Dicemas 2020 or Nerdy places to shop this Holiday Season...

 

The corporate mandated holiday giving season is upon us again, or you are browsing this post long after, but either way here are some Nerdy Shops that are worth a browse as you search for gifts for nerdy family & friends, or treats for yourself. 

Crow & Crown
Artistic, Nerdy and RPG adjacent illustrations.
Dark Elf Dice
Has a great and always rotating selection of dice and other RPG goodies, I've ordered many a set for myself or to give as gifts.
Dbl Feature
One of my wife's favorite nerd shops, with cute RPG themed accessories and apparel
GraveMarkings
Dark and nerdy art.
Laser Wolf Attack
The merch shop of Andrew MacLean, who is best known for the excellent graphic novel series, Head Lopper.
Mystery School Comics Group
Selling the art, merch and short comics of Michael Conrad and Becky Cloonan.
Severed Books
Gelatinous Cube dice, Bag of Holding Mimic Fanny Packs and many more excellent nerdy delights abound.
Topataco
Merchandise emporium for many webcomics and other nerdy brands.
VOID MERCH
Merchandise designed and curated by Dread Singles In Your Area

Of course, if you know more about what your nerdy friend might want and their email, you can also send them gifts from DriveThruRPG or the DM's Guild, or even purchase Roll20 assets for your favorite Game Master. 

I like BIG DICE...

and I cannot lie... (small dice for size)

Last year I discovered the joy of BIG DICE. Partly this was due to running 13th Age and needing a big d6 for the Escalation Die, but I've also found them to be great GM tools. What do I use BIG DICE for?

• Tracking enemy hit points. Perfect for bigger enemies with lots of HP.
• Keeping track of countdowns.
• 13th Age Escalation Die - Big wooden lawn dice work perfectly for this.
• Eyes of the Stone Thief Submergence Die.
• Terrifying players. Just set a die out and increase or decrease the number to your whim and watch players squirm.
• The pure satisfaction of rolling BIG DICE.

What's the advantage of using BIG DICE for these tasks?

• Easy to read at a glance.
• Harder to accidentally knock over. (I've found that metal dice are also good for this).
• Stand out from smaller dice. I only have a small number of BIG DICE so I'm not trying to remember if the wyvern hp total was on the sparkly black dice or the matte black with speckles dice.

Now I make sure I have my big dice handy for every game I run. You can find a set of your own at Dark Elf Dice, which is my favorite online dice store.

Consider this the first of what will hopefully be many short weekly GM tips as I continue to re-boot the blog.