Dice Delve: Black Plague Dice

Oh, Halloween, with your banquet of delights, how I love you almost as much, if not more, than Christmas. Especially when people you like put out stuff that you love that lands in October like it was planned all along. I'm talking about Black Oak Workshop and their latest offering, Black Plague Dice.

Those of you keeping score at home know that I love Skull Dice, so much so that I did a little write-up about them last October. Well, lookee what I got in the mail the other day! Cool stuff for my ongoing collection! These are not my first Black Oak Workshop dice, either. How do these stand up?

Black Plague Dice by Black Oak Workshop

SCORE: 5/5

Clarity   Yes
Heft       Yes

Color     Yes

Theme   Yes

Value     Yes

I've backed several of their Kickstarter campaigns right now, and I've been very happy with the results every time. These folks do great design work, at an affordable (for an Artisanal Craft Dice maker) price, with great customer service and quality materials. You can't go wrong with them. You just can't.

These are their Black Plague Dice, with the iconic and also unique skull design. The Kickstarter unlocked the dice bag and the pin, too. All quality items. I'm keeping all of my dice in Black Oak bags at the moment.

Their Kickstarter was initially only for d20s , but enough people pledged that they were able to swing making a complete set of seven dice. This was awesome for me, as there are currently no other sets with the skull motif on them in so prominent a fashion. And none of that noodly-fiddly stuff around the edges, either (gives Q-workshop the side-eye).







In addition to a readable design, these dice are also slightly larger than the average polyhedrals. That means these clicky-clacks can be seen from across the table. Easy to read. No problem. An old grognard's delight, to be sure.

Here's a Gatekeeper d20 for size comparison sake. Their d20 dice are about a millimeter larger than Chessex dice, so you can really see the difference in size with the Black Oak dice here. Substantial. By the way, the Black Oak solid color polyhedrals have great heft to them, as well. These are now in my current DM bag.

As I said earlier, the bags are a delight; large, with excellent embroidery on the outside and satin on the inside. Available in a ton of styles. This is my new Skull Dice bag. I'm doing that little happy goblin dice dance inside right now.








The Good: Follow these guys on Kickstarter so that you know when the next campaign is going to start. And visit their website to check out their line of Lovecraftian bags and other great stuff.

The Bad: only when their stretch goals don't completely make and you can't get a full set of dice. Come on, People! Have a little faith! Craig's turnaround time on his dice is measured in months, not years. And I think he's getting his dice in America, so no worries about Chinese Trade Wars to disrupt your hobby.

The Ugly: There is no ugly. There is only good stuff. Black Oak Workshop is my favorite dice maker at the moment.

DIY Corner: Make Your Own Random Tables

It's really a rite of passage: you have these options, these choices, and you want to use them all on your hapless players, but you can't decide, and then all at once, it hits you like a Thunder Wave spell, and you think, "I'll just make a random table! It's easy! I've been listing things off my whole life!"

Then you get started. And you write some stuff down, and then you erase a couple of entries, because you want them to be a the top and bottom of the list, and one thing leads to another and the next thing you know, you've got an unruly mess, but it's a table. Your first. And it's glorious. You think to yourself, "Now, at last, I truly am a Jedi Knight Dungeon Master."

It's a rush, and maybe you think, that was so much fun, I'll do another. And another. And another and another and another, and...then one day, you're writing up some notes for your next game and you realize, "this is just another random table." That's okay, too. But I will always have a soft spot for the all-powerful random table. Few things are as useful and also as easy to create. They can really flavor your game in unique ways because it's 100% created by you.

Since I prefer to work away from the computer for all sorts of neck-beard-y reasons, I wanted to utilize this newfangled technology but still keep it lo-fi whenever possible. So I made this up: It's a worksheet for making d20 (or any other integer) tables. One side has the numbers 1 to 20 listed, and the other half of the sheet is made of graph paper. Why graph paper? Because sometimes I like to make little charts, or draw a dungeon room, or do a little statistical math, and I don't want any of that in the margins of my nice list. Sometimes I want to brainstorm before I make that list. That's where the graph paper comes in. It soothes my fevered brow. Let's me organize my scrambled thoughts. Helps me see the problem a little clearer.

