Have Dice, Will Travel

So, this is a thing that happened; I just did my first gig as a professional DM.

This has been a long time coming. I've been teaching D&D to people for years--decades, really, and using D&D to promote language arts, stimulate communication skills, and encourage role-playing and creative problem solving. I have also taught the game to lots of people who want to swing swords, cast spells, and kill monsters. So, win-win.

The professional Dungeon Master sits at the intersection of today's Gig Economy and the rise in Geek Culture. A lot of people are intrigued by Dungeons & Dragons, and would like to play the game, but there is still something about the game, no matter how well-written the current rules are, that make it an activity that is better taught by someone who knows what they are doing instead of puzzled out for oneself. YouTube has helped, somewhat, but honestly, there's no better learning experience than roiling the dice for yourself.

I suppose now I'll need to formalize a price sheet, and maybe put it on this site, and very likely update that, as well. Can't have a blogspot address, after all. Doesn't send the right message. Or does it? I make a point of stating I've been doing this for a while. I wonder if I can still get an Earthlink account?

Dice Delve: A Duo of Dueling Diffusions

The artisanal craft dice market continues to expand and contract like the big bang model of the universe in its own teapot tempest of a cottage industry. It's gotten so widespread and self-referential to have spawned the appearance of trends, I swear to Crom. Trends! For Dice! Lately the up and coming seasonal trend seems to be a spin on the glitter dice of old, only with confetti-sized sparkly-stuff suspended in clear acrylic, like a frozen snow globe. I won't be reviewing any of those dice.

But I did pop for something that was quite the rage last season, and that was clear dice with a second translucent (or two) swirled into the clear acrylic. As one of those "Oooh pretty" ideas, several (as in, many) dice companies dove into coming up with clever name and color combinations seemingly overnight; these things hit all at once, and there were actually concurrent Kickstarters running for two different company's iterations of these dice. I made the executive decision to get the same kinds of these "Diffusion" dice or "Ethereal" dice so as to better compare like with like. The question was, of course, "do I like?" That all depends.