The twenty-sided die, or d20, is such an iconic symbol of pen-and-paper RPGs that this column was named in reference to it (or perhaps in reference to a Penny Arcade reference to it). Over time, an entire modular system has been constructed around it (aptly named “the d20 System”), releasing it from its origin as one of a half-dozen oddly-shaped dice in a standard Dungeons & Dragons kit and giving it a life of its own.
When I agreed to revisit this column for Snackbar’s ten-year anniversary, I knew that I would have to overcome one fundamental problem. You see… my preferred RPG system of choice, back when I had time for such things, doesn’t use d20s. Or indeed any dice at all that are not ten-sided (d10s).
Welcome to White Wolf’s The World of Darkness (WoD). READ MORE
The Avatar, of Origin’s Ultima fame, has been through quite a bit over the years – that much is undeniable. He went to Britannia umpteen times as well as Sosaria and the islands of Fe, Fi, Fo, and Fum before Britannia even rose from the murky ocean depths, each time solving countless social, political, religious, and racial issues. He went also to Mars, to a prehistoric Earth, to the famed, multi-tiered dungeon known as the Stygian Abyss, and even to a labyrinth of fragmented, fractured worlds in a desolate, paranoid version of Britannia. The Avatar even tussled with the Guardian on Pagan, a planet not many from either Earth or Britannia could ever claim to see.
In fact, Ultima is unique in that it is a very long-running role-playing game series in which the main protagonist, the same one throughout the series, evolved very little in comparison to the world he often found himself in. Though he did technically evolve from one trilogy to the next – in fact, he did not acquire the A
On today’s edition of I Roll Twenties, we have decided to propose a little alternate history and imagine the life and times of a popular Japanese RPG protagonist in an American RPG setting. For instance, what if the infamous vault dweller of popular ARPG Fallout were really Tidus of Final Fantasy X fame? What if Tidus’ Zanarkand never actually existed, and instead, this spiky haired hero had woken up in Vault 13, ready to take on the world to save his fellow vault dwellers from dehydration. The first problem Tidus would encounter is attire. Though his exploits on Spira garnered him a lot of crazy looks from the local populace, in Fallout, his fellow vault dwellers would undoubtedly frown on Tidus’ choice of loud, almost absurd clothing. While citizens of neither Spira nor post-apocalyptic Los Angeles seem to change their outfits from day to day, the standard vault dweller costume – a head-to-toe blue jumpsuit – would certainly have set Tidus apart from the crowd. How did he obtain this clothing, anyhow? Perhaps Tidus moonlit as a seamstress within the vault, but it seemed that everyone from the Overseer on down wore nothing but those same blue overalls. Similarly, Tidus’ hairstyle, a semi-spiky A
