WARNING! GEEK ALERT! This chapter will be filled with geeky terms and botch rolls. So if you have a low willpower, roll now for a chance to flee the scene.
"Alright... so I can make the appearance and history later, but what about these boxes here? I figure my um... Stats? Are a good thing to know? How do they work?" Looking the page over, Daphne noticed the major set of unfilled boxes and lines were about the middle.
"Ah, those are what tell you how well you will do things." Fred pointed out. "Like Strength, is how much you can carry, and how strong you will hit things. Intelligence helps with you spells and such, so that would be a good thing for your pally to have."
What he said made sense to Daphne. They had to have some way to figure how well the characters could do something. But what determined what she wrote in that box? But it seemed that Fred knew what she was thinking. With glittering eyes, he looked over at the rest of the guys and smiled.
"Gang, I think it's time to break out the dice!"
Dice? Daphne didn't have much time to muse over what they exactly meant, as the guys all dove to retrieve something. Rustling here and there, they all scrambled to get the various containers that sat nearby, just waiting to be used. With the sounds of things rattling off each other, the gang placed their dice bags upon the table about the same time. It made a bunch of clatter, which was only topped by the guys, flipping the various bags open and letting their cargo scatter across the table.
Each with piles of dice in front of them, Daphne was surprised at the amount of different shapes and colors each person had. Though for the most part, each person had a color scheme and pattern to the piles. Which Daphne could appreciate immensely.
Unsurprisingly, Red had a set of dark red dice. Though at closer inspection they were more like a speckled egg shell look, using various shades of light and dark reds. Looking over at Fred s pile, his dice looked like marble, most of them in a pretty blue color, with ribbons of white throughout the surface. When she cast her glance over at Shaggy, she was at first unhappy as it looked as if he had broken the appearance of theme since he had all sorts of colors in his pile. But at closer inspection, ever single die was two toned. As the bottom was one color, and about the middle the die changed color into something else. So while he didn't have one uniformed color scheme, the pattern stayed true. And at second glance to Scooby, he had a similar case. They were all sorts of colors, but they all were the type of dice that were transparent.
She would so need to get her own...
Looking over at them all, she noticed that Velma had already had her dice out. Standing up to be able to peer across the table, she noticed that Velma had not only a theme in color, but also in pattern like Fred and Red. Though hers were all metallic looking, and very pretty.
"Ohhhhh... I like Velma's."
"NO!" Came a group response from the guys around her, which shocked her.
"Why not?" She snorted in defiance. Hers looked the best, and she liked that she had a pretty and consistent theme and color.
"It's like' a curse to touch the GM's dice!" Shaggy tried to talk some sense into Daphne.
"Rah rah! R'ursed!" Came the quick response to back up his lanky companion.
"Cursed?" She just couldn't believe it, why would it be a curse to touch the game master s dice and use them? She looked to Velma, who just looked amused and shrugged at her. Which didn't help.
"I can't explain it Daph, but when ever any player touches the dice that is used by the Game Master, it then makes all of your rolls bad. And I mean really bad. So when you want to roll to save your character, you'll botch!" Fred said, earning another look towards Velma from Daphne.
"I can't logically explain it either. But as long as I have been playing, that odd coincidence always seems to occur. If a player touches the dice, they seem to suffer when they roll. And sometimes it even wears off to the players dice, cursing them as well." Velma added, shrugging again. She tried once to calculate the statistical phenomenon of the curse GM dice, but only got a headache as a result.
"Oh, and in case you are wondering what a 'botch' is, it's when you want to roll a dice high, and you get a one instead. If you get a one, the Game Master has the right to come up with all sorts of bad things that could happen. Well, if the situation is right." Red added, just in case Daphne had been wondering.
"Well, I'm not going to be that mean to Daphne... Yet." Daphne felt a little worried about that little word Velma added at the end, but at least she had a bit of time to get used to the game before Velma decided to be evil. After all, she didn't even know if she would like playing. She would have to get that far in order to see.
"Alright, now let's get down to the stats. Borrow Fred's dice for now. His are pretty cooperative overall."
With a bunch of dice rolls later, Daphne was basically ready to try her character out. After giving her character some thought, she decided to name her Joanna. Giving her basic gear and traditional sword and shield, Daphne felt ready to give Joanna a try.
"Alright. You now have your character made. But I don't want to rush you into this, so let's do a sample dungeon interaction. For the most part, the adventures tend to be either in forests, towns or dungeons. So let's pretend you and the guys are running through a dungeon and you run into a monster that tries to attack you."
