The Dungeons and Dragons loot you always wanted

It’s no shock that the writers here love traditional tabletop role-playing games as much as we love the ones we play on our consoles and PCs. Dungeons and Dragons is the first RPG and is arguably the greatest. With the interest generated by real play streams like Critical Role and The Adventure Zone, there’s never been a better time to start your adventure. These accessories make that easier.

Heavy metal:

Hestya 7 pieces metal dice set

These are the essential accessory that any player is judged on: their dice. There are plenty of cheaper plastic sets available, but metal dice have that satisfying heft and feel good hitting the table. These metal dice come in a cornucopia of colors for both the metal and the inset coloring, allowing you to find the perfect set easily.

Roll play:

fox tower dice tower

Dice towers are built to guarantee the randomization of your dice and to keep them from rolling off the table. This dice tower cleverly folds up and breaks down for easy storage or portability. It comes unpainted, but the plastic can be redesigned with acrylic hobby paints quite easily.

Bag of holding:

Enhance tabletop RPG adventurer’s bag

If you’re going to play at someone else’s house or you’re going to a gaming convention, you’ll want to keep your scrolls and potions organized, so to speak. The Enhance Adventurer’s Bag will carry all your needed books, tabletop figures, dice, snacks, and anything else you might need to slay any dragon. It even includes loops to bring a rolled-up battle mat.

Set the scene:

Giant book of battle mats

It’s the eternal dungeon master problem. Your players will start a fight just about anywhere, leaving you scrambling for a dry erase marker to make a map from scratch. The Giant Book of Battle Mats fixes that problem by having 62 different maps on which your players can play. It’s laminated for use with dry-erase markers, and it’s spiral bound to lay flat no matter what.

Master magic:

Dungeons dragons arcane spell reference cards

These cards take the spell rules and put them at your fingertips. Remembering each spell’s rules can be a hassle, but these cards list all the relevant 5th Edition rules, like casting time, range, and damage. You can even put them in 9-pocket card binder to better organize your character’s spellbook.

Take note:

AzureGreen embossed leather dual dragons journal

In an ongoing campaign, it’s essential to keep track of who you meet, where you’ve been, and what’s going on. And if you’re doing that, you might as well do it with this leather-bound journal, embossed with twin dragons. You’ll have 240 blank pages to keep track of all your travels in whatever realm you wander. And at 7 inches at its largest dimension, it will easily fit in any bag.

Old school:

RPG grid paper composition book

As wonderful as the devices we all use are, sometimes you just want to put pencil to paper and make a map or two. As a DM, these notebooks are what you need to graph out those killer dungeons your players will grind through. And as a player, you’ll need these to make your own maps so you can escape those same deathtraps! These are the original world builder tools, and they are a great way to stoke creativity in an unplugged way.

Hidden plots:

Hexers gamer master screen

As a Dungeon Master, you always want to keep your players guessing. Screens help add drama by hiding your notes, your rolls, and hidden monster figures. The Hexers screen has pockets on both sides to swap out rules, reference sheets, and artwork for the front, making it useful for more than just DD.

Arcane eye:

Logitech brio ultra HD webcam

Webcams are useful for more than meetings. Increasingly, DD sessions are happening on the web through Discord, Skype, Google Meet, or more dedicated RPG services like Roll20. The Logitech Brio is a high-end pick, but if you plan to stream your games on Twitch or Mixer, you’ll be glad for the clarity it provides.

Delving deep

Tabletop role-playing has been a part of our culture for over 40 years now. People of any background are finding welcome seats at the table, and for a few hours, they get to be anyone they want to be. They can be a brave adventurer, a hardened mercenary, a dastardly villain, or anything in between. DD is seeing a renaissance with its best selling edition in decades. Everywhere you go, you see it in movies, TV shows, comics, and on streaming services. It’s been in everything from Stranger Things to She Ra. That’s why now is the best time to pick up your dice and throw down.

Of course, we recommend those dice be the Hestya 7 Pieces Metal Dice Set. All gamers love their dice, and we think these are some of the best out there, both in terms of your color choices, as well as their heft. We also recommend keeping organized to improve your game, and to that end, the Enhance Adventurer’s Bag will do the trick. Whatever you do, we also recommend checking out DNDBeyond.com. It’s a character creator, rules archive, and campaign tracker all in one. It’s certainly helped me with my latest campaign and is free if you only have six characters.