The job had a lot of downtime while we waited on canoes to return. During that time my friend and I would play “army man”. One day some of the high school age kids started playing a game while they waited. That game was, of course, D&D. AD&D First Edition if my memory serves me. The thing that fascinated me the most was odd shape dice used to play. I loved the dice. I had to play this game for the dice.

I learned there was a box set you could buy that had the dice and some books. The pay check I got for that weekend of picking up paddles and washing cushions wasn’t enough to buy the Red Box Set so I had to wait. And wait. And wait. About a month after first seeing the dice I finally had a set of my very own.

So dice got me into role-playing games. So much that I’m a little sad these days. My primary game is Burning Wheel and it uses d6 only.

It might be important to point out that I can’t walk buy dice without buying some (slight exaggeration but not much)

jeffxs last blog post..Merry…BEEP VRRRRRR….Christmas

Awesome!

So, we ambush this group of “bad guys” and we are in a huge fight. I get separated from the rest of the part and am fighting some kind of monster, I think it was an ork. The fight is going very poorly and nobody is going to be able to get to me and help out.

I get bashed around until I have one hit point left and the DM says to me, “Look, basically you won’t be able to kill this guy unless you roll a 20 this round. And after that, you’ll be dead.” (He even pulled out a new character sheet for me!)

I hadn’t rolled a 20 all session. I also happened to be wearing my class ring. So, I held my hand up and said to everyone at the table, “The only reason I haven’t rolled higher is that my ring has been throwing off my balance.”

The DM said, “Yeah, yeah, just roll already.”

So, I pulled off my class ring and sat it on the table. I took the die in my hand and said, “Okay, watch this sh*t.” I threw the die and, you guessed it, rolled a 20. The entire room, DM included, started screaming in excitement! There were shouts of “OH MY GOD!” and “NO WAY!”. I rolled damage, downed the ork, and ran towards our cleric!

It was a crazy night where we decided to play d&d in 16 PCs + 1 DM (me ) with only 3 sets of dices.. quite an inferno..

Anyway that’s not the story.. the real fun was when the monk did 5 times “20″ on a d20 and scoring same numbers of critics. The fight was quite ended when i decided to use the highest spell the villain had.. and the dice choose that the target was the monk.. nothing to say that the monk took quite the whole damage and he died.. everyone was quite unhappy as the monk saved other’s life by scoring those critics.. so i said “because your high valor (luck ) your god will give you another chance.. score 100 with a d100 and you’ll have a second life.

Roll roll roll.. nothing more to say.. the monk came to life again

Michael Phillipss last blog post..standing between the darkness and the light

in the first long-running game I played in (AD&D 2nd ed.) I had a ranger with notoriously bad luck hitting things. I honestly believe that character didn’t hit a thing until 7th level. I threatened, bought, borrowed, and stole dice – even had other people roll them – but no luck….

the other story is from a Werewolf Wild West game. I’m not sure if we played completely correctly, but we allowed botches on _everything_ (If you rolled for a sneeze you could botch it and I think someone actually did ). We were trying to sneak past an installation with a gatling cannon I think and were rolling to be sneaky, which was going well until the last character rolled….a triple botch. As we began panicking and the Storyteller began chuckling and rubbing his hands in glee the Storyteller rolled to see if the guy with the cannon had heard us and rolled….a triple botch. We decided that he was too busy cleaning, talking to, and petting his cannon (remote location, expensive gun) to notice the guy yelling ‘SHHHHH I’M BEING SNEAKY!’

Our DM and one particular player, ‘Pat’, have a genuinely peculiar relationship when gaming together. Their die rolls are inextricably linked: When one is rolling well, the other is guaranteed to be rolling poorly. It’s more than the semi-adversarial nature of a DM’s rolls and the players’ rolls; when one’s d20s are impossibly good, the other’s rolling 2s and 3s. It’s more than just d20s, too. Any die, if on the table with these two, falls victim to this odd correspondence.

Thus it was to be expected that, after botching two important realm actions – wasting a lot of gold and two months of game time – Pat would be frustrated. (The DM was, as usual, rolling extremely well.) Grabbing up his d20, he shook his fist at it, glared furiously at it, threatened it with dire imprecations if it didn’t cooperate (most hilarious), and proceeded to try twelve times to roll something good.

Five 1s, and nothing above a 4, followed. The group laughing uproariously at this point (Pat included), I couldn’t help but grab the die and announce “No, Pat, look – it’s easy.” With a flick of the wrist, I sent the die spinning over a binder, bouncing off a glass, and eventually to a stop right in front of Pat.

Natural 20.

We’re still on speaking terms, at least, but I don’t really expect a Christmas present this year.

* * * *

The problems associated with having your DM’s significant other in the gaming group have long been talked about, with varying levels of seriousness, among tabletop gamers. To his credit, our DM is usually able to treat his wife, ‘Danielle’, fairly equitably at the table, and we don’t mind a bit of help for her now and again since she’s still quite new to D&D. Our Birthright game, however, is an exception to the rule; at this point, her rogue can turn into shadow, can detect evil creatures automatically and has more magic items than most Cerilian kings. (In the Birthright setting, a simple +1 longsword is rare enough to be a noble family’s treasured heirloom, named and passed from regent to regent.)

