Casting Shadows

The next few prompts for #RPGaDAY2024 move a short distance away from the core books and play itself to look at things that support it or derive from it. For today, we have the keyword accessory, and the standard question asks us to share one that we appreciate. It’s going to be hard for me to stay away from mentioning dice. Ok, apparently it was impossible. I do not, however, have to mention them further.

On second, third, and fourth thoughts, things just keep coming back to dice. To be clear, I hear all you people shouting that in many RPGs dice are not an accessory, they are a necessity. You don’t have to shout, but I understand your exuberance. Let me put it this way, random number generation is essential in many RPGs, and that can be accomplished to varying degrees of satisfaction by other means than dice. However, there is a reason why dice rose to prominence among those means. That said, though, once we step outside the realm of having the dice we need to accomplish the tasks required by the games we play…? Right, additional dice sets are accessories.

I am not going to write about additional dice sets. I have done that enough.

Too Busy to Read? There is a short that is all Show and No Tell

So, if we cannot escape the dice in this post, but this post is not about dice, what accessories will it mention? Well, this year, let’s hit the dice bag. I considered the dice tray, but I only use those when I absolutely have to. I use dice bags on purpose, with purpose.

Taking the Crown Royal Bag One Step Beyond

Normally, I go for the faux-velvet bags in a large size. I have a lot of dice and buying dice is something that I recognize I tend to do throughout the year. I also get some in the smallest size for distinct sets, or for transporting a select number of dice for a specific purpose. One example of this is that my Ubiquity U-dice have their own bag and it contains all of my active U-dice, meaning the red, white, and blue d8s that were created for Hollow Earth Expedition, the gold, silver and bronze U-dice that were made for Space 1889’s Ubiquity rebirth, the red, grey, and black U-dice that were made for Revelations of Mars, and the red, white, and blue exploding version of U-dice. It’s a nice, actual suede bag just big enough for all of that potential in die form. However, I feel duty-bound to mention that there are also D2s that serve as dice for Ubiquity games, and I keep those in a different, slightly bigger bag.

The story is similar for other games, even ones that just need percentile dice and maybe one or two other dice for damage or whatever. The dice bag for my FFG (now Edge Studios) Star Wars dice is simply enormous, for example.

If you are like me, then you may be interested in hearing about a Korean fried chicken franchise called Puradak. No, you read that right – a chicken place. It’s no more ridiculous than a liquor company.

Puradak delivers their chicken and whatever sides and beverages you have ordered, in large bags that are perfect for the dice collector in your life. The current design even has a sort-of d20 aspect to its logo.

In gaming, it has been something of a tradition to seek out Crown Royal bags for dice. Now, I think it is obvious that there is a contender waiting in the (Chicken) wings to take on that purple pocket of probabilities protection and put it out to pasture. The Puradak bag.