Lou Zocchi

Louis Zocchi
Zocchi at his GameScience booth at Gen Con Indy 2007.
Occupation	dice manufacturer

Louis Zocchi, Technical Sergeant, USAF (retired), is a gaming hobbyist, former game distributor and publisher, and maker and seller of polyhedral game dice.

Lou Zocchi was one of the first editors for Avalon Hill's magazine, The General, and a regular contributor during its first 11 years of publication. He also playtested such early wargames as Bismark, Afrika Korps, Jutland, Stalingrad, and a number of titles Avalon Hill did not publish. Zocchi was the first U.S. distributor to sell nothing but adventure games. As a board wargame designer, his credits include Luftwaffe, The Battle of Britain, Alien Space, and Flying Tigers, as well as the 3-, 5-, 14-, 24-, and 100-sided die. Zocchi contributed to the series of books by Guidon Games that began in 1971 with Chainmail. Zocchi produced the superhero RPG Superhero: 2044 in 1977. Zocchi designed and published a set of miniatures rules called the Star Fleet Battle Manual (1977) that he licensed from Franz Joseph, and Zocchi's old friend Stephen Cole licensed the rights from Joseph to publish the STAR FLEET BATTLES GAME, of his own in 1979. Zocchi distributed the Wee Warriors line. Zocchi helped Judges Guild out of cash-flow problems in the early 1980s by paying them $350 each time in return for the right to reprint out-of-print Judges Guild supplements. Mike Hurdle of Holly Springs Mississippi purchased Zocchi Distribution in February 1998.

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 various inconsistencies in most mass-produced gaming dice.