Handbooker Helper: Dice 101 

An episode about dice without a cameo from Laura Bailey just feels wrong.

D20: "The die you'll be rolling the most" Rogues with sneak attack: X to doubt

Sam’s intro song though

The irony is that Dungeons and Dragons doesn't actually involve that many dungeons or dragons.

What a great start! I'd love to know who does all the cute doodles :)

Marisha is such a good host, I know how the dice work but I still watched the whole video

“Stay Natural my friends.” Is going to be my new catch phrase haha.

also a quick note: When reading a percentile die. Read the double digits first then the single digits. The result 70 and 3 = 73; a 00 and 1 = a 1; a 00 and 0 = a 100. I know weird, but it works. Think of it as a digital display that is only capable of showing you 2 digits at a time. since 100 is 3, you can only see the zeroes. :)

How did you not use a picture of Sam Riegel for the charisma picture

When you've played D&D since second grade but you still want to watch every episode of this.

"Some classes have some abillities that requires a percentage dice roll" Hellyeah! That's definetedly the sorcerer with the Wild magic suge!

This is a clear, concise, and interesting introduction to polyhedrals! Great first episode, I can't wait for more!

The only thing I wish would have been touched upon, and maybe they will in a future episode, was the term Nat or Natural 20 / 1 and what that signifies. When I first started watching Critical Role I didn't really grasp the concept of Nat 20s and Nats until a few episodes in and didn't really understand the significance and why they got so excited or so down.

"Now, how about the 6 other dice?" me: *counts dice*.... wait what? d4, d6, d8, d10, d12... that's only 5!?! later in the video: "... it's a percentile die." me: oh well....

"Stay Natural, my friends." Hmmm, I like it. It has potential.

Real life Bard, Sam Riegel will one day kill me with laughter from his jingles, I swear. Also I’ve been avoided the percentage die for a while now good to know what it actually does finally 😂

I am so looking forward to this series. I have a friend who has been wanting to dip their toe into the D&D waters but had been nervous. This is perfect for them. Also, another one of Sam's jingles that is going to be permanently stuck in my head forever. I'm only wondering what useful knowledge is being pushed out to make room for the jingles, lol 😂

I remember the first time I rolled a percentage die in-game and not just for an "Okay you'll start the game with a wonderous item, roll to see what you get" kind of thing. We were in a town were weapons were banned so we turned them in at the gate and later the town was invaded by hobgoblins that stole the weapons from storage and started attacking people. We rolled a percentile die to see what kind of Loot they had, and if they had any of our weapons, and I rolled *00 0* I thought I was boned but it turns out the hobgoblin didn't just have one of my weapons like the other members of my party, BUT BOTH my quarterstaff and my dagger!

Is that Bigby's Hand on the title graphic? ;-)

Neat video - I've got some friends playing for the first time this weekend and I shall be forwarding this onto them so that they know a bit more about the dice they're rolling :)

"Why didn't this pop up in my feed" (Unlisted) "Oh.... why?"

"Stay natural my friends" My heart!!!!! She's so precious!!!

My summary of dice and their uses: D20: The one used for everything that isn’t combat or healing. The other ones: The ones used for combat and healing. Percentile: Wild Magic, some encounter/treasure charts, and the Maze Engine encounter.

Great start to the series. We didn't have fancy percentile dice back in the 1980s. We used two different colored d10. Purple was the tens and Orange was the ones. Rolling two Zeros was a 100.

Oh my god Sam, that theme song

OMG the “ding” at the end of the intro music - i died laughing. What brilliant intro music

Just wanted to say, while I personally won't get a lot out of these videos, I think they're a great idea and this first one is very well shot, good audio, and great little doodles to help along. This'll be really helpful to some people I play with and my daughter one day when she's old enough to get into it!

Very cool - nice production. Looking forward to whatever other shows you guys are working on!

I am so excited for this series! I've never played D&D, only ever watched Critical Role, but I want to learn!

Fantastically awesome explanation. This is going to be EPIC! =]

This series couldn't have come at a more perfect time! I just found my first group and these videos are sure to be a godsend!

This was excellent Marisha! I've played D&D on and off for decades now and this bit was explained really well. Love Sam's vocals for the theme! Look forward to the rest.

