#RPGaDay2019: Days 12-18

Monday 12th - "Friendship"

Friendships are vital for good gaming, and I've made loads of new friends that way too, and I've talked on that theme before so I'm going to talk about in character friendships instead, because those are also fantastic.

The big ones have been (more or less in chronological order): Kamaya with NPC's Drazen and Tark; Kella with PC's Kyann, Rax, and especially Reisha; Plays in Shadows and the other PC's making up her pack; Svetlana and the NPC's I created for her backstory; Chrissie and Adam; Taji and Kito, and Taji and an NPC you'll be meeting very soon in the Exalted storyline. 

We're currently playing Aberrant so I think the friendship between Chrissie and Adam is a good one to discuss! We've been joined by another player (one of those friends I've made through gaming) whose character, Morgan, is important to the team but, coming in later, isn't as close  to the other player characters as they are to each other. Chrissie and Adam's friendship is a little strained by the events leading up to and following Adam's incarceration but was forged in strong fires. They had almost polar opposite upbringings, have slightly different morals stemming from differences in their pre-nova lives, were forced together by circumstance (and Benedict...) and have done their best to save the world (or at least make it a better place) many times.

Tuesday 13th - "Mystery"
Running a mystery game is hard. You need to leave breadcrumbs that will seem way to obvious to you, yet your players either will completely misinterpret or won't pick up at all, then you have to figure out how to guide them out of the rabbit holes without making it too obvious, because if it takes too long or feels too hard, the players won't have fun. I've always wanted to play in a mystery campaign, but have no idea where to start to run one.

Back to Aberrant (and friendship). We're currently playing a mystery scenario. Chrissie had a friend in her backstory, Bill, who's recently been killed! Investigating, Chrissie found clues he'd left that only she could find, leading to the word "Protos". We've now spent several sessions trying to figure out what on earth is so important about "Protos" that Bill went to such effort to hide it in such a way only Chrissie could find it. We've definitely gone down several wrong paths and the GM has helped us out by rephrasing things or giving us new ways to find information. We've finally tracked down the people behind the word, but still don't know what it all means...

 Wednesday 14th - "Guide"
There's a real joy to be had in being a guide bringing new people to table top roleplay. My best experience in this role was at uni, where a friend of mine on my course and also in the roleplay society wanted to introduce some other friends of his to gaming. He ran Space Munchkin, and invited me along to show them what it was all about, and act as a cattalyst to keep things moving. I played a cat person wiht force powers and incontrollable curiosity - the other players were soon having their characters grab my tail to yank me away from any red button or hatch labelled "do not open". It was great fun to play someone that reckless, and it was great fun to see them enjoying something they'd never done before.

Thursday 15th - "Door"
I love welcoming new players to roleplay. I think it's a fantastic hobby that gives benefits in normal life. You hear about hobby gatekeepers, but I think it's important and wonderful to hold the door open to everyone who's interested.

Friday 16th - "Dream"
I start a new job in a few weeks, and I'm anxious about it because it'll mean less time with Ziggy. Less time for my hobbies, too, but missing Ziggy is my biggest anxiety. The dream, then, is to have a job that pays enough to meet our outgoings and lead a comfortable lifestyle but that also has minimal (and flexible) hours. This was, I believe, a promise of automation that we haven't seen (there's a rant I could go off on...).

I was chatting about it with my regular GM. If I won big enough on the lottery, I'd love to be able to pay my friends to play with me (and especially the GM, because I think they put the most work into a game). He, in turn, would set up an office and employ us all to help develop the game he's working on. With an ice cream machine and mandatory naps.

I kinda hope he does win the lottery!


Saturday 17th - "One"
I was really struggling with this prompt and asked Husbit's help. He suggested one on one sessions, mentioning the Deadlands one he ran at the Asylum, which was effectively 4 one on one sessions, rotating between the players. He did a really good job of bringing personal horror into it and amping up the dread. I think this is something easier to do one on one, as the GM can really focus on that one player, and the player isn't distracted by other players' responses.

My most recent one on one session was in Aberrant, where I'd missed a session so played through the time separately later. I feel like I got a lot more done in that one session than in the normal group, which again goes to the way players are like cats: easier individually, but a nightmare to herd.