When I'm done brainstorming and mucking about, I can write my d20 (or any other integer) list, taking time to put the entries where I like them, and then if I want, I can fold that scratch sheet back and run the table, as is. Clean and simple.

It's not much, but it's free. If you can use it, be my guest.

Most recently, I decided I wanted my group to actively conscript their crew for their ship, but I didn't want to waste a lot of table time on it. So I made a list of 20 candidates, with just a basic string of information and one personality characteristic that I could throw at them when they met the crew member. I had each player roll and tell me the result, and I did a little interaction with each crew member. It worked very well and helped establish for them that these crew members were NPCs and not cannon fodder. They've all got a favorite, too. God help me if a mutiny breaks out.

So, that's the DIY Corner for this we--

"But Mark, what about d30 tables!?"

Well? What about them?

"Those are totally a thing, too, you know!"

Yeah, I know, but the d20 tables are so much cleaner. So very...

"But you put a picture of that old-as-dirt Armory d30 table book up there! What are we supposed to think?"

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: d30 dice are the Spinal Tap of polyhedral dice.

Me: You've got percentile dice, you've got d20s, what do you need the d30 for?

Nigel: Well, it's ten more, innit? You're rolling dice, you get to twenny, there's nowhere else to go, so what do you do?

Me: You reach for the D30.

Nigel:  Exactly. The D30.

Me: But what if you just used percentile dice, or maybe cut your choices back to the top 20 and have a kick-ass d20 list instead?

Nigel:...this is a d30.

*Sigh*

Okay. Fine. Here. It's a d30 Table Worksheet. Orientation is different, but the concept is the same. Don't say I never did anything for you, Nigel.

RPGaDay 2019: 21 Vast

Here’s another term that probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but is too nebulous to adequately lock down into something meaningful, so I’m going to borrow from Day 11 and answer the previous year’s questions for Day 21.

#RPGaDay 2018 day 21: Which Dice Mechanic Speaks to You?

I have to give it to D&D 5e for Advantage and Disadvantage. It’s so easy, and so universal, and instantly translates to any part of the game. Plus, you get to roll two of the most exciting dice in the game. D20s are the Corvettes of your dice bag. Lots of people think it's d12s, but they are wrong. D12s are the Deloreans of the dice bag. What were we talking about?

#RPGaDay 2017 day 21: Which RPG does the most with the Least Words?

Godlike. It’s such a strong concept, stripped down to its essential components. Super Powers in war. No, make that, Super Soldiers in war. Yes. Your character gets one thing. It may not be impressive in the Marvel Universe, but in a world without super powers, the guy with toughened skin is godlike.  Bonus: you get to beat the shit out of Nazis. Never bad, always good.

#RPGaDay 2016 day 21: Funniest misinterpretation of a rule in your group?

No rules misinterpretation ever caused hilarity. We just acknowledged it and moved on. I did have a player that always mispronounced concepts he used. He always called “Bardic Inspiration” Bard-of-Inspiration and no amount of correcting would fix it. He could NOT say "bardic." Not exactly hilarious, but I’m trying my best, here, you guys.

#RPGaDay 2015 day 21: Favorite RPG setting

Pulps era. It’s so versatile. You can go dark and horrific, or slide into crimefighters and pulp heroes, or take the weird stuff out and do detective and film noir, or just mash it all up and have it bang into one another. 

#RPGaDay 2014 day 21: Favorite Licensed RPG

To this day, Call of Cthulhu remains a comfortable old friend. I know a lot about the early 20th century, more than most people, and that’s useful to know in a game set in the 1920s and 1930s (see above). And Cof C was the first game I came across with specific rules to handle the unique aspects of the game (sanity and the Cthulhu mythos). I haven’t played the game in years, but if I were handed the book this very instant, I’d be able to drop back into it with no lag whatsoever.  

There. A "VAST" array of interesting answers. How much you wanna bet I'm going to have to do this little trick at least once more before this is all over?