On the Play of Inn and Inn, and Games Without the Tables -------------------------------------------------------- To Hys Excellencie Aquel Carolingia and the Most Gracious Johanna does Justin knowne as Ace send Gode Greetings and thys humble word. I have spoken in the past of thee games within the Tables, such as Irish or Tick-Tack. And yet it would be remiss to not speke also of the plaies that may be had without the Tables, for the dyce alone maye be cause of much enjoyment. And whilst some may saye that the games without the tables are lesser to those within, I must contest this, for so manie good nobles have had sport of the dyce that even kyngs maye playe without concern. Knowe first that yr dyce must be cut most finely on the square, wyth corners that are most true and even, and none of the sydes greater or lesser than the others. For manie foul men maye use the Cheaters, dyce which are cut off from true, and whych doe fall as these men wish. You should have no sport with suche men, but immediately put them out from yr domain, that theye maye not playe falsely with the people of yr lande. The true gamester plaies onely with the same true dyce, that hys chance is held onely in his skill and lot. Eche die muste have six numbers on't, with eche pair of sides counting to seven. As: the Ace should face the Sixe, the Duce the Fyve, and the Trey should be opposite the Foure. And knowe that the number of dyce maye change in the manie plaies, as two, three, four, or more. Knowe also that eche plaier should have a Boxe, made from fine wood. This box must bee the same for eche, and should be screwed inside, with manie hills to make the dyce jump. For eche plaier will throw the dyce from his boxe, and it is the task of the box to make the dyce roll greately. Those same false plaiers may paint or shadow theyr boxes, using false art to make them look screwed whilst being fine and smooth inside. And thys is false play, for the cunning gamester maye throwe from suche a box with no rolling of the dyce, and make them fall just as they were placed. These men too should be put out from yr lande. There are endless games of the dyce, but I shal begin wyth the game of Inn and Inn. This is a fine lyttle plaie, not so simple as those where the gamesters but throw until the fyrst should throw Treys or Foures, but neither so full of subtlety as Hazard, of whych I shal speke later. And in the playe of Inn and Inn, you maye play wyth two gamesters or three, eche wyth a Boxe, and foure dyce upon the Table. Before the start of playe, the gamesters should agree upon the Stake and the Battle. The Stake is the coin that shal be drop't for eche loss, and maye be a Pound, a Shilling, or even a Penny if the plaiers wish onely to playe for the joy but care not to lose the money. The Battle is the sum of the loss, eche player having this sum with him and the playe following until a player has lost the Battle in full, at whych time the Battle ends. For even a man whose loss is almost full, to but a few Stakes, maye yet prove the victor before the Battle is done. And the Battle should be set at some amount greater than the Stake, as some ten or twenty coins. The playe is most simple, wyth the plaiers throwing the dyce once in turn before passing to the next. And the dyce maye fall in three ways: they maye be Out, Inn, or Inn and Inn. Yf the dyce fall with a single dublet, as Duce, Duce, Foure, Sixe, it is Inn. The player who threw muste drop a coin upon the table and place it in hazard to be won by another gamester. Yf the dice fall with two dublets, as Ace, Ace, Trey, Trey, it is Inn and Inn, and he who threw shall take all the coins upon the table for his own. And it is Inn and Inn as well yf all foure dyce should fall the same, as foure Duces, foure Sixes, or anie other syde of the die. And it is but Inn yf three dyce should fall alike, but not foure. Yf the dyce fall with no dublets, as Ace, Trey, Fyve, Sixe, or Duce, Trey, Foure, Fyve, then it is an Out. And if ye playe with two, then the Adversary shall take all of the coins. Yet if ye playe with three, then the paire of Adversaries maye divide the coins, or maye throw for them, as ye see right. But as the coins maye not be even, I think it beste to throw for them, and the higher throw taketh the lot. I shal speke of other games, mayhap of Hazard, a game most common amongst gamesters but of suche detail that yt is as riche as manie others combined. On thys colde .iiii. of Octobre, I remain yr servant, Justin duC. Endnotes -------- Dicing is one of the most universal forms of game, common in almost every culture I know of. There were a number of variant kinds of dice in period, but the standard six-sided cubical die seems to have been by far the most common. Note that the Renaissance sources almost always imply that all of the players are throwing the dice from a box, rather than barehanded; Cotton is clear that the box should be screwed on the inside, but I don't know if that was universal. I don't consider a box essential to play at dice (especially since I don't know anyone making proper screwed boxes), but it certainly adds to the authenticity if you can do so. As mentioned above, there are a variety of ways to cheat at dice, the most common of which involved slightly altering the dice as described. Weighted dice like one usually finds in magicians' shops today appear to have been less common than dice that were just a bit long or short along one axis; while such alterations don't assure a win every time, they skew the statistics enough that a good player can win quite handily overall without being too conspicuous. See the books that Alessandro the Storyteller has been editing for more details on the fine art of cheating in the Renaissance. I am not wholly confident that Inn and Inn is quite period; my primary source for it is Cotton's "Compleat Gamester", from the 1670's. But the style of play is a very common one for period, with some throws winning and some losing, and it is a nice introduction before something more complex, such as Hazard. Note that this reconstruction is slightly different from Master Sallamallah's, mainly in exactly how the Out gets handled. The original source is a bit ambiguous, and we've interpreted it differently; those curious about the different interpretation should see his book, "Medieval Games". -- Justin