Moving herself back to her end of the table, Velma tries to set up the scene to give Daphne an idea of combat. Another round of shuffling about Daphne, and the guys all pull out small miniatures of themselves. Well, of their characters at least. Getting up, they moved towards a roll of plastic that Velma had unwound and placed upon the table. Getting up herself, Daphne wanted to know what was going on.
Approaching the plastic, she could see that it was covered in small squares that covered corner to corner. Velma had gone to work on it with a black marker, laying out a space that might exist in the dungeon. It was a pretty simple set up, four walls and two doors on either side. Once Velma was finished drawing, she watched as the guys placed their little figures on the board.
"As you can see the guys doing, the miniatures represent their characters and where they are placed in the room. Consider each square to be ten feet, which means that most characters can move 60 feet, or 6 squares. And unless you have something that is long ranged, you have to be standing next to, or diagonally from what you are attacking. Here..." Giving a generalized explanation, Velma quickly moved to her pile of miniatures and found something she could use to represent Daphne for now. Finding a one of the few female characters, (that wasn't a damsel) Velma placed it on the board.
"Whoo! Perfect!" Shouted Red, approving of the chosen piece. Sadly, Velma didn't have a good female knight, or paladin equivalent. And the only other pieces she had were more robed, and cloaked characters... so she had to resort to the one piece that she had left. Which was a bikini mailed, Amazon.
"...We'll have to get you a better miniature later. But for now, this will work as a substitute. sorry Daph." Velma apologized.
"Whatever. It works for now..." She rolled her eyes, not to glad at how worked up Red seemed at the character.
"... Still looks like it chafes." Daphne murmured.
Adding the piece in front of the rest of the guys, Daphne's Joanna was now ready for battle. Fishing for another mini, Velma plucked three rats from her collection and placed them a few spaces away from the gang.
"Alright. As you enter the dungeon room, it appears that several sets of eyes have noticed your entrance. As soon as everyone moves past the door, the three rats move in to strike. Roll initiative." Velma set the scene loosely, not going into too much detail as this was only a test to show Daphne how it worked.
"Initiative is basically to see who gets to go first in combat." Added Red, making sure Daphne wasn't lost in the terminology. Picking up one of the dice, he showed it to her.
"You want to take one of these twenty side die, and roll it. The higher your number, the better you did. And then you add any bonuses that your character might have for this situation, and then you let the GM know what you got. Whoever gets the highest goes first. And then it moves on to the next highest, and so forth. And if you tie with someone in having the same number, then you have to look at your intelligence and see who is higher. And if for some strange reason that is tied, then you move to your Dexterity. Get it?"
Looking at the sheet she had, she looked at the various stats he pointed out. It made sense. But now the hard part... Which was the twenty die?
Looking at the one that Red had held up, she looked over to the pile that she had been borrowing from Fred. Rolling a few around, she noticed that some were easier to notice then others. The little pyramid looking one only went up to the number 4, so that wasn't it. And she was familiar with what a six sided die looked like, as it was the most common die used in board games. It was the other ones that gave her a bit of trouble. The one that looked like two four sided dice put together was an eight, so that wasn't it. Which moved her to the next up... Looking at the sides, she found that it went to ten. Though it looked similar to the eight sided dice, so she bet she might confuse them later. Though looking at the top of the ten side, it almost looked like an umbrella from above. The twelve side almost looked like a squared off soccer ball, with little hexagon patterns to them. Cute, but not what she was looking for. Which finally got her to the last type in the bunch. She figured it was a twenty side. It looked almost round, at least compared to the other dice. With each panel that represented a number looking like a triangle. Flipping it around, she moved through the numbers till she finally saw the number twenty.
"Ok. So this is a twenty side. Now I roll this and tell Velma then number, right?" Daphne mused aloud, keeping track of what she had been told. Why rolling this was fun, she didn't know. But then again, they had just started. So she would wait on her decision of if she liked it or not.
"Yeah. Like' roll it." Shaggy agreed, shaking his head up and down.
"Alright... Here I go." Rolling the die in her hand, she made sure to shake it a bunch before she let it hit the table. Bumping and rolling a ways, the dice bounced between numbers before finally landing and staying still. Leaning over, Daphne looked at the number that was facing skyward.
"So, how good is an 18?"
Pushing to their feet, the rest of the gang at her side moved to look at the amazing roll that Daphne had gotten on her first try.
"Wow Daph, that's like' really good!" Shaggy was surprised, he had never been that lucky to get that high on his first initiative.
"...It doesn't roll that nicely for me..." Grumbled Fred, believing his dice liked Daphne better then they liked him. True, they occasionally rolled that nicely, but they also didn't play favorites and tended to give him equal bad rolls for good. At least they were fair.
