Number of players: 2
Type of game: Dice / Tables
Period: 1507 to 17th Century

Irish was the most popular tables game in England and Scotland in the 16th and 17th centuries, and is the direct ancestor of backgammon. It is played with the same board, the same men and very nearly the same starting position as backgammon. The big difference is that in Irish doublets are played only once, rather than twice, which makes it a slower and more careful game.

Number of players: 2
Type of game: Dice / Tables
Period: 6th Century

Nard (also called Nardshir) is the Persian ancestor of backgammon and of the whole family of tables games. It is played on the familiar board of 24 points with 15 men each and two dice. The players move in opposite directions, hitting lone men and blocking each other, as they race to bring their men home and bear them off. David Parlett has called it “proto-Backgammon”.

Number of players: 2
Type of game: Dice / Tables
Period: 14th Century

Fayles is one of the family of mediaeval tables games, the ancestors of modern backgammon. It is played on the standard tables board with 15 men each, but uses three dice rather than two. Its name comes from its most distinctive rule: a player who throws a number they cannot play fails, and loses the game.

History of Fayles

• Origins: Fayles is recorded in an English manuscript of around 1300, which describes a number of tables games played in England at the time. An early version of the rules is recorded in Alfonso X’s Libro de los Juegos.

• Name: The name is thought to come from Old French faille, “failure”, after the rule that a player who cannot move loses.

• Family: It belongs to the wider group of tables games, alongside Tables itself, that were played across mediaeval Europe before backgammon took its modern form.

• Modern Study: Most modern reconstructions draw on H.J.R. Murray’s A History of Board Games other than Chess (1952), which translates and discusses the mediaeval tables manuscripts.

Number of players: 2
Type of game: Dice / Tables
Period: 13th Century

Quinze Tablas (“Fifteen Pieces”) is the first of the tables games described in King Alfonso X of Castile’s Libro de los Juegos. Like the other tables games it is an ancestor of backgammon, played on the same 24 point board with 15 men each, but it uses three dice and has one very distinctive rule: no point may ever hold more than two men. This makes it a game of blocking and capture as much as a race.

Number of players: 4 Type of game: Dice Period: 1283

El Mundo – Four Player Backgammon

History of El Mundo

El Mundo (lit. The World) aka Tables of the Four Seasons aka Four Player Backgammon is a tables game from the 13th century. This reconstruction is based off of the rules found in Alfonso X’s Book of Games (1283) as translated by Sonja Musser Golladay (2007).
The Book of Games is the only known description of how this game is played, and the only known reference to the game. Each colour in the game not only corresponds to a season but also one of the four elements and humours. Green represents spring, air, and blood; Red represents summer, fire, and choler; Black represents autumn, earth, and melancholy; White represents winter, water, and phlegm.

Number of players: 2
Type of game: Dice / Race
Period: Roman to 17th Century

Tables is not one game but a whole family of games, played on the same board with the same pieces and dice. Backgammon is the best known survivor, but for well over a thousand years people across Europe and the Middle East played dozens of different tables games, each with its own starting position and rules. Medieval players would simply say they were “playing at tables”, and then agree which game they meant.