Holy crap Marisha! That reached epic levels of cheese and awesome all in under four minutes!

*DING*

Looking forward to this series! I think this will be really great for new players!

Great start! Very entertaining as always and I hope this series continues for a long time!

This was a really cute start to the series! Maybe I'll show my Mom and Sis and see how well they understand after this. (My secret goal is to eventual whittle them down so they actually play with me.)

This was really good! I'll totally save these to help explain things to new players. I usually roll a nat 1 on my explanations it feels like.

Love this. I'm so looking forward to saving this on a playlist and showing my group. Thanks!

I love this. It is everything I needed in my life. Bless you, Handbooker Helper. Also, love the jingle.

Natural 20!

I already know how to play, I just want to support Critical Role because they’re the best

I love the handbooker helper intro and outro. I'm completely only waiting for the *DING* at the end. Best part of it by far

LOL THE DOODLE OF MATT IS SO PERFECT. I'm so glad you guys made this series, I can't wait for more!

Percentage dice are "old dusty?" I think your referring to the d12.

But Marisha Ray, how do you read the results of an enigmatic d100 when you DO use it?

Good, concise, informative, and I'd reckon helpful to boot. Nicely done.

I'm so excited! I love the idea that I'll be able to just throw these videos at friends if I ever don't have a way to explain something. This was very well thought out, and straight-forward.

As much as this is a pretty decent start to a very promising series, I do think as a Dice 101 episode you left out a few things that will confuse new players. As has already been mentioned, you didn't explain nat 1s and nat 20s, which are a major part of almost every d20 based RPG and play a huge part in 5e specifically. Also, when explaining the percentile dice, you didn't explain how to read them, or that rolling a 00 and a 0 = 100, not 0, which is a really confusing aspect of percentile dice. It also would have been nice to see at least one example of what percentile dice are used for, like just mentioning the wild magic table would have given people a clear example of a percentile roll. Actually rolling some dice would have been nice too, just to, again, give a clear picture of how they are used. Like, in the healing example, you could have said, "For example, let say I'm casting a healing spell that heals 3d8 damage. I roll 3 8-sided dice and got a 3, a 5, and a 1. 3+5+1=9, so I did 9 points of healing." That would have been a concrete example that's easy to follow, but shows instead of just tells new players how things work which helps people who are visual learners. I also think you didn't really need to go into ability scores just yet, since you mentioned them without explanation and then specifically said you can't get into them right now. From a training perspective, that's something you don't want to do because it causes your trainees to focus on the idea that things are going to get even more complicated and can discourage and distract them from learning what you're trying to teach them. In a live training session it makes sense if one of your trainees asks about a subject, like ability scores, that you aren't ready to cover yet to answer them with a simple, "Right now we're focusing on this, but we'll definitely get to that later. One thing at a time." This shows them you're listening and that their question will be answered, but lets you refocus the group on the task at hand. In a situation like this where you completely control the conversation, things that you'll be covering in later episodes shouldn't even be mentioned unless it's a preview of the next episode type situation like, "Next time, we'll talk about Ability scores and how all those dice you now know about work with them!" Overall, I like this as the start to the series. I just don't want to see you guys fall into the pitfalls a lot of new trainers (and experienced ones from time to time) fall into, like jumping between subjects or moving forward before your trainees have mastered the first step. Great Job overall though!

you didnt mention how to read the percentile. i racked my brain for quite a while before understanding that 00 0 is 100. it feels obvious now, but i use to think 10 0 made sense becausee it shows 100, or maybe 1 00.

Great first episode! I really hope this can help my overwhelmed friends decide to play D&D with me!

I'm so excited for this series! I just started a game with two friends who are completely new to the game, and I will be referring them to this as more episodes come out!

I don’t actually think this video needed an explanation for nat 20s and 1s. Auto hitting and auto missing can be covered in a combat episode, but that’s all nat ones and nat twenty’s do RAW.

Can we have these with zero cussing? It seems like a great way to explain D&D to kids, and I'd love to show them, but I don't feel comfortable doing so with swearing in it. Even something as innocuous as "bad@$$" makes me uncomfortable sharing with my 7 year old.

