Uri Kurlianchik's page

Hey, we launched a patreon to cover the expenses of the comic and to have an excuse to post a silly video as well as silly comics. Gib a kik :)

Thanks for all the kind words!

ATM, we're kinda struggling to spread the word. If anyone has a blog or writes for a mage or just like to review stuff on their social network of choice, we're really appreciate a mention. Thanks!

Linky? :D

Murder in Oakbridge, Dungeon #129

A game where the characters can't use violence to solve all their problems sounds really interesting.

This was basically my guiding principle with my first ever publication with Paizo. You can use violence in this adventure, but you can also go through the entire plot without drawing your blade even once.

New story for your pleasure and entertainment. Hopefully this one gets the font size right :)

Oy! Thanks! :)

We've added a "First" button, will add the other two soon.

Also, new comic :)

Very funny. How often does it update.

Glad you're enjoying it! The comic updates every Thursday afternoon.

Where are you guys located?

I am Israeli and Jamie (the artist) is British. Alas, I can't in good faith give any tips regarding work in the States as I have never visited this part of the world. However, I hope to make my pilgrimage to GenCon sometime in the near future.

Drejk, this is a great idea. We will implement it presently :)

Awesome! I, too, was wondering if your venues were predominantly religious locations, based both off of the earlier comments and your story about figurative torches and pitchforks (and I agree it would be a cool power, and I hope that girls changes - or has changed - her mind; if only my wife had been there, things might have been different for her).

I do work in religious schools quite often, but I wouldn't say predominantly. The majority of kids in my classes are secular.

Where do you play? As in: what kind of locations do you meet/play in?

We are running various RPG and board games as an after-school activity in schools and community centers. More rarely, we work in libraries.

This is how it looks in real life in case you wondered...

Do you deal with a lot of synagogues?

I don't deal with any synagogues; I'm a DM, not a rabbi :)

So what are they playing, 5E, 4E, 3.5E, Infinite E? You said D&D.

Well, to be honest, we're doing all sorts of things with different groups, including some Battletech, FFG Star Wars and VTM, but when we do play D&D we use 5e. It's got very little math, which makes it more suitable for younger players. On the other hand, Pathfinder was recently translated to Hebrew, so that's something to consider as well.

Hi!

A friend and I have created a web comic inspired by stuff kids say during D&D games. I think you guys may find it amusing :)

RATS! is a game about talking rats trying to reclaim the world humanity has stolen from them thousands of years ago. Now, a war against everyone and everything costs quite a lot of money, so we would really appreciate your support. To this end, we've set an indiegogo, which is like kickstarter, only for rats. Come check our videos, art and excerpts.

We promise you that this is not an ambush...

There, follow me! .

I am very fond of the WW storyteller system. It's fairly universal, very intuitive and is supported by an almost obscene amount of products. For more story-based games, I really like Over the Edge, which is probably the simplest RPG system in the world.

The King in the South! :)

I'm running a Hunter: the Reckoning campaign and the players just went to Afghanistan. I was wondering if you had any ideas for suitable adventures to run in this setting? Also, are there any sourcebooks dealing with the area?

Presently I'm ripping off the Objective, but I fear it won't be enough :)

I do plan to make a full blown game out of it eventually, but the opening shot is fiction and art. However, most of these stories were "tested" as adventures with my group, so hopefully this book would make a useful, though statless, reference for a fantasy Israel campaign.

Thank you for your kind words and charitable mitzvah. You can read one of the stories here, btw. With Hugo on board, this is gonna rock :)

Regarding the adventure F2K had mentioned, I think he meant an old 2e D&D adventure that took place during the crusades (the setting, not the actual gameplay... he's not THAT old, I think...) and engaged locations in both present day Israel and Jordan. It was published in either Dungeon or Dragon. I could check, but the magazine stack is almost as high as me and quite frankly, I'm a tad bit afraid of it...

