The Dice Must Learn

Many of us have our own peculiarities when it comes to dice and die rolling. I wanted to pass along what one of my players once did in the past. Some may find it borders on the edge of eccentric unto the bizarre, but I find it amusing nevertheless.

Mike was having a bad night of die rolling, really bad. Now Mike actually usually has bad luck with die rolling, but this night it was too much for him. The game concluded and he went home...and went straight to the shed. He opened up his dice bag and set all his dice in a circle...around the vice. This was so they could all "see" what was about to happen. He then took the offending d20 and put it in the vise, and turned and turned and turned until the die shattered.

That was horrible enough but then he carefully picked up the pieces and put them into a small, clear container. And now whenever he starts to roll bad he brings out the container and places it near the dice he is rolling that night...as a reminder of what could happen to each of them.

Have you ever done anything similar or extreme with your dice?

5E Friday

5E Friday

Retro-clone Names

With the popularity of retro-clones of the various editions of D&D we are rapidly running out of alliterate naming conventions for the various retro-clones and the variations of the various retro-clones. For those designers stuck for a name for their own wonderful version of D&D here are a bunch of names they can choose from.

Antechambers & Animals

Bailiwicks & Beasts

Catacombs & Creations

Caverns & Creatures

Caves & Critters

Chambers & Challenges

Crypts & Creepies

Dens & Denizens

Domains & Danger

Doors & Demons

Fatalities & Fiends

Foyers & Fauna

Gates & Gargoyles

Halls & Horrors

Lairs & Lizards

Labyrinths & Louts

Mausoleums & Monstrosities

Talking & Tales

Tombs & Terrors

Paths & Peril

Passageways & Perytons

Rooms & Rumbles

Sepulchers & Scoundrels

Vaults & Villains

Ways & Wyverns

Ziggurats & Zombies 

And once you've decided the fantasy genre has been inundated with too many retro-clones here are some suggestions for some of the other alternate genres...

Western

Sagebrush & Six-guns

Trails & Trouble 

Sci-Fi

Stations & Sectors

Ships & Systems

Space & Stars 

Horror

Libraries & Leeches

Blood & Bones 

Superhero

Spandex & Supervillains

Powers & Prestige

Presidential Candidates as D&D Character Sheets

I am not a political person at all, but I do like amusing and mainstream accounts of D&D. Here is a website that did up a bunch of the Presidential candidates as D&D character sheets. I'm sure there is some political bias on the part of the author, but a lot of it is funny nevertheless.

http://www.funnyordie.com/lists/e0cb0351f6/presidential-candidates-explained-through-dungeons-and-dragons-character-sheets?playlist=featured_pictures_and_words

D&D's New Direction is Horrible!

What is up with this new direction D&D is taking?! I want to role-play, I want an adventure where my hero can shine! Instead the newest adventure module is all about putting my character into impossible situations, all in an effort to challenge me! I don't want to be challenged at the peak of my character's abilities. I want to role-play with the merchant as we haggle for a savings of 2 silver pieces. I want to rescue the king's daughter from the kobolds so I can become a prince.

What I do not want to do is run through a dungeon crawl whose only intent is to run through the dungeon crawl. I mean what's the point of that?! The only success is success. There is no story in this except to kill the end boss guy. Personally I don't like this type of adventure and I certainly don't like what it is teaching our new players. They will begin to think D&D is about nothing but dungeon crawls and dungeon challenges. They will NEVER learn about stories and plots and adventures with lofty goals. Because of this one adventure, D&D is forever destroyed for me.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past 36 years then you know I am talking about the Tomb of Horrors (1975 version). In Gary Gygax's, the author of this "adventure", own words, "There were several very expert players in my campaign, and this was meant as yet another challenge to their skill—and the persistence of their theretofore-invincible characters. Second, so that he was "ready for those fans [players] who boasted of having mighty PCs able to best any challenge offered by the AD&D game."

Now I am not one to buy into hyperbole and spread viscious words around all based on a couple of sections of advertisement blurbs, so I went out and actually got it and read it. That way you can trust my analysis as it is something I have actually seen. And let me tell you, it is out-of-control! They were not kidding. If you don't bring in your top notch character all decked out with the best selection of gear and spells, you won't last more than a few seconds. It seems like you'll need all the latest supplements in order to survive this fiasco. Yet another method by which TSR is trying to drag more money out of us!

Even worse, I hear this is only the first a series, the "S" series of adventure modules. S2 is purported to be named White Plume Mountain to be followed by S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. From this we can easily see where D&D is heading and it is heading off somewhere I do not like! D&D is dead to me and I recommend everyone else on the planet get off that train wreck with me!

Random Blog Topic

Stuck for a topic for your upcoming blog post? Running out time and fearful your follower count will drop if you don’t put something-anything-up? Well, look no further! Provided here is a complete (mostly) list of blog ideas in table form, just roll and you’ll have the topic for your next blog post!

Hmm, now that I think about it, this might actually be a fun thing to try for a week. Let the die fall where they may and see what I have to write? Could be a fun experiment...just so long as I don't roll a 6-9.

4E Hot Chicks

Those of us playing 4E are falling behind the curve! That retro blog, The Underdark Gazette, which is all about non-4E editions has seized the initiative away from us 4Enards. He is using Hot Elf Chicks to put forward the message that people can still play earlier editions of D&D (and its clones). Now the retro blog-o-sphere has united in their pursuit to crush us and Hot Elf Chicks are everywhere! WE ARE FALLING BEHIND!

Therefore, I propose all the 4E blogs do something similar. Only we can't use Hot Elf Chicks, since THEY are using them. We need something original and unexpected. Therefore, I propose Hot Orc Chicks!

We will win the day!

(PS I'm open to moving away from Hot Orc Chicks...maybe some nice Trolls.)

Nerd Humor

I'm going to break my own rules about link posting and articles. Normally I hate it when a blog post is nothing but links, but these were too funny to not pass on.

Foxtrot. It has long been a comic strip where geekness slips through fairly often, especially for a mainstream comic strip. References to D&D and World of Warcraft, along with other things such as Star Trek, are all done with a sense of respect. It is less about poking fun at us and more about showing the fun we have. Yesterday's Sunday strip 1/16/11 was a good D&D one.
Here it is.

Next up is some old-school humor. This is not even pretending to be mainstream. Basically they take a humorous look at some old D&D books. This link is about S3 "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks". If you take some time looking through the site, there are a lot of other great and funny articles about some of the other older books.
Here it is.

Strange Questions of the Day

We all know Wil Wheaton plays rpg games. He also played a villain named Cha0s two different times on the TV show Leverage. Margaret Weis Productions just released the new rpg game based on the TV show Leverage. So the Strange Questions of the Day are...

Would Will Wheaton be cheating by having GM information if he was playing a game of Leverage and they ran into Cha0s?

Would Will Wheaton run the NPC or would the GM?