It’s important to note that none of those many bonuses had any bearing whatsoever on what I’m about to describe.

With no magic items beyond a few +1 weapons and no alchemist’s fire, trolls are tough to take down. We’d encountered a pair of trolls that a local ogre band had employed in their raids on human settlements in the province, guarding the entrance to the monsters’ cavern hideout. Danielle, being eager to show off her newfound shadow powers, opened up the combat encounter by slipping past one troll in a narrow passage, materializing without being seen, and throwing a dagger at the troll’s unguarded back.

What followed was the single best roll I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. Our DM uses a variant critical rule, where two 20s and a confirmed hit means instant death. Danielle went above and beyond: 20 … 20 … 20 … 16. (She needed a 12, I believe, to hit the troll’s AC and “confirm” the uber-critical hit.) In our amazement, we had her roll her damage – and she came up with an 18 for her 3d6 sneak attack damage and a 4 on the dagger’s d4 damage die. If my math is right, she had something like a one-in-nine-million chance to roll three 20s, confirm the hit, and then roll max damage.

The DM ruled that, troll or no, the beast couldn’t regenerate itself with its entire nervous system neatly cut out of its body and pinned to the ceiling by a truly legendary strike. We still ask her to repeat her mighty deed whenever her rogue leads off the initiative count.

One of my friends is a wild roller. He is 6’7″ and gets very excited when he rolls. So he’d get a lot of heat on those dice, and they’d fly everywhere. He almost couldn’t help put get momentum with his giant-like arms.

So one night he just grabs any dice available, and rolls. He happened to grab my favorite D20. It flew off the table, and into the sump-pump hole: A hole full of murky water.

The sump pump is in the corner of the basement, and sadly many dice had made their way there. But this time it was different. My favorite dice was in there. I made my friend reach in shoulder-deep, and retrieve my dice. Many other dice were saved that day.

I still have my 20-year-old clear green dice. It still rolls awesome. And to this day when my friend rolls his dice a bit to excitedly, we all yell, “SUMP PUMP!”

Is this one of those porous plastic die of yore? The kind of set that came with a wax crayon so you could fill in the numbers?

I’m sure he’ll appreciate the gift if you get them!

My very first set was bought piece by piece from 1985 onwards. They were the translucent sharp-edged dice we’ve been hearing about on the blogsphere lately.

Personally, I’ll take my rounded edged orange and black set over anything else I have (although loosing my q-workshop dice set hurt a lot!).

Thanks for de-lurking and posting. I’m always happy to meet new readers!

My dice story has to do with one of my DM’s d20s. He’s had it since he started playing back in the late 70s, and the thing has been rolled so many times that the edges are all rounded off. The thing is basically a bumpy, off-white ball. It looks like it’s been run over by a car (or worse!) many times.

When he rolls it, it’s like a little mini-game to see how many things it bounces off of before slowly meandering to a stop. He says he doesn’t try to knock over minis with it, but we know he does sometimes.

I’d say that, should I get picked to win, I’d give him the dice so he could replace it, but he’s WAY past that. It’s not that he thinks the die is lucky; he just loves it. I’d hate to think what he would do if it ever got lost.

I recall seeing on Jeff’s Gameblog that he had a houserule that allowed a player turning to stone to roll (a Charisma check?) to strike an awesome pose and be worth more when sold!

Entering the lair, I (the paladin) engaged the medusa toe-to-toe. The dwarf cleric and human ranger stayed back, using cover to keep the effects of her gaze from affecting them. My rolls were easy. The Fort DC vs her gaze was 18 and I had a +17. No problem! All I had to do was not roll a 1. In the third round of combat, as we were doing well, the medusa focused her gaze attack on me again. With a smug smile and an unconcerned shrug, I rolled.

1.

Everyone froze, staring at my treacherous d20. Then everyone burst out laughing… except for me. I eyed the DM and saw my previous expression of smugness smeared all over his face. I was a statue. The medusa then decided to hold me hostage, as she was pretty close to death at this point. The DM rolls a 1 on his attack (phew!). The next round, and the vile medusa is now exceptionally close to death, on the medusa’s turn… the DM rolls a 20. The medusa climbs me and constricts… my stone sword arm breaks into pieces.

Intermingled laughter and groaning from all around the table. Now, here’s the plus side to this. My paladin had run afoul of a cursed shield… which was now stone. Finally, the medusa is finished off and I (the player) beg the other players to cart my stone paladin with them… “and don’t forget the pieces of my arm!” I moan. I figured I was done. That was it for the brave Feanor, Paladin of Helm. However, the dwarf cleric smashed the stone shield on my other arm, destroying the cursed item, and the cleric and ranger haul my statuesque body out of there, pieces of my sword arm cradled under their arms.