"Yeah, that was really good. Now with that noted, what did everyone else get?" Velma asked from beyond the table, with pencil and paper ready to take notes on what everyone got.
"Oh, whoops. Let me roll now." Red felt embarrassed. So caught up in what Daphne had rolled, to roll his own. And the rest of the guys had forgotten too. Which earned a bunch of rattling as they all rolled their respective dice.
"Aw man, I knew that the dice liked Daphne more than me..." Fred complained, not happy with his roll. "I got a four."
"I'm not too much better Fred, I got me a nine." Red admitted, feeling let down by his dice.
"Whoo! I got a twelve!" Shaggy said happily, not expecting to do as good at Daphne had, but better than the other two guys.
"Whine~" All eyes were drawn to the Dane, who couldn't even speak. All he could do was whimper as he looked down at his roll.
"Oh man, sorry Scoob." Red tried to comfort him. "Better luck next time. Scooby botched."
"Alright." Said Velma as she nodded, taking down each number and putting it on her paper. Taking up her own dice, she gave them a roll in order to figure out what each rat got. Unable to see what Velma got, Daphne wasn't sure what that meant. Leaning to Shaggy next to her, she made sure to keep her voice down as she asked him something.
"So... what prevents her from writing down whatever she wants?"
"Good question. But it's all on honesty. It's the same for us, as she can't see what we roll. But it's more fun if you obey what the dice say, rather than lie about what you didn't like' get. Not to say that... that doesn't happen. But the GM can call you on it, so if you plan to lie, lie well."
Spoke Shaggy, giving her a smile at the end which earned a wide eyed look from her. She wouldn't have thought Shaggy to be someone who lied, but apparently it happened from time to time. But you can't get caught, or bad things would happen.
"But Velma is a nice Game Master. She doesn't like to kill off her players... At least not right away. So it's not bad to be honest and tell her. Sometimes she'll even change her rolls, just so that the monster won't kill you right away." Shaggy added with a nod.
Thinking about it, she hoped she would never have that decision on her hands. Though she didn't understand why someone would want to lie about what they got. Since if they for some reason got a lot of good rolls, then it would seem a bit funny. So she just hoped that her rolls would be fair.
"Alright. Daph.. er... Joanna goes first. What do you want to do?" Velma asked, though she had to add more since Daphne really didn't know what she could do.
"During each turn that a player has, they can do certain things within reason. Depending on what weapon you have, you might want to specify that you are carrying it out so you don't have to use part of your turn to draw your weapon. But I figure that since you are walking around in a dungeon, you had your weapon drawn just in case."
That made sense to Daphne. Why would she be wandering around in a dark and dangerous place without her weapon out?
"Aright, so can I move and attack a rat in the same turn?" Daphne wondered. Velma nodded in response.
"Yes, since the rats are close enough, you can move to get close and attack. Though sometimes you might want to discuss with the rest of the group what you guys want to do. Well, to a point. No full on discussions and elaborate planning... but more like. 'You go for that one, I'll kill this one' works."
"That makes sense. I figure we are just going to kill them, right?" She asked about her, earning nods of agreement from the rest of her party. So she got up and moved her miniature towards the first rat.
"Ok, I want to attack this rat in front of me. How do I do that?"
"So you are attacking with your one handed short sword?" Velma asked. Earning a look down at her paper to see if that was in fact what she had in her hand.
"Ummm... er... yeah. Yes. I have a um, one d six short sword m... So, what does that mean?" Daphne was not exactly sure what the rest of the parts meant, but at least she knew what a short sword looked like! She had been around plenty of knights and suits of armor to know what a sword looked like.
"The M means medium size. Since you are a human, you are medium sized. Now Red is playing a dwarf, so he might end up having some things in the small category. With the exception that his strength is enough to handle the larger size that you could carry. And the 1d6 is the damage that your sword can do. So it can hit up to six points of damage in one swing. So in order to see if you can hit, you have to roll the twenty side again. And each monster has a specific difficulty in order to hit it and have it get hurt. While these rats are low level monsters, they will be easier to hit. And if you found someone with like armor, the number might be harder. So roll and see if you hit them." Velma explained, hoping that she didn't overwhelm Daphne with what she had said.
"Alright, I take this thing, and roll that and see what I get in order to hit the rat."
Taking up the dice she had rolled before, she shook it in her hand. Letting the die loose, she leaned up to see what it landed on. Her brows immediately sunk.
"Five..." Looking disappointed, she had been hoping for better. Especially with her getting such a nice roll at first. Which earned snickers from the rest of the guys.
