So… Gemstone D20’s are a thing, and they are also extremely fragile because most of the stones that are desirable for their color patterns, etc, are pretty brittle or soft. They make cushioned rolling trays specifically for them, and then suggest that you’re still gentle with your rolling anyway. No thanks. Gimme cheap dice I can haphazardly throw in wooden box or at the other players, or the sharp edged heavy metal ones I can murder a bloke with.
Agreed. Heck they make “Gemstone” dice that are basically costume jewelry. Colored and transparent like whatever gemstone you want but still just hard plastic. Still more expensive than run of the mill dice but it will hold up to being rolled off the table. at least as long as the ankle biter down there does not take a fancy to it before its retrieved.
Reminds me of an old DM when I was in high school. Full party of like 6 people.. plus the DM.. and no one really had a use for d12’s. So whenever someone said something stupid (read teenagers).. there was a shower of dice and ‘useless D12 attack’ constantly.
Another thing about gemstone dice is that, due to imperfections in the stone, they can’t be guaranteed to be perfectly balanced. They can end up being weighted to one side, and some DMs refuse to let players use them for this reason. I have a feeling that is where this storyline is going.
For what it’s worth, as long as the side geometry is consistent, even most poorly balanced die still roll within the margin for error over long periods of time. There is no statistically significant difference between a die that passes the salt water test and one that doesn’t. One of the current independent writers for WotC did a whole thesis paper on the subject with thousands of test runs. And it didn’t matter much whether it was a gemstone die, metal die, or any other variety. It typically takes a pretty substantial weighting, usually from an actual metal weight on… Read more »
Honestly, a number of the acrylic and similar types are way cooler looking than a normal gemstone manages most days anyway. The draw of the gemstone ones is the prestige of knowing what it’s made of, not actually using it!
Last edited 2 years ago by kaedys
Mr. Casual
2 years ago
Did he just roll a die onto a pillow? If I were DM I’d laugh the hell out of that, and tell him to roll for real.
These specialty dice actually are extremely fragile. you dont roll on something cushioned your losing the obscene amount of money you spent on a single die
I’m color blind, so I may be wrong, but I think the color of the area it was rolled matches the table above, not the cushion. The rolling area also looks flat, while the cushion was clearly draw to not be.
I think that the implication is that the box containing the holy die was placed on the cushion, but the roll was still on a flat surface.
The spot where the die lands has some impression marks as if it’s slightly sinking into the pillow.
Dodgy
2 years ago
Got to love those critical hits. In my time as a DM it did not matter how powerful the enemy was or what weapon you wielded. If you rolled a pure 20, it was end of story. Although if the player was to wield a pocket knife against an elder behemoth, I would at least expect them to motivate their kill on why it would be lethal.
“Exploding” dice rolls in World of Darkness are amazing for this. Roll 10 on the d10, it’s both a success and a reroll. It’s really common to get a few explosions on normal rolls, which is nice, but sometimes it surprises you. Like if you’re bullying some simple unaltered human and they happen to stab you right where it hurts.
We used a variant of this on D20’s for natural crits. It was obviously quite a bit rarer, since it’s half the base chance per roll, but we used to play where a nat 20 was only a guaranteed hit, and that you had to roll again to hit in order to confirm the crit (actually, re-reading it, that may actually just be how D20 works baseline. It’s been near on a decade since I last played, sadly). If that roll nat-20’d as well, it cascaded, adding the crit multiplier each time. We also played it similarly for other D20… Read more »
We had a DM who had a house rule like that. He had just revealed the Evil Paladin, who was supposed to monologue at us, make a dramatic exit, then go on to be a recurring villain. Rogue threw a knife at him. Killed him and all the DM’s plans in one shot.
One of my dm’s had a rule. if you rolled 3 nat 20’s in a row… it was dead. Period.
The team went up against a dragon.. and got wiped hard. Dwarf runs out of throwing weapons.. so picks up a rock, and throws it at the dragon. Triple nat 20’s. DM just stands up and walks out of the room.
The rock was found after, and became a group mascot. The ‘lesser, lesser elemental’.
Tim
2 years ago
Call me crazy, but I like a heavy dice set. My current set wasn’t super expensive, like $30, but it’s a really nice solid metal set. I want my dice like my keyboards: loud, heavy, authoritative, and threatening to damage whatever they come in contact with.
Doesn’t mean I don’t roll 1s here and there, just that I have my own fun doing it.
You want pucker factor? I had to roll deception against a young green dragon to convince it we were just trying to clear out the cultists that were plotting to enslave it. I didn’t even get a great roll, it was almost sickening to hear that particular “thud”. Until the DM revealed the dragon rolled slightly worse than I did for insight, so my warlock somehow managed, against all odds, to completely BS a dragon and prevent TPK (the cultists and their blood golem were BRUTAL).
