 1987 and was presented with the E. Gary Gygax Lifetime Achievement Award at Gary Con in 2022.

 

[rgard]

He also did the Star Fleet Battle Manual. It was a miniatures game based on Star Trek. That came with the best plastic Federation ship miniatures: DN, CA, Scout, DD and Tug in 1/3788th scale. I believe Starfleet Battles (Task Force Games/ADB) purchased those Fed ships to sell with the miniatures version of their game.

 

[aramis erak]

He also did the Star Fleet Battle Manual. It was a miniatures game based on Star Trek. That came with the best plastic Federation ship miniatures: DN, CA, Scout, DD and Tug in 1/3788th scale. I believe Starfleet Battles (Task Force Games/ADB) purchased those Fed ships to sell with the miniatures version of their game.
View attachment 435512

As an interesting side note, he also sent Steve Cole to Franz Joseph for a license for Star Fleet Battles... and SVC's win in court also protected SFBM from Paramount because the licensure situation was pretty much identical. (If paramount had won, SFBM would likely have been gone after too... but I'm certain Paramount didn't want to directly license ANOTHER game.)

And I'll note as well: SFBM with the hex grid rules is very playable, but is clearly written for GameScience dice... as almost everyone else's d20's are numbered 1-20.