Sunday 18th - "Plenty" 
The one thing I have plenty of for roleplay is dice! I've played diceless and there's other diceless systems that interest me, but I do love rolling great handfuls of dice.

#RPGaDay2018: Day 21 - Which dice mechanic appeals to you?

ALL OF THE DICE! They're mine! Mine! Mwahahahah!

Ahem.

By which I mean, dice mechanics that allow me to satisfy my inner magpie and give me an excuse to own more dice. It's undeniably part of why I like White Wolf and Shadowrun.

D10's! Nearly enough...

I don't remember the details of the Shadowrun system well, but I remember the exploding dice. My character had had her mono-filament whip taken from her, and couldn't afford a new one (or possibly it happened while we were trapped in the Arcology so there was no access to buy one). We killed someone, and I immediately asked whether he had a mono-whip. I think maybe I'd asked this often enough to have annoyed the GM slightly, because this time he responded "yeah, sure. Target number 36." I reached 40. It was one of those moments where he was a little annoyed I'd got my preferred weapon back, but entertained and impressed at the same time, and I've never forgotten the excitement of reaching such a high number on a d6.

I like systems where botching doesn't happen a set statistical amount of the time: it annoys me in D20 that now matter how good you are, you will fail 5% of the time. Savage Worlds gives you a wild die to roll as well as your skill die, and the chance of failing on your skill die reduces as you improve because you increase the size of that die - and you need a failure (a 1) on both the skill die and the wild die before you get a critical failure ("which is when I get to unleash funnies" says Husbit, grinning manically). And White Wolf, where 1's can cancel out successes, and it's only when the 1's outnumber the successes you have real problems (although in Exalted I think it's only when there are no successes that 1's matter, andI can't remember for Aberrant). Which means you're more likely to screw up when you're inexperienced than when you're experienced, but you can screw up far more epically later, because that experience comes in the form of more dice to roll. If you're only rolling a couple of dice, you physically can't screw up as badly as you can when you're rolling 10. That feels satisfying, somehow.

Oh, there was one D20 mechanic I came across once I liked! A friend at uni wanted to run a game for some other friends of his who'd never played an RPG before, and asked me to play as well to help them out. It was Space Munchkin, and I played a force sensitive cat person (curiosity meaning I could keep the story moving). One of the force sensitive powers was 'force nudge', which meant after rolling the D20 I could use a single finger to 'nudge' the die so another, adjacent face was topmost.

Mostly, though, I like to roll lots of dice at a time. I giggle as I count them into my hands.

What about you? Let me know below!

#RPGaDAY2017: Day 27 - Essential Tools for Good Gaming

I love topics like this! It reminds me of Day 30 last year, which reminded me of Day 22 the year before, and my own post earlier that year about preparing the gaming space. This is different detail but the same theme, and turns out to be one I enjoy.

Essential tools for gaming: core rulebook for the game you're playing. Equipment as listed in rulebook (eg dice, cards). Character sheets. Comfy places to sit. People to play with.

(I know comfy places to sit don't sound like bare essentials, but anyone who's ever tried to sit for a couple of hours where it isn't comfy will understand, and having hips that like to sllide out at awkward times and fibromyalgia makes it absolutely essential for me).

For good gaming?

The core rulebook and any supplements being used should have a good reference format, making them easy to use quickly without interrupting game flow. Similarly, the character sheets should be clear to read (flashback to Day 26 in the first year).

Comfy places to sit: cushion piles to share with friends, big comfy sofas or armchairs, a snuggly corner. I'm not fussy. I need to fidget a lot.

People aren't really tools (not the ones essential to good gaming, anyway), but are worth mentioning, because for good gaming you want to be playing people on a similar wavelength to you - people you can communicate with well and who want similar things from the experience, or people you get on with well enough out of the game it doesn't matter so much.

Of my "essential" list, I've left dice to last, because dice are actual tools. They aren't essential to gaming, but most games make use of them, and I love dice.

I like to have multiple sets of dice. This makes Husbit laugh because in Deadlands I generally carefully seek out each of my d4-d12 sets at the start of each session - and then only use one of the sets all night!