I'm working on a literary and art project that seeks to transform real Israel into a fantasy setting based on Jewish, Arabic and contemporary culture. I think this will be interesting for many folks, because for better or for worse, "Israel" is a place that is mentioned on the news all the time, but which didn't make it into the fantasy discourse until now. Also, many people expressed interest in fantasy settings which are not based on medieval Europe or Western culture, and this project is certainly a step in that direction.

Tales from an Israeli Storyteller is a cycle of 20 short stories and novellas born from exploring the most iconic locations in Israel. This is the story of the Israel you don’t hear about on the news – the Israel where a rabbi creates a smartass golem that comes back to haunt him during an unholy ceremony on Mount Meron, where talking animals search for justice among the demons and spirits of Ein Gedi, where a Bedouin hero confronts an evil book in the caves of Qumran, and where one clueless efreet keeps losing his wife in the Negev desert. In addition to stories, the book also includes dozens of paintings by Israeli and international artists.
While some of the characters are hard to meet, all the locations are real and very accessible, making this book a guide to some of the coolest places on the planet as well as an exploration of a modern fantasy setting inspired by the folklore and mythology of one of the oldest (and youngest) countries in the world.

For more information on the project, feel free to visit my IGG (which is like Kickstarter, only for non-Americans)

Will you assist a weary storyteller to finish his journey by throwing a couple of coppers into this project? Surely, the old gods of the Levant won't forget this when they make their triumphant return, commanding an army of golems, ghouls and genies!

Uri Kurlianchik wrote:

miscegenatic.

Hrm.

It means mixing things that shouldn't mix.

Nothing beats wiping humus with pitah and drinking red wine. It's so obscenely miscegenatic.

I am not very fond of deities because it became a bit of a cliche lately. Instead I use spirits - nature spirits, ancestor spirits, emotion spirits and so forth. A spirit can be as tiny as a spirit of a pretty tree in a green valley, or as epic as the spirit of the northern wind. Spirits can be reasoned with, angered, bribed and sometimes even intimidated (of course, trying to bully the spirit of a mountain, for example, might have crushingly bad results...).

Every spirit is dominant in its area and to be able to cast spells and perform rituals, the PCs must establish peaceful relations with the relevant spirits and keep them pleased throughout the campaign.

Bastard!! is the most D&D show ever! Not the high and noble D&D of books but the goofy and silly D&D of real games :)

I suppose that in real life a person could get killed from a fork stab. Then again, in real life, people die from infections contracted from stepping on nails or drown in puddles due to sudden queasiness. Taken to extreme, this could turn any RPG into a game version of a 1,000 ways to die...

I kinda forgot how RM mechanics go, but she rolled some awesome rolls and several criticals or something. I was dead on the spot.

Was your GM a female version of GRR Martin or something? :/

Hi Uri, just wanted to say first of all that I really liked Murder in Oakbridge.

I have a few gaming related quotes by kids, although they weren’t actually said by kids playing the game at the time ...

When I was in high school, my gaming group used to play at my home, and my little brother (who I think was about 6 or 7 at the time of this incident) would often hang around listening to us play. In one particular session our party had defeated a fortress of duergar in the underdark, and the party was debating what to do with the non-combatant women and children they had captured. My young brother piped up with, “Why don’t you set them on fire and make them run down the tunnels ahead of you, to save on torches?” .... Yes, he did go on to play morally ambiguous characters.

My son is 5, although he doesn’t play, he likes to look at my RPG books and hear stories of our games. Recently, when I was re-telling the a battle that took place in one of our games, which features a gunslinger, he looked at my quizzically and asked, “But why was Marcus using a gun in Dungeons and Dragons?”

Another time we were talking about creating characters, and I asked my son what he wanted his character to be good at. His honest answer: “Everything!”

Thank you for your kind words and very cool stories. The last one is something I hear very often from kids. Come to think of it, it's the most sensible answer :)

Or a comically over-sized sword :)

How did someone possibly gut you with a little girl?

Little girls are scary! Didn't you see ringu?

