rpg – Gamerdad Games & Edutainment

January 9, 2022January 9, 2022

A keen young DM has appeared… together with his eager as beavers family members forming his party!

It absolutely stoked me when I was called to DM for a family of four at a Learn-to-Play D&D event last Saturday. I was told that a mum had signed up on behalf of her son who was keen to learn how to play the game. Apparently, they have bought the Starter Set but he was having trouble picking it up. So, I told Criticals & Fumbles to gave them the nod to register as a family and they happily obliged.

I give maximum kudos to an 11 year-old for stepping up and trying to learn this game so that he can run it for his family. Alas, some things are best learnt from those who can, for a start. I mean, you can’s just buy a car and learn how to drive by reading the manual or watch a YouTube video, can you?

Over the span of 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon… we went over the basic rules, the difference between race versus class, the relative importance of role-playing albeit with some attempt at voice-acting, how to identify which dice to be used and what to look for in their character sheets when asked to do a Skill check or a Saving throw. The young lad himself was so focused and knew exactly the parts where he needed to seek clarification. The ‘I-now-get-it’ expressions on his face every now and then are what DMs like me live for.

On the day itself, the Dad admitted that he didn’t know what he was signing up for but was more than glad to learn and be surprised. Needless to say, by the end of the session, he expressed how it was mind-boggling to see the skills needed to run a game and the extra care given to ensure every new player has enough support in terms of equipment like; dice sets, beginner character cards, spells cards, hit point counters, gorgeous maps and intricately painted miniatures.

My inspiration of writing this blog was actually – the young DM wanna-be. His enthusiasm was infectious that it got the rest of the family curious and from this session alone, he managed to get wonderful support from his parents that they actually agreed to buy the pretty massive Immersive Battlemaps book! Step one step closer to being an awesome DM 🙂

Every Learn-to-Play session that I do for families and kids, is to really share how a few hours can turn into a wonderful, highly interactive moment of storytelling where we build memorable moments together – regardless of the dice outcomes that either force you to succeed/fail your intended actions – because it’s all part of what makes the game what it is… sort of a ‘controlled chaos’ where everybody leaves with a sense of satisfaction, achievement and especially having fun.

Well, for the games I run for families and and children at least. For adults, there are DMs who thrive and excel in other varieties of storylines or endings that are morally grey. We do what’s appropriate for the group and/or when the group is ready.

December 1, 2021

Dice Games

Aaaah… dice! One of the earliest and easily recognized game accessory of all time.

The six-sided (d6) is by far the most common one and would be the first many would picture in their mind at the mention of the word – dice.

However, games have evolved and we now gladly throw what we call ‘math rocks’ or ‘click clicks’ that range from being 2-sided (d2)…

or one with a hundred sides (the d100!) across the table.

You know how there are some women who likes to collect shoes, bags and whatever accessories to their fancy? Or how some men collect watches, wallets etc? Speak to some gamers and you’ll discover that there is such a thing as Dice Goblins. Chances are – they’ll be more than happy to whip out a photo of their rather impressing collection of dice.

In the classroom, dice has been used to teach Maths (obviously!) and even Language Arts. What’s more fun than throwing dice to do basic mathematical equations at primary school than rolling dice with friends, right? I’m willing to put money on guessing that if your English/Language teacher had brought in these storytelling cubes, it would have been one of the best writing activities you’d easily remember having fun the most during class.

The fact that the regular set of role playing dice comes in a variety of polygonal shapes, sometimes it’s hard to tell them apart. We use them regularly for our sessions, especially in out “Adventurer’s & Writers” enrichment sessions so we’re created a blog entry with their descriptions. We’ve uploaded a file, together with 3 suggested dice-games in the Products section of this website. It’s FREE for you to download – here!

December 1, 2021

Know your POLYHEDRONS

A guide to the standard set of 7 RPG Dice.

Most of the dice are given names like d6 or d20. The ‘d’ is for dice and the ‘number’ refers to the number of faces / sides the dice has.

This four-sided often referred to as the d4. You typically read the number that is the right side up and oriented the right way.

We all know this one… the six-sided cube – the d6.

The eight-sided one is often referred to as – the d8.

This d 10, is the ten-sided dice is the one with only single digits on each face.

There is another ten-sided dice but it’s the one with the double digits (00-90). We call this the PERCENTILE dice.

This dice is usually thrown together with the d10 to produce a ‘percentage’ result. The digits on the percentile dice represents values in the tens-place while the d10 digit is for the ones-place. It’s kind of tricky for newbies but we’ll try to give you some simple examples to explain;

So… how do you get 100%?

This is the only way to get 100% and won’t count it as a 0% because… that would be mean.

Next, we have the twelve-sided dice that we call – the d12.

Finally, the one where we roll the most during most RPGs… the 20-sided dice that determines the fates of many. That roll to see if your character does something heroically amazing, of he fails in epic proportions… both tales befitting to be recalled many times over as your group is bound to reminisce – the icosahedron – d20.

If you’re keen to try out some neat games involving this set of amazing math rocks, click THIS link to download the rules for 3 simple Maths games you can play with anyone.

There is an offer on Fruit Dice in our store too which will make cute gifts for children and probably your friend who’s a Math teacher. How did they put those tiny inserts in the cube?!