Deadlands dice

Exalted dice

For Exalted, though, I do use my different colours. It started in Aberrant, where I liked to use red d10's for mega-attributes, purple for atttributes and blue for abilities (and orange for mischief). I've taken it a step further in Exalted: no mischief or mega-attributes, but the red get used for damage, white or pink for stunts and specialities, turquoise and green for equipment bonuses... It's unimportant, but I enjoy seeing where my successes occur: "Huh, no successes on my own, but with my suit's amplified sound system I managed to hear the whispering". 

Other tools? These days, I like a notebook to write up the game as we play. I knew people who could do that in the past and never understood how they managed to write all game without getting distracted from playing, but now I get it. I enjoy chronicling our games.

I've got a shiny dice tray and pretty dice bags and my folder for rolling on, but none of those are essential for good gaming.

I met Husbit on a coach on a trip up to Warhammer World. It was a coach so the seats weren't comfortable. None of my friends were on the trip: it was mostly the younger crowd from my local GW store, with me being dragged along to show off they had multiple girls, so I didn't really know any of the other people on the coach taking up people from my local and his, and while we had dice they were all d6's, and it was D&D he was running from a few seats behind me. With no rulebooks or character sheets.

The only things essential for good gaming are interested people and some imagination.

~~~

RPGaDAY was started by Dave Chapman and is currently curated by RPG Brigade. To join in yourself, follow the questions in the graphic and blog, vlog, tweet, or otherwise share your responses with the hashtag RPGaDAY2017.

#RPGaDAY2017: Day 9 - Campaigns: do you prefer set length or open-ended play?

I looked at today's official question - what is a good RPG to play for about 10 sessions - and didn't have an answer because that simply isn't the way I play, so I needed to look to the alternates list. I was sorely tempted to go back to 2014 again, because today was "favourite die/dice set" and I love talking about my dice.

So many pretty dice

But there on the alternate questions list is a really good question to explain why I'm hard pressed to answer the official question: do you prefer set length or open-ended play?

And my answer is kinda neither. To me, "set length" sounds like "you have 10 sessions to complete this in", and "open-ended" sounds like "this will meander forever with no real idea of where it's going".

I love the homebrew one-off sessions my uni friends run for us when we visit (such as the Cyber-Doggies game from New Year a few years back), and the Pathfinder one-off I created Kally Hopebringer for (that I intend to write up at some point maybe, because it was cool and gave us some answers about a Deck of Many Things Svetlana once handled...), but I prefer campaign play - I like to really get into the skin of a character, until I'm thinking as she is, and feeling her emotions (I love reaching a point where I'm crying in character with real world tears - as long as there's happy emotion too - too exhausting otherwise!), and that's easier to do if you're playing for a while.

I like to have as much time, as many sessions as it takes to follow the story - but I want the GM to have an idea of what that story is, where the major points are and where it's going to end: I love a satisfying conclusion (see previous discussion on the World of Darkness and Final Fantasy Noir games I played in at uni: these had a huge impact on me and both had these powerful, intended conclusions).

And that's great for the games I'm in at the moment. The Pathfinder campaign with Svetlana, Alexei et al has got an end point that Rich, as GM, has had in mind since the campaign started. Our actions in the campaign are shaping exactly how it's going to pan out, and I have sought (and been given) reassurance that Svetlana at least will get a "happily ever after" (one of the problems of becoming too attached, and something I started to expand on as a footnote until I realised I've really got enough to say for it to need a whole post), but we don't know the full details as yet.

Deadlands, we're running through The Flood, so we've got a pretty good idea where the campaign's leading us and what the ending will be, and similarly once we've done that we'll be genning new characters to run through the other campaigns in the series, with the idea being all our characters will be legendary by the end and we can pick which to use for the final confrontation.

Aberrant and Exalted I know even less about than Pathfinder, but again there's epic plot - and an intended ending in the recesses of Rich's mind. I think the Exalted one is due to be especially epic, as fitting the setting. I hope so anyway. I'm really enjoying playing Taji. And that's where I come back to wanting to have as much time as it takes to reach the ending: I don't want to rush things to fit a predetermined real world timescale: I want to be allowed to meander and take side routes and turn things on their head and get back to the main plot and slide away from it again and explore the world until I'm satisfied.

I've enjoyed open-ended play, such as in the ShadowRun campaign that was my first 'serious' roleplay. It worked well for what we had: a mixed group of people who couldn't all make every session, so Tom would give a Run to whoever was available and wanting to play, and there would be dribbles of larger plot feeding in, but it just ran as long as people were interested, and I've always felt a bit sad that there wasn't something more structured to that - especially when I wanted to retire my main character and he realised there was some plot he didn't want to miss out on that required her so he tried to thrust it on us and it all didn't work very well and that's when real life got in the way and I didn't have so much time to play and drifted away. I do regret that - she was a cool character, but I wasn't happy with where the game was heading.

It's like remembering someone who's died: whenever I think of my amazing Grandada, I remember that last time I saw him, when he was fading as the cancer ate him away. Give me a satisfying ending, and I'll only remember the love. (Sorry, overly dramatic; and especially sorry if that comes across as trivialising the death of a loved one. 2 decades on, I'm still cut up by the death of my Grandada, and the fading out is a lot of why. He was a fantastic storyteller and such a loving grandparent.)

I like to have a conclusive ending because life doesn't give these out often. I'm a big believer in Terry Pratchett's Pan narrans description of humanity: "the storytelling ape". We think in stories, tell our lives in stories - but as I get older, I realise more and more that isn't the way life works, and I find it depressing and frustrating. So let me have it in a game.

