Lou Zocchi

Infobox Person
name = Louis Zocchi

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caption = Zocchi at his Gamescience booth at Gen Con Indy 2007.
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occupation = dice manufacturer
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Louis Zocchi, Sergeant, USAF (Retired), is a gaming hobbyist, former game distributor and game publisher, and maker and seller of polyhedral game dice.

Zocchi and his company Gamescience have published a number of games over the years (many designed by Zocchi), but are best known for making dice, and inventing the Zocchihedron (100-sided) die. Zocchi is a well-known figure at gaming conventions like Gen Con and Origins Game Fair, where he demonstrates the innate unfairness in most mass-produced gaming dice.

Most dice, according to Zocchi, do not roll accurately because of their flawed manufacturing processes. The dice favor certain numbers and are more likely to land on those numbers. Zocchi attributes the "superstitions" of many gamers who have certain dice to roll high and others to roll low to the fact that major dice manufacturers smooth out the straight edges of their dice in machines much like rock tumblers. The result is that plastic dice originally molded evenly are unevened and unbalanced, making them more likely to land on some numbers than on others.

Zocchi shows the unevenness of dice with statistical results of them being rolled and with photographs picturing stacks of dice not measuring adequately. His demonstrations are sales pitches for the unsmoothed dice (often with sharp edges) manufactured by his company, Gamescience. Unlike other gaming dice producers, Zocchi guaranteesFact|date=August 2007 his dice to roll fairly and never to break. However, tests by "White Dwarf" magazine show that at least one of his dice designs, the Zocchihedron, had a significantly uneven number distribution.Fact|date=August 2007 Right after that article came out, Zocchi adjusted the numbering of the Zocchihedron to correct the distribution and claims that the d100 now rolls fairly, whereas in the original layout all mid-range numbers were clustered at the 'equator'. The revised and improved layout provides numbers from every tens numbered cluster assigning only one of each to every ring of numbers around the die. Only black-numbered on white background use the older distribution. Corrected dice are printed in other colors.

Because of user complaintsFact|date=August 2007, the 4-sided die (or d4) produced by Gamescience has truncated points; it would otherwise be very difficult to handle comfortably.

Mr. Zocchi has invented and produced several "non-standard" dice. These are a 3-sided die, a 5-sided die, a 7-sided die, a 14-sided die, a 16-sided die, and a 24-sided die. All these except the 7-sided (d7) are available in high-impact translucent plastic, with Gamescience's characteristic precision-edge unpolished look. In 2007, Mr. Zocchi planned on phasing out varieties of his opaque dice in favour of the gem styles.

Gamescience is still trading, and (as of 2006) Zocchi is still active in the gaming community.

Zocchi has designed a few games himself, including "Alien Space", "Star Fleet Battle Manual" (not to be confused with "Star Fleet Battles"), "The Battle of Britain", "Luftwaffe", "Flying Tigers", "Hardtack", and "Battle Wagon Salvo".

External links

*bgg designer|1485
* [http://www.advancinghordes.com/about_gamescience.php?faq_item=3 'Who is Lou Zocchi?' at AdvancingHordes.com]
* US patents US patent |6926275 |Five sided dice (6926275), US patent |D303553 |Spherically shaped game die (D303553) and US patent |6926276 |Braking system for dice (6926276).

Persondata
NAME= Zocchi, Louis
ALTERNATIVE NAMES= Lou Zocchi
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