The owlbear rushes forward beating aside your comrades. They now lay on the ground fighting the throes of death to regain consciousness.  The owlbear is wounded though, and you’re up. This is it. Now is the time to charge forward and end the battle. You swing your broadsword, roll a d20 and get...a 4. You duck into a shadowed doorway as stormtroopers march down the hallway. Their blasters are drawn, but you think you’ve found a good spot to avoid them. You’ve almost made it out of the compound. The GM has you roll for stealth. The escape all comes down to this one check. You throw the dice and get...3. The Players and DMs alike yearn for that critical success at a clutch moment, but failures can mean just as much. These situations can even become the defining moment for a character, adventure or campaign. What is the best way to handle those disappointing moments? -A A : Critical successes are something all players are hoping for. Even if skill checks don’t technically “crit”, there is

Star Wars, as a roleplaying universe, is one that is near and dear to my heart. In fact, long before I got into Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars was my gateway into the world of tabletop roleplaying games. My father had mentioned D&D to me before, and we’d even played Dungeon! , but Star Wars was my first foray into what would become a lifelong hobby. It should be no surprise that the universe of space wizards and scruffy looking nerf-herders drew me to roleplaying. After all, I was already wearing “Jedi robes” and swinging around plastic lightsabers as a wee lad. Obviously, it was an already beloved world of pretend play, I just needed some dice to go with it. Add a best friend who had acquired the West End D6 system books, and the rest is Never Say Dice history. How do you recreate the excitement and magic of Star Wars at the tabletop though? In celebration of Star Wars Day , I’ve done my best to answer that question for my regular Dungeons & Dragons players in what may becom

There’s an old axiom that every story, regardless of medium, is ultimately about someone who wants something, but has obstacles standing in their way. While that’s probably overly reductionist, it’s true that both characters and plots are driven by desires and motivations. But how much do these need to be developed? Does every character need a complex motivation, or were Tears for Fears right when they said that everybody simply wants to rule the world? B : This will be a tough one to tackle, because character motivation comes not only from a creator’s intent, but also from their audience’s interpretations. Whether it’s someone reading words thousands of years after they were written or someone sitting on the other side of a gaming table, every audience member’s own desires and experience will determine how they see a character’s motivations, no matter how those motivations are being presented. Believability often comes down to accessibility. We might not want to become Jedi ourselves

Recently, Andy and I found out that we had each started new run-throughs of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas , a game that both of us have loved since its original release, but neither had ever completed. We took it as an opportunity to play together (even while apart), keeping track of each other’s progress throughout. Now that we’re both done, we thought we’d discuss some of the game’s storytelling and characterization, and what San Andreas can teach writers and gamers looking to tell stories from the more… complicated side of the law. - B B : It’s appropriate that San Andreas starts with CJ’s return home, since picking the game up again felt a homecoming for both of us. My story (far less exciting and tragic than Carl’s) is that, now that I’m satisfied with my current hardware setup, I’ve been using the PS2 a lot more often, which meant returning to a complete Grand Theft Auto series playthrough I had started some years ago. Thanks to the lockdown freetime, I burned through Grand Thef

Even before the pandemic, playing tabletop games digitally, or even streaming your sessions as a podcast through a video platform, was becoming pretty widespread. Around this time last year, at the very start of the pandemic, I was writing about gaming in isolation , providing a brief guide on how you could continue your group roleplaying online. Since then, digital tabletop roleplaying games have seen an explosion in popularity with the continued need for social distancing. I’ve used this medium to run a game allowing me to reconnect with old friends across the country, and even joined a few games myself for a chance to play and make some new friends... also across the country - the digital tabletop sure widens options for people to play with! Compared to playing at the table, though, digital play does lack a certain something . It's difficult to match, and probably impossible to beat, sitting around a shared table with friends, rolling out the dice, and just having a good time i

They’ve finally done it, the players have made it to your big set piece. It wasn’t quite how you planned (not that ever is), but you’ve left yourself plenty of room to improvise. So much that… you have no idea which one to go with! Or maybe you’ve got a player who feels utterly incapable of coming to a decision if there isn’t an obvious course of action. Per the Oxford English Dictionary , “Option paralysis” (also known as “choice” or “decision” paralysis) is the inability to make a decision when presented with a wide range of choices, and it can take many forms at the gaming table… and even before you sit down! In an activity where our imaginations are frequently the only limiting factors, option paralysis is a near-universal problem. Let’s talk about the ways it can come up, and how we can cope with it. - B B : I find this often hits at the very first stages of coming up with scenarios, especially if you feel like you don’t have a good starting point, but also when you need to start