~~~

RPGaDAY was started by Dave Chapman and is currently curated by RPG Brigade. To join in yourself, follow the questions in the graphic and blog, vlog, tweet, or otherwise share your responses with the hashtag RPGaDAY2017.

More dice!

One of my colleagues may have discovered I own quite a lot of dice. He may then have got himself more dice than he needed for Christmas, and decided the sensible thing to do would be to give the excess dice to me. This might mean I now have a drawer full of dice at work...

My dice collection has grown extensively since I last discussed it. I was pretty good with the dice my friend gave me: the prettiest have come home with me, and the rest are in my drawer waiting for me to find a use for them. Maybe by finding other people who want some, or maybe we can use them instead of cards for playing 'planning poker' now we've moved to an Agile/Scrum working method. Or maybe some other use entirely will arise.

 

And talking about dice is nice and easy because I don't need to worry about laws of narrative or telling a good story or anything else that, while enjoyable, involves more thinking than I have right now.

 

So, here's my complete Blood Bowl collection:

 

There's a griffin die you might just be able to see toward the top left - I thought I'd taken a better shot of it, but can't find it if I did. I must have picked this up by accident years ago and have been trying to track down it's owner since I found it in my collection. If anyone knows whose it is and can help me return it I'd be grateful!

 

My collection breaks down roughly as follows:

Blocking Dice

Nothing new here.

And these are from the Australian Open. I thought I had a set in a bone colour too, but it seems I was wrong. We've not actually been to the Australian Open: these were an ARBBL spot prize. I've met several Aussie players, though, between the 2 World Cups I've made it to, and if I ever make it to Aus/NZ, I'll definitely be looking to play some Blood Bowl while I'm there.

Misc Dice

Mostly d8's for scatters as explained before, also the injury dice. The d12 is useful at tournaments for determining which player on the pitch is affected by eg a thrown rock: the d16 is of less use because there's a max of 11 players and often at tournaments players aren't numbered, as most are resurrection rather than progression events. This one was a gift sent to make me smile.

 

NAF Dice

Also tokens. Dice for being a NAF member, tokens for making it to the NAF champs... Actually, the round one was for the Amsterdam World Cup. D16 for finding a numbered player on a full roster, eg for a thrown rock or to award MVP.

 

Halfling Dice

I talked about these before, but I still really like them. Halflings are a team I really enjoying playing with. I don't recommend them for a beginner, but they are fantastic if you're not expecting to win.

 

World Cup Dice

Given to me by various people at the Amsterdam and Lucca World Cups. There was another d6 which has progressed instead to my roleplay bag because - being a skull in a stetson for the 6 - it feels like a great Deadlands wild card die.

