Cursed dice
On finding alternatives when everything goes poorly
The fighter squares up, sword gleaming in the torchlight.
The table leans in.
He rolls.
The die spins… wobbles… and lands on a 3.
Groans echo around the table.
The wizard leans back in the chair with a sympathetic wince. “Nope, that’s a clean miss. Again.”
The barbarian mutters something about “cursed dice” and offers his own d20, as if the problem is purely mechanical.
Next up, the warlock, who rolls with a flourish.
It’s a 5.
Laughter breaks out.
Someone shouts, “Alright guys, we may want to start thinking about our next characters!”
The cleric starts mock-praying for divine intervention over the dice.
Three rounds in, not a single attack has landed.
The table has gone from tense anticipation to a kind of delirious acceptance.
Every clatter of plastic across the table is now greeted with, “What’s the lowest you can roll again?”
It’s not just bad luck. It’s the slow, grinding comedy of knowing exactly what you want to do… and watching the universe politely decline.
Teams go through this too.
The week where every email bounces back, every lead goes cold, every good idea hits a wall.
The skills are still there. The effort is still there. But the outcomes? Missing, one after another.
The real danger in these stretches isn’t just the lack of progress, but the impact they can have on the team’s morale.
If left unchecked, that shared frustration can sink energy and confidence.
But it can be handled. It can be turned into something else entirely - a rallying point, a running joke, a shared story of “remember when nothing worked?” that becomes part of the team’s culture.
At the table, bad rolls always spark creative pivots.
Players can do much more than just rolling the dice.
They can use their actions to find tactical alternatives, or provide “help” to their allies using the game’s mechanics. They can even try switching back into roleplay to keep momentum and maybe wiggle out from a dire situation.
Those small wins keep people engaged until the dice - or the market, or the clients - finally start working with you again.
When your team’s in a slump, don’t just grit your teeth and push harder on the same moves.
Shift focus. Celebrate the smaller wins, the assists, the clever workarounds.
Keep the humor alive.
Eventually, the dice roll high again, and it’s much easier to swing big if you never put your sword down in the first place.
And of course, if nothing else works, there’s always the ancient art of blaming the dice.