I need to recommend later eps of this series to my gaming group, as they've just started out. They know the basics of dice, but I think they'll benefit from understanding more about some other stuff. This is a great series idea!

Awesome! I cant wait for more episodes. I feel like this series will evolve into valuable resource.

I thought this show would have people knowledgable about d&d host, not someone who spent years only reading half of the spell descriptions

Great start to the series!! I'm going to use this when introducing friends to D&D. It'd be awesome to have different members of the cast cover each of the different topics, e.g. Travis doing combat, Liam doing spell-casting etc... and maybe everyone could take a different class to introduce (not necessarily the ones they're known for)!

Very straightforward and helpful. Thank you!

Already loving this series

Marisha Ray: "stay natural my friends!" Me, with my cybernetic implants: "You can't stop me"

This is awesome. Sending it to a few of my newer friends to help them with dice mechanics. Great video :-)

very useful format, keep up the good work guys!

Love this! Can't wait for more!

I’m so excited for this series!! It’s going to make explaining dnd to my friends so much easier and hopefully I’ll be able to dm my own game soon!!

Love the jingle. Great episode too!

Great job with that first episode! A great start to what will be a fantastic series for beginners (or even a refresher for long time players)! Yay!

Can`t wait to see 1000 more episodes of this series!

What a lovely little show this is gonna be! Looking forward to seeing what they do with this!

Really well done! Made me think back to when I started out and was clueless. A video series like this is great when you are trying to know the basics before a game. Critical Role is an awesome teacher, but this is a nice slow down and close up look at how things work. I like it. :-D

Good job Marisha, this is really cool. Love the animation, and Sam's stereo jingle is really, er, um, ding-errific!

YAY! thank you, marisha, and thank you to everyone involved!! this is already so helpful!

Sam’s opening jingle sold this series for me. Keep me coming!

Great start on a new series. I remember back when I started playing and even the simple information Marisha just mentioned was complete astrophysics to me back then. I have a plan to run a game with someone new to D&D, so when we start up, these will be a great help.

Love it! Great job Marisha! :D

My friends and I are all starting our first campaign next weekend, and we're all totally new to DnD (including our DM). These videos are so helpful! Thank you!

That was well done. Didnt dimmy it up and made it interesting. Way to go Marisha!

Nice start to the series. I used to just roll the d10 twice for percentage rolls, rather than have a special extra dice. Only thing I might have touched on in the video, is just letting some know that one dice is a die, multiple are dice. I know various people who refer to 1 die as dice

I want another episode, waiting sucks. Love the bitesize help.

The "music" intro...... Oh Crit Role, how I love your dorky, nerdy ways. Sam gets me every time.

LOVE IT! Thanks so much!

This helped a lot. My friend and I are brand new to D&D and I’m creating a campaign for us to use, and had no clue what dice needed to be used when.

Everyone did a super good job putting this together! (especially Wendy)

I also recommend you test how well made your dice are. Get a glass of water with salt in it. The drop your dice in it and start rolling them around. If they’re poorly made then they will always prefer a certain number and the glass of water will make it easier to tell if they are are well made and truly random or if they are badly made and are a bit weighted.

This is great, even though I've played D&D for years, I'll still watch all episodes of *Handbooker Helper*

Love this already!

Great content and well done, Marisha!

Instructions not clear, my DM has dice lodged in their forehead.

Finally, I can understand now all the stuff I've been watching for ages O.o Thanks

Holy moly she’s got some serious voice acting talent

Awesome. I already know a lot of the basics, but this was an excellent explanation for new players. I’m looking forward to other episodes that can help me fill in the gaps of my knowledge.

I loved this! The art was super neat

This is gonna come in so handy. Thanks, Critical Role!

More! More! More! This is gonna be a great series.

Great 1st lesson Marisha! also love how they captured the essence of Matt in the line art.

What a lovely video to start my birthday with. Sharing with everyone who ever existed.

Yes!!! So worth the wait!

Short, informative and entertaining. Marisha and company keep pumping out the great content. A+

Love it! Do we get to see each member of the cast, and maybe even guests, do future episodes?

Love you guys!