In the History of the Kings of Norway, Snorri Sturluson records the story of the ultimate die throw and every gamer's dream. Under contention was the Island of Hising, a valuable settlement that had belonged both to Sweden and Norway. The two kings agreed to decide ownership with a simple die throw; he who rolled highest would win the island once and for all.

The king of Sweden threw first: the two dice came up sixes. Immensely pleased with himself, the Swedish king boasted that it was pointless for King Olaf of Norway to throw. The island clearly belonged to him.

Olaf picked up the dice and, while shaking them in his hand, declared, "There are two sixes still on the dice, and it is a trifling matter for God, my Lord, to have them turn up." "Saint Olaf's Saga," chap. 94. From the Heimskringla: History of the Kings of Norway, by Snorri Sturluson, trans. Lee M. Hollander (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967).

He then threw the dice, and a six turned up on one of the dice, but the other die split in two, so that both the six and the one showed. King Olaf claimed victory and the island settlement. How many of can boast a natural 13 on 2d6?

Stories of lucky (and unlucky) dice rollers fill historical archives, but how often do our textbooks reflect what the ancients and today's gamers know all too well: that dice change the world. The very word dice has its origins in the Latin datum, "that which is given or decreed, (by lot or fortune)." What we use to control fate in our games harkens back to the days of old, when prophets cast dice made of sheep anklebone to predict the future. Called knucklebones, they offer the earliest archaeological evidence of dice.

Since their first uses as divination tools, dice turn up across cultures and continents whenever a situation requires randomization, be it for arbitration, gambling, or gaming. Athenian playwright Sophocles claims that Greek warrior Palamedes invented them during the Trojan War, but dice in the form we know them today have been found in excavations in China, India, and North and South America. They've even been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 2000 BC, proving that the Egyptians knew what was important in life and the afterlife - a startling number of gamers follow in this tradition, stipulating in their wills that they be buried with their lucky dice...

Your average dice today are made of cellulose and other plastics, but in the past, dice makers have drawn on a wealth of odd and biodegradable resources. They've been crafted from peach stones, seeds, buffalo bone, deer horn, pottery, walnut shells, pebbles, and woodchuck teeth. The Greeks and Romans preferred more precious materials, fashioning dice out of ivory, bronze, agate, onyx, rock crystal, alabaster, marble, and amber.

Dice made from hazelnuts figure into the Gambler's Lament, a frustrated dice roller's plea for mercy, which appears in The Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Indian religious hymns. The unlucky gambler bemoans the cruelty of the dice, calling them "unearthly coals thrown down on the gaming board, though cold they burn out the heart." "The Gambler's Lament." From The Rig Veda, trans. Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (New York: Penguin Books, 1981).

He offers up this entreaty:

Dice, grant us your friendship; have pity on us.
Do not bewitch us with the force of your terrible sorcery.
Lay to rest your anger, your hatred.
Let someone else fall into the trap of the brown dice.

You might try reciting this hymn before a critical saving throw, though I cannot guarantee positive results, for dice, and Fate, are ever fickle.

If prayers to dice deities don't succeed, you can always resort to a favored trick of the ancients: cheat. Loaded dice (those weighted under one surface) and shaped dice (those shaved down on one or more sides) have been found in prehistoric graves in the Orient, the Americas, and Northern Europe, and, not to forget, the tombs of the ancient Egyptians. Some historians have argued that King Olaf's dice were in fact trick dice and that none of the witnesses, except, of course, the king of Sweden, was surprised when the dice fell apart.

Apparently, Olaf had performed this "miracle" several times before, and repeated it several times afterward. Be warned: though this trick won Olaf considerable real estate and a reputation for saintliness, clumsy use of cheat dice is liable to win you only the enmity of your gaming peers.

Though loaded dice seem to have been the ancients' way of circumventing the laws of chance, resistance to a random universe has good company in the twentieth century. Albert Einstein never fully reconciled himself with the consequences of quantum mechanics, summing up his discomfort in the now well known phrase, "God does not play dice".

But have no fear! Latterday astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has come to the rescue of spiritual gamers everywhere when he remarks of black holes, "Not only does God play dice, he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen."

In other words, God has one hell of a GM screen.

Hawking also has this to say: "All evidence indicates that God is an inveterate gambler and that he throws the dice on every possible occasion."

Therefore, in the spirit of the ultimate roll model, go forth, and roll the bones!

about the author

Emily Gaskin resides in Tallahassee, Florida, where she routinely offers up prayers to the dice gods. Although she hasn't given up hope, she has yet to see a natural 13 on 2d6 and is becoming a little impatient.