 

Local League Dice

Top photo includes Team Chaos (purple), Bubba Bowl (teddy bear), Exe-Bowl (black and gold), Chelmsford Bunker/Hawk'd dice (both from my friend Hawk), ARBBL (pumpkins), our own Exiles (black&white), and the Double Skulls podcast (luminous green). The bottom photo are Lutece dice - being French, they aren't particularly local, but I do have many of their dice so I wasn't sure where to include them. Was hoping to get to their tournament this year, but it clashes with a friend's wedding. Would like to one year, though - I hear good things, et j'aime l'opportunite de parler en Francais.

 

Traded Dice

I want to get some more Exiles dice made up, and some personal ones (with a Fern leaf or storm cloud symbol on the 6 - my NAF name being Tempest) so I can do more trades.

And on to the roleplay dice: 

 

I love my dice bag, a present from a friend at uni. The little pouch beneath it is the one that holds my haematite dice - you might be able to make them out in the picture, they're very small and a dark grey metal. The wooden frame encasing the felt flame is for rolling dice in: we did a £10 limit secret santa in our Pathfinder group, and this was hand made for me as I often sit at an angle that makes rolling dice on the table a bit awkward - and also because I'm anxious to use my haematite dice for fear of damaging them or the table. I'm thrilled with it.

 

I was surprised to realise that the entire extent of my percentile and d12 collections are those from sets. For percentiles, this is likely because I want the colour/style to match, or I'll just use two distinct d10's and roll one at a time or state which colour is tens and which units. For d12's, Husbit explained they're the least used dice: systems that use die type usually have 12 as a cap, so you'll have few if any stats that high, and whilst it is a damage die in D&D, he couldn't from the top of his head think of any weapon that used it.

 

I'm not sure how I've ended up with so many d4's and d8's, though. I mean, partly it's my work friend's fault because there were lots of pretty d4's and some pretty d8's (and no d12's at all, and only one percentile, with no matching d10), but I've still got more than I've ever had reason to use. I feel like I want to play a game that uses lots of d4's. Or maybe use them as a burglar deterrent...

 

 

RPGaDay - Days 14 and 15: Best Convention Purchase / Game

#RPGaDay

Day Fourteen – Best Convention Purchase

I’ve never been to a convention, but Husbit bought me the haematite dice I’ve mentioned before at a mini-convention at the Tank Museum, so I’ll go with them cos they are lovely.

Day Fifteen – Favourite Convention Game

I was going to more or less skip this for the same reason as above, but then I thought I’ve never been to a convention but I have been to a number Freshers’ Fayres. Three, in fact, one for each year of uni. And whilst I’ve not played games at any of them (except things like Hide and Seek or Who Can Sign Up the Most Freshers), I think it would be nice to celebrate them.

Freshers’ Week, at my university, was actually more like Freshers’ Fortnight. Freshers’ Fayre lasted three days: one for sports, one for societies and one for something else (local businesses, maybe. I know I have a t-shirt advertising one bar I particularly liked that I picked up during Freshers’ Week). The societies day was my favourite – RocSoc and PunkSock vied for attention among those of us loving alternative music (IndieSoc never quite caught me the same way); the circus skills group stood out quite literally on their stilts, dressed in bright colours and throwing poi around with dexterity. In short, many people trying visually and aurally to gain and retain your attention.

My eyes were drawn to the people dressed up like pirates and medieval wenches and rogues, with elven ears and strange make-up… I knew I’d found my tribe. The members of WARPSoc (the Wargames And RolePlaying Society) quickly took me under their wing and helped me through the homesickness that plagued me, the stresses of exams and coursework and days when you feel like a failure – helped me come to terms with my depression and celebrated my geekhood. I’ve made some amazing friends for whom I’m very grateful.

Freshers’ Week is a great place to meet new people and I’d imagine Conventions are too. I’d love to go to one one day – it’s just a question of time and money!

With thanks again to Autocratik. His Day 14 is here and 15 here.  

RPGaDay - Days 9, 10 and 11

#RPGaDay

I keep forgetting to say, but I’m intrigued by other people’s responses so please share a link to your own blog post or just reply in the comments. Husbit’s been shouting over my shoulder as I’ve prepped some of my answers and has finally done a full list here. 

To try and catch up a bit (and because Pathfinder tonight means I may slip further behind), I’m going to do 3 together.

