Dice Notes: Beating a Dead Horse (literally)

 After the last post, I had hoped to start talking about some aspects of my 5th edition campaign that may be useful and/or instructive to other DMs, but then something happened that curtailed all of that: I got my order from Infinite Black's second Kickstarter, Elder Dice: Unspeakable Tomes. This was a huge relief, tantamount to the scratching of an itch in the middle of your back, as their Facebook page has been dominated with posts from people lamenting that they haven't gotten their dice yet, followed by another post from someone who ordered one of everything, proudly displaying their new wares and cackling like the mentally deranged. For variety, as a palate cleanser, someone would jump in and post a picture of a crushed shipping box, with the notation, "But the dice inside were fine!"

A couple of people voiced concerns or complaints, and the devoted rank and file set upon them with pitchforks and Internet Sarcasm, in disproportionate ratios, and while I had always intended to talk about my dice when they came in, I resolved not to post my thoughts on their Facebook page, because I have no desire to get into a slap fight with anyone at the moment. Besides, as of this writing, it's all academic, anyway. I'll explain later. For now, let's talk about my dice and what has generated so many words of concern about good design.

Playing Games Part 4: Call of Cthulhu

My first HPL book;
is that the most metal
Lovecraft cover ever
or what?

There were three names that leaped out at me from Appendix N, and you can probably say them with me: Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and H.P. Lovecraft. I had heard of these guys from other sources and now that they were intersecting with Dungeons and Dragons, it was time to run them down. I had read a couple of Lovecraft stories in various horror anthologies along the way, so it was a natural for me to dive right into Arkham and Innsmouth and Dunwich. I've spoken at length about Robert E. Howard. And while I read most of my Clark Ashton Smith in a brief flurry, he never really stuck with me like Howard and Lovecraft.

But there was a whole game devoted to Lovecraft! I was slow to answer the Call of Cthulhu, not because I didn’t want to play it; I did. Badly. Desperately. It’s just that, no one else read the same weird shit that I read. Even in my high school, I was an outlier when it came to Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. Everyone else who read those guys were either already my friends, and/or not into gaming. It was a rural suburb of Waco, Texas, in the 1980s. What did you expect?