that’s just how i roll

Last night, while we made dinner, Anne said, "I don’t speak geek, but I wanted to ask you . . . did you have fun at D&D?"

I stopped chopping onions and said, "Oh yeah! It was so awesome. It was a pretty classic hack and slash dungeon crawl that could have been straight out of The Keep on the Borderlands, and –"

She held up her hand. "Wait. Wait. Wait. You’re speaking geek."

"Sorry." I thought for a moment and added, "okay, there was one thing that happened that I think you can appreciate."

"Okay."

"Well, you know how gamers are really weird about our dice?"

She stirred a pot of rice on the stove, and covered it.

"Yes, like when you freaked out at Ryan for touching your ‘forbidden dice.’" She made little air quotes around the appropriate words.

"Exactly," I said. "So I played with some very experienced gamers. There were people in my party who have been playing longer than me, like back when it first came out."

She nodded, and pointed at the cutting board.

"What? Oh. Sorry." I went back to chopping onions.

"So we all brought our own dice, obviously."

"Obviously," she said.

"And at one point in our second encounter –" I finished chopping, and swept the onions into a dish with the knife. "Would you turn on that pan for me? So, an encounter is what we call it when we’re playing an adventure, and we deal with monsters or something like that."

"Mmmm," she said.

"Uh-oh, I’m losing her." I thought.  "I’d better speed this up and get to the point."

I stabbed the top of a Tofu pouch and drained its water into the sink. I dumped the tofu block out into my hand, and set it on the cutting board. While I sliced it in half, I said, "Anyway, in our second encounter, I had to roll a d20 for something, and while I was shaking it, it hopped out over the top of my hand, rolled across the table to my left, and came to rest against this other guy’s stack of dice."

The pan warmed, and I dumped curry powder into the rapidly heating oil.

"It was like time stopped for a second, and the only thing any of us could see was my d20 resting against his d4 — that’s the one that looks like a pyramid."

"Oh, the one that’s so fun to step on," she said.

"I said I was sorry about that," I said. I stirred the curry around, and put my tofu into the pan. It sizzled, and a delicious cloud of curry-flavored steam billowed into the kitchen.

"So while the other end of the table continued resolving their combat, he looked at me and said, very seriously, ‘Uh, your dice are touching my dice.’"

"Oh no!" She said.

"Yeah, and he was totally serious."

"What did you do?" She started chopping tomatoes.

"I said, ‘Sorry, it hopped out of my hand while I was getting ready to make my listen check.’ I picked it up, careful to not touch his dice with my hand."

"Like Operation!" She said.

I laughed. "Exactly like Operation."

"Was he mad?" She said.

I flipped my tofu over. "I don’t think he was. It was more of a breach of etiquette than anything else. Can I have some of those tomatoes?"

She brought the cutting board over to me, and I pushed a few chunks into the simmering curry. It turned from bright yellow to a deep reddish brown.

"Goddamn, dude," Anne said, "that smells so good!"

I put on my best Teen Girl Squad Voice: "So good!"

"Uh, anyway," I said, "shortly after that happened, it was his turn to roll. He picked up his d20 — which I’m pretty sure was new in 1980 — and when he rolled it, it went right off the table, bounced off my thigh, and landed on the floor between us."

I turned my tofu one last time, and switched off the burner.

"I looked up at him and I said, ‘Dude. Your dice touched me.’" I laughed, "it was pretty funny."

"Why are you people so weird about your dice?" Anne said.

"That’s just how we roll," I said.

She looked at me. "Did you just . . ."

"Yes." I said. "Yes I did."

She suppressed a smile, and shook her head.

"Nolan!" She called over her shoulder," dinner is ready!"

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66 thoughts on “that’s just how i roll”

  4. As a non-gamer *hangs head* I was sooooo sure the dude was going to accuse you of putting some sort of spell on his dice that made it jump off the table and touch you to show its new allegiance to all things Wheaton…..
    *hears THAT sound…the one like a brazillion pachinko balls falling into place*
    How about a nice game of Chess, Professor Wheaton?
    😉

  5. Technically I’ve been gaming for about 10 years. But the games are so far and few between, and I’ve gamed mostly with the same two guys (my best friends) with few others occassionally joining us that I still feel almost like a novice.
    Perhaps that is why I don’t have a problem with the idea of someone touching my dice. There is one that is my favorite so I prefer that only I use it, but each of my two friends also have used it with no problems.
    However, one of them does have a few dice that he never lets anyone else touch. In fact, I think I’ve only seen him use them when he is the GM. And uses a different set when he is a player.

