Sunday, May 22, 2016

For all you gamers superstitious about your dice

My wife, Linda, knew I was a gamer when we got to know each other and before she married me.  When she came to my house for the first time I subjected her to the grand tour of my gaming area.  It started out simple at first, as I shyly asked what time period she might like and I then pulled out armies corresponding to that period.  Sadly for her, the more interested she acted the more I pulled out until finally I think I might have been foaming at the mouth.  So she knew I was a little crazy about gaming...or because of gaming, not sure which. 

My normal game night is Tuesday night, and the usual venue was at my friend Ron's house as I had been a single dad before Linda came along and really couldn't game at my house.  After Linda came to live with me and saw me leaving for gaming, she never saw me carrying dice or tape measures as Ron always provides those.  It was on one of the first opportunities I had to host at our house (because I truly "fell into it" and married a woman who actually encouraged me to invite my friends over to game at our house...I'm waiting for the genie to disappear back into the bottle!) that I was getting all the gaming accoutrements ready.  Linda was helping me.  I reached down beneath my game table and pulled out my dice box...and Linda's mouth dropped open as she gasped out loud "Oh my gosh, are you kidding me??"  This is my dice box:
 
Of course, her first question was the obvious: why do you need so many dice?  I explained to her how sometimes the dice stopped rolling good numbers, and I had to buy more to improve my chances on the game table.  She didn't buy that.  Dice rolls average out, she said.  Dice can't possibly "roll" good or bad...it's just luck.  Now, I've heard the uninitiated say that before.  They just don't understand.  No one can truly understand the perverse nature of dice until they've rolled five 1's and a 2 (always one die who wants to be good) when you need 5s or 6s...or roll fourteen dice and not get anything above a 3.  I have a poster that is going in my game room when it's completed.  It sums up what we gamers know to be as real as rain and sunshine, but non-gamers call insanity:
 
Tell me I'm wrong...please.
 

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