Do your dice hate you?
How well do you know your FR Authors? Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, you can expect an update to the author roundtable, featuring many of our best Forgotten Realms authors’ answers to the world’s most important questions, right here on this blog. Submissions for new questions welcome through private message.
Ed Greenwood (author of The Sword Never Sleeps): No, they just enjoy plunging me into ever-greater peril. They know I love adventure.
Bruce R. Cordell (author of City of Torment): Did you write this question for me? (Yes. Yes, they do. Sob.) (Friend Bruce)
Richard Baker (author of Avenger): Dice can smell fear. It’s important to maintain a confident, optimistic attitude around them. If you show even the slightest concern for negative results, they’ll turn on you in the blink of an eye. (Friend Richard)
Erin Evans (author of The God Catcher): Lately, yes. I don’t know what I did to them! When I started with them, they were so good to me that my “dump stat” was a 14 and my first level character killed a naga with a dagger and a few magic missiles. Now I have a daily spell that I have never managed to roll above an 8 on. (Friend Erin)
Christopher Rowe (author of a story in Realms of the Dead): My dice are suitably random with both their hate and their love—else I wouldn't use ’em. With the exception, of course, of my favorite set, a gift from my friend, fellow D&D geek, and all 'round coconspirator, Holly Black. Those I use when DEATH is on my mind! (Friend Christopher)
Jak Koke (author of The Edge of Chaos): Best thing about gaming is the unpredictability of a session or how an encounter is going to play out. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that I’m there to enjoy the tension and suspense when my characters are dying because the dice are cursed . . . but it helps to take the long view. (Friend Jak)
Mark Sehestedt (author of The Fall of Highwatch): Only the 4-sided. “One in a million shot, Doc. One in a million!”
Richard Lee Byers (author of Unholy): Depends on the day. I guess it’s one of those love/hate relationships.
Philip Athans (author of A Reader’s Guide to R.A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt): No, I guess, not really. Intellectually I know that my dice obey the Law of Independent Trials just like everyone else’s, but there have been moments. . . . I once threw a d20 across the room while playing D&D at my friend Gordon’s apartment. Months later, he moved and found the die behind his couch. He left it there, in the vacant apartment, so as not to reawaken the Curse. (Friend Phil)
Erik Scott de Bie (author of Downshadow): They hate me with a particularly effective sort of vengeful hate, playing nice until it really, really matters, then abandoning me when it’ll hurt most—preferably when I have to hit with at least one of my three encounter powers. You wouldn’t think that would be too much to ask. 
(Friend Erik)
Jaleigh Johnson (author of Mistshore): My dice are stingy little things. They don’t give up twenties easily, but when I need them most they’re usually there for me. (Friend Jaleigh)
Rosemary Jones (author of City of the Dead): Absolutely. My saving throws are so notoriously bad that my current GM has even bought me new dice. Didn’t help. Still got chewed by low-level wild dogs. (Friend Rosemary)
James P. Davis (author of Circle of Skulls): Once upon a time perhaps, but I’ve been rolling the same dice (black with red numbers) for about fifteen years now and we have developed a good working relationship. Now, granted there is a lot of hate to be found in dice, they are generally a hateful and spiteful species that takes delight in the torment of hopeful humans, but in the hands of an experienced DM . . . well, they learn to direct their evil where it is sorely needed: upon the players. My dice may not love me, but they respect me. (Friend James)
Lisa Smedman (author of Ascendancy of the Last): No. They were personally blessed by the manager of one of my favorite local gaming stores. That doesn’t mean they LOVE me, however.
go to previous question, “Can’t Take it Away”
go to next question, "Favorite Villain"
