Roll a diplomacy check to win the election: Vote tie resolved by a D20 When two candidates running for director of Byron-Bethany Irrigation District in California found themselves locked in a bizarre tie earlier this month, the authority sought to resolve the stalemate in a swift and decisive manner – by reaching for a D20. In a strange twist of fate, incumbent Larry Enos Jr and challenger Milan …
So brush up on your CHR, DEX and INT*. Syspaladin or open-sorcerer, Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil, you too could solve those office disputes with a simple cast of a 20-sided die. ®
* Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence... Sigh. Sadly, we didn't have to look this up. Other fantasy games can be played with a D20. Not sold separately. Ahem. [Reg dork-desk]
Umm, isn't CHR charisma, not strength? Probably more appropriate in the circumstances I guess though, at least unless things get less than diplomatic.
The D20 has always been a useful solution for such things, either by rolling as this time or if all else fails as a projectile weapon...
@Joe W strange you should mention that...
When Microsoft brought out their HoloLens my first thought was how good it would be to do a truly interactive Holo table for D&D. Add in some wifi enabled dice so it automatically calculated the results and with graphics for all the spells etc it would look pretty good. Doubt it will ever happen, but it would be pretty cool if it did. Surprised no one's already done it for smart phones to be honest, seems pretty obvious for some sort of VR app.
" Doubt it will ever happen, [...]"
It is bound to happen - as there is nothing that is beyond the limits of improved technology.***
Whether it will be a commercial success before version 3.0 is another matter.
***Playing Breakout or Space Invaders on my Apple II there were hopes of better graphics systems. What is now commonplace is beyond my thoughts at that time.
Erm... yes. AD&D did come as a series of manuals, but prior to that was plain old D&D; Basic, Intermediate and Advanced sets, which all came in boxes. Red, Blue and Black if I recall correctly. There was more profit to be made by being able to release individual hardback books at £10 a pop (more for the DMG). Probably. Wouldn't put it past TSR, TBH.
At one point in the '80s D&D evolved into five boxed sets, Basic (Red), Expert (Blue), Companion (Green), Master (Black) and Immortals (Gold). I bought the first four - I don't remember the fifth one to be ever translated in my language, and there was no Amazon back then...
Still, the advanced box sets contained little more than two small books, one for the players, one for the master.
It somewhat pains me that I know this trivia but AD&D was released at the same time (slightly before IIRC) as the Basic/Expert/Companion set.
AD&D rounded up all the original A5 booklets and expansions (of which there were many) into a couple of hefty books. The B/E/C set was the first attempt at gouging the D&D customer base by re-releasing a set of rules they'd already released twice....
The original D&D rules were re-released over time with some changes, and it's true AD&D appeared in parallel, later AFAIK they were merged. The boxed sets were probably easier to sell in toy stores than just a couple of tiny books, when it become more known. As far as I can see, the typographical quality of the books improved over time.
They also releases some extension boxes with fold-up maps, little stand ups, etc.(I still have "The Dragon's Den" - in a localized version made by a licensee), probably to appeal those more used to board games, and at a lower price than buying miniatures - but I don't know how successful they were.
The original D&D is simpler to learn and play than AD&D, I like RPGs but was never a deep fan, for casual playing IMHO D&D was back then a simpler choice. I stopped to follow its evolution in the late 1990s. when a group I was playing with disbanded.
The original D&D is simpler to learn and play than AD&D, I like RPGs but was never a deep fan, for casual playing IMHO D&D was back then a simpler choice. I stopped to follow its evolution in the late 1990s. when a group I was playing with disbanded.
Oh come on. Who didn't love calculating THAC0? Other than everyone I mean?
...but prior to that was plain old D&D; Basic, Intermediate and Advanced sets, which all came in boxes. Red, Blue and Black if I recall correctly.
And before that there was a single box set with some truly terrible cover art and no dice, just chits to cut out from near the back of the book instead of dice. There were editions before that, too, but I'm speaking from personal experience and too lazy on a Monday to bother using Google.
a fellow game remarked when 3.5 was released that the only new version he would buy would have to be on holodeck
I completely agree with that. AD&D 2nd Edition (where I started with the hobby) was the current edition for 20 years under TSR. And then we had 4 new editions (counting 3.5 as seperate) in 15 years. And the books have gotten more expensive - even after adjusting for inflation - every time. Me, I'm done spending hundreds of dollars on books every few years just because $currentTrademarkOwner decided to make a buck.