Krasen Ivanov
2 years ago
Oh, come on! You can’t roll a dice on a pillow?
Austin Mills
2 years ago
So far backing up my assumption on what’s going to happen in this session…
DanVzare
2 years ago
Did he seriously just roll his die on a pillow?
If you did that, you’d just be confused as to which side it landed on as it rests on an edge.
It can barely even roll on a pillow! So if you just dropped it, you can practically guarantee which side it kinda looks like it lands on.
I say he cheated.
Ziegfried
2 years ago
Guys, he didn’t roll on the pillow, he puts the little box containing the D20 on it and then removes it from the box and rolls on table. Check the colors!
He holds the box from below. You can barely see the fingers. On the other hand I think the die is on a table because the surface is flat. The setup seems a bit inconsistent
It’s never been about player skill. I mean, it’s about player imagination and creativity but in the end it’s always been about stats and rolls. And a 1 or 20 is always critical failure or success.
If a player is being descriptive and creative and trying something unique or strange, I’d be more leanient to give them leeway, and bonus points for trying something new. If its ‘strong man hits thing very hard’… then yeah, thats gonna just be down to randomness.
James Dunn
2 years ago
Great comic.But (pushes glasses) But flaming sphere doesn’t require a attack roll it just a Dex save from the opponent
You’re absolutely right, it is an interactive story. This particular one is called Dungeons and Dragons but there are many different systems and settings for people to play in, but the base concept is the same. One person at the table is the Game Master (or Dungeon Master in D&D), this person writes the adventure and tells the story. The rest are players, they control a character in that story and make their own choices, thus they determine the outcome and potentially steer the story in different directions. You roll dice to determine the outcome of what you attempt to… Read more »
It’s a fine line, but it can be managed, by a sufficiently skilled DM. The key is playing a member of the party without exerting too much influence or control over the players. It can serve as a somewhat more natural method of “nudging” the players in the right direction if they’re hopelessly lost. My of the DMs I’ve played with that managed this did so on a support character, like Yellow’s Cleric. It places them in the back line and usually reacting to their teammates rather than leading them. DMs do have to be cautious, though. In addition to… Read more »
Agreed. Conversely some players will too eagerly fall back on the DM’s nudging by asking the DM’s character for the answer without trying to use their own character skills to solve the issue. It seems to work well in the comic, but this is a comic, in real life it seldomly ends up being perfectly nuanced. Also, D&D 3.5 has various spells that lets the party essentially ask the DM for a hint, which start as early as level 1. I’m a bit of a hardliner in this area, I’ll admit. I’m firmly convinced that the game offers the players… Read more »
It’s the Player characters playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I’ve never played, so I don’t understand all the references, but sometimes I get a laugh out of them. If D&D isn’t your thing, wait a bit and some other comics will come ’round. 🙂
Josh
2 years ago
I have a player who keeps a moonstone in his bag and claims it blesses his gaming dice. And he consistently, without a rigged die, rolls 20s when in combat. So maybe it works.
I have another player who builds a dice tower and uses a second set of dice to game with and he prays to the dice tower before rolls.
Okay my gamers are weird.
BioRules
2 years ago
Objection, Flaming Sphere doesn’t have a roll to hit.
D&D 3.5 had a well known line of “[lesser] orb of <element>” spells, that required a ranged touch attack to hit. Also, honestly, imagining that D&D has some kind of orb-shaped fire spell that requires a roll to hit, is pretty straightforward.
Lavander
2 years ago
Alright, take your bets. How long till 4 steals that die? My bet’s three pages.
24
Hm yes, but how does this compare to the mouthdice?
A rigged D20? How much?
This game was rigged from the start.
And here I was, thinking it was just an 18-karat run of bad luck.
did he… roll a die on a cushion? is that even allowed?
Strictly speaking, it’s not not allowed.
Just my thoughts
So… Gemstone D20’s are a thing, and they are also extremely fragile because most of the stones that are desirable for their color patterns, etc, are pretty brittle or soft. They make cushioned rolling trays specifically for them, and then suggest that you’re still gentle with your rolling anyway. No thanks. Gimme cheap dice I can haphazardly throw in wooden box or at the other players, or the sharp edged heavy metal ones I can murder a bloke with.
Agreed. Heck they make “Gemstone” dice that are basically costume jewelry. Colored and transparent like whatever gemstone you want but still just hard plastic. Still more expensive than run of the mill dice but it will hold up to being rolled off the table. at least as long as the ankle biter down there does not take a fancy to it before its retrieved.
Reminds me of an old DM when I was in high school. Full party of like 6 people.. plus the DM.. and no one really had a use for d12’s. So whenever someone said something stupid (read teenagers).. there was a shower of dice and ‘useless D12 attack’ constantly.
