D&D Urban Legends: I new this guy who...

[Sunglar]

Well I heard many of the stories you mention here, in one form or another. Sometimes when I hear the horror stories from their youth from other players I feel blessed. I grew up in a home the SUPPORTED my hobby and encouraged me to use my imagination. My D&D Basic red box with the Elmore art was a gift from my mom, who despite that fact that I’ll be turning 31 next month, thinks the best gifts for me are (in this order) an RPG book, clothes, a tie, or an RPG book. And she knows her way about a hobby shop too.

Before you think I’m off subject here, there is one story I heard many years ago, and I must apologize to Gary in advance for actually repeating it. Supposedly a friend of a friend of mine (isn’t this always the case) visiting the US went to a convention and saw Gary Gygax run a game… In it supposedly a PC got lucky and rolled a 20 while swinging his vorpal sword and decapitated the main villain in the first round of combat. As I heard the story Gary went on to tell him it didn’t happen. When the guy complained he killed his character outright.

That is how I heard it, I don’t know if this is simply a version of some other story, or something that happened in a gaming table that upon retelling just got bigger and better. I did not believe it then, and surely don’t believe it now.

That is all... Signing off!

Sunglar

 

[Goddess FallenAngel]

My own superstition is thus: Before the game and after I have rolled my dice, I will place them with the most favorable number sticking up(20 on the d20 for example). There is a theory I have that if a dice was sat this way long enough, the molecules would slide downward and make the dice heavier on the opposite. I get this from seeing old windows in houses that are thinner on the top than on the bottom. It has to be caused by gravity pulling the molecules downwards.

Ah yes... dice creep. There was an article in a Dragon mag a few months back on that. I game with someone who proscribes to the same idea.

However, *I could be wrong on this, but...* glass settles because it is not a *true* solid. It won't work with plastic (which is what all my dice are made out of). Well, it might, but I ain't gonna be around by the time it does - I am not an elf. *LOL*

 

[Stone Angel]

Once rolled two d 6's and a d4 and they all stacked on top of each other. When I yelled to show everyone one guy bumped the table and the dice fell over. Even now I sit and wonder if that was just a daydream.

When I was about ten or so I was invited to a sleepover birthday party a friends house who lived out in the country on a big farm and stuff. We sat a round the fire for ghost story.The friends mother whose family was extremely religious and she proceeded to tell us that she knew a kid who slept with his DnD books under his bed. One morning the kid woke up with a black tongue, then the next black eyes, then his hair fell out on the third day on the fourth day his skin turned black, and then on the fifth he had dissappeared completely. Gave me the willies back then, the a few months later I bought my first set of books at a yard sell.
The Seraph of Earth and Stone.

 

[milotha]

Real Game Stories from 1e D&D

We had a very detailed hand drawn out world map for our game. We kept it rolled up in the closet with the rest of the wargames. Oneday we went into the closet, and the map was nowhere to be found. We removed every game from the closet, and there was no map. We asked everyone in the house, have you seen the map, have you hidden the map. We declared the map missing, and drew out another one from memory. Months later we opened the door to the closet, and there plain as day was the map sitting in the middle of the closet, as if it had always been there. To this day, no one will take credit for the reappearance of the map.

Once in the middle of a combat the PCs were sure to lose, I realized that we had no hope. The fighter and thief were down. The mage and cleric were all that were left, and we had no more spells to cast. I turned to the GM and said "I thrust forth my holy symbol and shout out my diety's name." I was looking for divine intervention. The GM handed me the % dice and said roll em and weep. He had firmly decided not to have divine intervention. I rolled the dice onto the table, and somehow I managed to get both d10's to stand on end- thus they showed no number. The GM took this as the appropriate sign that I had actually summoned my diety.

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Nope, glass is a solid at room temperature. The reason that the stained glass window panes in old churches are thicker at the bottom than at the top is because they were manufactured that way - for the same reason that old buildings were built bigger at the bottom than at the top...

I do subscribe to the dice-creep theory, though. It means that photons are pressing down on the high side of the die, pushing them molecules downwards just as gravity is sucking them downwards. And brainiac scientists reckon light can exert force - which means it must have mass - which means it can't travel at the speed of light - which means... hang it, just roll the friggin' d20 will you?

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[Rolgath]

If you lay a sledge hammer on a dice it will roll better.

We had jokingly said that the implied threat would make the dice toe the line so we decided to put it to a test.

Maybe it was coincidence but we did roll better after that. Soon the table was arguing over who got to use the sledge hammer next.

Nothing scarier then a group of gamers wielding a 6 lbs sledge.

 

[Taloras]

My current DM has the theory of punishing dice that consistently roll bad. He throws them into another room. Then he lets his daughter and dog play with them. He claims he did this years ago with 2 dice that rolled bad. Today, those are his DM Dice, which have almost killed us several times.

And yes, Al'Kelhar is correct. Old window panes were built wider at the bottom because they believed that would support the glass better. Just like old buildings were built wider at the bottom. Pyramid effect. The UL about that was because a researcher noticed it, and, not knowing that they had been built that way, tried to come up with a theory around it. It was later debunked when someone who knew the old ways heard the rumor and told them the truth.

 

[Jack Daniel]

My own superstition is thus: Before the game and after I have rolled my dice, I will place them with the most favorable number sticking up(20 on the d20 for example). There is a theory I have that if a dice was sat this way long enough, the molecules would slide downward and make the dice heavier on the opposite. I get this from seeing old windows in houses that are thinner on the top than on the bottom. It has to be caused by gravity pulling the molecules downwards.

That's because glass is a very slow-moving liquid. Most dice are made of solid plastic.

 

[Remathilis]

Hmm... Dice Creep might work as an UL. Screaming Demons definitely.

I included Paladin and Assassin because I heard it from two different people who could not possibly know each other. details were almost exactly the same. I wondered if anyone else had "heard" this friend of a friend tale.

Any other "I've heard this from a friend who says..." stories.

 

[Dogbrain]

That's because glass is a very slow-moving liquid.

No. That's a daffy old urban legend made up by tour guides and other ignorant goobs to explain why glass at the bottom of old windowpanes is thicker than glass at the top. The real explanation is that it was MADE that way.