D&D General What did you think of the Stranger Things D&D game?

[jgsugden]

Let me Google that for you.

Identifying the Dice of the 1970s

How can you recognize a polyhedral gaming die made in the 1970s? The video above gives my tips for collectors and researchers who want ...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

Let me ask what this has to do with the use of a d10 coupled with a second die as a replacement for a d20 when d20s were scarce.

That is kind of like asking about starvation in an area and having someone provide a list of fast food places.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Let me ask what this has to do with the use of a d10 coupled with a second die as a replacement for a d20 when d20s were scarce.

That is kind of like asking about starvation in an area and having someone provide a list of fast food places.

If you actually look at the website I provided you will see that almost if not all of the 20-sided die have two sets of 0-9 on them instead of 1-20. Thus finding a "proper" d20 could be difficult through much of the 1e era. Scarce meaning rare, not out-of-stock in this case.

Now if the question is "why didn't they make them 1-20 back then?" I cannot say.

 

[nexalis]

I have never heard this before, and would be intrigued if someone could supply the origin...

The answer was supplied by @Stormonu. It appears in the 1E DMG, p 10.

When rolled in conjunction with another die, the d4 can be used to determine linear number ranges twice that shown on the other die, thus: d4 reading 1 or 2 means that whatever is read on the other die is the number shown; but if the d4 reads 3 or 4, add the highest number on the second die to the number shown

The same thing can be done with a d6 and a d10. I have a brother who still prefers to use a d6 and a d10 in place of a d20. I guess he grew comfortable doing it back in the day.

 

[Stormonu]

Let me Google that for you.

Identifying the Dice of the 1970s

How can you recognize a polyhedral gaming die made in the 1970s? The video above gives my tips for collectors and researchers who want ...

playingattheworld.blogspot.com

Oh hell - my original d20 was a Zocchi* gem d20? My God, I haven’t seen that die in … 35+ years!

*Zocchi lived/had a game store on the Mississippi coast an hour’s drive from where I live now and went to Cons at in the 80s/90s - I’ve been subjected to his dice sales pitch too many times to count. We got that d20 in California!

 

[Deset Gled]

Attached is a PDF that goes into more detail about the history of dice included with D&D.

I got this as a Word doc that was shared by Ernie Gygax. I believe it's him writing, but he doesn't sign it anywhere (and you can tell he plans on adding more details from his notes at the end). I had to convert to PDF because the Word version is huge.

 

[teitan]

I'm not following. I was not aware of an era of scarcity of polhedral dice - especially one that impacted d20 more than d10 or d4.

There was a time they were so hard to get TSR out chits in the Basic D&D Holmes set instead. I have a sealed one at home.

 

[pogre]

Enjoyed the scene quite a bit. The DM is a fun character. We had a fifth year senior in my high school, but it was rare. Once they got to year 5 they were kicked down the road to get a GED.

1986 was the year we switched from D&D to WFRP. We really did not come back to D&D until 3rd edition.

We did the D10+D6 routine for quite a while in the mid 70s.

 

[delericho]

Enjoyed the scene quite a bit. The DM is a fun character. We had a fifth year senior in my high school, but it was rare. Once they got to year 5 they were kicked down the road to get a GED.

My very first DM was a guy who had actually left the school in the summer and who started university in October - he came along for the first six weeks of high school and got us started. (That wouldn't be allowed these days, of course.) When he left we had a variety of older pupils try to run games, but these all fell flat, and so eventually I ended up doing it myself.

 

[MNblockhead]

Oh hell - my original d20 was a Zocchi* gem d20? My God, I haven’t seen that die in … 35+ years!

*Zocchi lived/had a game store on the Mississippi coast an hour’s drive from where I live now and went to Cons at in the 80s/90s - I’ve been subjected to his dice sales pitch too many times to count. We got that d20 in California!

Anyone who has not heard Lou Zocchi's sales pitch are missing out. Fix that now:
I could listen to the Colonel talk about dice all day.

 

[LordEntrails]

Whenever you watch someone in character and you see them do something that the character would not do and you know they would not do, it takes you out of the story a bit.

For you. Not for me. I don't let something like "immersion" or pretending I know what a character should do ruin my enjoyment of something.

Sure, if I was watching (or reading) an instruction booklet on how to RPG (or do an oil change etc) then technical accuracy would be important to me. But watching a video drama about teenagers facing supernatural challenges? Something like not playing a game the way I think it should be played by the characters is not ever going to be something that crosses my mind.

You might find you enjoy things more if you don't sweat the small stuff. Your choice.