"It happens." Fred tried to console her, though he was tiny bit happy that kind of roll happened to her. It made him feel that his dice were in fact biased, and would roll however it felt like it would roll. No matter who was behind the die.
"Alright, now that normally wouldn't hit the rat, but we'll pretend that you got an eight. This is only for showing you, so there is no reason to make you miss at this point. You need an eight or higher in order to hit this rat. It actually would be lower had they not been kind of small, and agile. So say you got the eight, and now you would have to roll for damage. So find a six sided die and give it a roll." Velma offered, though Daphne was still a bit annoyed at the low roll.
Looking over the pile that Fred had, she snorted and moved to steal one of Shaggy's two toned die. Rolling it in her hands, she hoped that she would have better luck with his.
"Five! Whoo!" Even though she got the same number as the previous roll, this had been a different sided die. So in this respect, five was a high number.
"Ok, you hit the rat for five damage. The rat died." Picking up one of her die, Velma gave it a roll.
"Why did you do that?" Daphne wondered, seeing Velma roll something on her end.
"The Game Master does that sometimes." Fred explained. "Usually you don't ask. It's just something that they do."
"It's fine Fred. Yes, normally I will roll a lot more then what I will explain. But I can tell you this time what it was, to give you an idea. I have three rats here. You just killed one. And I had yet to give an assignment to which rat on my list was which. So that roll you saw me do was in order to pick which of the three rats died. So I know which one initiative roll was lost. Had for some reason all the rats rolled really low, except one... it might not be fair if I killed off the one rather than the other depending on the situation. So I left this time up to chance, and one of the higher rolls got killed off."
"Oh, I get it. Thanks for explaining." Daphne liked knowing what was going on, but with Velma's explanation she got why sometimes the game master might not reveal what they were doing to the players. So she knew not to ask later, though the lack of knowledge might bug her after a while.
"Alright, so one rat is dead." Looking at her list, she tried to see who was next in line. As she spoke, she knocked over the dead rat to show that it had been taken care of."Ah, Shaggy. Your Sorcerer is up next."
"Like' alright man! Now it's time to show how cool Northwode is!" Shaggy said with glee, giving his character sheet a look.
"Northwode?" Leaning over, she hoped that Fred would be able to shed some light on why he had named his character that.
"He's from the North forest. Forest is wood. Aka Northwode. It's apparently an English name. He got it out of a baby book that his mom had, and he liked the meaning. So he went with it." Fred shrugged, it wasn't a bad name. Though it continued Shaggy's long tradition of 'Norths' As his last one was named 'Northclyf', and the one before that was 'Northtun'. But Fred had to give him credit, he was playing the son of his previous character, so it was a family tradition.
"Ah ha!" Spoke up Shaggy as he had finally found what he was looking for. "I want to cast Ball of Flame at the right rat." Moving up, Shaggy pointed to the rat in question. Though it was the reverse for Velma, but she knew what he meant.
"Alright. Are you using your special skill for concentration?" Velma asked, taking down notes as they talked.
"Yeah I figure we won't get more than a few rounds at most, so I can use my skill now."
"Ok, Now what we just were talking about is a skill that Shaggy's Sorcerer has. Normally it would take two turns for him to cast Ball of Flame. But with using his concentration skill, which he can only use every ten turns, he can use it on the first turn. So it's a useful skill, but sometimes you might want to save something like that, for the right time. Alright Shaggy, roll to hit. Difficulty ten."
Taking up his dice, he gave his twenty side a roll. With everyone leaning over, they all saw when the die landed on a thirteen.
"Whoo! 13! I hit the rat." Shaggy did a little dance, as he knew that he would be causing some damage to the rat.
"Save the diddy for later. Roll for damage." Velma rolled her eyes, though amused as well. "Now if I remember correctly, Ball of Flame is a 1d4 roll, with a plus one to it, right?"
"Yeah. I could have boosted it with the 'Prayer to Fire' skill, but I didn't think I needed it on a rat. So let's see how much damage I get." Picking up his pyramid shaped die, he gave it a roll. Skittering across the table, the die eventually settled on a number.
"Whoo! Four plus one... Five damage!"
"And another rat dead. Hm..." Looking over at her paper, she took up another die and gave it a roll. But this time, didn't inform Daphne and the rest of what she was doing. Reaching up, she took out the downed rat, putting the mini on its side.
"You guys got lucky. One of the rats rolled a ten for initiative, but he was the one that just died. So Red is up."
"Ok! Now it's time for Renilli to take the stage!" Snatching up his die, it rolled about in his massive mitts as he considered his options.
