Dungeons & Dragons

Yeah, they were "light novels" of the day. I have a copy of one that was sold as a Learn English sort of deal. Technically, the Pair first appeared in the Crusher Joe anime, but their own stories started as light novels. They also got some manga (I got the collection a few years ago, dunno if it's still easily available).

---Dave

This is the one I bought. Will I be dropping myself into the middle of an already ongoing story with no context of what's going on or should I be okay with this?

Talking about translated light novels, the Slayers stories actually ran in the Japanese version of Dragon magazine back in the day, and I know at least the first 8 got translated, and I think there's fan translations of up through 12? I heard mention once or twice of them being re-released or more being done recently but haven't looked to verify. From what I remember they're told mostly from Lina's perspective, and the plot diverges a bit from the anime, as Try onwards was anime-original.

The first 8 Slayers light novels were translated around 18 years ago. The entire series, including books 9-15, is being reprinted now, in three-novel hardback volumes. And while there are similarities, the novels are overall a vastly different story, especially after book 8, where Slayers NEXT ended and the two stories entirely party ways. The novels are considerably darker in tone, although they still have their share of comedy.

You should be fine, it's very episodic in nature and the necessary premise gets laid out in every installment. Kinda like old school James Bond movies.

---Dave

It arrived today. You can see a little bit of wear around the edges, but it's actually in really great shape. I'm always impressed when I get a second-hand paperback and the spine is in perfect shape.




I've been watching these guys for a while, so if I have a chance to plug them, I try to do it. I will say it is a pricey figure, even before adding the international shipping. Buuuut:



It actually is quite a bit biggest than I thought it would be and looks really nice.


Seriously, check out some of their videos.



Size comparison with my other tieflings.



We got Amazon gift cards this year. So I went ahead and got this.



Some assembly required.



It's a shame it doesn't come with a clear stand so it can float as a beholder should. But it is hefty. The moves. It's pretty nice all in all.



Size compariso.

Does it have any kind of peg holes for attaching a stand? Because a beholder on the ground looks weird.

The Mighty Mollusk said:

Does it have any kind of peg holes for attaching a stand? Because a beholder on the ground looks weird.

Click to expand...

Afraid not. And I don't know of anything readily made that would work either.

I mean, the beholder himself is really nice. But you're right, beholder on the ground is weird and not having a stand is a major strike against it.

Worst case, a hole for a peg is just a drill bit away, I suppose.

You could easily damage/hamper the mouth movement that way, which I suspect is why they didn't do it in the first place. What I would probably see if I can do is see if I can find a stand that just has like a plate or something that he can just rest on.

Plastic champagne glass from Dollar Tree.

---Dave

That should do it.

I haven't had a D&D group since maybe a few years after college. Even then I never really needed something so fancy as a D-100. So now that I'm decades removed from having played a D&D game, this is doubly superfluous. Still, there's something about the simple novelty of having something this stupidly needles.

One of the people in our D&D group has one, and it's not that great as a die. I can't speak to all of them, of course, but on the one she has the faces are so small that it's almost effectively round, so it rolls too much, ironically enough.

I'm not one to be critical of anyone's needless accessory purchases though, especially given that I bought a pair of oversized D20s just because when I picked them up in the store I realized I could twirl them around in my hand like Baoding balls.

Yeah - I remember when the early D100's came out and they were near-perfect spheres; not very useful. That one actually looks pretty decent by comparison.

But speaking of not-practical... I'll see your 100 and raise you another 20!

Wow! I mean, even if I were still playing in campaigns, the d100 would have no practical use. But I could at least rationalize that it takes the place of needing a percentile die. I can think of absolutely no rational reason for a d120 to even exist.

THAT'S SO AWESOME!

Yeah. I don't recall the website that sold it but basically it's a "can we figure out how to do it" die. It's also perfectly balanced, so the 1 is opposite 120, 2 opposite 119 and so on.

I keep my d100 and d120 (and a d60, a d48, two different kinds of d24) at work as part of a demo when I teach about entropy. I also have an old film canister full of a hundred or so tiny d6s.

IIRC, DiceLabs made my d120, but if you hit Amazon you should be able to find d120s for around $20, and d100s for a lot less.

There's two "modern" schools of Big Dice Design.

One takes an existing platonic solid and starts putting "tents" on the faces. For instance, you can look at the d120 as a d12 but each face has been given a shallow 10-sided pyramid. One kind of d24 puts a four-sided pyramid on each side of a cube. And so forth. As long as the surface is flat and not too tilted, even the d120 will stop and be readable.

The other seems to go a CAD brute force route, setting up N equally spaced lines through the center of a sphere, then flattening the sphere until you have 2N facets of irregular shapes but equal areas. The second kind is mainly used on the d50 and d100, and is a spiritual successor of the Zocchihedron (100 evenly spaced round flattenings on a sphere).