Sadly the group I'm playing with these days is mostly twenty-somethings who never had the pleasure of using a single PHB until it fell apart. The old group all either moved away or married spouses who don't approve of the hobby (no, I don't know why not) after college so there are only a couple of us left.
"I completely agree with that. AD&D 2nd Edition (where I started with the hobby) was the current edition for 20 years under TSR. And then we had 4 new editions (counting 3.5 as seperate) in 15 years."
2nd edition was the current edition for less than 11 years (1989 - 2000). The first version of OD&D was current for between 3 and 5 years depending on exactly how you count it, and the game was effectively rewritten at least three times in 20 years, so complaining about new editions not lasting doesn't make a lot of sense. Even 2nd Ed AD&D was heavily revised halfway through its time, so the only edition that actually stands out as lasting a long time is 1st Ed AD&D which lasted for 12 years with no changes.
Aye, that's the one. AD&D. The original. No bloody 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th edition.
And THAC0 was, IMHO, a superb way of condensing combat statistics into a single value. Although we did always utilise the THAC-grid on the side of our character sheets instead - we didn't really see the need to hide the monster's armour class, although I know some DMs liked to hide the attack form modifiers from the players so we didn't immediately cotton on to e.g. fire-based attacks having a better chance of getting a hit in against some creatures.
I get the probability of having three identical numbers on six rolls as (5*4)*19^3/20^5 = 4.3%. Not all that surprising.
In any case, they did use the same die, so any weighting would have affected them identically.
Proper analysis of die bias would be interesting here... best method I can think of would be to float it to see which side comes up, but failing that, what occurs to me is to compute a unit vector for each of the twenty sides pointing out from the center to that face; then throw the die a bazillion times (long or short-scale bazillion, your choice) and add the vectors to see if they cancel. If it's biased, you should get a vector pointing toward the face that it's biased for.
Maybe I've just had cheap D20s and D12s, but I've not seen one that looks like a "casino" die (transparent so that inner weights are harder to hide, and any spots/numbers filled in with material of density similar to the rest of the die.) I'm sure somebody makes more verifiably unbiased D&D dice, though.
"What are the odds on that? It's got to be more than a million to one."
Pah! Everyone knows they crop up nine times out of ten!
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Pterry Icon, El Reg?
I once played a cleric in a party tasked with attacking a vampire's tower. Vampires on every floor.
Cue a series of natural 20s on Turn Undead on every single floor, except the final one. Still destroyed the vampire underlings but the Lord Vampire looked seriously singed and very pissed off at the roll of 19...
From memory there were 5 floors and Sun Clerics got a bonus to Turn Undead (E3.5 prestige classes)
The publishers claim to have sold over 900 million copies.
They probably have. You'd have been hard pressed to find a D&D player in the late 80s or early 90s who hadn't laid hands on a copy of Dark Dungeons, either because they thought it was funny or because concerned - and gullible - parents forced them to read it. Me, I was in the latter camp.
*EVERY* fuul kno that CHR is not a characteristic. STR is strength, and charisma is CHA.
Also: The 20 role is not that strange, but 5 out of six were in the range 16-20 (which is about 1 in 170 odds) - and even higher if you note that the lowest score was a 13. There's something dodgy about that die (but given both candidates were using it, that doesn't matter).
As an old school wargamer (New Kingdom Egyptians, 1812 Russians and Naval Warfare Pacific 1939-45) 20 sided die are common as well as average dice and 10sided as well under some rules.
Fantasy did not have the strange die all to themselves.
I made average die by drilling an exta two holes either side of the 1 and filling in the 1 and partial filling and redriling of the 6. Testing showed it worked well. Nobody ever complained about it.
My Russians kicked bottom, infantry who had a morale bonus under artillery fire and cossacks who could move and charge very fast and therefore long distance. Yet if charged by regular cavalry they could effectively evade. If flank marched they were an artillery battery (from behind) killers.
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