A meditation on questionable products

[Doug Sundseth]

 

You mean the Alea Tools markers? We use them every game, ...

Possibly.

Are there magnets involved? Do I disremember that detail?

 

 

Magnets in the center, 1" and 2" diameter disks in a wide variety of colors.

 

I use magnetic bases for my gaming minis, so the magnets are useful there. Also, My initiative trackers are ferromagnetic, so the magnets help there, too.

[Inarah]

I have some of the magnetic plastic disc markers. They were useful in D&D 4 because you have to keep track of all kinds of conditions during combat (slowed, bloodied, combat advantage, etc) but ultimately nobody else wanted to buy any so we ended up using a white board to keep track. And they don't stick to plastic figures.

[Dr.Bedlam]

I have a variety of dice towers; the most practical ones are the ones that are disassemblable.

[Arc 724]

I have question to go along with this one. I'm only 30 years old and only recently in the past 2 years go into the deeper world of tabletop gaming. I'm noticing more and more "custom wood this" "hand made that." Have you guys, who have been around this world much longer than I, noticed a trend  of "custom" in these realms that wasn't before? 

 

What I mean is do you see more of this "higher end" tabletop accessories than ever before? Or has has there always been this kind of stuff cycling through?

 

In my head I have the image of Downton Abbey; The elegance and almost superfluous nature of things like gold forks and spoons and lavish decoration. As oppose to the down stairs workers who eat good food and use normal everyday stuff. They both accomplish the goal of eating but one does it with more ritual and "style" - if you could call it that. 

Edited February 13, 2016 by Arc 724

[Inarah]

There have always been accessories. I think the internet makes it much easier to get information out there today than it was in the 80's -- when you basically had to pray someone saw your one shot 2x2 ad in the back of Dragon. Crowd funding makes it easy for anyone with an idea to set up and sell to the 138 people who want one. Prior to that you had to drag yourself around to region cons to reach buyers.

[Werkrobotwerk]

There's been a lot of cross over with craft fair kind of stuff for a long while. Wood workers, and metal workers who happen to play games would make small numbers of these sorts of things. Internet just means they can try and make a go of it as a business instead of a hobby or side job.

[Orlando_the_Technicoloured]

pretty much anything involving ring binders or spiral binding whether the book comes that way or somebody converts it to make it 'easier to use'

 

pages in ring binders get torn out and lost (even if you reinforce the holes

 

and with spiral binders somebody is bound to crush the wire so you can't turn the pages properly

[Dr.Bedlam]

Reaper Miniatures used to put 2x2 ads in the back of Dragon magazine.

But the word "custom" doesn't necessarily mean much... I used to make custom HeroClix. They weren't tournament legal, but they were pretty. And I've seen "custom" used to mean "somebody designed this thing before we mass produced it!"

[arclance]

I use two "Stanley 014725 25-Removable Compartment Professional Organizer" to store and organize the dice I use most often.

...

One of them holds my more valuable dice, mostly Metallic Dice Games stone dice and some 3D printed metal dice.

I lined the larger organizer boxes with pluck foam to protect the stone dice.

I only roll these dice on a padded play mat to protect them.

This is what my organizers look like full of dice.

 

The wooden alternatives are much more expensive and hold far less dice in the same amount of space.

[Kheprera]

 

I use two "Stanley 014725 25-Removable Compartment Professional Organizer" to store and organize the dice I use most often.

...

One of them holds my more valuable dice, mostly Metallic Dice Games stone dice and some 3D printed metal dice.

I lined the larger organizer boxes with pluck foam to protect the stone dice.

I only roll these dice on a padded play mat to protect them.

This is what my organizers look like full of dice.

 

The wooden alternatives are much more expensive and hold far less dice in the same amount of space.

You need more dice.

[kristof65]

Cartography/mapping software. I love the idea of creating and printing out full color maps for D&D, but in reality the time spent creating the maps and then having to assemble 8.5x11 sheets into a full map make it less than ideal. And the cost of taking the files to Staples or some such to be printed is prohibitive.

For me, Campaign Cartographer has been one of my better gaming purchases.

[Pingo]

pretty much anything involving ring binders or spiral binding whether the book comes that way or somebody converts it to make it 'easier to use'

 

pages in ring binders get torn out and lost (even if you reinforce the holes

 

and with spiral binders somebody is bound to crush the wire so you can't turn the pages properly

Ye-es, with the caveat that if the glue has shattered and the spine has cracked and all the pages are loose or falling out anyway, rebinding it spiral-bound is no worse than lugging a stack of loose pages whose edges are getting worn.

[TGP]

@Arclance — I have more than one of that same organizer. Thanks for the idea.

 

@Orlando & Pingo — re: Spiral binding.

GW Warhammer soft back rule books were notably bad at holding up under table top 'battle' conditions. I have at least two I took to Kinko's (when it was still named that). They did an excellent job of re-binding those books with a spiral.

 

They laminated the covers with a super heavy laminating plastic. They trimmed away the surviving glue. They drilled fresh holes in the covers and the pages. They wound in a heavy plastic or nylon spiral that was very sturdy (hard to crush out of shape unlike wire).

 

The result was more durable than when the book was new.

[knarthex]

@Arclance — I have more than one of that same organizer. Thanks for the idea.

 

@Orlando & Pingo — re: Spiral binding.

GW Warhammer soft back rule books were notably bad at holding up under table top 'battle' conditions. I have at least two I took to Kinko's (when it was still named that). They did an excellent job of re-binding those books with a spiral.

 

They laminated the covers with a super heavy laminating plastic. They trimmed away the surviving glue. They drilled fresh holes in the covers and the pages. They wound in a heavy plastic or nylon spiral that was very sturdy (hard to crush out of shape unlike wire).

 

The result was more durable than when the book was new.

Battlefront's Free rule books when they transitioned from 1st to 2nd edition, and 2nd to 3rd editions were also poorly bound, so I had the same thing done. Lukily for me, there is a tenant in the office building with the gear to do this, and they did it both times for me for free...

I always thought it was pretty neat that when they changed editions, They gave you a new rule book free, if you already had their Hard back rule book.

The freebies didn't have all the extra fluff, but that really didn't change, after all, a Panther tank is a Panther tank....

I will say that they are the only other game company that comes close to Reaper for their customer service.

 

George