Planning on a Sunday drive this weekend? Oh no you ain’t, you’re going to play Pole Position! You may not have your Atari 2600 or 800 set up and ready to go (mine are safely packed in their dust covers). You may not have access to a sit-down arcade cabinet with wheel, stick shift and pedals. What you do have that's ready and easy to access is Risus: The Anything RPG . What is that? You can read about it in various places, including my Introduction to Risus on this blog. In a sentence: Risus is a rules-lite, versatile, and downright fun “anything” TTRPG. In my last Risus post , we looked at builds of the characters from Gauntlet for an arcade-themed setting I’ve been working on for far too many years, reminiscent of media like ReBoot , Tron , and Wreck-It-Ralph . This week, we’ll add Pole Position to the ranks of games included in this procrastinated sourcebook. If you’re somehow not familiar with Pole Position , you may want to go check out this historic arcade racing game. It

Once again, a Happy Pi Day to everyone and a Happy Blog Anniversary to Never Say Dice! We sure are glad that we've been able to put out some great posts every Saturday over the past year, and we’re especially that you've joined us. Special thanks to everyone following @neversaydice2 on Twitter who's helped us get to (and beyond!) 314 followers for this special occasion. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for all of you. Last year, you may remember us baking up a few pie-pun filled adventure hook treats for you. This time around, we’ve decided to do a brand new set that will be radian minute for you. First, though, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite posts from the past year, and a few thoughts on where the blog will go from here. - A Andy : One of my favorite co-posts of the year would be the one we wrote about The Twilight Zone . We covered a lot of ground in that post, and it was one of our first to get over 100 reads in its first week. We posted it right before we got

Many of you may be aware already, but March 10 is Mario Day! Maybe you’ll break out one of the 200+ games featuring Mario (no doubt Nintendo will have deals on a few), watch the Super Mario Bros. Super Show or read some Super Mario Bros. comics . No matter how you celebrate the day, you’ll be spending time with a character who has a long history and background. Your first experience with our favorite plumber may have been in Donkey Kong , Donkey Kong Jr. (the only game where Mario plays the villain) or the original Mario Bros . My first Mario experience, as is probably the case with many of you, was with Super Mario Bros. on the NES. Mario had already appeared in 21 games by this point, but it wasn’t really until Super Mario Bros. that audiences saw the character we recognize today. To celebrate the character of Mario, in true Never Say Dice fashion, let's talk about the story within that game. Think about the first time you sat down with that legendary game: Super Mario Bros.

Somehow, the stars have aligned, the schedules enmeshed, and all (or enough) players are present.  Now, whether you’re thoroughly prepared or winging it (you will always be winging it), it’s time to get things going. But how do you roll it all out, making sure that everything happens in the best possible places, and for the most appropriate length of times? How do you know when to ramp up, slow down, turn the tables, or call the cops it a night? Let’s talk about pacing your gaming sessions. - B B : Working out how to pace a gaming session is something GMs have had to deal with since the very beginning, and even though there’s never been a one-size-fits all approach, it must have been particularly vexing in the early days, before there was any basis of comparison. Board games and wargames have rhythms entirely determined by their rulesets and the players’ actions, concluding only under specific circumstances: when someone wins, or everyone gets bored and stops playing. Besides trial-an

Is romance in the air where you are? It's certainly brewing at Never Say Dice. No, not between Bugsy and Andy*, but as another tool to use in storytelling. Perhaps it's just an invention of the greeting card companies. Maybe it's the Rand Corporation, in conjunction with the Saucer People, under the supervision of the Reverse Vampires, that's forcing our parents to go to bed early in a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner! Like it or not, the Valentine’s Day holiday happens every year. When it comes around, nearly everyone (including us apparently) trots out their romance related stories. Should this only be a yearly thing? For most, romance and sexuality are a large part of the human experience, so why shouldn’t they feature in our stories and games? So, this week, lets discuss how you can incorporate this aspect of life into your tabletop time. Romance at the Table It isn’t difficult at all to find examples of romantic storytelling elements in literature and