The rest of the session was spent figuring out how I could be fixed and brought back to life. The Mend spell fixed my broken arm (mostly…) and a scroll of Stone to Flesh fixed the rest. By the end of the game, Feanor was back, but with a really sore sword arm and no cursed shield.

Thus, the rolls of a 1 and a 20 determined the pace and purpose of most of the game.

Rafes last blog post..The Three "R"s of Session Planning

@Yan: I do know your legendary bad luck streaks… and for someone who absolutely refuses any kind of ceremonial claptrap with dice I must say that such streaks are becoming quasi mystical in essence. I hope you roll all 15+ tonight!

@Tommi: The d4 intelligence test is a must for all RPG gamers that use polyhedrals. It reminds me that I need to coach Nico on them. He loves d20 because they are so big. And Rory thinks that d8s and d10s are diamonds

@Thasmodious: A d20 mixed drink!?! Superb story. Stupid, dangerous, but totally awesome!

Don’t try this at home kids!

When we were much younger, teenagers, one player had a d20 he always said was his lucky d20, talked about it a lot. One session he was faced with a save or die and he holds up his lucky d20, gives a speech about it, and rolls a 1, his character dies. He excuses himself (game was at his house), comes back a few minutes later with cling wrap and a hammer, wraps the d20 and smashes it apart. Then he grinds the bits up into a powder for about an hour in a mortal and pestle. He took his other d20s and lined them up on top of some gaming books and told them he was about to teach them all a lesson and poured the powder into his mt. dew and drank his “lucky” d20. He said he was sick for two days but it was worth it.

When rolling a d10, we naturally rolled the 0-9 -numbered die and added 1 to the result. This was not very bad and it didn’t las that long.

For the d4, you rolled it, flipped it to right and looked at the bottom side, taking the number closest to you. It did work and produced as random numbers as any other method. (We did eventually figure out how to read those. Eventually.)

I nowadays use d4 as an intelligence test; here’s a four-sided die, roll it and tell what number it shows. Most people figure it out quite quickly.

I have notorious bad luck with dice. Although some will say it’s because I do not make the proper ritual about new set of dices or whatever dice superstition they might have.

One evening was something special though… Playing our usual game night I was as usual having bad roll but at the 3rd 3 in a row that I rolled, someone goes “These dice are scrap take this one”. Obviously I tell him that it won’t change a thing and I go as much as saying that I bet I’ll roll a 3 again with the new dice… Guess what… I did roll that three and even another time on a third dice that somebody else gave me…

The odds of rolling 5 threes on a row on a D20 is one in 3 200 000. Now if only my dice would stick to something else then a three lets say a 20 now that would be useful…

So here comes my dice story.

When I was about 16, about six to seven years ago, me and my friends had only recently started paying d&d 3rd edition. Which, incidentally, is also my first d&d version ever.

So we were playing in a nearby village, and, as was our tradition, we went their by bicycle; a one hour-ride from our city.

Now before I went off to meet the guys for our little excusion, I was at home, getting my stuff (I was GM) together, and did a check if all my dice were there like I always did, probably a obsessive-compulsive thing. I was missing the four-sided die, and shortly pondered whether or not to look for it, because you know, other people have dice too, and the d4 (which, as fate would have it, is also my anti-spam word today) is not all that important.

Again with the obsessive-compulsive thing, I decided to look for it anway. The old school backback I always took had a hole in the bottom, and I eventually found the d4 lodged between the loose threads of the hole in the backpack. I was late because of this little thing, but the guys had waited for me, and we left on our bicycles.

So we get going, and about half-way, we paddle uphill (the village has a few low hills) and the road gets progressively worse (no asphalt, but just brick). So my bicycle bumps up and down when we go downhill again.

My rather big friend behind me suddenly gave out a yelp and went crashing down with bike and all. He had gotten a flat tire on his bicycle, and since we were going down kind of fast, he didn’t manage to maintain his grip and fell. So, no cell phones, one flat tire, and about half an hour of hills to go before we got to where we needed to be, we just kind of decided to walk the rest of the way, bikes in hand.

Now this may not be very interesting to others, but that walk was great. We were all kind of anxious to play so we played as we walked to our destination. No dice, no character sheets in hand, just walkin’ and talkin’… B.e.s.t. roleplaying ever! We had a lot of fun, and when we eventually got to our destination, we actually abandoned the current campaign and started playing as the characters we had improvised along the way.

Also, once we got there, I noticed my little d4 was gone again, and I announced this fact to my players. One of them insisted that the d4 must’ve fallen through the hole in my backpack, and landed under the tire of my friend’s bicycle, causing it to break, and causing his fall. This became a running gag, and the d4 has become the “Die of Death” (yeah…) in our group, a symbol of bad luck…

(Ofcourse I never found out if this was actually true, I never found that particular d4 again, and I honestly think it’s unlikely that the d4 just happened to get under his tire and pop it… Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun. The friend that fell had a few bruises but was otherwise okay, for those interested.)

Cheers!