Bowling Dice Game

[Darth Fluffy 338]

When I was a kid, we had a bowling dice game. (Two, actually, virtually identical, but the container was different, and it seems like they were from two different vendors. I have no idea why my dad bought a second one.)

Each had ten dice, D-6, blank on five sides and a pin on one side, also a score pad and a shaker cup. 'Rolling your ball' was shaking and spilling the dice. Each blank was a pin down, and each pin was a pin still standing. For your second ball, return all of the dice showing a pin to the shaker cup and reroll just those.

Playing this, I learned to score bowling long before I actually bowled.

You could use normal dice for this, just treat ones as pins. You could make your own with blank dice and a sharpie. Educational supply stores often carry blank dice.

You could use a different D-x if you wanted to adjust the odds. D-6 is not a really good bowler; a D-10 or D-12 would be more representative of someone who is pretty good.

I Googled (Duck, Duck, Went) to see if it was still available, and . . . sort of. This is available, but the dice and rules are different. There are explicit strike and spare faces, and more pins, so the odds may be better, but it will look less like actually bowling.

[mlooney 3,594]

I like the original version and your idea of varying the sides of dice for better or worse players.  I did a little digging and found "Bowl and Score" on Etsy, which seems to be the game you described.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1704490244/bowl-and-score-dice-game-all-of-the

[Darth Fluffy 338]

7 hours ago, mlooney said:

I like the original version and your idea of varying the sides of dice for better or worse players.  I did a little digging and found "Bowl and Score" on Etsy, which seems to be the game you described.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1704490244/bowl-and-score-dice-game-all-of-the

Yes, that was one of them, I recognize the box.

The other had white dice and came in a plastic bowling pin which doubled as storage and as the shaker. The top was white and the bottom cup was red. The score pad must have been loose or rolled up inside, I don't recall.

Thanks for posting that, I saved the images.

You could vary the number of pins (dice) for an alternate game, for instance Nine Pins aka Kegel. Ah, the scoring is different, you'd need to track the center pin, so you'd need one different color die (missing that pin is a goal). Interesting tidbit, I was stationed in San Antonio, and per the article, that is near the only region in the US where nine pins is played. I've been to some of the towns, but have never seen the game there. I guess it is a German community thing that an outsider wouldn't notice.

 

[mlooney 3,594]

There are "hidden" European communities all over the west.  The city I currently live in has a "Balkans Day" celebration every year.  It's a random small city in Kansas.

[Darth Fluffy 338]

The Northeast has that all over the place. Many were originally settled by one ethnicity. The large cities have ethnic neighborhoods.

[mlooney 3,594]

I'm aware of ethnic neighborhoods, it just you get some odd things sometimes.  You would never think that town in the south east part of Kansas would have a largish Balkan and Italian population, both of which Small City Kansas has.

[Darth Fluffy 338]

On 9/1/2024 at 3:54 AM, mlooney said:

I'm aware of ethnic neighborhoods, it just you get some odd things sometimes.  You would never think that town in the south east part of Kansas would have a largish Balkan and Italian population, both of which Small City Kansas has.

I think it is not just ethnic towns, but settlers who knew each other, and communicated, "Hey, move here, there's an opportunity." The aggregation suggests that there's more than just chance working. Seriously common in the NE, there are towns that were initially monoethnic; probably most of them. We had to learn the history of our hometown in school, and when founded, it was a colony from Moravia. You'd be hard pressed to find a town that was not like that in the initial foray into North America.

The Amish towns were all founded that way. They still speak a dialect of German, in addition to English. (Actually, two dialects of German, they have 'High German' in their services, and a colloquial Pennsylvania Dutch for day to day talk, which may be dying out.)

I have a guess that planting towns in Kansas was a two-stage migration, first to the US, likely to large East Coast cities, like new York, then further west to escape congestion and again for opportunity. I'd almost think motivated by the depression, except Kansas did not do well during the Dust Bowl years.

[Darth Fluffy 338]

The odds of a strike with one pin D-6s is (5/6)^10 = .16, close to one in six. This seems reasonable, although better than real life when I bowl.

The odds of a strike with the explicit strike is (1 - ( (1/6)^10 ) )  is nearly certain. This seems dumb, how is it even a game? Two people playing are both likely to score a perfect game. The exact chance, to the limits of my cell phone calculator, are 0.9999999835 in one, or 0.0000000165 in one of not getting a strike. Plus, to the small extent it matters, there is an additional chance of 'knocking down all the pins', so it's even slightly higher.

I don't see the newer dice set as being useful.

Perhaps not all of the dice have the strike symbol? That could work.

[mlooney 3,594]

52 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I have a guess that planting towns in Kansas was a two-stage migration, first to the US, likely to large East Coast cities, like new York, then further west to escape congestion and again for opportunity. I'd almost think motivated by the depression, except Kansas did not do well during the Dust Bowl years.

Small City Kansas got it Balkan and Italian migrates before the turn of the last century, well before the depression.  Not that it matters much, but this part of Kansas wasn't effected by the dust bowl nearly as much as other parts, mainly due to being a miming area, not a farm area.

[Darth Fluffy 338]

1 minute ago, mlooney said:

Small City Kansas got it Balkan and Italian migrates before the turn of the last century, well before the depression.  Not that it matters much, but this part of Kansas wasn't effected by the dust bowl nearly as much as other parts, mainly due to being a miming area, not a farm area.

What do they mine?

[mlooney 3,594]

1 minute ago, Darth Fluffy said:

What do they mine?

Did.  Coal mainly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburg-Weir_Coalfield

[Darth Fluffy 338]

20 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Did.  Coal mainly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburg-Weir_Coalfield

Oh, lovely. Much coal mining around Pa., mainly anthracite (high grade coal). I've visited a coal mine commercial tourist site, formerly working mine. It is dirty, dangerous work, with long term health complications (can be alleviated with proper gear, but that would cost money). The Molly Maguires were active long ago in a town not far from one of the schools I attended (Penn State has many branch campuses). I-81 passes near Centralia, Pa. It's not the biggest coal fire on the planet, I don't think, but it's been going for a long time. I believe a few holdouts still live there, I can't imagine why.

Anthracite is a nice carving medium, and the region has examples of coal carvings, but if you are looking for one, beware of imitation castings made of crushed coal in plastic resin. Anthracite can be polished and has a good luster, but it is soft and brittle. Jet, a form of lignite (crappy coal) is similar for decorative purposes.

Being a dangerous, dirty, unhealthy, underpaid labor job, coal mining would have been less appealing to established American citizens, and would have attracted foreign labor, much as agricultural harvest jobs do now. Yeah, I can see why your mining communities grew the way they did.

[mlooney 3,594]

One of the side effects of the the just out of town mines is the existence of not one, but two large fried chicken restaurants right next to each other.  Their success explains why there are 7 fried chicken restaurants in town, not including the KFC.

https://www.travelks.com/things-to-do/attractions/chicken-marys-and-chicken-annies-pittsburg/

[Darth Fluffy 338]

Chicken is my favorite vegetable.

[mlooney 3,594]

21 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Chicken is my favorite vegetable.

And much like my 2nd favorite vegetable, zucchini squash, it's best battered and fried.  That might be my slightly southern background showing through