Author’s Note: In solidarity with the participants for the final freeform Challenge of the 2020 Tabletop Writers Diversity Initiative, hosted by the Tabletop Writers Guild – and to provide a little levity on Election Day – comes this loving limerick about embracing a little luck in your games. Also I really wanted to claim a badge.
An Ode To Dice-Chucking
Among the posh gamer ‘elite’
Exists a notion hard to unseat —
That if luck is involved,
All skill is dissolved
And is said with arrogant conceit.
Yet were every move so precise;
Calculated, cool, and concise;
We’d all worse off
Unable to quaff
The innervating roll of some dice!
Reflecting the hobby’s milieu,
There’s admittedly more than a few
Willing to wager and bet,
And generally bank on kismet —
To consider NO chance? Oh Mon Dieu!
It’s not wrong to be risk-averse,
But not all are quite as rehearsed.
With Fortuna’s flirtations
You can balance the stations
And perhaps one’s fate be reversed.
Impromptu’s a thematic keystone
Its major appeal – the unknown.
But what good is immersion
With deep-seated aversion
Every time the dice they are thrown?
The math says you’re certainly not wrong
Not to rush into dungeons headlong.
But thanks to a pip
With a wink and quip —
You can say you’re impossibly strong!
But perhaps the best reason of all
Is the physical tumble and sprawl.
Yes, of all things stochastic,
Nothing’s much more fantastic
Than tossing and see how they fall.
Whichever path aleatory,
Be it tactile, gamester, or story,
These games are not less
Than min-maxing finesse —
So embrace the dice-chucking glory!
Claiming my badge!