I’m back! I’m taking small steps to get into the writing groove, but I feel it coming back!
One of the companies that advertises on this site, Game Master Dice, has generously offered to give away 2 dice bags to the readers of Musings of the Chatty DM (other sites are also participating, see end of post).
Since this blog was built on discussing things like we were a bunch of gamers hanging at our favorite game store, I thought we should make this giveaway into a contest!
In a similar vein as last summer’s Dice Fetish post, I want you to tell me a weird, funny Dice story that you or a friend experienced.
Alternatively, you can propose an adventure seed based on dice or propose a dice game that a GM could use in a Gambling Scene.
By next Friday (December 26 at noon EST) I’ll attribute one dice bag to my personal favorite entry. I’ll attribute the second one in a completely random manner (as a contest of dice should be) among each participants.
The dice you may win are the ones that match the pictures in this post (i.e some pearl and some Bronze colored dice).
Here’s my story to get things started.
About 3 years ago, we were smack dab in the middle of our longest running D&D 3.x game (we switched from 3.0 to 3.5 during that campaign). At a certain points, our mid-high level PCs were caught in an alignment-based multi-planar war centered around their material world.
Each PC was named the Herald of their respective alignment by their patron gods.
That conflict forced all neutral alignment to chose a camp in regards to the 4 axes: Law/Chaos/Good/Evil or be considered an enemy by all aligned factions. Since most PCs had at least one part of the alignment set to neutral, I created cut scenes where each of those PCs got to interact with his deity to choose which faction the god would side on.
One such cut scene centered around a Chaotic Neutral Fighter-Thief named Hunter (played by Yan), follower of Olidamara, the Chaotic Neutral god of chance and thieves.
One night, the whole party was invited over at the Temple of Games, Olidamara’s main worshipping in the city. There, the PCs were treated to a full blown game of Craps with the god’s Avatar acting as dealer.
Each player enjoyed betting some serious money during that evening (I had set up an actual Craps mat on the table and we played with the PCs money). At a certain point, the dealer started talking to Hunter about the conflict and imbued the PC with a sliver of its essence. He then asked his follower to chose which side (Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil… or defy all factions and remain Chaotic Neutral).
Yan smiled at me and Hunter told his God… “let’s roll for it…”
“If I win my next bet, We stay Chaotic Neutral, if not, we side with the forces of Good”.
He grabbed the 6 siders and rolled… and won his bet.
That was quite a night!
Oh and all other PCs chose Neutral factions, creating an alliance of the Neutrals and they ended up winning the war!
So what’s your Dice Story?
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P.S. Its good to be back!
Alright! Very good idea!
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!
A dice story… humm… Well you know them but the others don’t…
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… 😉
When we started gaming we did not know how to read all those funny-shaped dice. Particularly, the d10 numbered from 0 to 9 and d4 eluded as for a while. (Yeah, I am young, having started with these sets of dice.)
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.
Speaking of intelligence test, my group failed one miserably one night. We were playing Outburst waiting on a late arriving player. I forget the reason, but Outburst has a d6 that is numbered 1-3 twice, no 4-6. We had not realized this yet, only playing the game once before. We play the game, player arrives, we get started, but I throw the die into my dice pile. In the session, we get involved in a game of dice at a tavern and I decide since I won the game of Outburst, that d6 will be my lucky die. I forget the exact nature of the dice game we played, but it involved a single d6 and rolling high. Roll after roll I didn’t get above a 3. We joked about it, laughed at my expense. FInally I stated the die sucked and never wanted to see it again and passed it off to my wife, who began rolling it, again with nothing higher than a 3. We continued to laugh about it a few more rolls until someone finally asked to see it and we learned the terrible truth. It’s still a running gag to ask a player who is having a bad dice night with his whole set if his dice are from Outburst Advanced.
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.
@Flying Dutchmen: I can picture you guys discussing about how your Rebel d4 decided to make a run for freedom and tried to kill your friend. Nice Story!
@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!
In one adventure, around level 12 or 13 in 3.5, our party tracked a medusa who had been masquerading as a lord. She had taken a portal to another world, one that was hot, arid and completely devoid of human[oid] life. Knowing the powers of a medusa, we split the group: I, the paladin, went in with the dwarf cleric and human ranger. (We all had good Fort saves, especially me at +17) The other portion of the group went to seek the portal that would take us off that strange, arid world once we’d dealt with the threat.
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
Woot, I like these kind of stories. They suck when you get thrown out of combat for ages, but sometimes, when you look back at it all, it seems so much more dramatic!
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!
(Long-time reader, first post! …or is it? Anyway…)
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.
Welcome to the blog @brcarl!
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!
Every Friday night in high school, my friends and I would get-together in my friend’s basement for D&D.
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!”
Two dice stories – one beautiful in its simplicity, one beautiful in its timing. Interestingly, both involve our group’s occasional Birthright game.
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.
dice stories, hmmmmm….
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!’ 😀
So back in highschool, sophomore or junior year, one of my friends and I used to hang around at the school for several hours waiting. We usually had our dice bags with us, and we developed more than a few different ways to keep ourselves entertained. If you’ve ever played the game where you take a set of jacks and spin as many of them as you can before the first one falls over, imagine that done with assorted dice (d4s for the challenge.) We also spent about 8 hours over the span of a week rolling one of those spheroid d100s trying to get it to roll a 1 or a 100. Never happened, both of us forbade them from our assorted games.
Michael Phillipss last blog post..standing between the darkness and the light
Hehehehe.. nice contest 🙂
It was a crazy night where we decided to play d&d in 16 PCs + 1 DM (me :P) 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 :P) 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 😛
Years ago, I was playing in an AD&D 2nd Edition with a buddy of mine. His brother was running the campaign and the players were all about level 6. I was allowed to join, but I had to start at level 1. At this point in the story I had (somehow) made it to level 2.
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!
Keep the stories coming. I love each and everyone of them!
Awesome!
I guess this is sort of a dice story. I started playing role-playing games because of the dice. When I was younger I worked at a Canoe Outpost. I picked up paddles and washed cushions. I was 9 or 10 it probably broke a few child labor laws but it was fun.
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
OK – we were playing an all-weekend D&D session at a friends house. After about 100 or so VERY crappy rolls with his favorite d20, he stands up, yells out that he’s had enough of this #$% and leaves the table. We all jump up to see what’s going on and follow him outside. He stomps off to his tool shed and comes back with a 10# sledgehammer, throws the dice onto the pavement and proceeds to pound the ever-lovin’ crap out of it. We howled with laughter for about 20 minutes while he hunts down and completely obliterates each and every piece of that dice. When all was said and done, there wasn’t a bit of that dice larger than a grain of sand. He then throws down the sledge, and says “That’s better. Let’s play,” and walks calmly back into the house….