Following on to yesterday’s post about virtual gaming, today I turn my attention to analog tools for gaming. Virtual gaming is nice but much like being face-to-face with other players, having things to pick up and play with can add enjoyment to the gaming experience.
To start off with, let’s talk about dice. Gamers can’t get enough of them. Rules systems and settings might be the only thing gamers love more than dice, but that’s another discussion. Gamers collect dice like women collect shoes. Which brings up a question – do female gamers buy shoes and dice in equal quantity? Inquisitive minds want to know.
Most folks are familiar with your standard cubic, six-sided die, or a “d6” in gaming nomenclature. You can find them in most board games, like Monopoly, or Yahtzee. There are many RPGs that use just d6s for all the rolls. Most gamers have a full set (or multiple full sets) of polyhedral dice, used and made popular by the granddaddy of all role-playing games, Dungeons and Dragons. These would be dice based on the Platonic solids you learned about in geometry – the four-siders (d4), the aforementioned six-sider (d6), the eight-sider (d8), the ten-sider (d10), the twelve-sider (d12), and the ever popular twenty-sider (d20). D&D and many other systems rely heavily on the d20, making it the workhorse of most games.
Let’s face it. It’s fun to grab a handful of dice and roll them, listening to them clatter as they skid across the tabletop, hoping for that nat 20 (when the die rolls a 20) at that critical moment when it looks like all hope is lost. When it shows up you can hear the cheering and yelling several blocks away.
The only thing that makes dice rolling more fun is a dice tower. Yes, you can grab a handful of dice and toss them, but a dice tower adds to the experience. The dice make a satisfying clacking sound as they roll past the internal obstructions, heightening the anticipation waiting for the dice to shoot out bottom. It’s certainly not essential but I think it makes a nice addition to the experience.
You can go crazy and spend a lot of money on a really cool dice tower at a gaming convention. These days, gamers are more likely to 3d print a dice tower. You can find model files at many of the usual .stl web depositories, like this Castle Grayskull one at Thingiverse. Or you could go even more old school and craft one out of a Pringles chips can or doing it out of papercraft. The biggest drawback is that they aren’t always easy to transport, as they can be a bit bulky. No matter how you get one, just don’t go overboard and keep rolling dice though it and annoying your fellow players. (Ask me how I know this).
Another fun thing is miniatures and terrain. Some folks aren’t good at playing ‘theatre of the mind”, simply trying to use their imagination to envision what is happening. They need to see where their character is in relation to other characters and objects, especially if there is combat. Again, you can go expensive and buy sculpted metal figures, but many folks are 3d printing figures at home. Either way they usually end up painting them, which can be a monetary and time sink in itself. For the budget-minded you can buy PDFs of characters that you cut and fold. This is probably the most economically feasible way to field and army of figures for that epic final battle between the two opposing kingdoms.
The same thing goes for terrain. You can buy it, 3d print it, or craft it. Using both figures and terrain lets your players get a better idea of what is going on because they can see their paladin facing off against the ogres. They get a feel of the cramped space in the tavern, or the open space of the woods. That battle on the precarious ledge gets a little more thrilling when you’re trying to get you mini to balance on the model of the mountain.
The next thing on my list is index cards. Yes, the simple 3 inch by 5 inch index card. Blank or lined, they have one thousands and one (1001) uses, you just have to figure all of them out for yourself. There are games that an fit he rules onto a 3X5 card, and many others you can fit a entire character in the same space. They are usefully for passing notes to your fellow players, or writing down details about the game and placing it prominently in the center of the table so everyone can see it. You could draw a ruler on one edge and use it to measure the space between your miniatures, (if you use them). You can draw pictures of your character on them and place it in front of you as you play so the other players know what our character looks like. You can build a when the campaign starts to drag so your GM knows they need to make things more engaging. There are tons of uses.
These are just a few things that I think ad more fun to the gaming experience. I don’t get to use most of these I game virtually with my friends. Yes, the virtual tabletop program has a function that shows a die ‘rolling’ across the board, but it isn’t as fun as doing it yourself.
What about you, my Hordeling? Do you agree or disagree? Did I leave something out of the list (I’m sure there are several things)? Leave a comment and let me know.
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