An older style of large number dice took its inspiration from the d10, and just increased the number of sides on each of the joined cones. I have older d16s and a d50 in that style. The conical d50 will basically tell you which way your rolling surface is sloped.

---Dave

Sorry I've gone quiet for so long. Coronageddon shut down my games, and when I got back in here last year I kind of.... Forgot ^_^;

Years worth of spelljammer campaign shenanigans' makes any narration nigh impossible. Right now it's a perfect storm of Chaos with 2 barbarians & a Wizard. Braith, my Teifling space-jockey barbarian, has developed some mental issues due to the combination of past trauma being drug violently to the surface & becoming effectively immortal by drinking troll blood. Tries to stay sane/positive through missions &... rum. Kyra, a Drow Bladeslinger, is a runaway princess pretending to be a dude. Eagerly joined up to help up kill drow. She & Braith are 'bosom buddies' (in-game referance), often snarking back & forth in Infernal & getting drunk. Then there is Scree, Wolf-raised Goblin Magic Barbarian with custom magic table. A spoon-wielding bundle of hyperactive chaos that is guilty of often unintentional war-crimes. One of those characters you love yet... openly fear at the same time.

I've also started DMing myself... using the Lost Mines chapters of 'Phandelver & Below'. 3 sessions so far. Yeah... despite reading it over I've only actually learned through mistakes. Like a) Rolling for Goblin health stats b) goblins using standard array for attack damage. c) Wolves have pack tactics. I've Had to go back a couple times & throw my party a bone with random bags of bathtub goblin potions, undoing a gob's attack, & warning about a lethal danger.

Mind you there has been a decent amount of chaos, both in and out of their favor. Including multiple nat 1's on my roles that ended up with a Goblin shooting the Bugbear Klarg, and Klarg ending up hobbling himself in his botched attempt to squish the gobbo. Klarg was down to 10 hp by the time he actually fought the party. Well, actually it was the fighter... who had managed to do some hard-core parkour out of danger and snipe the remaining threats... before offing Klarg and poking him with a stick to make certain he was dead.

Then came the BIG one.

Instead of further exploring the caves, the party, at the urging of the un-clerical Cleric, proceeded to haul all of the pilfered loot out of Klarg's cave. In the time this took, the parties goblin rogue woke up from her stabilized nap (the pack tactics). Well, the other rogue sneakily sneaks up into the west end and finds the remaining goblins... reports back, and a plan is hatched. The 1 hp goblin lures the rest of the gobs out of the barracks into a kill box. Cue the Gob sneaking up into the barracks, aside from a boss up top, their all in a nice little circle playing cards and none the wiser... then, comes the chaos.

She sneaks up to the closest one and proceed to non-lethally bonk him on the noggin. 8 damage. Out like a light. Before the other gobs can act, she rolls for a deception check. 15. All exept the boss fail miserably. She points at two of them, accusing them of a) stealing the pot & b) bonking the Goblin before escaping. Cue the bar fight. By the time the Boss got everything under control, 2 goblins where dead & the rest down to 2 hp. The 3 remaining head out to chase her down... only to come upon the bloodbath. One ran into Klarg's cave... and a horrible death by rogue, another ran to the entrance, and the third back to the boss to tell them Klarg's dead, before following the other living one. They died within 2 turns.

At this point the Cleric & Fighter go back to see ifn there was any cleanup... only to find 2 full health boss gobs w/hostage. Begin the monologue, ranting how he's in charge now, how this guys life is in his hand, give me money, bla bla bla.... fighter then proceeds to ignore proper etiquette & one athletic roll later he has parkoured his way UP the ledge to face off against the gobbo, frees the hostage, & grapple the boss before (next turn) suplexing him face first into the cave floor in a move so epic and painful that the other boss was too terrified to properly flee, npc saved, leveled up, ready to end session.

But the fighter wasn't done yet....
He proceeds to take the unconscious goblin & place him in the middle of the room before a) arranging the dead goblins around him in a circle, b) stabbing them all through the heart c) using blood to write 'eldritch' chicken-scratch connecting the circle, as well as the words 'you are chosen' on the wall & leave a bloody handprint on the gobs face, before d) leaving the knife in the gobs hand & leaving.

I am not sure how to incorporate said shenanigans into campaign....

"So I invented a die. It has six sides and can be used for anything: Monopoly, Clue, Yahtzee, Craps...you'll never need more."

"Hold my beer. I invented a D4, D8, D10, D12 and a D20. They're used for Dungeons and Dragons along with any other table top ROG that may come along."

"Hold my beer. I invented a D100. Sure you could just use two D10's as a percentile, but you know you want this instead."

"Hold my beer..."