As many of you are aware, Critical Hits is up for an Ennie this year. Dave has already given you all several good reasons to vote for us, but I’m here today to seal the deal. I put myself at great personal risk to reveal this information, but a win this year would shed a lot of light on the truth all gamers need to know.
Your Dice Are Alive – How Long Will You Be?
You heard it here first: your dice are alive. Don’t believe me? Think about all the times your dice have betrayed you, or that one time you inexplicably rolled 6 20’s in a row. It is the richest of irony that people use dice to simulate the generation of random numbers. They are grown on secret farms deep within blackest Ohio, and their eggs are harvested and stored in what appears to be grain silos but are actually special dice towers designed for polyhedral husbandry. The dice are then sterilized so that they do not continue to breed at gaming tables around the world. The sole exception to this rule is the barrel that gamers typically buy a “scoop” of dice from at conventions, never realizing that those dice were never manufactured. They put 4 dice in that barrel six months previous, sealed the lid, and cracked it open at the convention months later. This is also why you frequently find dice in your bag that you don’t remember buying after you’ve been to a convention.
Even worse, this dark secret kept from you by the evil gaming megaconglomerates hides an even deadlier sub-secret. As you may have guessed, the different breeds of polyhedral dice yield the various numerical denominations. However, the d12 (being the alpha of any given set of dice) has a set of natural defenses not found in any other polyhedral breed – including a deadly neurotoxin secreted through its 8 facet, known as d12xin. This poison is the primary reason very few epic-level monks were ever played in D&D 3e – their players had a penchant for mysterious death the day after a particularly combat-heavy game night.
We here at Critical Hits believe that all gamers have the right to continue breathing, and we’ve made it our personal mission both to prevent the tragedies caused by d12xin and to find a humane (and perhaps one day even synthetic) way to produce dice for tabletop gaming. Our own Chatty Phil is a microbiologist, and it is for this reason that we joined forces with him over a year ago. While he has not yet produced an antidote for d12xin, several useful byproducts have resulted from his research – including a cure for Pathfinder’s.
We can’t do this without your support. A vote for Critical Hits is a vote for life – both for your PC, and you.
What is great is when you try to explain this to people that just start out gaming. They look at you like you are insane when you refuse to use any other dice than the one that you “feel” that day. Or if someone picks up your dice (even accidently) and you threaten to smite them a little. Nice article.