 

Day Nine – Favourite Die/Dice Set

I have written fairly extensively about my dice collection (which has grown, with the addition of blue pearl D6’s cos I have a ShadowRun idea in mind) before, so am just going to link back to that and highlight the haematite dice therein. I don’t use them because I worry about damaging them/the table, but I love them. 

Day Ten – Favourite Tie-In Novel / Game Fiction

I, Strahd by P N Elrod. It gives the background to Ravenloft, Husbit’s favourite game, and is a wonderful, gothic tale. Well-written with a wonderfully rounded main character – despite an inevitable fall towards evil, he is incredibly sympathetic in the true vein of such fiction.

I haven’t actually played much old school D&D but it probably the game for which I’ve read the most fiction, also enjoying the Dragonlance novels (there’s a moment where one character recalls the death of another and it gets me every time). This is Husbit’s influence – he has played a lot of D&D in general and has many of the novels and novellas and books left lying around near me tend to get read…

Day Eleven – Weirdest Game

And again, going to cheat and just go with one played.

It was run by Monty using The Window system. I hadn’t come across the system before but really like it. The setting was a game Monty and Troll Luke had developed together - a floating island of criminals in a dystopic near future. The ‘island’ was made up of boats, cargo containers, anything that floats and could be lashed together, placed on top and live in. Parts of the island were underwater. It was run by (I believe) an AI but the group sort of fell to pieces before we got very far into it. Which was a shame, because it was fascinating and I liked my character. I’m hopeful one or other will write some novels set there so I can learn more.

My character, whose name escapes me, was a bit psychotic. She’d been born on the island – no idea who her father was so she’d make men old enough feel uncomfortable by calling them “Daddy” (this included Luke’s character). She had severe mental health problems, probably some form of sociopathy (I remember writing one of her stats as “would happily shoot a puppy in the face”). She liked explosives and knives. She was pretty horrible, but for me it was interesting to explore that side of human nature (in an extreme form) and the setting allowed me to do so. I know there was some pretty deep meta-plot going on, too, and really wish we could have explored more.

The system is lovely and I really like the way it’s driven by story and character rather than rules and numbers. I know a few players who would struggle with it, though.

With thanks again to Autocratik. His Day 9 is here (and I want the dice dispenser!), Day 10 here and Day 11 here. 

DICE!

I’ve been inspired by Crystal’s recent blog post and Husbit’s boasting to write my own post on dice.

Husbit's collection - I don’t have as many blocking dice as him

Like a lot of geeks, I have a lot of dice and a lot of love for my dice. I’m going to assume that my readers are at least mostly geeks (even if not necessarily playing the same games as me) so will be familiar with abbreviations such as D6 for a 6-sided dice (and also used to the fact that dice come in shapes and sizes other than that standard cube).

I’m starting with my Blood Bowl dice, because these are a little different to standard.

If you’re familiar with Blood Bowl, these dice need little explanation. If you aren’t, the symbols probably look a little odd. Basically, when you hit someone in Blood Bowl (‘throw a block’) these are the dice that determine the outcome of that action. You roll between 1 and 3, determined by the ‘strength’ of your player vs the opponent: same strength = 1 die. If you’re stronger, 2 dice and you get to pick – if you’re weaker, 2 dice and they get to pick. If you’re more than twice as strong (or weak), then it’s 3 dice (for instance, a strength 5 mummy from the Undead team hitting a strength 2 halfling from the, well, Halfling team)!

There are 4 possible outcomes, demonstrated by 5 different symbols. The jagged star-like symbol (usually known as a ‘pow’) means the defender falls over – the ‘pow’ with an exclamation mark means they fall over unless they can use the dodge skill (this is why there are 5 symbols for 4 outcomes). The arrow means the defender is ‘pushed back’; the skull means the attacker falls over and the skull/pow means both the attacker and defender fall over. Besides dodge, there are a few other skills that affect this, but I’m talking dice not Blood Bowl so that’s not important!

The various different colours of the standard blocking dice have been produced by the NAF and were given out in different years to those who signed up to the organisation. They have, in the last couple of years, moved away from blocking dice.