At least the cats were happy. so many play toys 😀
Reminds me of this Order of the Stick comic.
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0121.html
I was completely and utterly disinterested in D n D, until you mentioned Murder Dice
Another thing about gemstone dice is that, due to imperfections in the stone, they can’t be guaranteed to be perfectly balanced. They can end up being weighted to one side, and some DMs refuse to let players use them for this reason. I have a feeling that is where this storyline is going.
For what it’s worth, as long as the side geometry is consistent, even most poorly balanced die still roll within the margin for error over long periods of time. There is no statistically significant difference between a die that passes the salt water test and one that doesn’t. One of the current independent writers for WotC did a whole thesis paper on the subject with thousands of test runs. And it didn’t matter much whether it was a gemstone die, metal die, or any other variety. It typically takes a pretty substantial weighting, usually from an actual metal weight on… Read more »
Honestly, a number of the acrylic and similar types are way cooler looking than a normal gemstone manages most days anyway. The draw of the gemstone ones is the prestige of knowing what it’s made of, not actually using it!
Did he just roll a die onto a pillow? If I were DM I’d laugh the hell out of that, and tell him to roll for real.
and I’d tell you to blow a duck
Ok, so your roll counts as critical-1, have fun killing yourself or your team mates
Why has this comment so many downvotes, it is amazing
It is necessary.
These specialty dice actually are extremely fragile. you dont roll on something cushioned your losing the obscene amount of money you spent on a single die
I’m color blind, so I may be wrong, but I think the color of the area it was rolled matches the table above, not the cushion. The rolling area also looks flat, while the cushion was clearly draw to not be.
I think that the implication is that the box containing the holy die was placed on the cushion, but the roll was still on a flat surface.
Nah, the rolling area is red and the cushion is red, the table is brown
The spot where the die lands has some impression marks as if it’s slightly sinking into the pillow.
Got to love those critical hits. In my time as a DM it did not matter how powerful the enemy was or what weapon you wielded. If you rolled a pure 20, it was end of story. Although if the player was to wield a pocket knife against an elder behemoth, I would at least expect them to motivate their kill on why it would be lethal.
we use the house rule of triple threat. You roll 2 20’s and hit on the third roll, it’s dead and the DM gets to decide how exactly this happens.
“Exploding” dice rolls in World of Darkness are amazing for this. Roll 10 on the d10, it’s both a success and a reroll. It’s really common to get a few explosions on normal rolls, which is nice, but sometimes it surprises you. Like if you’re bullying some simple unaltered human and they happen to stab you right where it hurts.
We used a variant of this on D20’s for natural crits. It was obviously quite a bit rarer, since it’s half the base chance per roll, but we used to play where a nat 20 was only a guaranteed hit, and that you had to roll again to hit in order to confirm the crit (actually, re-reading it, that may actually just be how D20 works baseline. It’s been near on a decade since I last played, sadly). If that roll nat-20’d as well, it cascaded, adding the crit multiplier each time. We also played it similarly for other D20… Read more »
oof what a terrible way to dm.
simple, elder behemot had one microscopic spot that would be lethal if pierced; and pocket knife managed hit center of it
Don’t you think the chance of hitting such a spot should be less than 5% though?
We had a DM who had a house rule like that. He had just revealed the Evil Paladin, who was supposed to monologue at us, make a dramatic exit, then go on to be a recurring villain. Rogue threw a knife at him. Killed him and all the DM’s plans in one shot.
Next session, that rule was gone.
One of my dm’s had a rule. if you rolled 3 nat 20’s in a row… it was dead. Period.
The team went up against a dragon.. and got wiped hard. Dwarf runs out of throwing weapons.. so picks up a rock, and throws it at the dragon. Triple nat 20’s. DM just stands up and walks out of the room.
The rock was found after, and became a group mascot. The ‘lesser, lesser elemental’.
Call me crazy, but I like a heavy dice set. My current set wasn’t super expensive, like $30, but it’s a really nice solid metal set. I want my dice like my keyboards: loud, heavy, authoritative, and threatening to damage whatever they come in contact with.
Doesn’t mean I don’t roll 1s here and there, just that I have my own fun doing it.
I guess others on your table feel pressure of metal and fear the moment when you roll 1
You want pucker factor? I had to roll deception against a young green dragon to convince it we were just trying to clear out the cultists that were plotting to enslave it. I didn’t even get a great roll, it was almost sickening to hear that particular “thud”. Until the DM revealed the dragon rolled slightly worse than I did for insight, so my warlock somehow managed, against all odds, to completely BS a dragon and prevent TPK (the cultists and their blood golem were BRUTAL).
Oh, come on! You can’t roll a dice on a pillow?
So far backing up my assumption on what’s going to happen in this session…
Did he seriously just roll his die on a pillow?
