Guide to Roleplaying

Tabletop roleplaying has become one of my great passions in this hobby. Meeting up with friends to act out adventures that a dice (and sometimes a Dungeon Master) will determine is great fun and fantastic escapism. But what can you do to make yourself a better roleplayer?

First off, speak to the dungeon master and fellow players about what you want from the game. A bloodletting dungeon crawl can mean a lower amount of roleplaying and more fighting, whereas a grand campaign with a huge narrative arc allows a huge amount of scope for really delving into a character and backstory. This will help set the mood with your group at an early stage and put everyone one the same level.

When it comes to creating a character, think about how much you want to be involved with the roleplaying aspect. To keep it simple, choose a race and class that appeal to you and put a little of your own personality there. Humans are always a good start as we know how they act already, but Elves and Dwarves aren't too dissimilar to play either. If you're looking to push your skills then races like Tieflings, Dragonborn and Goliaths can really open up your perspective. A good DM will have the world react differently to differing races and this can be really interesting to play.

In terms of a backstory always converse with the DM. The first thing is to understand the setting, which will then spark some ideas as to where your character fits in. Talk to the DM about your idea and they may be able to link you into the story even more which will immerse you even more. The more immersion, the better the roleplaying.

When you begin playing theres some things to remember. Every player will, or at least should, get time to shine. This can be from triumph in a battle getting the last hit on a renowned enemy to being the focus of a story arc in which you'll do a lot of talking and roleplaying. These moments are great for your character so really try to lose yourself in these moments. Likewise, if its a fellow players time the best thing you can do is to give them the time to shine. If they are nervous about roleplaying then you can help them get immersed. If its in the heat of a battle, you can try to set them up for a finishing blow, either by an ability or spell that can buff them or by flanking or aiding them to give them advantage. If its more character based with conversations with NPCs then just help them with little questions the player may be unsure of to ask, ask them questions that will then inspire them to talk more with the NPC's. Being a great roleplayer isn't just about playing a good character but about helping the players around you be better roleplayers too.

There will also be many times when you know things as a player but your character may not. I usually mention to the DM 'I know how to do something but I'm unsure my character will, can I roll a check to see if he does?' to see if the character will know, or quite often not even mention it. Your character will have a different variety of knowledge compared to you and this works in the opposite way too. The DM mentions something you know nothing about but think your character will? Ask your DM and hopefully they'll ask you to make an ability check. You might learn something new!

 My final piece of advice is also to accept that you will make mistakes or bad decisions and have some truly terrible sessions where the dice rolls are incredibly bad. Yes its annoying, but don't get angry at such things as they will affect the rest of the players at your table. Remember TTRPG'ing is a game and a shared experience with a number of other players and a Dungeon Master. Player etiquette should always be a priority in a group, the happier each player is the more enjoyable the session will be for everyone. Someone roll a nat20? Give em a clap or a cheer! Someone roll a nat1? Have a collective groand but laugh too!

So there we have it! I'm learning all the time when I'm roleplaying so expect more thoughts on this tremendous aspect of gaming in the future, perhaps I'll be able to get other peoples thoughts too from fellow players and dungeon masters. If there are topics you'd like me to cover then please get in touch and I'll see what I can do, Don't forget my affiliate link with The Outpost above if you want to get some nice discounts from your tabletop gaming needs and I'll be back again soon with another blog post.

Armoured Boxing Day

Ahoy there tabletoppers! Hope everyones Xmas was good, mine was alright but glad its over to get things back to normal. Feeling productive this morning after last night I watched the new Netflix original, Bright. Not a bad film and am hoping they can go somewhere with it as theres a lot of scope with the story! While watching the film, I put these together!

The armoured containers for 40k were good fun to stick together, nice and simple too! 

And todays progress has been to base them  along with some of the Necromunda terrain. I've gone for a mix of colours, all to be weathered and rusted up hopefully! I've got the Thermal Plasma Reactors to put together and get based too along with so many other things!

Have to give a shout out to my sister who as part of my present got me a new set of D&D dice, first roll was a 19! Now the eternal struggle to find somewhere to use them!

So thats the Boxing Day update, hoping tomorrow will mean these are starting to look a bit more weathered and make a start on some of the details. I'm really fancying some 40k again soon so may try get some painting done on the Genestealer Cult or Daemons too then throw some challenges down. 