  6. While I was reading this post, the editor part of my brain was admiring the pacing and flow of this story, and I thought maybe I’d leave you a comment about that.
    Except then I got to the end and surprised myself by actually laughing out loud. So I’m here now to say: this is a fine little snip of nonfiction, and the ending cracks me right up. 🙂

  9. I literally laughed out loud at that. Gamer humor is the best.. well, it’s really the worst, but that’s what’s the best about it.

  12. I used to be a gamer back in the 80s, when I was in college; I had a MASSIVE collection of dice, until my roommate (an art student) borrowed some to use in an art project..we didn’t realize that using Duco Cement to glue them together would actually MELT the plastic. Hehehe.. At any rate, I don’t remember being so … anal … about my dice. But everyone’s got their thing. 😉

  13. I bought my daughter her first Gencon dice when she was but 4 years old. It’s a spiritual thing, it truly is.
    I recently upgraded though – for years I’ve used the dice in the crown royal sack, some of which date back to the soft blue plastic era. But now I’ve got stainless steel.
    My old dice are jealous now. I will, on occasion, still reach in and grab an old lucky one. If it’s, you know, important.
    rabbitatrabbitcavedotcom

  14. ‘”Oh, the one that’s so fun to step on,” she said.
    “I said I was sorry about that,”‘
    ^_^
    But seriously, I’m more of a casual gamer – never really had much in the way of superstitions like that; heck, in my recent group, if someone really needed to make a hard skill check, I’d offer an old gnarled d20 that I’ve had for…well, over 20 years *blush*; my dog (now passed on) had once managed to gnaw on it briefly and some of the scratches and dents seem to make it ‘roll high’ as if it were weighted…

  15. This could be my gaming group too. My husband had been freaking out for a week when he couldn’t find his bag. I was willing to go out and buy him new dice, just to get us through the session.
    Then, of course, there was the guy we used to game with who couldn’t understand why we had a problem with him using the dice roller program he bought.
    Children…

  16. Question…I don’t speak geek either, so please forgive me for a moment.
    When a gaming person is talking about his/her dice and he/she says (not writes) d20 or d4 does he/she actually say “d20” or is it “dice 20” or something like that? Just wondering. I don’t know these things.

  21. This is exactly the conversation that happens between my sister and me when I talk WoW. As soon as I mention anything about my “guild” she breaks out the munchkin voice. Then we LOL about it.
    The best was when we were having dinner with some friends, one of whom plays WoW. He and I were geeking out over it, rambling on about the dreadsteed and how pretty it is in Darnassus, and my friend Heather (whose eyes were the size of dishes from geek overload) burst in with ‘I have two children.’ My sister almost spit out her salad.

  22. Oh no! You pun! Noooo! 🙂
    My special dice of the “No touchy” variety are purple and sparkly. They don’t roll very well for me but it doesn’t mean anyone else can touch them. 🙂
    “It was more of a breach of etiquette than anything else.”
    *snerk* I lol’d.
    I did not get to game on World D&D day and I was bummed. I played Zombies!!!, though, so it was kind of okay. 🙂
    Geek meter full.

  23. I have a friend who punishes his dice if they start rolling bad for him. He once put his d20 in the freezer for a few days. It learned its lesson, and started rolling better from then on.
    We all gamed the night before, and it was CoC, but it sounds like lots of fun gaming was had accross the land!

  24. my thought when I read this, was oh, that’s funny… wait, what did he do with the onions he chopped? did I miss it?
    I guess only a food geek cares more about the recipe/cooking than the punchline.

  26. gbina:
    When a gaming person is talking about his/her dice and he/she says (not writes) d20 or d4 does he/she actually say “d20” or is it “dice 20” or something like that? Just wondering. I don’t know these things.
    My (limited) experience is people pronounce the “d” like the letter. “d20” is *DEE TWEN-tee*.
    That’s how it’s used when describing the physical thing or a roll. “Everyone roll dee-twenty for initiative”
    “Dee-twenties are ten cents each”
    To be more specific, people will say “twenty-sider” or “twenty sided die(ice)”.

  27. Hahahaha… That was the best story I’ve read in a while… I love the food mixing in with the gaming. Except now I really want curry.
    Damn you, Wil, damn you!

  28. that’s a horrible pun, dude. 🙂
    on dice: one of the worst moments in my post-divorce life was when i realized my gamer ex-husband had taken my dice with him when he moved out. i’d had them since i was seven. dude.

  29. I had to show this to my boyfriend. We have different languages like that, too. And making sure that both parties are aware of that goes a long way towards keeping the peace.

