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You are here: Home / Archives for Humor

Be Careful What You Wish For

September 27, 2011 by Vanir

We have a new player joining our group, and her character debut is going a little differently than I’d seen before. I’ve seen detailed backstories written. I’ve never seen a player bring a list of demands that must be met if her character is ever to see the light of day. Of course, I accepted her terms. You see, she hadn’t played D&D before, and she never knew about the credo of the Evil DM — “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!”

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: batman, D&D, demands, dnd, evil, evil dm, gelfling, LOLdemort, magog, pinata, ransom, ransom note, spiderman, tears are delicious, tiger, tiger magog, wolverine

I Was A Teenage Movie Magic-User

September 20, 2011 by Vanir

The comments on my article on DM Fiat took an interesting turn last week when people started talking about how much more “cinematic” 4e is than previous editions. This is a claim I’d heard applied several times to 4e, but I’ve never really understood why. The combat is faster! All the classes have cool powers now, not just the casters! I can’t confirm or deny these things, but I am calling Shenanigans on them making anything more action-movie awesome on their own. As a matter of fact, I am extending these same Shenanigans to claims that any game system can do this.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: action jackson, action movies, action sequences, amerrricuh, arnold schwarzenegger, bruce willis, bumblebee cars, cars, charlie sheen in the phantom, chase scenes, cinema, cinematic, Movies, mullets, russians, sally stallone, sly stallone, sword-chucks, swords, sylvester stallone

Fudging The Grid

September 13, 2011 by Vanir

I prefer to keep an open mind about most things, not the least of which is gaming. That, coupled with my willingness to play devil’s advocate, occasionally finds me arguing for a position I don’t completely agree with. Sometimes, you find you’re not arguing about what you thought you were when you started. This time, I found myself in an internal argument with myself contemplating the very nature of running a roleplaying game. It was like, inside the other argument. It was like ARGUMENT INCEPTION.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: 3e, 4e, battle mat, bronies, dm fiat, friendship is magic, fudge, grid, innocence lost

Hints From Dire Heloise

August 23, 2011 by Vanir

This week, I decided to open up the floor to reader questions. I am committed to answering these in the most serious way that I can.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: advice, bacon, dire heloise, plot, race/class cuisine, wotc

The Experience

August 16, 2011 by Vanir

In most of the games I play in, we just sort of level up as the campaign progresses. I can buy that. My years of martial arts training tell me that a boot to the head is a very powerful lesson. Combat is a great teacher, assuming one survives. However, the theory always sort of fell apart for me when it came to wizards. Certainly, the wizard would gain a lot of knowledge about what worked and what didn’t after a few battles, but that doesn’t explain why a few weeks into his travels he suddenly knows how to cast a Fireball. Wizards always got screwed anyway.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: combat, equal rights for mages, experience, fighters suck, learning, screwed, sword-chucks, unfair, wizard

Save Yourself: Vote For Critical Hits

July 19, 2011 by Vanir

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. The consequences for not reading could be quite random – and deadly!

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: D&D, d10, d12, d20, d30 who uses that, d4, d6, d8, ennies, gen con, gencon, venomous, VENOMOUS D12 OMG, vote

Communication Skills And Gaming: The Fundamental Truth About Fundamentals

July 12, 2011 by Vanir

Communication skills are very important to every facet of our lives that involves anyone but us. This means gaming too! Read on – and when you’re done, tell somebody what you’ve learned. Without using “um” or “uh”. Or WE’LL KNOW.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: communication, communication skills, cross-class, dm tips, drum circle, everyone is happy, fundamentals, harmony, player tips, QBQ, thanksgiving

Let Sleeping Dukes Lie

June 28, 2011 by Vanir

Poor ol’ Duke got cancelled and sold to other companies and cancelled and put through the most spectacular development hell any of us have ever heard of. I was incredibly worried the day Duke Nukem Forever came out last month. I was about 12% sure the world was going to end. Conversely, after the Worst Development Cycle Ever, I was over 90% sure Duke Nukem Forever was going to be really terrible. It wasn’t terrible. It was worse than that. It was disappointing.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Reviews, Video Games Tagged With: come get some, disappointment, duke nukem, duke nukem forever, duke nukum, duke3d, shake it baby

The Note

June 14, 2011 by Vanir

Last night, I found a note written in my own handwriting that I didn’t remember writing. It said only “HE WAS VERY BAD.” Do I simply have a bad memory, or is something more sinister afoot? Has something sinister happened that I simply forgot about? Is Bigfoot involved? Read on, and share the constant nightmare that has become my life.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor Tagged With: bad, baseball, claire's, death note, debbie gibson, el fudge, ghostbusters, he was very bad, memory, memory failure, necklace, note, pearls, pulp fiction, runes, spells, that's all you had to say, the wolf, tiffany, very bad, we're ready to believe you, winston wolfe

The Stay-At-Home Adventurer

June 7, 2011 by Vanir

Yesterday marked the beginning of my third week of unemployment. While the stress of my previous job is no longer an issue, I am faced with a whole new host of things to worry about. The first is, obviously, trying to find a new job. There’s lots of things to get done around the house, so it’s not as if I have a lack of things to do. Getting them done with a 3 year old who has no regard for his own personal safety (much less the well-being and structural integrity of his parents’ belongings, the furniture, or even the house) significantly raises the challenge rating on keeping my sanity. So I started thinking about what a campaign would be like if the PCs never went anywhere and the adventure came to them. I bet it’d be more exciting than Super Why.

Filed Under: Dire Flailings, Humor, Roleplaying Games Tagged With: castle, prison, prison castle, pruno, sebastian shawshank, sedentary lifestyle, shawshank, shiv, unemployment

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About the Author

  • Vanir

    Vanir is the sort of man who has openly wondered aloud about his own armor class in front of his own grandmother. Despite this, he has still managed to somehow become both married and a father. By day, he develops web applications. By night, web applications develop him.

    Email: vanir@critical-hits.comWeb: https://critical-hits.com//category/dire-flailings/

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