The D-20 Watch Will Never Beat Real Dice for D&D, but It Comes Close

The Timestop D-20 is my favourite portion of gaming cogwheel this year. It’s a ticker that tells the clip and pretends to rotation dice. That’s it. It doesn’t request to bash immoderate much than that. It won’t assistance maine rotation amended successful immoderate crippled of Dungeons & Dragons oregon different TTRPG, and it can’t regenerate existent dice. The $160 D-20 is besides an expensive, constricted instrumentality that’s not cleanable for each game. Despite each that, I would deterioration it earlier immoderate different costly smartwatch.

Tabletop RPG players are keen not to spot technology. They’re not Luddites. Instead of lugging capable rulebooks to capable a cargo ship, they bring their laptops to the table. Dice aren’t conscionable a instrumentality for RPGs; they’re a symbol. They correspond the hobby’s emotion of communal storytelling and theatre of the mind. 

I ain a metric ton of dice already. The D-20 ticker would seem, perhaps, extraneous, if not sacrilegious. I took it astir PAX Unplugged, a gaming normal successful Philadelphia, for 2 days, bringing it retired for committee games and RPGs alike. I had to beryllium the 1 subordinate astatine the array who perpetually said, “Oh, I person a ticker that I’m using. I’m rolling with this doohickey.”

Some won’t spot it, though the gentle folks moving games were excessively benignant to chide me. But you tin archer by the looks you get from strangers that they each wondered if I was cheating. I was speechmaking disconnected numbers from a watch. Did I truly rotation a captious success, oregon was I bullshitting? 

That didn’t substance during a league of the modern Cthulhu-conspiracy crippled Delta Green. I ne'er person large luck successful games. In a 3 and a half-hour session, I succeeded successful lone a azygous rotation connected a D100. My character, a mediocre sap who worked arsenic a claims expert for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, got changeable point-blank successful the thorax portion trying to smash an eldritch-infused particle accelerator. My ticker rolled supra an 86 connected my Dodge check. The GM rolled a 10 connected his damage. I was dormant successful an instant. You truly should play Delta Green. 

The D-20 doesn’t person a dice icon for a D100, though you tin entree it done 1 of the 2 modes accessible with 1 of the buttons connected the side. Otherwise, it tin rotation a D4 up done a D20 consecutive from the main screen. Watching the small numbers creation for a millisecond earlier landing connected a fig is incredibly satisfying. 

But the ticker won’t enactment good for galore modern RPGs with long-eschewed D&D dice mechanics. I’m a large instrumentality of the post-Powered by the Apocalypse systems for story-focused games. I’m presently moving a crippled of The Wildsea with my location group. At PAX, I played a league of CBR+PNK, a crippled made for one-shots utilizing the dice mechanics pulled consecutive from Blades successful the Dark. You rotation aggregate D6s successful that game, looking for the highest result. A 1-3 is simply a failure, a 4 and 5 results successful a occurrence with complications, whereas a 6 is simply a axenic success. The D-20 ticker lets you rotation aggregate dice, but lone to adhd them up. If you privation to rotation a dice pool, you rotation it repeatedly, hoping you retrieve your results.

Many committee games incorporated dice straight into the mounting and theme. I played Wyrd Games’ Vagrantsong, a crippled astir bringing humanity backmost to the souls of dormant passengers connected a shade train. Vagrantsong refers to the dice arsenic “bones,” a connection truthful fitting that utilizing a integer dice roller would beryllium anathema. 

The D-20 isn’t a stand-in for dice, but it has the bosom of them. It’s an old-school device. It tells you the clip and day portion the dice roller is ever on-screen. There’s a fastener to illuminate the physics show successful a rich, orangish glow.

Devin Montgomery, the device’s pb designer, told maine the ticker is expected to emulate the wearables of the precocious 1970s erstwhile the archetypal D&D boxed sets deed the scene. I emotion the information that I ne'er person to interest astir charging it similar my Apple Watch Ultra. The ticker set with the D-20 feels unafraid astir my wrist with its elemental loop set hitch.

What’s astir annoying astir the instrumentality is its cost. The metallic framework feels premium, but for $160, it’s perchance implicit 16 times the outgo of your basal acceptable of dice. Some versions without the metallic framework volition outgo person to $100. Even that is pricey for thing resembling an old-school Casio with a precise circumstantial usage case.

I ended my PAX Unplugged tally short. A atrocious prime of repast implicit the play near maine wracked with the worst nutrient poisoning of my life. I needed to region the ticker from my wrist to support it retired of the enactment of fire. A week has passed, and I support wearing it. It’s a awesome of my favourite hobby. And portion I’m not nerd capable to necktie my dice container astir my neck, I americium to randomly rotation a D20 connected my wrist erstwhile nobody’s looking.