Rayna LedyardFollow

Date Collected

Fall 11-8-2018

Informant

Myself

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

I am an undergraduate student at Utah State University. I want to transfer to Utah Valley University to study illustration next semester. I am 20 years old, married, and have an ESA rabbit. I want to be a comic artist and I love fantasy and games, of which Dungeons and Dragons is both. As an individual of the “gamer” community, I admit that I follow a few superstitions that logically shouldn’t have any consequence on my games.

Context

I wrote this superstition down in my apartment while on my laptop working on an assignment. I was thinking about a variety of “gamer” superstitions, especially ones that had to do with Dungeons and Dragons specifically. After several long minutes of thought I came up with a few, and wrote down my thoughts as I thought them. The context that this tradition usually takes place in is during D&D sessions at intense or crucial moments in the game- times where a particularly good roll of the dice is needed, and a bad roll would have severe repercussions (such as a character getting killed, failing a quest, etc.)

Text

One of the weirdest superstitions I have about Dungeons and Dragons is about the luck of the dice. Like, it’s completely random and all players recognize that, but there’s definitely an understanding in groups that certain d20s have certain streaks of luck. You can test your “luck” before the game starts by repeatedly throwing your dice to see what rolls you get. If you get a lot of low numbers, you’re probably in trouble. Most players joke at that point that at least you’re getting the unlucky rolls “out” of your dice before you start playing. To fix the luck of your dice, you can either switch dice (sometimes borrowing someone else’s), or you can try to sweet talk the dice that you have. Usually you only do that if it’s your own dice, though.

Something I do to fix my d20 when I really need good luck on the next roll is I’ll take my die in my hand and whisper sweet things to it, like, you’re my favorite die, come on I know you can do it, I love you and I really need this roll, pleeease please please. And then I kiss it, sometimes twice if I’m desperate. Just quick little pecks nothing weird or anything. I just show the dice that I love it and really care about it so that it will give me a good roll. If I get a bad roll I really try my best not to get mad at my dice so that it doesn’t hold a grudge.

Of course like I said I know that this is just a superstition and the dice wouldn’t respond to this tactic. But sometimes I swear it works. Or I feel like it does. I’m definitely not the only player that does this, I have one friend in particular who also sweet talks his dice quite often, although I haven’t seen anyone else kiss their dice. (I do do it behind my hands though so no one sees, so you never know I suppose. If my dice is reading this, you are the best d20 so please don’t give me bad luck thanks I love you)

Texture

I wrote my thoughts hurriedly, fingers moving rapidly on the keyboard so that my words flowed naturally and I wouldn’t have time to edit what I was thinking. I wanted my internal dialogue to be as natural as possible, as if I were speaking. I was a little embarrassed while writing, but sheepishly smiled at the same time, recognizing that kissing my d20 is weird but I didn’t have any regrets about it.

Course

Intro to Folklore

Instructor

Lynne McNeil

Semester and year

Fall 2018

Theme

G2: Leisure Activities - Recreation, Sports, Games

EAD Number

19.2.4.5

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