new D&D webcomic!

[t_catt11]

Loaded Dice (http://www.rdinn.com/comic.php), the Red Dragon Inn's webcomic, has finally been released (after more than a year on the drawing board).

The strip will follow the gamers themselves, as well as the adventures of their characters. Updates will be Monday and Thursday.

Hopefully, it will meet the standards of this community. :)

[Nerd-o-rama]

...Your username is familiar. It also gave me unreasonably high expectations of *cough* naughtybadfun in this comic.

Anyway, I can't really give an opinion of the comic from one page, but that one page is done pretty well for an introduction comic. A little heavy-handed on the narrator exposition - you could have gotten by without pointing out that Rich is always early and Ray is always late, or that Ray brought new people, or with the descriptions of the new people....but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that the Captain Obvious Narrator was stylistically intended, as it gave me pleasant Speed Racer nostalgia.

[t_catt11]

I believe that you damage my good name. Pistols at dawn! :smalltongue:

Thanks for the honest assesment. To tell the truth, strip #1 is my least favorite of the ones we have completed so far; it felt a bit forced, and I agree, the narration was overdone. Have no fear, this does not persist.

[Thrawn183]

I believe that you damage my good name. Pistols at dawn! :smalltongue:

Thanks for the honest assesment. To tell the truth, strip #1 is my least favorite of the ones we have completed so far; it felt a bit forced, and I agree, the narration was overdone. Have no fear, this does not persist.

You could avoid something like that with thought bubbles. Especially the final part.

[t_catt11]

Thanks for the suggestion. As stated, the heavy handed narration does not persist beyond the first couple of strips, at which point I decide that you need no further introduction.

[t_catt11]

New strip is up. Spoiler warning: our first gag is now available.

Warning #2: it is an awful pun.

[PhantomFox]

Panel 6 is a tad confusing, as Steve's response happens last, but is read first when reading the panel from left to right. I'd suggest moving it directly under the other text bubbles, or to the right of the other dialogue.

[t_catt11]

Thansk for the critique. I may try to shift the bubbles around a bit.

The artist and I both still have a bit of learning to do, and apprently, experience is the best teacher.

Edit: okay, shifted a bit. Looks better to me, what do you think?

[t_catt11]

We are the knights who say...

New strip is up, and honestly, this may be my favorite of the pure "gag" strips that we have done so far. Every single time I sit down to play tabletop, this scene seems to play itself out.

I'm betting I'm not the only one with this experience!

[Surfing HalfOrc]

Bummer, I can't read it from work. I'll try again once I get home.

[The Dark Fiddler]

I'm holding off on putting this in my folder of "webcomics to check every time they update" until you get a bit further, but this looks promising.

Not really anything I can think of to improve on, but I'm bad at thinking up stuff like that, so you can't be sure.

[t_catt11]

Thanks for the kind words! #13 is supposed to be in my hands today, with #14 done by the first of next week, so we are in good shape so far.

[barteem]

I wish there were more of them to comment on.

[Weimann]

It looks promising, I'd say. A bit stiff drawings, at the moment, but the art style fits well. I will keep an eye on it.

Personally, I liked the first page most, though >.>

[t_catt11]

The largely positive feedback is very gratifying. Don't worry, more comics are coming - just check on our regularly scheduled update days (Monday and Thusday).

[mskkid]

Sounds interesting. Thanks for telling me about it, I'll check it out.

[oxinabox]

http://www.rdinn.com/comic.php?comicid=2 (http://www.rdinn.com/comic.php?comicid=2)
This happened to me the first time I played/dmed 3.5.
Everyone wantted to be bleeding half-elf rangers.
For that reason I have a joking rule the rangers, espially halfelf rangers are banned in any game i run.
I'll proably let some play, if the speak to me, maybe.

[The Dark Fiddler]

That's odd. In my group, only one person wanted to be a Ranger, and he was full elf. And the only reason he was elf was because of the +Dex.

He's our best warrior.

[t_catt11]

A little narrator exposition returns in the lastest strip (#4). However, this is just about the end of it.

[t_catt11]

New strip is up.

Tell me, does anyone actually enjoy doing the "you all meet in a tavern..." bit?

[PhantomFox]

I'm starting to notice a good deal of copy/paste creeping in. I know it's easy, but it makes you look lazy. Copying the player's head and changing the mouth a little bit does not cut it. Actually, the more I look, the more I see of it in past strips too.

