Loaded Dice: a D&D webcomic - presented by the Red Dragon Inn

#43: Of Plans and Bait...

Once again, a D&D party comes up with a convoluted plan to counteract the DM's schemes. Like any "good" plan, it will require precise timing, multiple dice rolls, and a huge helping of luck. I'm thinking that we need a comment section here to allow readers to share their own wacky schemes that worked (or should have worked, had the DM not been such a jerk!).

#42: Rock Solid Humor

Now hear this! Effective immediately, Loaded Dice will now update on a Tuesday/Friday schedule. This is to accomodate Tiana's new work schedule. Ah... back to the real story. About time! It's always fun to throw encounters at the party that force them to act out of their normal comfort zone (in other words, they can't just waltz in and hack the opponent to bits). some of the best gaming moments come out of the zany schemes hatched by your players. For the record, it's also fun to make them retreat.

#41: Happy New Year 2010

Yay for more filler posters! As we wrap up 2009, please allow me a quick moment of mushiness. I'd like to give a special thanks to our wonderful artist, Tiana Jackson, who has brought this silly project to life with her outstanding work. Also, I'd like to thank all of you who read the comic so faithfully. It's flattering to know that you are finding entertainment value here. It took me along time to finally start Loaded Dice, and the response has been very gratifying. Here's to a wonderful new year!

#40: The Wisdom of Han Solo

I have to give props where they are due. The main idea for this script came from my wife, who by her own admission, does not "get" the comic. Still, I thought the dirty Santa plot was a great idea. Originally, I had intended to put a gamer twist on Steve's gift, and have the fuzzy dice be D10s, but apparently, my communication skills are lacking (I know that must really shock some of you). Anyway, enjoy our Christmas strip, and please forgive the lateness of the update... the holidays are kicking my butt in a big way. A belated Merry Christmas to you all!

#39: Aw, Don't be so Paranoid!

This seems almost too obvious. Can Steve resist the lure of using the statues to make the PCs wish they were never born? Probably not.

#38: So Much for that Romance...

So much for those romantic notions. So one of two things happen now, right? Either Steve avenges his broken heart on Amy's hapless character, or he grabs on to fantasies of unrequited love, and acts like a total sap. Right? Or maybe, we simply get back to the game. I think everyone would appreciate that.

#37: Promo Poster: Reservoir Dogs

From time to time, we will place up one of these promo posters as filler. Tiana will be doing them as parodies of real films. If you ask me, she nailed this... oh, to be able to bottle such creativity! And yes, the fact that we have filler is an indictment of me. 'Tis the season to watch Olan flake.

#36: What Took You So Long?

I have been asked why Rich/Ladan had not been turning the undead already - I think that Rich sums it up well. What's the point in turning a lone zombie or two skeletons? Also, for the uninitiated, "T.P.K." stands for "Total Party Kill", aka, "Party Wipe" - everyone in the group dies, the players throw dice at the GM, and a new adventure is forceably started.

#35: A Dead End...

Never underestimate the power of mooks - especially if they come back again and again. Individually, they might be a breeze, but in a horde that you cannot run from...

#34: Extra #1: "Funny" D&D Jokes, Courtesy of Rich

My latest script included too much art for Tiana to fit into the normal deadline. Rather than leave us high and dry, however, she took it upon herself to produce this filler strip. Yay for multiple awful jokes! Bonus points for the chewy D&D flavor.

#33: He Just Never Quits...

Well, we all knew that this was coming. Eventually, those missing corpses were going to turn up somewhere. Too bad it had to be at a really inopportune moment. I mean, what are the chances, right?

#32: O Steve, Live Forever

Mocking the DM is one thing, but don't take it too far - and be sure to at least pretend to listen to the descriptive text he's come up with for your adventure. It warms his heart to feel like you care... and it keeps him from taking out his irritation on you with monsters you cannot hurt, or with traps you cannot detect.

#31: Funny is in the Eye of the Beholder

They key to making players paranoid is to expose them to familiar situations, while making sure that the results of those encounters are never quite certain. For instance, you can be sure that Brad will probably never again be 100% certain that a dead body is truly dead.

#30: Ask a Stupid Question...

If the DM isn't careful, players come to expect goodies at every step of the adventure. To keep the game realistic, you have to be sure that any treasure found makes sense in the context of the adventure. Plus, it really annoys the players.

