Using dice differently

In an old post on D&D with porn stars, Zak mused about using cards in stead of dice when creating something where (random) relations are also of interest. When drawing two or more cards, the suits and numbers indicate relations when the same or opposing forces, for instance, when different.

Definitely useful, and fun to boot, but dice may give you something similar and I do not mean rolling multiple times and see if results are identical or not.

When picking dice from your dice bag, the colour, number of sides, material, texture, transparency, marbliness etc. may also be tagged to different properties of the facts you want to decide on.

This made me wonder to what extent I am using dice at the table, and I have to admit, not so much. What I do, is rolling for multiple attacks (multiple monsters or multiple attacks from a single creature). After tossing the dice, the most left one is then the attack roll for the first monster, the next one for the second etc. Or, different colours may mean different type of attacks; bite or claw. Usually, I also throw dice for damage simultaneously to save time in case the attack is a hit.

Also, for random encounters I use multiple dice. If I have to roll once for every 3 hours, then I roll 4 dice for the day, with the left one happening first etc. Dice may also be used to give info on the mini's on the table (number of rounds for certain effects), or may even reflect monsters.

But to grab a random die and have its properties mean something, that is something to explore more in depth in the coming sessions. I will see if I can come up with something useful during play.

 Any of you a suggestion how to use die properties in play?

My thoughts are being eaten

Two weeks ago Zak, of D&D with porn stars, started the Thought Eater DIY RPG Essay Tournament. The idea is that 2 competitors will write an essay on the same subject and the public may vote who is to proceed to the next round for another essay for yet another subject.

I joined in to see how I will fare within the field of, assumingly, native speakers and DIY guru's. I am not supposed to publish my entries here before the end of the voting, or even to say if my essay is already online or not, but as soon as I am allowed to, I will post my entries here as well.

Might just as well be the proper kick-off of this blog ...

Playing the game wrongly

Today's post is inspired by the fact that quite a few bloggers have, at one time or another, heard the comment that they were playing the game wrong. Usually it was said by either an older person (eg. a brother) or a total stranger (eg. at a Con). In my case it was me who discovered that I was playing the game wrongly.

As said before, my first contact with RPGs was in 1985, aged 13, through the game 'Het oog des Meesters'; basically a simplified D&D game in the sense of less rules and sparser tables. To be fair, it also had some interesting features which did not occur in the D&D games, on which I will undoubtedly write in future posts. We started out with three friends and though the circle of players grew slowly but surely, we did not have an experienced player around who could act as 'mentor'. And so we had to develop our own play style.

I vividly remember the first dungeon I created. It was a castle (I had a preference for buildings because the sample adventure that came with the box was placed in a building as well) and every room was stocked with one or more monsters. Without even playing a single session, I was already bored with the 'standard' goblins and orcs, and thus I ended up with a set of rooms full of high-level opponents; a totally awesome, if not entirely realistic, castle. I sent my little brother in, who just had rolled his very first 1st level character, and he immediately faced his first encounter; a gigantic ape, one of the thougher monsters from the book.

He somehow managed to kill it. And although I cannot remember how it went, I can imagine that a very plausible scenario would include me willing him not to destroy my creation by dying in the very first room and thus fudging dice results. Point is that he survived, albeit barely, and stumbled into the second room severely wounded, where he died after a few combat rounds.

I realized that something was amiss. With the current setup it was clear that he would not stand a chance to defeat any monster beyond the first encounter and since my creation was, in my view, perfect, it meant that we were playing the game wrong. The only logical solution was that characters were automatically at full health after each and every encounter! How else could you play this game and survive!?

Luckily, it took not much time to find out what roleplaying was about and what roles the 'boring' low-level monsters could play in exciting adventures.

Monsters: Hive creatures

I love hive creatures; creatures who are stronger in a group than as individuals. There are various approaches to implement the 'hivyness' and the example below does that by creating a single entity whose stats depend on the amount of creatures. By the lack of a better name, I dubbed it as the bee swarm.

Bee swarm

The bee swarm can take up any shape, ranging from a cloud to a humanoid appearance. It is almost immune to slashing and piercing weapons (each doing only 1 dmg per hit) and also bludgeoning weapons do only half damage. It is, however, very vulnerable to fire (double damage). The bee swarm can be of any size according to the amount of bees it consists of. For every 10 hp it gains one attack. Casters who are attacked by the swarm cannot cast spells, even when the attack misses. Below 10 hp the swarm is considered to be dispersed, possibly with the bees fleeing to grow another hive swarm.

Int: Semi-Intelligent (2-4)
# Appearing: Varies
Size: Varies
HD: Varies
AC: 5
THAC0: 15
# Attacks: 1 attack/10 hp
Damage/attack: 1d6

The mandatory OGL post

I am not sure how often I will post stuff that actually can be used in your games. But if I do, it will be under the Open Game License (OGL), unless stated otherwise.

A short introduction

So, yeah, I play games, read about games, and think a lot about games. Then why not write about games as well? The focus of this blog will be RPGs and foremostly D&D. Also, English is not my first language, and the blog will be a welcome exercise.

I live in the Netherlands and will have a different background and view on pop culture, games, and influences than most of the other D&D related blogs. I hope this will lead to interesting insights.

As for my personal RPG history: my first encounter with RPGs was in 1985 through a high school friend. He just had received the box 'Het oog des meesters' for his birthday (published in english under the name 'The dark eye', if I am correct). I was instantaneously hooked and bought the very next day the same box and the expansion from my pocket money and never ever regretted it. In 1990 AD&D (2e) came into view and particularly that game was played a lot.

Since 2010 or so, I encountered the OSR which had a big influence on my games, views, and insights. And also my interest in older versions of D&D and its influences. Currently I DM a 2e campaign and play in a Pathfinder campaign.

All of the above will undoubtedly be explored more in depth in future posts.

Welcome, and may your gear never hamper you in your explorations.