Doppel Is A Physical Digital Miniature!

Instead of a giant case of miniatures, you could soon be using a handful of programmable LED minis. These new gadgets, currently on Kickstarter, allow you to display your character's custom image on both sides of a twin-screen standee.

And it's not just visual--these minis also make noises! You can have character specific sound effects from sword clashes to spellcasting.

Designed for a 1-inch grid, these minis represent regular medium-sized creatures. It will set you back about $160 per mini (each with a charging case) on the Kickstarter, although the eventual retail price will apparently be closer to $280.

The Kickstarter cites compatibility with D&D, Star Wars, Fate, Vampire, Numenera, Pathfinder, and Cypher System, although I'm not clear what's required to make an image compatible with a game.

You can find Doppel on Kickstarter here for the next 3 weeks.

 

[aramis erak]

Great Idea, but the price is... way too high.

I can see 3 design issues right off -
1. it's an illumination display - if the sun's on it, fuggedaboud readin' it.
2. it's a display which needs power, so they have to have put a battery in it. that's a chunk of change there.
3. Sound is pure gimmick and adds cost
4. OLED displays are still overly pricy.


Full Color eInk is not available in that size, but that's just a matter of getting the right Chinese company to make it; enough bulk, and it should be doable. eInk displays draw power only when updating. My Kindle broke the connector to the screen... so it's frozen for a couple years now halfway through a screen change. (essentially, bricked. Logic board still works, but screen toasted.)
1"×2.1" is a standard size of tiny display; monochrome are about $4-$6, using standard SPI. A full color in that size would be about $30-$50 depending upon DPI, given current 4 color (Black/White/Red/Yellow) eInk run $25 including an ESP32 microcontroller.
An SPI equipped ESP32 or Arduino is available for under a dollar from Digikey.

I can, in theory, build some a-frames, and use the standard ESP32 desktop tools to push images on, and then unplug it, so a pair of connectors for the SPI and power. Doable in monochrome for about $25 to $30 each unit. I'm not about to; I'll wait for color to come down...

 

[Clint_L]

It just looks so dumb on the tabletop to me. I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around anyone wanting this. Let alone at those prices. I must be just so behind the times.

 

[Dire Bare]

Are we supposed to champion every idea coming from people trying desperately to cash in on the current popularity of D&D, regardless of how silly or untenable it may be.

People act like folks having negative opinions about A thing means there is nothing but negativity. That's hyperbolic and more than a little hypocritical. I guarantee I can find some posts where (general) you were being negative about something.

I think it is an overly expensive, gimmicky piece of ephemera meant to scrap some crowdfunds. There is a ton of that in the hobby space right now and we should all feel okay saying so.

Pretty hard to get excited over such an ill conceived product...

Okay.

Why would you get excited over a product you don't care for? Who's asking you to?

Seems it must be either hyperbolic negativity or we must "champion" a product that isn't to our tastes. There's no middle ground? We can't just say, "Eh, not for me." and leave it at that?

I love fandom sometimes.

 

[Dire Bare]

AR is only a matter of time.

AR for tabletop RPGs is already here. Check out the Mirrorscape app.

 

[doctorhook]

Products like this seem like the wrong direction to me. TTRPGs seem to have more peripherals, more plastic, more stuff now than ever before, at a time when overconsumption is a major driver of climate change and cost of living is already skyrocketing. As a hobby, we should be moving toward using more wood and cardboard and paper, not inventing new classes of electronic peripherals that cost hundreds of dollars per unit.

Overall, I’m neutral about the utility of this at my table. It’s neat I guess but I think it would look out of place and I don’t want to have to worry “Are my minis charged?” I certainly wouldn’t buy them for myself at this price point. But my main objection is the wastefulness of this product.

 

[FoolishFrost]

Okay, here's my issue:

• If I'm playing online, it's useless.
• If I'm playing IRL, then... people want real miniatures. Tactile stuff. Dice. Books.

No matter how you look at this: There is no market for this aside from "Ohhhh! Shiney!" And they can't sustain a business model. Not usually.

 

[Zaukrie]

Products like this seem like the wrong direction to me. TTRPGs seem to have more peripherals, more plastic, more stuff now than ever before, at a time when overconsumption is a major driver of climate change and cost of living is already skyrocketing. As a hobby, we should be moving toward using more wood and cardboard and paper, not inventing new classes of electronic peripherals that cost hundreds of dollars per unit.

Overall, I’m neutral about the utility of this at my table. It’s neat I guess but I think it would look out of place and I don’t want to have to worry “Are my minis charged?” I certainly wouldn’t buy them for myself at this price point. But my main objection is the wastefulness of this product.

This replaces hundreds of pieces of plastic..... So I think it achieves what you want, generally.

 

[MarkB]

Okay, here's my issue:

• If I'm playing online, it's useless.
• If I'm playing IRL, then... people want real miniatures. Tactile stuff. Dice. Books.

No matter how you look at this: There is no market for this aside from "Ohhhh! Shiney!" And they can't sustain a business model. Not usually.

Yeah, and from any angle other than directly front or back they're just a featureless white cuboid.

Can you imagine getting into one of those tight-corridor battles where everyone gets jammed base-to-base? It'd just look like a bunch of building blocks stacked up against each other.

 

[Zil]

Yeah, and from any angle other than directly front or back they're just a featureless white cuboid.

Can you imagine getting into one of those tight-corridor battles where everyone gets jammed base-to-base? It'd just look like a bunch of building blocks stacked up against each other.

It will look like an oversized pawn. If they can get the size down some I think it will work okay on a table where the other "minis" are regular pawns.

 

[Clint_L]

I think it could be cool for a player to have on the tabletop beside them. At a much lower price. Kinda like fancy dice or whatnot. Because they could really personalize their character.

But if someone slapped their little computer monitor down in the middle of one of my beautiful, hand-painted Dwarven Forge sets, I would be, "Nope!"