If you did that, you’d just be confused as to which side it landed on as it rests on an edge.
It can barely even roll on a pillow! So if you just dropped it, you can practically guarantee which side it kinda looks like it lands on.
I say he cheated.
Guys, he didn’t roll on the pillow, he puts the little box containing the D20 on it and then removes it from the box and rolls on table. Check the colors!
The table is brown. The surface where he rolled the d20 is red/pink.
He holds the box from below. You can barely see the fingers. On the other hand I think the die is on a table because the surface is flat. The setup seems a bit inconsistent
What’s the purpose of the pillow? And why are there marks on the surface below the die, as if it’s sunken in a bit?
The game is totally about player skill …
It’s never been about player skill. I mean, it’s about player imagination and creativity but in the end it’s always been about stats and rolls. And a 1 or 20 is always critical failure or success.
Also on DM forgiveness.
If a player is being descriptive and creative and trying something unique or strange, I’d be more leanient to give them leeway, and bonus points for trying something new. If its ‘strong man hits thing very hard’… then yeah, thats gonna just be down to randomness.
Great comic.But (pushes glasses) But flaming sphere doesn’t require a attack roll it just a Dex save from the opponent
Shhhhh
I don’t get these kind of comics. It’s like some interactive story or something? What’s with the dice?
Role playing is roll playing. Sure you know what you want to accomplish, but does your luck (and stat sheet) allow for it?
Life is about how we handle the roll we’ve achieved, and parrying that into driving our own stories forward.
You’re absolutely right, it is an interactive story. This particular one is called Dungeons and Dragons but there are many different systems and settings for people to play in, but the base concept is the same. One person at the table is the Game Master (or Dungeon Master in D&D), this person writes the adventure and tells the story. The rest are players, they control a character in that story and make their own choices, thus they determine the outcome and potentially steer the story in different directions. You roll dice to determine the outcome of what you attempt to… Read more »
It’s a fine line, but it can be managed, by a sufficiently skilled DM. The key is playing a member of the party without exerting too much influence or control over the players. It can serve as a somewhat more natural method of “nudging” the players in the right direction if they’re hopelessly lost. My of the DMs I’ve played with that managed this did so on a support character, like Yellow’s Cleric. It places them in the back line and usually reacting to their teammates rather than leading them. DMs do have to be cautious, though. In addition to… Read more »
Agreed. Conversely some players will too eagerly fall back on the DM’s nudging by asking the DM’s character for the answer without trying to use their own character skills to solve the issue. It seems to work well in the comic, but this is a comic, in real life it seldomly ends up being perfectly nuanced. Also, D&D 3.5 has various spells that lets the party essentially ask the DM for a hint, which start as early as level 1. I’m a bit of a hardliner in this area, I’ll admit. I’m firmly convinced that the game offers the players… Read more »
It’s the Player characters playing a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. I’ve never played, so I don’t understand all the references, but sometimes I get a laugh out of them. If D&D isn’t your thing, wait a bit and some other comics will come ’round. 🙂
I have a player who keeps a moonstone in his bag and claims it blesses his gaming dice. And he consistently, without a rigged die, rolls 20s when in combat. So maybe it works.
I have another player who builds a dice tower and uses a second set of dice to game with and he prays to the dice tower before rolls.
Okay my gamers are weird.
Objection, Flaming Sphere doesn’t have a roll to hit.
But he cast “Greater flaming orb”, not flaming sphere, so we are dealing with homebrew or a different system than 5e.
D&D 3.5 had a well known line of “[lesser] orb of <element>” spells, that required a ranged touch attack to hit. Also, honestly, imagining that D&D has some kind of orb-shaped fire spell that requires a roll to hit, is pretty straightforward.
Alright, take your bets. How long till 4 steals that die? My bet’s three pages.
I would see 4 try to stab it.
But, i’m betting on 2.
I would’ve say next comic, but I’m going for the “long run”
All dice can become mouth dice to the determined…
I gotta say I’m super impressed with your ability to accurately draw d20s! I love the attention to detail.
Hehe, “Cthilidu”, the public domain tentacle-mouthed monster.
One wouldn’t want some lawyers to appear in the comic to take the monsters away…. oh wait, wrong webcomic :D.
Oh i see you are a stick of culture, i mean a man of culture
Don’t diss the die.
I rolled three consequence 1s on my first d20 rolls with a new set.
I was playing a Pathfinder gunslinger, a class that breaks their weapon each time they fumble.
I should have gotten my money back.
Viva La Dirt League may be doing a better job at getting me interested in D&D as of late…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSuJ9t1QTcw
Again…
I feel attacked.
‘I’m sorry, were you saying something?’
Meanwhile dice be flexing:
https://i.redd.it/p1ewbcp6rzz31.jpg
fascinating.