[t_catt11]

Noted, PhantomFox. I actually had a chat with the artist about this after #12. I don't mind a bit of copy/paste (hey, Buckley has done well off of it), but we can't have the exact same illustrations every single time.

The good news is that we do care, and we will address it. #14 is supposed to be in my hands today, #15 by the end of the weekend.

[PhantomFox]

Noted, PhantomFox. I actually had a chat with the artist about this after #12. I don't mind a bit of copy/paste (hey, Buckley has done well off of it), but we can't have the exact same illustrations every single time.

The good news is that we do care, and we will address it. #14 is supposed to be in my hands today, #15 by the end of the weekend.

Buckley isn't ... liked that much around here. Copy/paste and the omnipresent B^U facial expressions are one two the major criticisms laid against him. But let's not digress into CAD bashing. In general, it's noticeable and comes across as amateurish. In comic #4, the guy with the black hair is c/p'd 4 different times, the DM 3, and panel 1 and 3 are eerily similar. Not to mention brown-hair guy is lifted almost directly from comci #3. Putting the extra effort into avoiding this is one of the few details that separates a decent comic from a great comic.

For example, take a look at Calvin and Hobbes. A lot of the humor comes from their dialogue, and could have easily fell into four identical panels of talking heads, but Watterson avoided this and has them actually doing things while they talk. Shoot, the wagon and sled rides came about as a vehicle (har har) to host some of their philosophical discussions. This kept it visually interesting on top of the outstanding writing.

[t_catt11]

I knew I was taking a risk by referencing Buckley. Since I personally have zero artistic ability (why do you think I do only the writing for LD?), copy/paste probably doesn't bother me as much as it should.

Your point about Calvin and Hobbes is well taken, however. And when all is said and done, you're right.

Good news is that #14 showed a lot of improvement in this area. We'll continue to stress the importance of quality art, and hopefully evolve into something that approaches the great comics you allude to.

Anyway, keep an eye out for Monday's strip - it will be your first chance to see the "in game" character art.

[Kurald Galain]

Hm, as the Beelzebot would say, "You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!"

(in other words, if characters are late, upset, in love, or whatever, show it, don't tell us in narrator text; imho)

[t_catt11]

Thanks for the input, Kurald. As is documented above, the heavy-handed narrator dies a pretty quick death. :smalltongue:

[t_catt11]

Ladies and gentlemen, check it out! Strip #6 introduces the in-game characters to Loaded Dice. I personally love, love, love this one, but please... drop by and let me know what you think.

[PhantomFox]

Not bad, and it's refreshing to see some new art as well, which looks good as well. Some of my old complaints show up, but I can't really expect you to change old strips when you have an update schedule to keep, so it gets a pass.

[t_catt11]

Yay for a pass! :D

You'll see more of your complaints rehashed over the next few updates, but rest assured that they ARE being addressed in the new strips. #15 was suposed to be in my hands by last night, but I got a "running late" email instead. Should be here any time.

[Random832]

A thought from a web design point of view - that red background is seriously not going to work if you ever want to change your site layout. It'd be better to make the image have a transparent background and have the container of the image in the site layout have the red background.

I'm not saying it doesn't look good - I'm just saying that if a year from now you want to change to a different color scheme, it'd be better to not have to re-edit all the images.

[t_catt11]

You are probably right @ background. We actually have a redesign in the works, and it should be fine - but it would not be fun to have to process a large archive if that day does come.

[Optimystik]

Interesting setup. Great art.

I got the feeling that the DM was attracted to that female player. It was so subtle that I almost missed it. :smalltongue:

[t_catt11]

Dangit, Optimystik! You just gave away a HUGE spoiler! Man, we can't sneak anythign past you, can we? :smallbiggrin:

[t_catt11]

Newest update is up: behold the party cleric's righteous stand against the forces of evil.

I'm gonna HAVE to figure out a good way to do whisper bubbles.

[PhantomFox]

A dashed speech bubble usually works. I sure some quick research would turn up a few examples in established comics, but I'm too lazy atm.

[t_catt11]

No, you misunderstand. I want to do dashed bubbles, but cannot figure out a good way to make this happen in photoshop. I have a hack, but am not realy happy with the results.

Google is usually my friend, but not this time.

[t_catt11]

We now return you to your regularly scheduled plot.

[t_catt11]

New strip is up. Don't you love it when the players ignore your cool setting descriptions?

[t_catt11]

Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first monster of the strip!

[PhantomFox]

Panel five has some mis-ordered speech bubbles. Since they're right on top of each other, they're naturally read top-to-bottom.