My group was infiltrating the enemy camp and had to pretend to join them in an attack on what were really their own allies, so they were shooting to miss on purpose, to keep their cover without hurting their friends. Only then, of course, one of the PCs rolled a 1. "Roll for damage," I told him. "What? But a one always misses!" "Exactly. You missed the air just over that guy's shoulder you were aiming at and hit him in the torso."

I'd have them roll again and if they scored another 1, the PC would have taken the arrow between the eyes. But that might just be me. I'm mean you see :)

Has the definition of 'kid' expanded to count 20ish years old? These do not sound like things children would say at all, or have been heavily edited.

The quotes are all translated, which makes the language sound more formal, but they had not been edited for content. They come from kids aged mostly 9-12 with few 13yo's, so you do get teens there as well.

Uri Kurlianchik wrote:

Kid: What happens if you try to fail and then roll a 1?

Something similar happened in my very first tabletop roleplaying experience, so I might as well put it down here because I was a kid then. Me and a friend were playing in a group of people that met in the Game Club of our school. The DM for the game was the popular Math Teacher who let all of the girls get away with things like being able to stop time or being half-dragon super witches but didn't really like any of the guys there that much. So, since there were a lot of people at the table, the DM shoehorned the guys into a situation where they'd die. And if they'd die, they'd have to stop playing.

It ended up that we were in a pass where a dragon or like a flaming rock fell on the party and engulfed them all in fireballs. The rest of the party, time-stopping witches included, made it, but me and a friend did not.

The GM talked about how we were instantly incinerated and went on and on about how badly we died to the point of asking us to "roll for dying" in a mocking tone.

Me and my friend both rolled 1s.

The ensuing conversation about 1s being auto-failures and us "rolling to die" meaning that we had failed at dying had us stay in the game for one more short session before the game died out.

Good times.

PS. Roughly eight years later, my death-failure buddy and I still play tabletops every weekend. The time-stopping witch is DMing Jade Regent. Good times continue!

Lovely teacher :)

Some favorites from the dndkids.com:

Glad you liked those. Pelor willing, more will appear as soon as the school year starts.

I taught my son to play Basic D&D when he was 4. I don't remember a lot of funny quotes, but I did have to teach him a lot of vocabulary, as he obviously hadn't known words like "Dexterity" "Constitution" and "Charisma."

When explaining the meaning of that last word, I gave an explanation like "Imagine you ask me for a cookie, I say no, you get mad and shout, and then I DEFINITELY won't give you the cookie. That shows a low charisma.

"Now imagine that I say no, and you say 'Oh, pretty please?' And I feel bad and give you the cookie. That shows that you have charisma."

A few days later, my son started making a character, rolled his six scores, and decided which score he wanted for which ability. He said "I want a high..." He then faltered, unable to remember the term. So he described it with the phrase "...oh pretty please."

Also, when he plays common board games with his friends, he speaks of "rolling initiative."

Great story! :)

LOL. We had a similar incident with a dog once, although it eventually did spit out the die, which since then has been reserved exclusively for rolls made by disgusting slimy aberrations...

Youngest kid I ever played with was 6, which is a bit too young. 9's probably the minimum safe age.

If the entire group is made of new players then you don't have to start with fully flashed characters from the beginning. Instead, fill the PC sheet over the course of several sessions. For example:

First do only race, abilities and skills - they're simple folks at this stage and don't have much to rely upon besides their cunning and resourcefulness. Calculate stuff like saving throws, armor class, attack bonus and so forth by yourself (assume all are commoners), unless the player seems to be interested in the mechanics (many just want to play, not get into the rules).

Then let each player choose a class, hopefully related to their actions during the first stage. The dude who hacked the goblin to death with a machete would probably want to be a fighter, while the one who went for the magic wand will want to be a wizard (crude example, but you see the point.) For even more gradual immersion, you could "open" class features one at a time rather drop them all at once.

Lastly, do feats. Just like with the previous stage, suggest folks pick up feats that represent their actions during the previous sessions.

Tried this several times and it was rather fun. Ever experienced players enjoyed the initial challenge.

Hi all!

