Latest From Amazon – Desk Pads and Wiz Dice

Last Monday a new package arrived from Amazon with three Tops Quadrille Desk Pads and a package of 100+ Wiz Dice.

I wrote about the quadrille desk pad I once had when I shared the map of a town, for a character in my brother’s campaign. I was reminded of this by the Dungeon Deskpad Kickstarter. I had been toying with the idea of getting quad ruled desk pads for over a year, and I decided to get them, and to joining the Dungeon Deskpad Kickstarter. Once I get my overseas shipment I will take pictures to compare..

The brand of desk pads I got are the Tops. Each is individually wrapped in plastic. They were the least expensive. They are not all square and not all the same exact size. That’s OK. I plan on using them for mapping out an abandoned ancient city/megadungeon. I can also use a sheet for a single sheet map of the town that is the current home base of the players in my campaign. The rough map I have for the town of Larenda is two quad ruled sheets taped together. I can even get a roll of clear plastic “shelf-paper”, and laminate some of these sheets for a quick and cheap dry erase surface. I usually only use maps and such to show relative position. Even if it is an exercise only for me, it will be fun. The one draw back to paper this size for maps is that it is too big for my scanners. I will have o do better than a quick picture with my cellphone. I’ll have to put my cheap camera on one of my cheap tripods, to get good pictures for online.

After ordering the two sets of Koplow Who Knew Dice that arrived last week, I ran across an article on Imagur about Wiz Dice and their bag of 100+ dice vs. the Chessex Pound’O Dice, and I ordered the Wiz Dice based on that article. I am always needing more d4’s and d8’s in play. The Wiz Dice 100+ pack includes a fancy drawstring bag with complete matched seven dice set. I ended up with 103 dice plus the set in the bag, for 110 new dice. I received 15 of each die, except for the d12 and d20, which I received 14 of each of those. So I ended up with 14 matched sets of seven dice, 15 counting the drawstring bad, and one partial set missing the d12 and d20. I have matched sets of solid colors and then the “gem” style dice of the same color: green, blue, red, yellow, purple, and red. Then a solid black, swirled black, and a white set. I have one complete orange set and the other orange set is incomplete. I don’t think most people get that many matched sets. I think it is cool that I have enough dice for 15 players from one order of dice, not counting how many ever sets I had before.

One idea I had with this package of dice is making multiple dice tables using different colors of the same die. For example, if I need a table for 14 different results of a d20, or 15 results of a d8, I can do it.

Magic missile is resolved quicker with more d4’s. Lots of monsters taking their attack is resolved quicker with more d20’s.

Blue is my favorite color, but in dice, I find black and red to be my preference. For some reason, it is the same way for me with Risk. For some colors, I prefer the gem style over the solid style.

I guess I need to have a post with a picture of all my dice. They are not all in one place at the moment, so I will have to defer that for a bit.

I also realized that having so many d10’s makes it easy to roll a d1,000 or a d10,000, etc. just specify which color is which digit. I know that they make custom d10,000 dice for such a thing, but I have to tone it down a bit. I’ve spent more on dice in the first two months of 2015 than I spent all of last year, and most of the three plus decades before that. That isn’t to say that I won’t buy more die this year, but I don’t have to buy them all in the first quarter.