So looking towards future posts, I've been tempted to scour the internet each week and perhaps put together a little highlight post about the best things I've seen to do with tabletop each week, would this be interest to you readers?  Let me know and I'll see what I can do!

Please Allow Me....

To reintroduce myself.

So who is this great bufoon behind the blog? Well, put simply, me. Known infamously as Big Kev or vandalworks (twitter, instagram, XBL, facebook) I am not only large in size but also large in nerdiness. Over the last year, Death By Die, has been put to the side a little as real life came to the forefront and decimated my time and mental stability. But now it would appear that I need this more than I realised. I've missed blogging, writing about things I love (mainly gaming of the dice and card based kind) and hearing from people and making new friends. So where do we start? Lets talk about the shit I love.

This last year, myself and a couple of our club members (The Gwent Reavers) got into Dungeons and Dragons. We didn't know what to expect, but I think massively enjoying it wasn't one. I thought it would be ok and worth a go, but I've now become a huge fan of being a DM (thats short for dungeon master) and helping to create these adventures for my friends to gallantly garner victory or hilariously fail basic tasks. Gav, looking at you kid. What makes this so good is character development, seeing people you know get into who they have become for a game and trying to go against what might be a better tactical option for something more in line with their character. And the best thing now is that we're soon having our first regular roleplay night with a few new people. Should be good and will be something I'll blog about in the future! 

Ah Sons of Anarchy. This represents not just how much I adore board games but certain TV shows too. Sons being one, Game of Thrones being another. I don't get in to many but the ones I do get into, I may blog about occasionally! Also keep an eye out for movie posts, with a Force Awakens thoughts post coming soon!

Everyone needs their ideal snack for gaming, and by Christ Squashies are the best. From full to empty in a short and often unbelievable amount of time these little pillows of goodness are addictive. Hence why I've been clean for a few weeks. But soon....

Being born in the year of the Empire, (1980) I was a pure eighties kid. Cartoons were probably at their best with Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bravestarr and a plethora of other goodies being crammed into my eager and toy needing eyes. But if one caught my attention more than any, it was Transformers. Generation One Transformers to be specific. When the vehicles got a little scifi they were'nt Robots in Disguise anymore, which was ok but I preferred the real looking ones. Expect much gushing if I spy Transformer related goodness. 

Ah Blood Bowl, my first love. Not only have Games Workshop released the first sculpts for the new addition and therefore given me the biggest nerd-on in the last year but I picked up the sequal to the original videogame on the Xbox One and its been enjoyable. I took a little time off videogames for a few years but a few months ago Star Wars Battlefront was being released and I needed to get back on board. Expect some videogaming posts on this very blog! Along with the Blood Bowl tabletop game I do play the occasional game of 40k and am often found tinkering around with some Space Marines, so progress, which you can find over various posts previously in this blog shall continue!

Wrestling. Yes, I'm a fan of the theatrical fight where men in pants covered in baby oil act and grapple for a new belt. From WWE to local wrestling, if I can get to some shows I'll be giving thoughts on them and about things that happen in the wrestling world as I see fit to comment on. Royal Rumble is just around the corner and may well be the first subject on this blog! 

So thats my reintroduction of who I am, and what you can expect as I attempt to inspire myself to blog and annoy you about all things I feel most nerdy about. 

Geek on Garth.

Saturday Salvo: Xwing, Chaos vs Imperum Marines

So the weekend is here, and I've got a nice chunky post for you all. I took a visit down to Cwmbran a couple of days ago, met up with one of the fine men of the Crow Valley Crusaders who sold me a Vindicator and Land Raider Redeemer for a very nice sum. They've both been undercoated and will be worked on in the next couple of weeks! While there I popped into GW, and got to watch a good game of 40k between Tau and an Imperial Fists and Aurora Chapter force. The Tau's gunline proved too much and the Riptide caused a lot of damage. Great fun to watch though. I also picked these guys up, and combined them with parts from the new Tactical Squad and Sternguard box sets.

Grav-guns ahoy! Two Grav-guns and a Combi-grav, should prove deadly and as they're so quick they can quickly advance and pour deadly fire into the most heavily armoured infantry the enemy can muster... or big buggers like Riptides, Greater Daemons and Wraithknights... after playing Alun a couple of weeks ago and decimating his Bloodthirster with them I needed to purchase! Also, my Chapter Master is pretty much done too so thought I'd take a better pic of him. 