[t_catt11]

Hmmm. I have agonized over this one. I probably need to get the artist to split these panels. I just don't see a good way to fit all four bubbles in this panel.

[t_catt11]

New comic is up - our first ever actual fight scene. Yay for bad guys!

[t_catt11]

Hmm. I miss the critiques by the forumites here. Should I assume that

(a) The comic is now perfect, there is nothing else to say?

(b) I have irritated others too much with my posts in the Roleplaying Games section of the forum for anyone to post here?

(c) Dude, stop posting about your comic, already. Those who want to post, have done so.


Probably c, I suppose. *sigh* Gotta find some other ways to waste time at work...

(new update was up yesterday, I was "enjoying" my off day by building a privacy fence)

[Welf]

Something 'd like to say:
There are a lot of copy and past panels, and it is too obvious. When a charakter talks we ususally see his mouth closed. That's especially obvious in the outgame panels. Give them more facial expressions.
I don't understand why everybody - especially the GM - picks on Brad. I don't feel that he deserved it. He is just a guy that is the butt of the jokes without any reason and that makes me sympathise with him, and that is killing the joke.

[Zanaril]

Something 'd like to say:
There are a lot of copy and past panels, and it is too obvious. When a charakter talks we ususally see his mouth closed. That's especially obvious in the outgame panels. Give them more facial expressions.
I don't understand why everybody - especially the GM - picks on Brad. I don't feel that he deserved it. He is just a guy that is the butt of the jokes without any reason and that makes me sympathise with him, and that is killing the joke.

I have to agree. Reccommend to your artist that he draw one or two different versions of them all sitting around the table. Then he can alternate between them. If people catch onto that, he can start randomly swapping heads between the different versions. Stealth copy and paste FTW!

In all seriousness, different poses would help a lot, especially in panels that are just talking.

[t_catt11]

Thanks for the input. We have hit on the copy/paste issues earlier in this thread - the artist and I have spoken about this, and she has done a ton of improving in the recent strips (we have a six strip cushion at the moment).

As for Brad... don't feel too sorry for him. He may take it a lot, especially in the early strips, but he dishes it out, as well. This group dynamic is based very closely on my real life gaming group - everyone harasses one another endlessly. :smallbiggrin:

[Natural20]

There are WAY too many walls of text in this comic. Show, don't tell is the key in this medium.

[t_catt11]

Thanks for the critique. There will probably always be some walls 'o text, however... Steve is a wordy DM, that's one of the running gags/character traits. Notice that aside from #6 (the character introduction strip), the only time you see a wall 'o text is in one of the blue boxes when Steve is narrating in-game stuff.

[t_catt11]

Newest Loaded Dice comic (http://www.rdinn.com/comic.php?comicid=15) is up. I personally love this one and the one one that will follow on Monday. This is based entirely on actual, in game events, and was a blast to play... though some of it made me scratch my head.

[barteem]

I'm liking it more and more.
I wish one of the characters would be more of a **** though.
That always makes for some good fun.
In a comic anyway.
In real life, it tends to ruin the game.
Keep it up!

[t_catt11]

LOL and here, most of my complaints have been that Ray is too much of that **** character. Don't worry, we have that element.

[t_catt11]

Okay, yeah, another bump... I am cheesy. I'm excited, though - today's episode (http://www.rdinn.com/comic.php?comicid=17) gives us the first appearance of the big bad guy for this adventure.

[Atronach]

Interesting.... A monster that can take a hit when based off of the standard new campaign characters start at low level. I never see this very often in comics anymore.

[RustMonster]

t_catt: I'm enjoying your comic, but you need to shake up your panel layouts a little! Almost all your camera angles are the same standard "head and shoulders" shot... it's dangerously close to a "floating heads" strip. Especially when it comes to pictures of the players: There's no strong facial expressions or body language. The dialog is weakened by it, and it really adds to that wall-of-text feel that others have mentioned.

This is my favorite resource on the subject:

22 Panels That Always Work by Wally Wood (http://homepage.mac.com/georgepratt/iblog/B44581127/C1898775419/E347695153/Media/WallyWoods.jpg)

Make every panel count!

[Flickerdart]

Do some variety for their facial expressions. :smallamused: is not the universal response to everything. =P

[t_catt11]

Thanks for the constructive criticism, folks. I will forward it to my artist.

We have added some new angles and expressions, but you are right, more variety would be well worth it!