#Blaugust2019 Day 29 -- Dun Rolled and Dun Told

Yesterday I took time during my lunch break to head down to my favorite comic book store and look for the brand new Rolled & Told release.  It was pretty crowded over by the comics since a lot of new comics dropped yesterday and rather than fight the 4 people in front of the new comics section for positioning, I dropped by the D&D section of the store and looked around there at what they had to offer. Not only that, my comic book shop sometimes also puts the Rolled & Told back with their D&D stuff . . . but not yesterday.

After things had cleared out a bit I made my way over and found the newest as it proudly proclaimed on the cover . . . HERE THERE BE GRANDMAS!  I love you rolled and told.

The cover was soft as ever . . . ohmigosh I love the feel of the cover of Rolled & Told. They made such a good choice on paper stock.

While I was there I glanced over and saw another interesting comic called "The Necromancer's Map," and even better it was issue 1. HUH?!  OK!  I mean, that totally sounds like a comic that the Friendly Necromancer would read, correct?

As it turns out, that's exactly the type of comic a friendly necromancer would read as the heroine of the story is in fact, a friendly necromancer. Looking on the publisher's website there are 5 future issues of this comic slated for now and it is kind of a continuation of a previous comic called Songs for the Dead. There's even a website specifically made for Songs for the Dead. Wild. I had no idea about this!

Aside from the "spaceship porn comic" advertisement at the back of the comic, it was a pretty good read. (That's . . . just not my scene) I liked the characters and premise enough, I'll probably be getting the rest of the series and reading what past stuff I can from Songs for the Dead.

Speaking of reading "past stuff" . . . do you guys realize how amazing my wife is? No? So, she read my blog (that's an awesome wife right there) and called a comic shop down in south Austin who actually had the June copy of Rolled & Told that I was missing from my collection. (You may remember me whining about that earlier in the month). That's how you know you've got a keeper . . . it's not the 25 years of marriage, 3 kids, and all that . . . it's that they read your blog and bought you a comic. LOL. Obviously I'm kidding, but she is pretty amazing. THANK YOU UBER WIFE! MY COLLECTION IS COMPLETE!

As for the new issue of Rolled & Told itself . . . I just love the weird adventures they come up with. This month there's a romp through a haunted house and a Demon Queen's Haven. There's also articles on roadside shrines and how to get your innocent family members involved in roleplay among other things.

All good stuff at the comic shop yesterday! (Also, the gyro I had for lunch was the perfect companion to reading some tasty comics. Yum!)

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust2019 Day 6 -- Catching up with Rolled and Told

Back in September I started talking about a "comic" (although hard pressed to call this a comic . . . more like a really cool D&D resource in comic book style) I had discovered at a local game shop.  Rolled and Told!  I even talked about how happy I was to pick up issue one. Then . . . silence . . . sorry about that.

I had been posting a lot back then, and then posts just sputtered out. The kids were back in school and life got busy. Well now that Blaugust is here and I need content to post about, here's a "catching up" post on what happened since then when it comes to Rolled and Told.

1- I now own every issue save for one.

Such a bummer I'm missing that June 2019 issue. Cash was tight that month, and I thought I'd have no trouble picking up the issue early in July . . . only to forget about it and then miss my opportunity. I've been to 3 local comic stores so far and no one has it. Sigh. Now the hunt begins.

2- I was also psyched to see they put out a hard cover book with the first six months of the Rolled and Told comics PLUS extra content you can't get from owning the comics alone. I kinda want that.

3- Now the real question . . . have I actually run any of the adventures from these books? YES . . . well, one. I've run the Thunderlock Barcrawl adventure from the very first free promotional comic (aka Issue zero).

It was pretty great. I incorporated it as a side quest for an adventure on the high seas for my group that I DM for.  Basically the captain was bargaining with my players for their wages on the ship and then gave them an offer they couldn't refuse . . . her best signing bonus . . . all they had to do was win the Thunderlock Barcrawl.

Running the Thunderlock Barcrawl felt very much like running an escape room adventure for D&D characters. It's a series of action packed trap rooms that took a full two sessions to get through.

• There's a long hallway of shifting floorboards, flame traps, acid pools and stun spores . . . all while a large iron spiked wall slowly closes in on the party
• There's an animatronic owl bear
• There's a room with flying skulls
• There's a false-floored treasure room
• There's a room that's shooting arrows out at you from every direction
• There's a room with false levers that will send your party plummeting into a mist of doom
• There's a room with laughing faces that spew magic spells at you while you try to pull a lever.
• There's a room full of giant rats and a giant rat generator machine.

It's crazy, and it's fun, and the group made it through this whole nonsense and got their big signing bonus on the ship. HOORAY!

They were absolutely exhausted by the time it was all done . . . kind of like how you feel when you partake in a live-action escape room with a group of friends in real life.

As a DM for this, I have to say it was super confusing to have to keep track of all the initiative orders for all the traps. Typically in our games we work intiative in such a way that you just go in a big circle . . . either clockwise or counterclockwise based on who got the biggest numbers for their initiative rolls.  For this adventure, I had to do it by the book because I had flame traps going off on 5 inititive while blunted arrows shot out on a 10 initiative, etc. It made things a little hectic for me.

They were all 4th level characters, so they really had nothing to fear and by the end they had figured out the smoke and mirrors of the encounter.  If they had all been level one characters, I'm sure they would have never made it through. That would be a tough challenge for sure.

On the plus side, it was fun and very unique, and it was funny seeing Jeff Toney rage a bit when they couldn't find the fourth lever to get them through the final door. He was like, "Just drink a giant strength potion and rip the door down!" Nope. I wouldn't let 'em do that. You gotta figure out the puzzle, adventurers.

Anyway, I'm really digging this series and would love to run more adventures from Rolled and Told. These are chock full of one-shots that would be perfect for running over lunch at work.

Maybe someday!

Happy Dueling!