Comic - A problem of scale

I had a DM that had spent a small fortune on Ral Partha and Grenadier miniatures, having gotten into lead and pewter minis early. He had a mini for everything, but the problem was they were all 25mm scale, while most modern Reaper minis (and the official plastic D&D minis) are the larger 28mm scale. And even then, there's been some size creep: I have some dwarves that seem to be pushing six-feet. It's impressive how small older minis are compared to newer sculpts, with humans seeming to be the size of halflings.

So what did this DM do, stuck with boxes of miniatures that would be laughed at when placed on the table, with my tall human mini towered over his teeny ogres? He made us all find 25mm scale minis and use those. He was nice enough to find a couple for us and give them as gifts. And it's not that hard finding old minis for reasonable prices on eBay. And during a European trip, I stumbled into a Geneva gaming store bursting with old Ral Parthas and found the perfect mini for my wizard.

While I've been in a lot of games where the DM restricted rules options, that was the only game where we had a restriction on PC tokens.

***

And check out the new home of 5 Minute Workday: 5mwd.com

Comic - Mid-death crisis

A lot has been written about the psychology of vampires. They've been interviewed and the focus of entire game systems. The angst is well established. The lich gets a little less attention, but their psychology is likely no less complex.

The transformation into lich is a little more purposeful than other undead. One does not accidentally become a lich, it's an active decision. But like most choices, if given enough time one inevitably wonders if they made the right choices. And liches have unlimited time. At some point they're bound to look back at centuries spent researching arcane minutiae and esoteric spells and question if they would have been better off dying and going to whatever afterlife Vecna offers, or even living a short hedonistic life of sex, drugs, and bardic music.

***

And check out the new home of 5 Minute Workday: 5mwd.com

Comic - On the grid

I have fond memories of dungeons on blue graph paper.

Blue graph paper is one of the stronger memories from my early days playing D&D. I spent ages drawing crazy and random dungeons on said graph paper, all donated by father. I regularly drew the dungeon first, filled it full of crazy traps only remotely inspired by some interpretation of the rules, added monsters when necessary, and then thought of a reason to force my players to venture into its depth.

I’m often envious of the crazed imagination of my youth. There were so many insane yet unique traps and puzzles in those random and mismatched rooms. I occasionally wonder if my lack of rules knowledge (due to the difficulty of system mastery in the 2e era) aided my imagination: because I did not know what the game dictated was impossible I was more free to create.

***

And check out the new home of 5 Minute Workday: 5mwd.com

Comic - 10 x 10

According to gaming legends, the name Dungeons & Dragons was just one in a large list of possible names considered by Gary Gygax when he was creating the game. After being asked, one of his daughters (he had three: Heidi, Cindy, and Elise) replied, “oh daddy, I like Dungeons & Dragons.” And thus the game was named.

This means there are two truly and necessarily iconic parts of D&D: you have your dungeons and you have your dragons. Both need to play a memorable role in the game. And yet they’re like Clark Kent and Superman: you rarely see the two of them together and when you do it’s usually forced and artificial.

By definition, dungeons are small, cramped, and unpleasant places underground. In contrast, dragons are typically large and prefer to fight above ground where they can make use of their wings. There are exceptions, such as dragon’s lairs, but even then you have to justify why a huge dragon has a lair with a labyrinth of medium-sized corridors accessible from the ground opposed to a hidden cave in the side of a vertical cliff face.


***
And check out the new home of 5 Minute Workday: 5mwd.com

Comic - A step up

Yup. That's meant to be a dude riding the tarrasque.

Some versions of D&D have had a hard level cap (such as 4e) while others have unlimited advancement. While being forced to end a campaign is sad, having a natural end point is a handy narrative tool. At the same time, having an expected end makes people expect that the story will go all the way to the end cap. And not every story needs to continue. The longer you go the greater the risk of having the game devolve into silliness or absurdity. There's a very fine line between Epic and Camp. It's a little too easy for a DM to stack too much awesome onto their characters and devolve them into caricatures.


***
And check out the new home of 5 Minute Workday: 5mwd.com