Dice shaming reminded me of an old dice-y gaming story.

We had this house rule for our second edition D&D games. When you rolled a 1, it was a fumble. You then rolled a d6. It was something like 1-2 is drop weapon, 3-4 was hit self, 5-6 was hit a friend. If you rolled hit self or hit friend, you rolled (a d20)  to-hit again to see if you hit.

It was fucking tedious but we seemed to love it.

So, my buddy had a vorpal sword. Many of you see where this is going. It was a vorpal sword and to add some spice to it, I said that when the heads were taken, the souls were taken too. The sword had an inner-hell where the swords were kept, or at least that is how I pictured it in my Melniboné-soaked brain.

Buddy rolled a 1. Then rolled a 3-4. Rolled to hit himself and yeah, you saw this coming, right? He rolled a 20, both decapitating himself and sucking out his own soul into his blade. Dude got pissed; it was one of those dice-throwing angers that can only be inspired by cutting off your own character’s head while sucking out the character’s soul into a magical blade that you, yourself were wielding.

The party found a magical way into the blade and got his soul back but the quest to get him back wasn’t as hard as it should have been.

“Fairwell, Elric…”