It begins...
I thought I'd take the liberty of getting things rolling, having proposed the original idea for the theme. Hopefully I've kept things open enough for other users to add more as the stories progress. How many sides/fates does this die have? Is there a being in control of them? If so, who? Xelrog T. Apocalypse 03:46, September 1, 2014 (UTC)
About the die itself
Sure, we could go for the usual 6-sided die, but thats so common. I think a 20-sided one would be better. More sides, more possible fates. There can be good fates, there can be bad. Plus this die should have a special name.
And how about who handles the die? Will it choose its own master or will it be found by chance by a random person? Does the dice have a mind of its own? Can it control or manipulate its holder or even speak to him telepathically? Or was this once a normal everyday die that was imbued with power by someone who was doing magical experiments or maybe wanted to make some cash off of making magical artifacts of many kinds. Do you even want to give this die a backstory? Is there a legend behind this?
And about if anything happens to the die, say it gets damaged. Does it repair itself? Does it stay damaged? Do bad things happen when damaged? Can it get hurt? Can it even be destroyed?
Maybe I'm just going overboard with this but these are to give you some ideas you can use. 
ஜ۩۞۩ஜ 16:33, September 1, 2014 (UTC)
- I think it would be extremely difficult to come up with 20 very broad, malleable "fate" words. With a number that high they would have to be very specific, which limits the flexibility and the irony in the context of a character's situation. "Health," "Death," and "Love" are three incredibly broad readings, which leaves them open to be used in a multitude of unexpected ways within a character's own experiences. If we can come up with that many, I don't think having more than 6 sides is a problem, but 20 sounds like way too many. Maybe "Fortune" could be a fourth one. Speaking of 4, I'll make the suggestion now that that number be reserved for "Death," just because the two are connected in Japanese culture and cultural tie-ins are cool.
- I don't think the die itself should speak or have a consciousness, because I find the idea of someone talking to a die... well, rather silly. At most its "manipulation" should be that people who come upon it are inexplicably urged, driven to roll it at least once. We have to be careful about getting too detailed. The unknown is creepy. The known and the clearly defined is not. We, the writers, should know at least a little about the object, but we want to keep readers guessing and let them come up with their own theories. On that note, I don't think it's necessary to give the object itself too much of a backstory, as I don't think there's any we could possibly use that wouldn't be incredibly cliched (It was cursed by black magic, someone died and haunts it, it was forged by demons, etc. etc.).
- The way I pictured it, there would be some enigmatic being--I see him as a haunting businessman type, like if the Devil appeared to you proposing a deal for your soul--who was in control of the thing, making sure that it found its way to each new victim and observing their wishes and outcomes to some end. But I didn't want to make that decision on my own if others didn't also want such a character, so I left it open for now. If people say they're interested in such a character here on Talk, we can get cracking... but we should definitely decide now if there's someone in control of the die or if it's just a random artifact, in any case.
- Finally, as for the possibility of the die being destroyed... at the risk of cliche, I think the best thing would be "plushie rules." You can chuck it in lava, you can grind it to dust, you can drop a nuke on it, but somehow, some way, when you get home, you'll always find it sitting on your desk again. Again, unknown is spooky. Xelrog T. Apocalypse 17:29, September 1, 2014 (UTC)
Jack
...well, that was a very drastic jump. I guess we're in post-Apocalyptic land now. Xelrog T. Apocalypse 19:00, September 2, 2014 (UTC)
- Perhaps th die has the ability to travel through space and time? Dashie ~20% Cooler~ 22:31, September 2, 2014 (UTC)
Yeah my thinking was that the die could travel through time and space, thus giving people more option for writing.Peppers246 (talk) 11:46, September 3, 2014 (UTC)
- I think that's going to make things very inconsistent, and create no feel of uniformity in the reading. As if none of it really ties together. But I suppose it's too late to change now. Xelrog T. Apocalypse 14:19, September 3, 2014 (UTC)
- But its a Community Collaboration therefore you have to open it up so that more people with different writing styles can contribute to it.Peppers246 (talk) 01:28, September 4, 2014 (UTC)
- A collaboration is a delicate balance between unity (structure) and individual contributions (freedom). It can't be entirely open. And it's not. There's already a theme, a broad central topic to which contributors have to stick. I personally feel like multiple worlds makes the project too open and throws things out of balance. Others don't. Xelrog T. Apocalypse 01:40, September 4, 2014 (UTC)
- As it stands now, the story reads fine. Maybe Jack was just transcribing more colorful metaphors to fit into his fallen mental state? For example, he said he was "ruler of the world". That could be translated into another contexual view i.e. he was rich, now he isn't. "Post-apocolyptic" could just mean that the world he knew fell apart, not necessarily that he is living in Mad Max's era. Why don't we let the readers paint their own ideas about what the writers put down?
- Mystreve (talk) 17:35, September 4, 2014 (UTC)
Singular vs. Plural
Just to make it absolutely clear to contributors...
Die = Singular. There is one die. Dice = Plural. There are several dice.
The word "dice" probably shouldn't appear much at all, given that this is about a single object. Xelrog T. Apocalypse 17:14, September 8, 2014 (UTC)