A small rectangular block used as a gaming object, marked with two groups of dots resembling those on dice. Dominos are sometimes called bones, men, or stones and are used to play a variety of games. A domino is a key element in the bestselling book Influence by Robert Cialdini, which explains how a small initial action can create a chain reaction with surprisingly large effects.
When it comes to writing, the domino effect is the idea that one scene in a story can set off a cascade of scenes. For example, you might have a scene where a character is standing in the middle of a group of people. As he or she gives a little nudge to the person directly in front of him, that person will then do something else, which will then cause someone else to do something even more significant and so on. This can be a very effective way to show the progression of a story, especially in nonfiction.
Dominoes are also a common component of popular board and card games. In addition to the usual blocking and scoring games, players can compete in domino shows, in which they try to build elaborate chains of dominoes before an audience. For example, a domino artist named Hevesh once created an intricate display of more than 76,017 dominoes that took several nail-biting minutes to fall.
The most commonly used dominoes are made of plastic or resin, but some are made of wood, bone, or ivory. Historically, dominoes were made from a combination of bone or silver lip ocean pearl oyster shell (mother of pearl), ivory and a dark hardwood such as ebony, with contrasting black or white pips inlaid in either color. Some sets are “extended” to increase the number of possible combinations of ends; examples include double-nine (55 tiles), double-12 (91 tiles), and double-18 (190 tiles).
There are many variations on the game, but most involve placing dominoes edge to edge against each other so that the pips match on both adjacent sides or form some specified total. The first player to reach the required total wins the round.
In some variants, each player passes if he or she cannot place a domino. Then, the remaining dominoes are arranged so that each player has an equal number of dominoes on his or her side of the table. Then, each player places a domino on the table, positioning it so that it touches one of the matching ends of the other dominoes. The shape of the resulting chain is determined by luck, skill, and/or the limitations of the playing surface.
A skilled player can use the positioning of a domino to his or her advantage, such as putting a double on top of a line of singles and thus creating a long snake-like sequence. The resulting chain of dominoes can then be used to score points.