Most of the time in Blood Bowl you need D6’s, and a lot of leagues and tournaments produce their own as giveaways. In the photo above, you can see my little collection that I’m rather proud of. L-R: Exiles League (white and black); Lutece (purple and black, inc D8 - black from World Cup 2011); Chelmsford Bunker (blue); Team America (red/blue from World Cup 2011); "Hawk'd" (cream - awarded for being thrashed by Hawk I forget when. Exiles 2013?); ARBBL (black); Chaos (purple - from Glowworm at the World Cup 2011); Halfling dice (caramel - given by Chance of 3 Die Block after a bad night at NAFC); Fling dice (black/purple - because I took Halflings to NAFC2014); NAF (black - for membership 2013. Came with a D8 that I lost and a D16 I forgot to photo); NAF (white - for membership 2014).

The last D6 - the one with a little death symbol - is for determining what happens to a player killed on a block. Usually more important for league play than tournaments – players can be out for the rest of the game (‘badly hurt’), out for this and the next game, ‘seriously injured’ (and this is when the orangey D8 comes in as well, to see what sort of injury – less armour, less movement, etc) or DEAD. You can use a normal D6 and D8, but this set is kinda fun.

D8’s are for scattering the ball (or a thrown player).

The bag was a birthday present from one of my lovely uni housemates, Penny

Most of my dice are for roleplay. I like systems where I get to roll lots of dice in one go – like ShadowRun and World of Darkness (Pathfinder is forgiven for being D20 based purely because it’s awesome) – but even systems which only use one die at a time – like Savage Worlds or Call of Cthulu – necessitate me owning more than one of that die type because should my dice misbehave (ie, roll me too many failures with too few redeeming successes) then I need to switch them out for others.

One of the nice things about being female is that I’m allowed to admit I like things just cos they’re pretty.

Ah yes, dice punishments! A good traditional one for misbehaving dice is to stick them in a sweaty trainer. Take them out after a while and see if their behaviour has improved: if not, into the other trainer they go and that’s it for the rest of that session. One friend would place the miscreants into a plastic tub with chances for reprieve: those who remained in the tub at the end of the session would be banished to the fridge until the next game. Several people will launch dice across rooms or out of windows (I know many stories of dice being thrown out of windows to be discovered in car parks or streets with top successes showing). I even knew someone who would melt particularly badly behaved dice as a lesson to the others. That’s the most extreme punishment I know; anyone got anything worse?

Most of my dice are fairly generic, but here are some special ones:

These haematite dice were a present from Husbit when he went to a gaming convention at the Tank Museum without me as an apology for his crazy assumption I wouldn’t want to go. Very rarely used but I love these.

From my brother because they’re pretty. Again, not used often because they’re smaller than most of my dice (other D20 for scale), but if I eventually get enough little dice they will be.

I need to paint in the pips again. Originally bought for ShadowRun, these dice worked well for me in the homebrew Final Fantasy Noir, where some events were determined by rolling a number of D6 and then straights/pairs/etc would determine outcomes. I don’t remember the exact details but we played with various different methods of using dice to insert randomness into the game and that was one of the more unusual and entertaining ones. These days, these dice are used for Svetlana’s sneak attack damage (hence the need to make them more readable again).

Yeah… I have a few D10’s. What can I say? – I love World of Darkness! Most of these were originally purchased for the wonderful Werewolf/Vampire/Hunter campaign I played at uni. I’m now playing in an Aberrant campaign (run by my Pathfinder GM) in which we are deliberately (super-mega-hyper-)overpowered so I figured I needed more dice* and that’s where the rest of the bunch come in. I don’t have 10 in any ability, attribute or mega-attributes yet, but want to be ready! The red are for mega-attributes because that made sense to me; purple are attributes and blue abilities. The turquoise are for specialties – you don’t need to separate specialties from skills but I like to differentiate where successes originated because I’m sad like that. (There will be tales from Aberrant in the future – we’re doing an extended character gen prologue that I want to complete before I start writing up.)

I love dice. If anyone ever wants to make me happy, send me random pretty dice and I’ll be smiling for a week!

*As a quick aside, I was very impressed with the communication from Tritex Games when I bought those extra D10’s: I wanted gem dice to match what I had, but they didn’t have enough so agreed to send as many gem and pearl as they could, and carefully selected the most legible marble ones where necessary so I had enough. And they arrived the next day, just in time for my game!