‘Tis the season where a lot of wish-making and -granting, list-making and -fulfilling happens. And, no matter the season, all of us gamers (not-so) secretly dream of a gaming collection that dwarfs Smaug’s horde. So here are a few Gaming Accessory suggestions from me and my fellow writers, for gamers of all ages. Merryment, Happiness, and Good Gaming to all!
1: Curled Paw Creatives (Recommended by: Wayne Basta)
Curled Paw Creatives makes a wide range of X-Wing accessories (among other things). You can get maneuver templates and range rulers which are highly recommended. The default cardboard ones that come with the base game get deformed quite easily. In addition to those, they also have all the new 2.0 tokens and some very cool arc indicators that I very much hope show up under my tree this year.
2: Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures / Deep Cuts Miniatures (Recommended by: Ben Erickson)
These products are Wizkids’ lines of affordable, unpainted gray plastic miniatures for your Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder games. The miniatures themselves are nicely detailed representations of common character archetypes and creatures from both game lines. They are already assembled and primed making them ready to paint right out of the package. The plastic itself is harder than other plastics, but bending can and does occur within individual packs. They typically run $4.99 for a package of 2-3 different poses for the character/creature type, but bigger creatures like trolls and beholders run more expensive.
3: Character Models I (Recommended by: Kim Frandsen)
How could I not recommend this one? It’s a product that I made myself, but that was actually not the original intention for it. The idea came from being annoyed at my daughter’s daycare. They had the classic paper “dress-up dolls”, but they were also so focused on dresses, shoes and other, “un-cool” stuff. And one day I had enough, and sat down with an artist friend of mine, to create something specifically for my daughter (and her classmates). Character Models I is the result. They were supposed to just be that one-off thing for her, but another friend of mine (a publisher by the name of Rodney Sloan), happened to catch a post on Facebook, where I was showing them off. And his comment was that they’d make excellent tools for those gamers who want something to represent their characters, but who, like him, couldn’t draw. (For those looking for a bit of trivia – my daughter is listed as a developer for that very reason. – maybe, once she’s older than 4, she’ll realize what it means. For now, she’s happy coloring them and playing with them. 🙂 )
(Art © Kim Frandsen, used with permission)
4: Sewing Machine Paper – (Recommended by:Kim Frandsen)
5: Hero Lab (Recommended by: Linda Whitson)
Lone Wolf Development’s Hero Lab is character creation software with licenses (content) available for a number of popular RPGs–D&D (4e, 5e, 3.5 SRD), Mutants & Masterminds (2e, 3e), Pathfinder, FATE, World of Darkness, and many others. There are encounter build and other GM tools, as well as combat tracking–and it makes a nice character sheet. You do need to be familiar with a game’s character creation rules in order to build characters for it with Hero Lab. One license of your choice is free with the program for US$35 (licenses for additional systems are usually $25), and the store page includes an option to purchase as a gift. The program is on my list.
Linda Whitson
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