The folks over at Alderdoodle sent us a little care package of mystery items to review recently, and after constantly increasing anticipation while international shipping happened they arrived. And I’ve got to say, the wait was worth it, I’m seriously impressed. These things are high quality, and gorgeous. Opening it up, I found a sample platter of a couple of the sets from the site, and I’ll show some pics below of each and a little reference to what sort they are. I also highly recommend checking out their website or Twitter where you can get some more artistic shots of the products. I’m no photographer sadly.
Progress Clocks
For blades in the dark players, we got two Progress Clocks. I’m not personally a BiTD player, but any sort of erasable tracker is always super handy. More importantly though, these are super pretty, and that makes them 10X more fun to use. So pretty in fact, I’m tempted to try and tag into my buddies BiTD game just to break them out.
Big Cards
The big cards were my favorites. These are Tarot sized cards, and it was super satisfying laying them out in front of me, with the phenomenal gold foil on deep rich black. Then flipping them, there was a mix of erasable and not cards. So if you’re really dedicated to a thing, you can write in pen. One card is for spells, which I’m super tempted to buy like 10 of the 5 packs for myself and will certainly be pointing the wife towards it for gift ideas. I loved the old 4e spell cards they released and found it super handy for play at the table. Also included were monster stat cards, which remind me of the old cards that used to come with the D&D minis line back in the day. These are nice for DMs who prep a lot more than me. You can come to the table with the 9-10 different monsters you plan to use, and just have 2-3 of these on the table in front of you instead of, or alongside, a book and all your notes. I’m all about reducing the amount of crap in front of me at the table, and these seem great for it. Lastly, the ones I was most hesitant about. The item cards. I never really got the intent of these, but I tried them out and am sold. It was awesome to be able to toss it to a player who found a magic sword and hand it right to them. No more “its page 256 in the DMG, no the one below that, no the one above” or trying to describe an item and how it works, and then hoping they transcribe what I said correctly. I’d probably go for the small item cards size wise personally on these.
Small Cards
I also got some small cards. These are standard playing card size. These cards were similar to the big ones, but one stood out. The spell tracker. Which being erasable, I can see being used for basically any character I play from now on. Great idea, and I love the spell trackers art. Probably my favorite of the lot.
Deck of Many Things
I didn’t get one of these, which mean’s non real review, but oh man. The second they are back in stock I’m buying one. I’ve been searching for a good physical deck of many things for a long time. I have a feeling these are going to constantly sell out, so hop on them.
Also?
So what now? Do I just go play with my new cards? Nah, I’ve got enough RPG swag sitting around. Instead, I ran an idea past Ramona over at Alderdoodle. I know some folks doing a raffle for a pride event and we are going to stick these in the RPG bundle to raise some money for the trevor project. If you’re incredibly local, please come on out and bid on them, and if you’re really far away consider donating online. I’m also tossing in some coupons for some private game sessions if that’s your thing too.
The TTRPG Factory 