Rabea Rogge, the first German woman in space, has answered a question tabletop fans never knew they needed answered: can you roll dice in zero gravity? Yes. Yes, you can.
Rogge posted the Instagram clip on April 4, filmed during last year's Fram2 mission, a privately funded SpaceX polar orbit flight that made history as the first crewed mission over both of Earth's poles. In the footage, she flicks an iridescent glass D20 upward with a spin, lets it tumble weightlessly, catches it in her fist, and peers through the gap between her fingers to read the result. She rolled a 7. Not great for a Wisdom saving throw.
The self-described "pen and paper nerd" captioned the post: "Dice in space? As a pen and paper nerd, I experimented with this 20-sided glass die and found that the next round of D&D or similar in space is saved." The clip has racked up over 4.3 million views, and the official Dungeons and Dragons Instagram account chimed in with a new house rule: "Anything you roll in space is a critical success."
What makes the clip extra charming is Rogge's comparison of astronaut training to tabletop RPGs. She described how teams receive scenarios in a training spacecraft and have to deal with everything the "training leader, alias DM" throws at them. Anyone who has survived a particularly sadistic Dungeon Master will relate.
The community response has been predictably delightful, with one popular comment noting that "D&D made it to space before GTA 6." GamesRadar pointed out that the Artemis II crew, set to fly around the Moon later this year, now has absolutely no excuse not to run a campaign en route.
Sources: GamesRadar | PC Gamer
