Shopping for dice : Playing D&D after many years

[Bells]

Hi there fine people!

So, come closer as a share a tale with'ya'll

I have this very good friend of mine that works in a bank, we go way back over 10 years. Now he has a very nice job, a girlfriend, drives his own car, attends a unniversity, that sort of stuff. And me, i work in a offshore oil rig as a safety technician, have my savings, long term plans of life... i guess it's fair to say we are not kids any more.

I introduced him to RPG's a long time ago, and we played a lot with many different groups, quite often nixing away most of the rules to make it always simple and always fun. We had our dices, we had our books, we had our own "house rules" and quite often we had a table of 4-5 and most of the time 1-2 people new. Mostly starting dozens of campaign we would never finish. it was good!

Now, we don't play anymore ever since i moved a bit further away (we used to live at about a 20min walk away, not it's a 40min drive ) and we both got jobs and girls and went different places to study different things... this was about maybe... 7-8 years ago i think.

Over time, i've developed my own hobbies like building model kits (i'm the nerd of the group, always have been, always will be), but it kinds worried my that he did not. basically his life went about Home -> Job -> Girlfriend -> School -> repeat. Many of our friends went away and had gone to other things so, from our old group is pretty much just him and i.

So, i thought i should encourage him to take up a hobby, something of his own. I dunno, i think everybody needs their own little world, something to sink time and money every now and again for simple pleasure...

So, he told me the only thing he got excited about was playing D&D again. Me being a good friend and all (aren't i lovely?) decided to instigate him to get into it. Since now we are quite more mature and have money of our own to spare, we could kick it up in style... so he did! I went to work and he went to a book festival were he was supposed to get us our books. I would pay for the Master guide, he would pay for the Player guides.

Lo' and behold the beast of living in another country where any hobby can put a hole in your wallet...... he gets excited (as i kinda knew he would) and instead of buying me just the Master Guide for D&D 4E, he gets me an "Special Dungeon Master Starter Set". I don't even know what's in it, but it costed me R$120 bucks here! (about 70 Dollars) and it doesn't even have any dices... well, ok... i did get him excited for it, i might as well pay my share.

He couldn't get both player guides, just the monster compendium, so now i have to find him the books online. And i deiced to check out ebay for some dices... and well, those are actually pretty cheap and really cool looking, so now i'm pretty much a giddy schoolgirl looking at dices and going "ooooooooooh pweetty!!"

i'm pretty sure i'm going down another us$40 just on dices...

Also he wants his Girlfriend to join us, a 30y old Lawyer, looking to become a Judge in the future who has never Nerded it up or heard of RPG's

... so i might end up buying a Pink Dice Set and giving to him to give to her, i dunno... something to help her get into it!

Also, now we have Double Dices? that's awesome, a D20 inside a D20!... and i might get myself a "Dungeon Master Worthy" dice set, maybe one of those Clear ones...

So, yeah... this is a thread about all that! Share your own or just comment it!

[Marc v4.0]

I have my eye on a double set, one black obsidian with silvered dotting and the other bone with black dotting.

My current set is just a regular materials, dark green, black, and silver swirling

[Ryong]

Man, I just got a Chessex set of dice -these - and randomly buy some new ones. I'd recommend ordering a pound of dice, it's cheaper than buying a bunch of sets... On the books, yeah, dang they're pricy. I recommend getting some minifigs if you're playing D&D 4e, since you pretty much need a grid and having some random things stand in for creatures can be weird.

[Meister]

one die, several dice

Quick rundown on 4E books: Player's Handbook 1 definitely is, PHB's 2 and 3 might be out of print. Same for the DMG's, which is a shame, since the DMG2 is considered to be an excellent DM resource, not for mechanics but for the actual act of DMing.

The most up-to-date printed source on general rules is the Rules Compendium. Really good book, get one of those.

Monster books: with Monster Manual 3, the designers introduced a new mathematical framework for monsters. Stuff from MM1 and MM2 is still perfectly valid, just generally considered to be less fun. There's a book called Monster Vault that prints some iconic monsters from MM1 redesigned for the new maths. Also highly recommended. It comes with a bunch of cardboard monster tokens, too!

If you want all the options for character building you might want to get a D&D Insider account with Wizards. It gets you access to an online character builder and a compendium. The builder has every class ever published, including the ones from out-of-print books, and the compendium has everything. There are also quite substantial errata and updates that change some elements of the game in a big way from what was originally printed. They're worth checking out. That said: you're gonna be totally fine just leafing through the PHBs, playing what looks good and ignoring the bigger picture, so to speak.

[Bells]

Heh i ended up going with Chessex too i just got me one of these

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200509179059...ht_2742wt_1163

Very nice, and loved the price! Also got me a 10x pack of common D6, because you can never have enough of those... for just $2 so that's a plus.

I might check out most supplements on my own, mostly to introduce more options for the players and stuff like that, but since this might be a more casual thing, and it's been a LONG time since i got to play Pen and Paper RPG's i think it will take some time to get used to it again.

here is one thing though... i was considering cheap miniatures, since in fact, like was said here, i heard in other places too that 4e can benefit quite a lot from a physical map and miniatures for the games... but at the same time, i thought about using the little pegs from WAR tabletop games.

But what about maps? I know there are a few Programs that let you make and print maps, but you guys think those are worth your time?

[phil_]

Originally Posted by Bells

Also he wants his Girlfriend to join us, a 30y old Lawyer, looking to become a Judge in the future who has never Nerded it up or heard of RPG's

... so i might end up buying a Pink Dice Set and giving to him to give to her, i dunno... something to help her get into it!

Wouldn't black and gold be better? You know, judge colors. Something to accentuate her rolls while crying "I AM THE LAW!"

[Marc v4.0]

Only if she does the voice

[Bells]

My friend usually rolls cleric, if she rolls paladin it would be quite comic...

On a related note i just bought a pound of dice.

a pound.

of dice.

...that's way too many dices.

[Meister]

Originally Posted by Bells

But what about maps? I know there are a few Programs that let you make and print maps, but you guys think those are worth your time?

Depends entirely on how much time you want to spend with preparations, and to an extent on how much combat you expect. It works well with custom-designed maps for every scene, it works equally well with blank grids that you laminate and draw on with erasable markers.

"Benefit quite a lot" isn't entirely accurate, you do need some sort of map and miniatures. Personally I'd try blank grids first, you can always upgrade later.

[Bells]

yeah, the DM Guide has a Blank grid in it, i don't want to rip it or anything, but seems simple enough. i can use some simple tokens to place obstacles, doesn't have to be anything fancy...

I can even use some spare dices to do it! God knows i have a fuckton of those things now...