Say hello to our latest friend, Joanie! We originally brought Joanie in as a seasonal packer to help us manage our unexpectedly popular Advent Calendars in 2022.
She was such a great fit, we decided she should probably stick around!
You can find her at our local Los Angeles convention appearances, and hopefully a few more far-ranging ones next year!
So, Joanie, what were you doing before Dice Envy buried you in boxes of dice?
My previous job was in cosmetic sales. I spent a few years in retail stores and a few years doing digital marketing in an office setting. All that sales experience is quite helpful when it comes to working at a vendor booth at conventions. However, if you told me years ago that one day I’d be selling dice instead of lipstick, I’d never have believed you.
What does a typical day at Dice Envy look like for you?
Most days at Dice Envy start out with the same task, fulfilling new online orders. Ian pulls the dice from the shelves and arranges the orders neatly on the table. Then the rest of us package the orders up for shipment. After that’s done, I usually spend my day packaging mystery dice sets, refilling pounds of dice, taking stock of new shipments and putting them away, or whatever else needs to be done. I find the endless repetition of putting dice in bags to be very soothing and almost meditative. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who would go crazy having to do that all day, but I love it.
That sounds like a lot! What do you do to decompress?
I spend most of my free time playing video games, specifically World of Warcraft. It’s probably more of an addiction than a hobby at this point. I’ve also been playing a lot of Baldur’s Gate III and Diablo IV recently. When I’m not playing video games, I like to do all kinds of crafting and art. Mostly sculpting, painting, and embroidery. I also go to concerts frequently.
Concerts? Sweet! What sort of stuff do you listen to?
My taste in music is all over the place. I love everything from 90’s pop to most genres of metal. However, my favorite band (and biggest obsession since I was 12 years old) is My Chemical Romance. Don’t get me started because I could go on and on forever about that band and how much I love them, and this interview will be way too long.
You mentioned WoW and Baldur's Gate, how have they helped shape your expectations of D&D?
I’m new to the world of TTRPGs, and having a video game translate the rules into a language I could understand made learning the basics of how to play so much easier. My love of World of Warcraft helped me understand a lot of basic fantasy concepts, but Baldur’s Gate has been the single most helpful resource in understanding how to play D&D. I even tried making my office campaign character in the game and learned that a lot of the spells I chose for her were actually pretty useless in combat scenarios. Thankfully, the team was nice enough to let me swap some cantrips and spells before our office campaign really got going.
Office campaign? Awesome! Tell us more about that...
It’s so much fun! I’m sad I waited this long to play! Our D&D office campaign has been full of both exciting combat encounters as well as silly side quests. Our CEO David has been such a great DM and the rest of the Dice Envy team has been so much fun to adventure with. I never thought we’d spend hours roleplaying waiting in line at a fantasy version of the DMV, but we did and it was nonstop laughter the whole time. I think that’s the beauty of this game. Anything can happen! My character is a wild magic tiefling sorcerer. I took inspiration for her backstory from a comedy/horror book I read a while ago about demons invading the earth. My character angered a greater demon in hell and got herself banished, which she is not happy about. She’s a bit of a pyromaniac, happy to cast fire bolt at the first sign of danger.
Finally, the question we just have to ask, what's your favorite dice set!?
My favorite dice set is definitely Lump of Coal, or its luxe counterpart, Corruption. I like to affectionately refer to them as our goth dice, for obvious reasons.