D&D General Favorite Accessories to play D&D and RPGs from the past 52 years

[Stormonu]

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My forms clipboard that I found in a truck stop on some road trip. Sturdy aluminium and can hold a lot of papers and even spiral notepads. Has a flip board to go under the papers you are using to form a hard writing surface. Has a storage space for all your other papers, pencils, erasers, etc. Typically, I'd just keep the character sheets, notes, and other papers for all the games I was playing with pencil and erasers in the storage. It was everything I typically would need, except for books, for all my games ready to go. I think I even found dice that would fit in the storage compartment but they were a little small for this one. There are models with larger storage compartments that could hold regular dice set, as well as half sheet size. I've been using this one for 20+ years.


I don't use it much these days, but in college and soem time afterwards I would use engineering pads. They are graph paper with the graphing lines on the back but can be seen through the paper on the front, along with proper spaces for titles dates, etc.

I second the clipboards that also double as storage. I bought plastic ones for my players back in 3E; it could hold their dice, pencils, character sheets, spell cards*, PC mini, handouts and the like. A couple players used them to hold their PHBs.

* Spell cards are also super-handy to keep players from flipping through the PHB to find the details of their spells. Likewise, monster cards are excellent for the DM to save flipping through various MM's - especially those on cards that can be hung over a DM's screen and put in initiative order (the ones I use are made by Top Dog Games, there's also some made by Beedle & Grimm).

 

[Mannahnin]

My forms clipboard that I found in a truck stop on some road trip.

Honorable mention to a good clipboard, for sure. I've kept so many character sheets on these.

 

[darjr]

Another, Dragon Magazine.

I get some of that from Knock and other indy zines now. And honestly I think I prefer it now. But it was nice to have Dragon be this corner stone and watering hole, ya know?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I remember the 1e DM's screen being pretty cool.

Trampier's screen appearing in Art & Arcana makes me hope that his estate is up for licensing his art. I would love a modern screen with the 1E screen art. (And, frankly, just compile the rest of his RPG art and I will buy it, Trampier estate.)

EDIT: Scott Thorne apparently owns that piece of art. Scott, make a screen using that art.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Dungeon Tiles, Battle Map books, minis and stand up cardboard minis.

 

[Thierry-Advent]

Trampier's screen appearing in Art & Arcana makes me hope that his estate is up for licensing his art. I would love a modern screen with the 1E screen art. (And, frankly, just compile the rest of his RPG art and I will buy it, Trampier estate.)

EDIT: Scott Thorne apparently owns that piece of art. Scott, make a screen using that art.

"Trampier was suspicious of the offer, and wanted to ensure that TSR would not have any part of the publication; he seemed surprised by the news that TSR had been taken over by Wizards of the Coast almost 20 years previously."

This sentence always saddens me. What if Trampier had known about the WoTC take over, he might have had a renaissance as an illustrator for D&D!

 

[Piperken]

Since Dwarven Forge and other tile sets have come up a few times, could someone who is familiar with terrain stuff explain how "big" a thing one can set up with a core/base set will make? Or perhaps what combinations you've found that works for particular size terrain maps you've tended to use? :3

It's helpful the companies provide the number of pieces, but I have no idea conceptually if that is enough for particular dungeons (for reference, I use a 34.5" x 48" Chessex right now for maps; occasionally I've changed the 1" squares/hexes = 10 feet).

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

"Trampier was suspicious of the offer, and wanted to ensure that TSR would not have any part of the publication; he seemed surprised by the news that TSR had been taken over by Wizards of the Coast almost 20 years previously."

This sentence always saddens me. What if Trampier had known about the WoTC take over, he might have had a renaissance as an illustrator for D&D!

He was Dave Trampier. If he had decided, at any point over the decades, that he wanted to get back into fantasy illustration -- for anyone -- he would have been welcomed in with open arms.

Whatever happened with him and TSR was enough for him to be done with, by my read, commercial art generally.

 

[abazaba]

I just read the 'disappearance' 'reappearance' parts of the Wikipedia article about Dave Trampier, and even if only half of that it is true, it really makes me sad.

 

[Mannahnin]

Since Dwarven Forge and other tile sets have come up a few times, could someone who is familiar with terrain stuff explain how "big" a thing one can set up with a core/base set will make? Or perhaps what combinations you've found that works for particular size terrain maps you've tended to use? :3

It's helpful the companies provide the number of pieces, but I have no idea conceptually if that is enough for particular dungeons (for reference, I use a 34.5" x 48" Chessex right now for maps; occasionally I've changed the 1" squares/hexes = 10 feet).

The images on their current website make it pretty clear. They show both the pieces and a sample configuration.

The basic floor piece is 2"x2" and sculpted so those four 1" grid squares on its top surface are four roughly squarish flagstones.

If you look at the Starter Dungeon set, that's basically an 8" square room, although the walls take up a good chunk of the outer inch, so it's really a 7"x7" room plus a little extra and the walls.

If you look at the Classic Dungeon Core set, you see they've laid it out to make two 6"x4" rooms and a larger irregular room that has a roughly 6x4 section and a wider area roughly 10x8. In the neighborhood of 162 square inches of table coverage, though again, since the walls sit on top of the flagstones, the interior space available to stand miniatures on is significantly smaller than the table surface covered.