About

When life hands you a d6, throw it at someone’s face.

One Die Short is a D&D inspired story of love, life, nerds and roleplaying. Both the adventures and “real-life” segments are based on my own roleplaying experiences as a Dungeon Master of over fifteen years. This comic wouldn’t have been possible without my (mostly) dedicated players, and the tireless support and inspiration from my wonderful wife.

All pages are hand drawn and inked, then colored in photoshop on my trusty mac, where the text and balloons are also added. I briefly considered drawing straight into photoshop on my tablet until I realized how much I missed my pencil. And I don’t care what anyone says about Comic Sans. It rocks.

I love roleplaying games, and have long searched for the perfect rule system, which I am convinced lies somewhere in between the Star Wars d6 system from West End Games, and the Dungeons & Dragons d20 system (though I won’t give preference to a particular version, as I still have a soft spot for the backwards logic of THAC0). My own system has long been in the works, and I hope to someday perfect it.

Character Bios

THE DUNGEON MASTER

As the only child of an unwed teenage mother, he developed a Jesus complex early on in life, and secretly believes he’s better than you.  After getting punched in the face for the seventh time, he learned how to feign humility, as well as interest in other people, thus effectively making it seem like he cared.  Of course, all of this is just a huge facade to cover up some deep emotional issue, like not being breast-fed for long enough, or some crap like that.  He has been obsessed with Roleplaying since the age of twelve and has aspirations to become the next Gary Gygax.

SAMANTHA TOOK

Sam grew up in a small town, with small people, and decided at a young age that she could not be contained by any of it.  Howie was one of her only friends until she up and left at the age of 16 to discover New York City.  Eventually, she returned to her schooling to study Mathematics, a degree she still isn’t sure what to do with.  Her old restlessness recently overcame her, and she decided to look up her childhood friend, Howie, and discover the west coast.

HOWARD RODRIGUEZ

Born the middle child of a large Mexican-Irish family, Howie learned that being louder and more annoying than everyone else was the easiest way to get noticed.  He’s still coming to terms with the fact that being told to shut up isn’t positive attention.  Computers and Philosophy are his biggest loves, and he’s the only one of his friends with a real job.  Sam sleeps in the closet in his studio apartment and he tries his best not to be too creepy around her, but he can’t avoid his creepy man-crushes on dead existential philosophers.

ROBERT THORSEN

Rob came out of his mother’s vagina with a scowl on his face that has never gone away.  At eleven, he found Satan, and rejected what he saw as his parent’s corrupt and hypocritical, Midwestern god.  They kicked him out of the house as soon as he graduated high school and he fled to the west coast where he studied Music Theory and became a really badass Black Metal bassist.  He has harbored a secret obsession with Unicorns for most of his life, and wishes he was Scottish instead of German.

Copyright Matthew Forcella 2011-2013