D&D Plushies – The Return of Plush
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Posted on October 7th, 2023 by
Last winter, I was sent some Dungeons and Dragons figurines http://www.gamerdad.com/blog/2021/12/04/dd-plushies-cuddly-deadly/ from Wizkids with one key component: they weren’t plastic miniatures, they were stuffed “animals.” A year later and the stuffed line of toys/collectibles (Phunny Plush by Kid Robot) continues, expanding into the Pathfinder and Critical Role brands.
I was recently offered a RIG 900 MAX HX (yes, all caps) headphone to try out, and so I did. It is a somewhat high-end headset for use with an Xbox or PC. It comes with a boom mic, USB or Bluetooth connections, and a spiffy charging dock. I found the headset extremely comfortable, easy to use, and sounded great but it was a bit frustrating to use switching between sources. On comfort alone, it beats out all the other headsets I’ve had over the past few years.
In the past few years, the boardgame world has seen a huge number of Roll and Write games where dice are rolled (or cards drawn) and then players simultaneously use the results to check off boxes or fill in a paper handout to score points. Number Drop has players filling in a sheet of paper Tetris-style with the pieces made of numbers. Place numbers adjacent to each other in sets or sequences to score points. The game ends and scores are tallied when one player “overflows” their game board. 
In the early heydays of role playing games it was all about surviving near impossible odds to acquire loot and fame. Over time, RPGs started getting kinder, more gentle sort of story based game. Enter Dungeon Crawl Classics… around a decade ago Goodman Games put together a mix of rules that greatly streamlined (then current) 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons and mixed it with old school fast and deadly gameplay. One of the lines spawned from that mix became XCrawl, Adventures in the Xtreme Dungeon League – a game based around surviving a lethal maze of monsters and traps in order to cash and fame in the fantasy equivalent of Pay-per-View. Goodman games is in the final Kickstarter hours of a reboot of that classic series, complete with a set of follow-up modules.
Straying as close as possible to a videogame without going over, GoDice is a set of dice that can be digitally linked to one’s phone or (better still) tablet. The dice then serve as a physical component for one of many games available on the system. Together, the dice and device form a “phygital” (their word) game system where players roll physical dice that use Bluetooth to interact with digital games in their app. The app currently comes with a wide range of (extremely) simple to moderately involved games and more have been added over time. 
The age of solo boardgaming is among us. With the business of everyday life, there will always be boardgamers who simply can’t get free on a regular basis to play with their friends. For years, one’s only option was to take a boardgame and play against oneself. With the rise of cooperative games, it was possible to take on a game without having to be your own enemy. Unsurprisingly, solo boardgaming received a big bump during the pandemic. While digital implementations of boardgames are available, sometimes it is nice to lay everything out on the table and play the game with easy access to the entire game state at once. Wreckland Run is a recent solo boardgame entry by Scott Almes (designer of another good solo game, Warp’s Edge.) Wreckland Run has you driving your armed-to-the-teeth, tricked-out car through a post-apocalyptic gauntlet of enemy vehicles. If you manage to drive and shoot your way successfully to the end, another six adventures await. 
Tabletop role playing is at an all time high, as one can see by the major kerfuffle over the Dungeons and Dragons brand last month. (The publisher was going to restrict 3rd party content creators but then had to backtrack due to fierce protest.) Where there are players, there are opportunities to jazz up one’s game. The folks over at Steamforged Games decided to use their experience in producing miniatures-heavy boardgames and apply it to the tabletop role playing experience. The result is Epic Encounters, a line of ready-to-play encounters containing everything needed for a great in-person gaming experience. Each box contains figurines, a double-sided fold-out map, and a booklet that gives suggestions for setting up and running the encounter. 
Dwarven Skykeep has you hire dwarves to build and defend your tower. However, you can’t choose your options willy-nilly. You may only construct rooms and use abilities offered from cards drawn from your preconstructed deck. Part sim management, part real-time strategy, Dwarven Skykeep will appeal to real-time strategy gamers who like to adapt to changes on the fly.
Some of the earliest tabletop games involved playing with little figures to represent units and creatures and where there are little figures, there are people who want to paint them. In the past, miniatures and painting were relegated to the dedicated wargamers or the occasional fan of role-playing games. Today, painting is even more common – many larger format board games also contain minis providing boardgamers the chance to join in. Traditionally, Wizkids has produced a wide variety of pre-painted miniatures for RPG players but has recently dipped their toe into the wider painting field with a line of high-quality unpainted minis. As of now, players can even buy their painting supplies from Wizkids, with a special Dungeons & Dragons branded Prismatic Paint sets of thirty colors in a portable carrying case.
Happy Holidays! Boardgaming continues to make inroads to wider audiences, and there’s no better time to get (or get your friends and family) into the hobby than an extended holiday break. It is yet another “unusual” year so there may not be as much mixing in your neck of the woods but there are boardgames out there to meet up with almost any taste. If you only have access to online gaming buddies, check out BoardGameArena.com. Boardgames are timeless, just as good today as they will be years in the future, so a purchase today will still be serving you well after the lockdowns go away. As we at GamerDad have done for the past 18+ years, it’s time for an annual rundown of recent boardgames well worth your time. Feel free to delve into some past year’s guides for 