#29: Only the Wind...

Another wonderful example of messing with your players' minds. They know that you're going to spring nasty traps on them - they simply don't know when. Often, the suspense is better than the actual trap itself (if you are sitting on the correct side of the DM screen, of course). Bonus points if you do manage to lull them into a false sense of security, thus making your actual trap all that much worse!

#28: Dear Diary...

Ah, yes - the joy of finding a clue. One should always give credit to the words of a dead man, right? Of course, that is assuming that the dead man had some idea of what he was talking about...

#27: Happy Halloween 2009

I don't think that it's fair to call this "filler". I prefer to refer to it as a "holiday special" - after all, we planned in advance to do this. I had presented a concept, but Tiana came back with this one - which just blew my own idea away. Happy Halloween, folks!

#26: Religious Tolerence

Who knew that religion could be such an inconvenience? It would be so much simpler to just have a faceless force give you magical band aids whenever you needed them. Also, I think that they should split up. They can cover more ground that way. Yeah, that's the ticket!

#25: Morality and Prisoners

Ahh, the eternal question of what to do with that evil prisoner. It's not like there is a convenient police station to take him to. It's not like you have the manpower to allow for you to handle normal guard duty. And then the GM starts bringing in some silly set of moral codes if you want to kill him! Isn't being a hero supposed to be cut and dried?

#24: Not if I Can Help it...

As embarassing as it may be to have your comrades save you from self-inflicted terminal stupidity, it's preferable to having to roll up a new character this early in the game. Besides, who wants to give the GM kind of satisfaction? Also, does Dalana look awesome or what?

#23: With Friends Like These...

This is another strip based off of an actual gaming session. I truly could not believe it when the mage's player stated that he would actually slap the barbarian for his cowardice. But then, he turned his back... As I recall, he was rather surprised at the result, though it seemed like the only logical outcome to me.

#22: Gentle Persuasion

What's the best way to keep an eye on a suspicious NPC? Why, send him to the forefront of the hottest battle, of course! If he's honest, he'll help you out. If he's not, the monsters will kill him. It's a win-win, right? I'm once again loving the spellcasting effects that Tiana draws. Also, the floor of the meditation room (panel 7) was totally her idea - and it's just perfect!

#21: Friendly Faces

Technically, I guess that they could just say, "Hi, we're here to kill you." But if they have some sort of subtle plan, that would probably wreck it. The summoned monster art is awesome. He kinda seems to be just chillin' a bit, no problems here... but if you make a false move, he might fly over and chomp off your face.

#20: Things Get Worse

Aw, c'mon. Give the DM ideas. It's more fun when he uses your own fears against you! Also, yay for Rich for recycling the tried and true "outrun the dwarf" joke.

#19: Here Comes the Cavalry

Steve is not about to look a gift horse in the mouth - if Brad's roleplay is good, he'll gladly take it (even if it is accidental). Sure, Brad was probably ready to charge after the bad guy just to see if he could get a piece of him, but we'll let the poor guy pretend that he was only using in-character knowledge. Why not?

#18: Chill Out!

Faustus learns a lesson the hard way - just because you *can* stab something doesn't always mean that you should. Sometimes, it is better to run away tactically retreat. As I frequently do, I will take this opportunity to gush about the art in this comic. I thought that the artist did a wonderful job of capturing the effect as Faustus was hit by the freezing touch. The cold radiating out over the furnace was a nice touch, as well.

#17: Enter the B.B.G.

Any fan of horror movies knows full well that when the protagonists split up, something bad is going to befall one or more of them. So naturally, a sadistic DM like Steve (or myself) gets great pleasure when the adventuring party decides to do just that. I mean, really... they are simply *asking* for it! Side note: the art of this strip is my new favorite to date.

#16: Just Playing my Character (part two)

I wish that I could make this stuff up. These events actually happened in a game that I DMed. Of course, the mage's player had a good point - if his charm could cut down on the number of enemies they had to fight, it would have helped a lot more than a single low-level offensive spell. Not that the cleric's player found any comfort in that. As an aside, everyone else found a lot of amusement in it, however. Also: I love the way that Jhim looks as he casts the spell.

#15: Just Playing my Character (part one)

Ah, the lengths that a player will go to justify something in the name of "playing my character". Of course, it's most entertaining for the DM when a player really *is* playing their character, and doing so is causing negative consequences for the party. Incidentally, I love the combat art.

