FoxTrot by Bill Amend for January 16, 2011

Where did the snow goons come from? Calvin and Hobbes?

Who said these games didn’t promote enough physical activity? Try tossing those dice!

They look like gianormous DnD dice.

Much too complex and geeky for me to understand.

Better yet, just roll the dice into the front giants. “It’s super effective!”

I remember seeing the 20-sided dice in high school, but I don’t remember them being THAT big!

The D6 is for initiative, not the D20.

Not in any good system.

D&D 3rd edition uses 1d20 for initiative roll. D&D 2nd edition used 1D10. Initiative is calculated by rolling the die, adding dexterity bonus, adding or subtracting bonus items (for instance magical items that may speed you up or slow you down) then subtract weapon speed.

The higher your dexterity, the more likely chance you’ll go first instead of the monsters. Small weapons like knives are much faster than big two handed swords, but do much less damage.

This takes RPGs to a whole new level!

We seem to have a bit of an Ymirgency here.

Who’s the little snowman in the middle with the medallion and the ears?

611Kwel said, “D&D 3rd edition uses 1d20 for initiative roll. D&D 2nd edition used 1D10. Initiative is …but do much less damage.”

Stop that ! :-)

sandfan said, about 2 hours ago Who’s the little snowman in the middle with the medallion and the ears?

That’s the snow elf. The reason he looks so small is that everything is scaled down—Jason and Marcus would be incapable of building a to-scale frost giant.

Either those D12s are missing a lot of numbers, or Bill forgot that D20 sides are triangles, not pentagons.

This is what happens if you make them play outside for a change

I don’t play these games, but my boyfriend does and I find it a little disturbing that I understand these comments. Although I don’t recall him talking about snow elves.

Dang, del_grande, you beat me to it.

Um, take a look at a d20 sometime. The facets are triangular, not pentagonal. He drew a warped 12 sider, there.

Way too geeky for me… comments and all!

That’s the beauty of comics, artistic license.

You don’t understand, this is an automatic classic to anyone who plays D&D, and tomorrow there will be DM screens all over with this on the front (the side facing the players). Also, someone probably has snow elves in the works right now for some of their players to encounter.

darkforce - d6 was what was used for init in AD&D 1e. And like 611kewl said, 2e used a d10.

Well, okay. Here’s a totally geeky comment for you.

Each dice is drawn as dodecadron (each side is a pentagon), but a dodecahedron has only 12 sides.

For a 20-sided dice, you need icosahedrons (where each side is a triangle).

I got quite a chuckle out of the comic, though, so mission accomplished :)

ok then,, I’ll just go and watch the D&D cartoon instead! hehe

toon joke on how mentally ill/dorked out the kids were. i dont think it was intended to flush out the human versions, here. scary.

Uh what level is Marcus’s Snow Elf? I’m a dnd’er and I mainly use elfs and dwarfs in the game also is Jason doing a dungeon?

Duh. You roll for initiative with a SIX-sided die!!!!!!

How much time did they spend making those dice and making sure each side is patted down almost perfectly and STILL managing to keep those sides patted down almost perfectly while writing the numbers with really good handwriting?! TWICE!!! Twenty times for each die!

This roll can’t be random. Just go ahead and pick a good number.