The Crunch
First off, the crunchy stuff. No, we don’t mean crunchy sandwich toppings (well, I suppose some of them are) we mean charts! While the show has undergone changes, sought help from other creators, and even delved into the realms of magic, I think a typical show still has the following standard: a D6 roll for Bread, D12 for Main, D6 for Cheese, D12 (which is rolled twice) for Roughage , D20 for “Wild Magic” (various additional potential toppings), and a D20 for Sauce. It includes pantry items, sometimes sponsored items from food companies or fans, and other options such as "roll twice" or "dealers choice" on some of the lists. Of course, our home lists will be limited to our own pantry, and not quite as wild as the show that inspired us. The categories are the same, but the dice are different. As before, if you really want to know the full lists, I’m happy to provide, but otherwise I’ll leave the details as Never Say Dice’s Deep Sandwich Lore.
Day One: To start off with, we rolled up with a wrap. While that isn’t exactly a sandwich, again we’re limited by our own diets and pantries. For a Main, we got ground turkey coupled with a double cheddar cheese. Roughage somehow gave us double mushrooms. To top it off, we got a Sauce of ketchup and some Wild Chip Magic. Overall, this wasn’t a bad entry, if not a (conventional) sandwich - a bit bland, and reminded us of some sort of simple burger wrap.
Day Two: Today gave us almost an opposite problem from yesterday with wheat bread and taco meat. Though you wouldn’t traditionally see Italian cheese as part of a taco, that's where we ended up. Having "none" as a Roughage option is probably not the best of ideas for my own diet, and today we ended up with only carrots to add some crunch... much to the kid's delight of . Our sauce was BBQ: Sweet Baby Rays; and our Wild Magic was red pepper which I ended up going a little heavy on. This sandwich was full of flavor but very mushy - a kind of weird American taco sandwich.
Day Four: For our fourth entry, we ended up with something significantly overloaded. We rolled "freezer" for Bread, and pulled out some oversized garlic bread ready for the toaster. Luck of the dice had us roll a double Main with both roast beef and another appearance from taco meat. Provolone worked well as a Cheese for both the Bread and Mains. The roughage is where things went south for my son: celery and broccoli. They added some much needed crunch, color, and colon health, but didn’t really meld with the rest of the flavors. To top it off, we ended up getting no Sauce and multiple "doubles" for Wild Magic. This saw us including three great seasonings for this sandwich: oregano, red pepper, and season salt. While I wouldn’t go out of my way to make this again, I’d happily eat another.
Day Five: This normal "stop" day for us (previously we’ve only done five days each year) saw the worst entry of the week, so I’m glad we didn’t end our adventure here. It was both mushy and had clashing flavors. A wrap filled with hummus and colby jack wasn’t a bad start. but hen we got a Roughage of pickles, a ketchup Sauce, and oregano. My kid had a ‘try it’ bite, and I ate the rest, much to my chagrin. It very much needed texture and better flavors.
Day Six: This should have been our second day's entry as we rolled "2" on multiple dice. We ended up with what I call a "NYC Experience" sandwich. A roll with pepperoni and double cheddar. Broccoli and carrots forced their way in again, but turned out alright with the inclusion of everything bagel seasoning and thousand island dressing. Another situation where I wouldn’t try to make it, but wouldn’t be upset at all to eat another. While I probably shouldn’t be consuming thousand island dressing, I realized I’ve been missing out on using it as a condiment.
Day Seven: Our final entry turned out to be a classic: a regular old tuna sandwich. Tuna on wheat with some colby jack, no Roughage. The Sauce was mayo (again, something I shouldn’t be consuming), but a classic tuna pairing and basil as Wild Magic. I eat similar food most days of the week and find it hard to find fault with this. A fine ending for this year’s week of randomized food.
As you can see, we got in a full seven day week this year, as opposed to the first time we tried this out. My teenage son, though still a bit of a picky eater, still chowed down and tried everything we made - although one time he was rather disgusted and I took his portion after he had a ‘"try it" bite. What inspiration did we get, though? One rule we determined, given that we have a shorter frame than the ongoing show, is that we gave ourselves some mercy "floating rerolls" for when we kept getting the same result multiple days in a row. That's something you can absolutely add to your games - it's no fun rolling failure after failure in a gaming session. Try adding a failure counter for your players, and after one of them hits a certain number, consider giving them "inspiration" or a free auto success. While we’re on "hand waving," consider our seventh day of sandwiches. We knew it would be the last one of the year, and was also the last day of summer vacation, so we were liberal with our re-rolls. We may have ended up with a rather "normal" sandwich, but still had a ton of fun and ended up with a bite we knew we'd enjoy as a send off. When you’re looking at ending campaigns you’ve enjoyed, make sure you're at least a little liberal in that last session. Who knows when you’ll have another good chance - you might as well make sure it's a good one. Until the next post, dear readers, enjoy your sandwiches (even if they aren’t exactly sandwiches), your tables, and your dice.
- A
Send questions, comments, and your most destructive arguments from sandwich definition battles to neversaydice20@gmail.com.