I didn't post here since the late middle ages but now I'm back :)

I'm author of the D&D Kids tutorial series that was published on Wizards of the Coast this year and which now moved to geekcentricity. If anyone remembers, I'm also the author of Murder in Oakbrdige...

A lot of people told me that they liked the funny table talk quotes that came along with the articles on Wizards. To oblige them, I uploaded the best table talk I collected this year as well as some choice anecdotes from colleagues and friends to a new site - DNDkids. Gamers with quotes of their own are more than welcome to submit their funny (or scary) stories. "Funny D&D stories should not linger and rot inside one brain but entertain the whole community," is our motto (which I just made up).

There are also anecdotes from the table, tips on gaming with kids, adventures and creatures created by kids and so forth. Presently only mine, but I'd love to hear from teachers and gamers around the world about their experience of playing RPGs with kids.

Anyone interested in gaming with children, either because they want to share and improve their gaming experience or because they found the previous articles amusing, will hopefully enjoy DNDkids as well. Also, funny quotes - com'on, let's share!

P.S
A few nice memories from the table...

Kid 1: Can I make up my own God and worship him?
Kid 2: You won't be the first one to do so...

Kid: What's the difference between eladrin and elf?
DM: Eladrin is to Elf what British is to American.

Kid 1: Oh cruel world!
Kid 2: The world is not cruel, it's the DM who is cruel.

Kid 1 (playing a warforged): Why doesn't anybody love me!
Kid 2: Because you're running on Microsoft Vista. If you ran on Linux, everybody would have loved you.

Kid: Hephaestus is a smith, not a warrior. He only makes swords, he doesn't fight with them. It's the same like McDonald; they only make hamburgers, they don't fight with them.

Kid: What happens if you try to fail and then roll a 1?

Feel free to add your own!

I believe (though I might be slightly off) that this is in Exodus, when Moses is leading the people to the promised land. When you strip away the Greek and go right to the Hebrew text, possibly the most accurate translation is 'd!ck heads', which after a couple of translations is cleaned up to 'thick necked people',

Could you please refer me to the relevent verse? I studied the bible rather well and never came upon the expression "dlck heads" in fact, I'm not even sure there is a word for the male member in Bible Hebrew.

So, if you find this one, I'll be very grateful.

I'd love to give it a shot, though I admit to have never played a PbP before...

Another question, what happens to all the submissions that were not accepted? The rules say that:

I understand that all submissions to the RPG Superstar contest become the sole property of Paizo Publishing and that I willingly forgo any and all ownership of submitted materials and give all such rights to Paizo freely and without encumberment.

Does it mean that Paizo may use the submissions later? If it can, will the owner get paid for it? If not, can he use them in other works in the future?

Thanks.

An excellent start!

Hello good people,

Does anyone know of any hobby shops in Zurich?

Thanks.

P.S
Bad people can answer the post too.

Interesting idea. In my campagin the players actually role-played their first kill (it started when they were 12) but it is defintly something I'll take into consideration from now on

...The bad part is that I had two additional greenlights that never got written...

Which reminds me, what about stuff that was greenlit AND written?

I am a were-cabbage too, hear my roar!

Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

Can anyone honestly say that WotC's D&D is reliable? Now they're telling us all the content we're going to be paying for will be on their crappy servers???

If I needed something out of Dungeon, I can go into my room and open the magazine up. Now if I need something from their stupid digital initiative, I have to hope that their website is working properly and that my internet connection is working properly. I sure do love paying for things I can't use!

There is a great solution - don't pay!

Uri Kurlianchik wrote:

A black day!

The Black Hole has finally consumed the multiverse.

Not just the multiverse; the Black Hole has finally consumed itself! My only hope is for a new slush pile for Pathfinder...

The Black Hole is Dead; Long Live the Bermuda Triangle?

Will it be possible to submit adventure ideas for the gamemastery line?

I agree. I am absolutely sure he did everything he could. This is WotC's colossal error, not Paizo's.

Crime would be a more appropriate term...

"And the wicked shall inherit the earth."

What about manuscripts submitted to Dragon?