I'm still not 100% on the flames but happy enough to not redo this guy anytime soon, as he looks good on the tabletop and thats what matters for me! When my greenstuff skills get much better I may go back then and redo the sword but for now I'm sure he'll get plenty of kills. 

Also got some better pics of my Skaven inspired Chaos Marine, who I've now based. Doesn't look too bad if I may say so myself, so will probably get a squad done to see how they look combined. Plus with the amount of conversion ideas I'm getting a small force may slowly come!

Last Monday at club I also got to have a quick game of X-wing, so heres some pictures! Jason has become a big fan of this game and has most of the ships, but we kept things simple for my first game. 60pts each would mean about 3 ships for me and about double for Jase. 

I took a prototype pilot A-wing, which proved really useful even though I didn't expect much. It took some hullpoints off a tie fighter in the first turn and proved difficult for the tiefighters to lock onto because of its speed. I lost an Xwing but was able to take all the tiefighters out with the A and Xwings. 

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the game, and the second guessing of movement and what abilities to use. Do you focus to survive or lock on to try and take the enemy down, or use a special ability to shake someone following you? So nice having only two phases, moving and shooting. Means theres less to forget!

Next time I'll try the Imperial forces, see what its like having all those tiefighters to control! Perhaps see if I can try a larger game too, as this only took about 45 minutes! Ideal for having a series of quick games, switching sides or even linking them together. 

The models are also really cool, well painted and look really good on the table. Jase also had the cool gaming mat you can see in the pictures, and with the size only being 3x3 you can easily fit it onto most dining tables, which means gaming is easier to come by! Can't be a bad thing at all! 

So coming up soon will hopefully be painted bikers, Redeemer and Vindicator. Hopefully I'll do a few more Chaos Marines too using Skaven and Beastmen bits, just to see what I can come up with. We'll be having an alldayer in the middle of December so I cannot wait to get some gaming done then, see what we can come up with!

Death of a New Era.

Well welcome, to Death By Die! Formally the Evandalists, but now with a new title to show how much more encompassing this blog is, or at the very least will be! Its coming up to two years of this blog being a breathing creature, and today it comes to adulthood with an almighty roar. Not on that, but in the coming weeks my Space Marine Chapter will also be renamed, but that is yet to be decided upon. As my army comes up close to the battle company level it seems like a good time to do so. The Evandalists, as they've been known as, was always a stand in name until I'd thought of something better. Only problem was, I'd forgotten to think of something! So keep an eye out for that.

First of all I need to pass on a huge thanks to Ieuan from Sons of Isis, the guy is a true Hero and deserves some Terminator honours for this tribute!

Last tuesday was my birthday, and Ieuan made me this especially, hes a classy lad fair play, hit his blog up to see his lovely looking army and purple hands!

Next up two weeks ago I took part in the first Apoc game using the new updated 6th edition rules, and had a hell of a blast. Theres a bit of narrative to sort out yet but the pictures are ready, so a post on this will happen fairly soon! All you need to know whoever was just how immense the game was.

There was 24k points in total, and had my marines teamed with Morgans Space Wolves vs the evil duo of Adam and Alun with their Nurgle Marines and Daemons with Traitor Guard. Cracking game and some good moments... more on that in the next week though! 

Next up that I need to tell you about, is this bad boy! Drop Zone is coming out as a boxed game, and I'm incredibly tempted if I can find the money aside from GTAV and the new Marines codex! 

Not only do you get everything you need, but the price is £60 rrp. How good is that?!! Well theres better... My good friend Adam who runs Putrid Painting, has it up on his site for a very nice £50, I'm not even kidding! We'll be getting a copy to try out at club and seeing what its like when its released at the end of September. 

So what else can you guys be expecting with this new name? Well the post I made about the Iyanden Craftworld from a scanned White Dwarf seemed popular, so I'll do this a little more often. I'll also be projecting my thoughts upon new releases, adding my own ideas etc. I'm also hoping to bring to you a new game thats being developed and sculpted by a new member to our club who lives just over the mountain, but that deserves its very own post. For now though I'll let all that and the new name sink in... 

Death By Die.