  30. My brother once had a d20 that was black with red text, and it had a notorious reputation. It was known as the “Death Die” because it would roll high the majority of the time, making it great for playing with, except under high stress situations, such as “making a called shot to the dragon’s eye to take it down before it kills your entire party”. During those points, it would CONSISTENTLY roll 1s. It was a scary die because of this… you could play through entire adventures rolling high on it, but that one golden moment, on the edge of glory and failure, then the death die would show its true loyalties and send you to your doom.
    Needless to say, it was fun to play with it!

  35. I officially adore you and your wife and if we weren’t so close in age, I’d offer myself up to you and Anne for adoption.
    I will say that the gamers I know and game with have a slightly different relationship with their dice. If someone’s “unlucky” dice touch “good dice” then the bad jujus may have been passed on. If so, then the owner of the “bad dice” has to reimburse the cost of new, un-juju’d dice.
    Ah, we gamers and our dice.
    Thanks for bringing back memories of my gaming group, even though I’m 2500 miles away. ^_^

  36. Thanks for the great story! My hubby and I had fun at D&D Game Day, too, and I was happy to actually be using my d4’s when shooting magic missiles as the sorceress of our party. Usually, they sit lonely in my dice bag as my percentage die and d10 get overused in a CoC campaign, which hasn’t happened in a while. I was a definite n00b to the D&D experience, but everyone at the table was great, and we all ended the adventure alive and (pretty much) well. Thanks for advertising the D&D Game Day, for it gave me the courage to try the game out, to the delight of my more experienced gamer husband!

  38. :-0
    Wil is a vegetarian???? That makes me so happy! I am, too!
    And to think I found that out on the day that I finally got to read The Happiest Days of Our Lives. It was the perfect read from Austin to Newark on the plane today. I just loved it. Filled with even more stories, just like this one, that show what a wonderful marriage you and Anne have. You are a great example to others.
    And I agree with the other poster who suggested posting that tofu curry recipe. I’d love to know what you did. It smelled wonderful while I was reading your story. 🙂

  39. Hi Wil,
    Reading that wonderful little story made happy and sad. Happy with the delight of the scene, but despairing of ever writing so well.
    (I’m also a vegetarian by the way – but I’m now allergic to soy. And nuts. And most beans. And many spices. I am jealous of your tofu and curry dinner)

  40. How we roll: Wil Wheaton on dice

    Wil Wheaton (a wonderful writer and general geek, who got his start by playing Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: TNG) writes a funny entry in his blog on the superstitions all of us gamers have about our dice: I stabbed…

  41. Man, the whole time I was reading this entry I thinking, “Mmmm… maybe I should make some of THAT for dinner!” I threw together some tofu-veggie-peanut stir fry the other day which was pretty yummy, but your Indian tofu stylings had me drooling as well. (Have you ever tried freezing the tofu? It looses all the excess water and turns into a giant flavor sponge!) So to find out you’re a vegetarian is just icing on the proverbial cake – I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 13, so that just made my day. You just keep getting cooler and cooler! 😀
    Anyway… fun slice-of-life story, horrible pun, great post. It’s Over!

  42. Ugh – I meant “LOSES”, not “looses”. Lame.
    I remember that the version of “Hunt the Wumpus” that we had on our old IBM XT growing up would always end by saying, “Ha Ha Ha – You LOOSE!” I always wondered what it was trying to tell me.

  43. Speaking of vegetarians, the Benedictine monks have a nice compromise. Their rule states, “the monks shall not eat the meat of four legged animals.” So they have lots of chicken, turkey and fish. It’s quite pleasant.
    Freeman 🙂
    P.S. You haven’t joined the writers’ strike have you?

  45. So, I was reading this story out loud to my husband, and when I got to Anne’s line about the d4, he LOLed pretty loud. I finished the story, and he came over and pointed at his palm with a mechanical pencil and said, “See that tiny white scar? That’s my d4 story!”
    Good job, Wil. Thanks for giving me something nice to read to my geeky husband. And, yay tofu!

  46. This has been my favorite story of recent. I “lol”ed a few times, and I’m not sure if it’s because I’m so geeky that I get it, or because I understand it all from Anne’s point of view as well.
    I would also like to add on my request for your tofu curry recipe. I can’t find enough good recipes for either of those two things, much less together 🙂

  49. Loved the pacing and details of the interactions between you and Anne. It’s like a dance…really captured the way married people (at least in my own experience) manage to find time to talk while doing their everyday bits n’ pieces.
    Also, d4 = ouch, and tofu = yum. As a lifelong vegetarian, I say “yay!”

  50. I, too, do not speak “geek” so for me this story made me think that we haven’t had curry in a while…guess what’s for dinner tonight! ^_^ Very entertaining story tho. Thanks for the inspiration.

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