"Alright, I'm just going to take my Mace to it." Pushing his mini forward, he moved into position in front of the last rat. Giving the die a bit more of a roll, it clattered across the table. Leaning over, Red looked so ready to move on when he saw the result. Turning to Daphne, he pointed at his roll with a grimace.
"...And that's what not to do."
Laughing, Daphne saw the dreaded botch grace the table yet again that night. It was a funny occurrence... as long as it didn't happen to her. And she laughed again as she watched Red pick up his die and chastise it for rolling bad in front of Daphne.
"Well, Red botched. So I won't be too mean this time." Looking over at Velma, Red awaited his fate.
"Getting overexcited with the smiting of the evil rat, Renilli put too much power into his swing. As the mace moved down towards the rat, the mace slid out of your hand and sailed across the room with a clatter. Ok Fred, you tied with the last rat for the initiative. But I'm pretty sure your int is higher than the rat, so it's your turn."
"Alright. Now it's up to me to save the day!" Taking up his die, Fred knew exactly what he wanted to do. "Alright, I'm going to use my Double Shot skill. Which allows me to take a damage hit in order to get a chance to hit twice. So I'll be rolling twice and seeing if either hit."
Rolling the die, Daphne watched as it landed and came up something before he rolled it again. Though he had done it so fast, that she almost missed what had come up.
"Alright, I got a ten and an eight. So two hits." Though what he said aloud, made Daphne blink. She was very sure that she had seen a three and an eight. So Fred was cheating on his rolls. But he had done it so fast, that she had barely caught it. But Fred's face didn't betray his lie; He only looked to Velma for confirmation.
"Ok, With the Double Shot skill, your bow damage decreases from an 1d6, to a 1d4. Roll and see damage." Velma didn't even seem to bat an eye at the lie. So Daphne didn't know if she just didn't care, or if she had even noticed. But why had he lied? When it was not even part of the game? Or was it just to show her that you could? Though when Fred had turned to her, he gave her a wink. Knowing that she had seen what he had done.
Snatching up two of his dice, he rolled to see just how much of a punch his arrows would do.
"A one and a three. So four damage."
"And the last rat is dead." Velma spoke, tipping the last rat over.
"And now the room is safe to explore. So that was a round of combat. You would keep taking turns till everything was dead, or everyone took a turn and then you would roll for another initiative. And then do it all over again. So what do you think? Though don't cheat like Fred did, or at least make sure not to wink when you were doing such a thing. It tips the GM off." Velma snorted, but didn't seem too angry.
"Just be happy that this wasn't a real combat. Or you would have lost some experience for cheating." Velma warned, making Fred hang his head in acceptance.
"That... was interesting. But fun! I think I'll like playing this. So when do we start the real game?" Daphne wondered, energetic to keep going. Which earned a snicker from the room.
"We probably should call it a night tonight." Which earned a round of 'awws' from the gang. But Velma made sure to wave them down. "But how about having another night tomorrow night? Now that Daphne's in on it, we can hold the game as long as no mystery comes up.
Whoo! Sounds like a plan! Count me in for tomorrow! Red whooped, collecting up his die and depositing them into his bag. He also made quick work to collect his papers, pencils, and his mini. The rest of the gang wasn't short behind him, packing everything up around Daphne as she watched. She didn't have any dice of her own, or pencils for that matter. Which was something that would have to be fixed.
As they all got collected and ready to turn in, Red moved towards the back window out of habit.
"Uh Red?"
"Yeah?"
"You know, you can use the front door now." Fred pointed out, earning a snicker from the rest.
"Oh, heh. I forgot. I got so used to exiting that way that I headed to it without thinking. Man, that is going to take some time to get used to." Shouldering his bag, he moved to follow the rest of the gang upstairs and let him out the front for a change.
With waves and quiet goodbyes, they saw Red off. As the rest of the gang moved to turn in, Shaggy moved to bump Daphne as she moved towards the stairs that lead to her room.
"I can't wait for tomorrow night!" He chirped happily, eager for tomorrow to come.
"Me too." Daphne admitted honestly. It had been fun, what little she had played. "…Good night Shaggy."
I hope you guys weren't too buried with all the geek speak. I just wanted to explain this in a way that if someone didn't know how these kinds of table top games worked, they could understand it roughly. Or at least combat. And no, the story isn't going to be that in depth with rolls every time. So don't worry!
Oh, and all the rolls are based on actual rolls I did as I was writing. So ever botch and even Fred's lied rolls, were from me and my dice. And even the descriptions of the die coloring are from my pack of dice. I love me my Metallic and marbled dice.