#14: Combat ADD

Now that the immediate threat of freezing to death has been removed, the party can get back to doing the important stuff: killing monsters. Sure, Brad may have it worse than most, but experience says that with the exception of the odd hardcore roleplayers out there, most D&D gamers are just looking for their next enemy to kill. Not saying that this is bad, of course.

#13: I See a Trend

An adventure where you *don't* have to worry about something jumping out and grabbing you? Where is the fun in that? Also, Dalana looks way cool in panel ten.

#12: Something Stinks...

Is this seriously a dangerous situation, or is the DM messing with my head? That is the question that a player must ask. A good DM threatens the players so often that he is able to savor their paranoia like a fine wine. Yep, you can tell which side of the DM screen *I* prefer to sit on.

#11: Final Rites?

Yes, we have our first actual battle! Panel four is one of my favorites of the strip to date - the artist did a great job capturing the fight between Aranion and one of the skeletons. Also, more fun with Brad's temper and the rest of the group hassling him. Brad is an angry fellow.

#10: Things Get Tight

DM's dearly love these sorts of encounters. No matter what the party does, someone is going to get hurt - providing the DM with some serious comic entertainment. Of course, any good player worth his salt relishes in the chance to smack his annoying party members without fear of any sort of retribution. It's a win-win,right? Well, except perhaps for the poor sap getting smacked around.

#9: The Gate

Apparently, it's going to take Brad a little while to adjust to a different way of doing things. If you're not playing an uber-strong hulk, not every problem can be solved with a hard blow. On an unrelated note, this group - like so many - is fairly adept at picking out which of the DM's details are important, and which are just window dressing. Not that they could do a whole lot about anything frozen in the pond, but still... I'm sure Steve would appreciate it if they at least looked.

#8: All Aboard the Adventure Railroad!

It never fails. The DM has put in hours of time planning for the adventure, he\'s taken into account what sorts of players he has and what they are looking for in an adventure... and they then decide to skip the evil wizard\'s tower and go swimming or some such nonsense. Luckily for Steve, he had their consent to basically force them into his dungeon - nobody wanted to discuss how the characters met, and they were anxious enough to get going that he was able to drop them in the middle of a blizzard. Simple choice: adventure or die. All aboard!

#7: EVIL!

I love Ladan's look of righteous fury. Great job by Tiana of making something silly look so cool. For the record, I'm not 100% happy with the "whisper bubbles", but it seems that Photoshop is conspiring against me for this. You'd think that you could just select a dashed border, but no. I ended up creating a pattern and using it as a background for the border... how moronic! If anyone knows of a better way to do this, please edumacate me.

#6: Character Introductions

The first time I saw the art for the in game characters, I knew that I had made the correct choice of an artist. Tiana has done a great job of capturing what I had envisioned here - the art looks great! Sorry about the huge speech bubbles, but I didn't see any real alternative if we were going to let the reader know anything about the characters (other than the fact that they look cool).

#5: The Ladies' Man

I personally despise the "you all meet in a tavern" bit. It's pretty much standard operating proceedure for me in games that I DM to force past character introductions and just have everyone assume that their characters already know one another. In tabletop games, the "meet and greet" stage tends to be awkward, and in play by post games, it eats up precious days (or even weeks) of posting time.

#4: Different Strokes

Ahh, the joys of character creation. Gamers pore over rulebooks - some look for inspiration, more look for loopholes to help them "win". I've personally considered handing out prebuilt characters many times, but have never had the guts to pull that off.

#3: We are the Knights who Say...

Has there ever been a D&D group that didn't do this from time to time? Someone makes a Monty Python & the Holy Grail reference, and it all goes downhill from there. As it turns out, strangling your players is frowned on by most municipalities.

#2: What I Want to Be

Ahh, the first actual joke for this comic strip. With solid gold material like this, you'll be awaiting every single post with bated breath, right?

#1: Introductions

The long awaited moment has come - we have a live comic! Is this strip particularly groundbreaking? Nope. Does it do much besides introduce you to the characters? Nope. What exactly did you expect from episode #1? Ah, here is a tidbit. The actual adventure itself is adapted from the module located at RPG Archive. Don't read it if you hate spoilers, but I really wanted to make sure to credit the author of the adventure.